Introduction II
Revelation 1 · Vern Peterman · Sep 30, 2001
Revelation (2001-03), No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262236292133

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning to you all. We're doing a study, as we started last week, in the book of Revelation. I guess one of the ways I would begin to have us thinking about this, Revelation is like the last chapter of a book. It's God's last chapter in the Bible.

We've got 66 books. This is the 66th. And it's important that we read the last chapter. How many of you would be interested in reading a novel in which the last chapter was missing? That's what we're doing here. We're looking at this last chapter. We don't want it to be missing. One of the things we'll be taking a look at here.

Each of you has or should have a handout. I just want to do a review of one side of your handout just so we have a feel for the broad sweep of the book of Revelation before we start digging into some of the details. And as you see, each chapter, or in some cases a pair of chapters, has a theme. And this is really, this is not confusing. It's a very, you know, kind of logical sequence that goes along there. But there are particular terms that I think you can see on the overhead and should be on your handout as well. Three words that we'll be using, I want to make sure that are not lost on people.

One is the word rapture. You won't find it in the in the book of Revelation or anywhere else in the Bible. It's actually a Latin term, but it means to be taken up. This is referring to, and the way we will use that word, is referring to those of the church and of the church age being taken up to be with the Lord.

As we'll be teaching it and as you'll see, that happens prior to the time of the Tribulation. The Tribulation is a seven year period of time of unparalleled judgment upon the earth. And in the weeks and months to come, look at the descriptions. You'll agree with me. It is unparalleled. Christ himself says so.

The last terminology we use is the millennium. That's just simply from the Latin meaning a thousand. It says there in Revelation chapter 20 that Christ will reign on the earth from Jerusalem for a thousand years, and so we put the term millennium on that. So if you heard me use it, rapture, tribulation, millennium, those are the intentions and meanings we have for those words.

Now something else just to surface to is the fact that there are indeed different views. Last week, remember, we talked about people approaching the book of Revelation with figurative interpretation. We're not going to be doing that. We're going to be looking at it literally. I want to just briefly go over what some of these different views are because while we'll be taking a literal view of the book of Revelation, there are those that do not. And so if you come across them, I don't want you to be broad-sided or blind-sided. This is not to get us in depth with it, but just some understanding of what other people come to when they don't look at the Book of Revelation literally.

First view is the idealist view. That's the idea that the Book of Revelation is just sort of a discussion about good and evil, and it has no particular relevance to anything in history in the past or in the future. How does that sound? That's the idealist view. Doesn't sound very tasty, does it? Not too much meat to it. because it basically says the book of Revelation is just sort of a story with no particular meaning other than it's a story about the conflict between good and evil.

Second is the Preterist view. Any of you heard of R.C. Sproul? You heard that name? Okay, some of you have. He is one of the leading spokesmen, but not the only. For the Preterist view, they believe that everything in the book of Revelation with some possible exceptions in the case of a few, but most of them will say everything has already happened. As a matter of fact, they'll say it already happened centuries ago. And so that's why I put this arrow back here. Basically, the book of Revelation fits in that little arrow right after the time of the cross.

There are a few different views. One view says that 70 AD, that's when the Romans attacked Jerusalem, that's the description of things in Revelation, and that's it. There's nothing else to look forward to. That's all you've got. They say that when the Romans came that Christ, and I'll catch on to this, came to earth in judgment. When the Romans came against Jerusalem. That's Christ coming. Sorry folks, that's all you've got to look forward to.

That's the way they interpret that. Some others take the view that, no, we'll spread it out over a little bit longer, that it really continues up to the time of Constantine, about 312 AD, and so Christ came in Constantine. That's their view. That's the teaching of the Preterists.

Next group, the Historicists. And frankly, this is actually the largest group over time in history. They believe that Book of Revelation is a picture of things from the time of Christ, just kind of spread out over history, and it's even going on now. And so various ones will kind of connect up with historical events.

And that's how they look at it. We won't be taking that view, because that view just spreads revelation out over the entire time of the church. We'll be taking the futurist view that except for the first three chapters that are talking about the church and about things that either have taken place or are now taking place, that from chapters 4 through the end are talking about things that are yet to happen. That's the view that we'll be taking. Just so it's clear, I think it's valuable to look at these views here have one thing in common, and that is that when they come to various places in Scripture, they just interpret it very figuratively.

Not consistently between them either, but very figuratively. Here's an example of some of the conclusions that folks in these categories will come to. Some of them will say that Satan is already bound. Now my question is, who keeps letting him loose? But that's one thing.

They'll say the church is right now reigning on earth and that is Christ reigning. They'll say that the church is the kingdom and that Christ reigns through it. Believe it or not, some of them already believe, especially those of this category, that we are now living in the new heavens and the new earth. Can you believe that? They do.

And that the only thing special about the Jews is that God has rejected them. There is one tour operator who is speaking with a person that I know, and the tour operator over in Israel, He says, we have these tours, we get them on the bus, we take them around Israel. He says, I can tell whether they believe this or believe this. He says, when people get on the bus, I can tell which one they believe. Because the top three, he said, care nothing for the Jews.

All they want to see is the scenery. They want to see the archaeological sites. These last people, see it differently, and the reason is they still see Jews as having promises, yet unfulfilled, that God intends to fulfill. They still see them as people to whom God has made a promise, and people with whom God has a covenant. And so it's these people in the last category that show care for the Jews and care for them as a people. And it's amazing. Here's a tour bus operator, incidentally not a Christian. but can tell which view people have by how they behave.

Now, with that, I should note that the official view of the Roman Catholic Church, a lot of the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches, most of Lutheranism, is this historicist view. Unfortunately, these earlier views were used by Hitler to support the animosity against the Jews during World War II. Now, in contrast, we're going to be taking this futurist view, so let's continue on with that. This futurist view that we have here is taking the words of Scripture literally.

It doesn't mean that when it uses some figurative language, like we referred to last week, eyes as bright as the sun. We understand that to be figurative language, so don't misunderstand me. But understanding that there is use of figurative language, we still take it literally. When it says something, we take it at face value. The way I put it, if it makes sense, then don't seek any other sense.

Now, take a case in point. If it says in Revelation chapter 20, six times, that Christ will reign on earth for a thousand years, you know how we interpret that? We take it Christ is going to reign on earth for a thousand years. How about that? Okay? That's the way we're going to take it. Now, let's take a for instance.

What do I mean when I say literal interpretation? Because we need to understand this clearly. Let's turn to Luke chapter 1 verse 26. I think this brief passage will give us a very good insight into the distinction here between literal and figurative interpretation and why it is so important. This is the account where the angel appears to Mary, telling her she will bear the Savior. In a matter of two or three months here, we'll be hearing this story all over the place. But let's start with verse 26.

Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was Mary." Now, was there an area called Galilee? Was there a city called Nazareth? Was there a virgin who was engaged to a person who was really, literally Joseph? Was there a person named Mary? Now, were all those things literal? Right? They were, weren't they? We know, in fact, those were all literal. Now let's go to the next several verses.

In coming in, he said her greetings favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, and he begins some words of prophecy, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. Now, did she conceive? We know, yes, literally. Did she bear a literal, real son? Yes. And what did she call him? Jesus. Yeah, literal, right? Okay, now let's go on to the next verses. Verse 32.

He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. Now, at these last two verses we just read, those first three positions, the Idealist, the Preterist, and the Historicist, all of a sudden wax real figurative.

They deviate from what we've seen as real literal, and they don't interpret these things literally at all. Basically, the Idealist sees Christ's coming as the picture of a cosmic battle between good and evil, and they just lose it when it comes to this last couple of verses. They have no literal interpretation of this. It's all very figurative and foggy.

The next one, the Preterists and the Historicists we talked about there, they take the reign of Christ, which we call the Second Coming, not to mean that he will literally come to earth to reign. They see Christ as great and the Son of the Most High as being visible on earth only through the church, and not literally and earthly and actually.

They see Christ reigning through the church as him being on the throne of David. They see the house of Jacob, now this is a real stretch, they see the house of Jacob as the church. Why? Because if it says Israel it must mean the church. That's their understanding. They see the kingdom as having no end as the church on earth.

You see the distinction there? So all of a sudden what was very literal, city of Nazareth, a literal Mary, a literal Joseph, a literal conception, a literal baby, a literal name Jesus, all of a sudden the whole thing goes figurative. That's the distinction. Right in the middle of this passage, they all of a sudden go from a literal understanding to a figurative understanding.

All the literal promises of blessing to Israel that David gave in the Old Testament are switched in application and made applicable figuratively to the Church. That's just a brief example of what the difference is between this trio of idealism, preterism, and historicism, and the futurism, the approach that we'll be studying with here.

Now, it's important for us here to look at this, and let's look at the book of Revelation and just ask some questions as we enter into it here. We'll want to say, for example, who wrote the Book of Revelation? And what it tells us is John. One of the things to take note of is there are a very large number of things in common between the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. Things that make an unmistakable identity between the authors of the two books there. And things we'll be looking at as we go through here It's very clear that this is John the Apostle who wrote the book of Revelation.

This is the last living Apostle, the one who walked with the Lord and is now seeing the Lord, as we'll see in the weeks and months to come here, seeing the Lord as the one who was raised, ascended, and seated, and with whom we're seated. The other thing that we want to take a look at here is in Revelation 1, verse 1. It says, The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his bondservants, the things which must soon take place, and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant, John.

A couple of things to take note. One is, this is given to John, but do you see the sequence? See, read there in the first one, it starts with, this was given from God to Jesus Christ through an angel to John. That's the sequence that he spells out here. He tells us this is how it's given to us. Now the next question, where did he write it? In chapter 1, verse 9, he tells us that John wrote it from the Isle of Patmos. Well, fortunately, the Isle of Patmos still exists. It's big enough that it hasn't gone away.

And this is a photo from below what is, and I'll say this is traditionally the cave where he is said to have written the book. I make that distinction because it's not written in scripture this is a cave, but it gives us a sense of what is this place like. Here's this little island that's about 6 by 10 miles.

It's about 48 miles from Ephesus. And it has a protected harbor, as you can see, so it was frequently a place where ships came in and out. Just to give you a map orientation here. Here's the Isle of Patmos, a little tiny island about 48 miles from Ephesus.

And some things to note as we take a look at that. The seven churches that he writes to, he mentions them in Revelation 1, verses 11 and 20. Those seven churches are here, just across this piece of water here, and he addresses them when he starts writing in chapters two and three, he addresses them clockwise, goes through that sequence.

They're all in the province of Asia, on the western end of what is now Turkey. Something interesting, there were Roman roads between all these cities that linked them all, as well as a Roman postal route. So these cities were all very well connected with each other, very well able to communicate and transport between each other.

And then, the next question, when did he write this? Okay. Just to kind of get a time perspective, most of the New Testament books were written in this time frame, from about 40 up until just before 70 AD. So this book is a real exception, having been written much later.

Irenaeus is one who writes and tells that John wrote during the reign of Domitian. Domitian was a Roman empire, lived from 81 to 96. So if we clock through the different periods of time there, we see... I've got a little visitor here. We see that he wrote during the end of this time.

Now, one reason why the date ends up being important, remember I mentioned the Preterists? They said that Christ came at 70 AD, when the Romans came up against Jerusalem, that that was Christ's second coming. Hard to believe, but that's what they hold to. To them, the book of Revelation has to be written before that time. So they have written all sorts of things to try to prove that it was written before that, so that it's still prophetic. But really just an objective look at it will lead us to this is the last book written. It is indeed not just the last book in the Bible. It is the last book of the New Testament, the last book of Scripture. It's the capstone. Now, something else for us to take a look at here. We will see as we go through the book of Revelation Quite a few uses of different numbers. Numbers 3, 4, 12. We'll see different numbers show up. But one number that shows up again and again and again and again is the number 7.

John just weaves that from one end to the other. Let me give you some examples. And by the way, this is just a partial listing. He writes about seven churches. He writes about seven angels, seven stars, seven golden lampstands, seven descriptions of Christ in the first chapter where he talks about this and this and this, seven details about Christ, seven divisions of mankind, seven seals of judgment, seven trumpets of judgment, seven bowls of judgment, seven angels pouring the seven bowls of judgment, seven horns, seven eyes, seven kings, seven heads, seven mountains, a seven-fold triumph, seven new things, and that's not all. This is a critical number. Watch for it, not just in the listing of the numbers, but also when it goes to describing things or using words repeatedly. John has woven this from one end to the other of the book of Revelation, including one that I've included in your handout there, and that is, it says, blessed is or are seven times.

Now, one of the things that you'll note here on your handout, I call this is your mission impossible. You know as well as I, the folks at Holly Hills are not inclined to go lay down laws and say you're going to do this or you ought to do it or that sort of thing. That's not our style, just because we see in scripture that laying down laws isn't the thing to do. So the way I'm going to present this is your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to answer these questions, to give you something to look through. This will take you throughout the book of Revelation, all the way to the very end. So, at any rate, that's something you can take a look at at home to kind of begin to get you familiar with some of the things in Revelation.

There are seven places where it says blessed. Interesting, in every case, while we have it translated in English, blessed is or blessed are, the original language doesn't have it. He says, blessed, and then he makes the description. And so it's almost as if he's making an exclamation point. Blessed! And then he describes it. And so he drops out the verb there. Anyway, there are even more sevens than what I've listed here, and we'll be looking at some of them, but it's a number, he obviously wanted to underscore that, and so we'll be looking at that.

Another thing for us to take a look at as we enter the book, a number of you are familiar with the fact that Paul uses legal terminology at certain places when he writes in his epistles. He'll describe, for example, that we have been justified. He uses a legal term, that we have been justified, declared righteous before God. Similarly, in the first three chapters of Revelation, John uses a lot of legal terminology, and we'll be taking a look at that as well.

Now, with that as a background, let's look at the first verse. The very first phrase, the revelation of Jesus Christ, is the title phrase of the book. As we mentioned last week, this word revelation, from the Greek word apokalypsis, means to take the cover off or unveil. And this word here is used in what's called a plenary genitive, and what we mean by that pair of words there, it means that it is both a revealing from Jesus Christ as well as a revealing about Jesus Christ. You get that? This is in every way a revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is both the means of revealing, you see how he's described that in the first verse, He is both the means of revealing and the content of revealing. Now doesn't that make sense?

Jesus Christ is taking steps to reveal himself. He's part of this sequence of God to Jesus Christ to the angel to John. John wrote the Gospel of John, and we find out in chapter 20, verse 31, so that we might believe in Jesus Christ, and that believing we might have life through His name. Paul wrote to us in Colossians 3, 1-4, that Christ is our life.

Revelation reveals the names of Christ nowhere else given. He's the Lion of Judah. He's the Alpha and Omega. Nowhere else given in Scripture. Revelation tells us about the judgment of Christ in a level of detail nowhere else given. Revelation tells us about our future with Christ as nowhere else given. We are told about our future with Christ, but the details of it are uniquely given here. Revelation tells us about Christ seated in the heavenlies as nowhere else given. It's a very unique book.

You see, we have the four Gospels, don't we? But even though those are inspired and essential and important, they really speak of Christ largely in his ministry to Israel. And speaking to Israel, they are living under the law. In this revelation of Jesus Christ, we have the resurrected and ascended Christ, the seated Christ, with whom we are now seated ourselves, if we believe. He is speaking and acting and being worshipped as he is now and as we will be with him bodily someday.

Isn't that a neat insight? Now, let's take a look at his name. We're getting into the revelation of Jesus Christ. We better understand what was meant by his name. Now, the first thing we might look at is Jesus Christ. That's his first and last name, right? No. Let's try again.

Let's take a closer look, because there's a reason why he was called Jesus Christ. Jesus, as we have it in English, is an anglicized form of Jesu in the Greek. The Greek comes from a Hebrew name which Mary was told to call him. Remember that prophecy that we just read? You should call his name Jesus. Actually, in the Hebrew it's Yeshua, or as we have in the English, Joshua.

Some of us even may have named kids after Joshua. Savior. That's that first name. He is the Savior. His name Jesus relates to His identity based on what He has done for us. It goes far, far beyond just saving us from the flames of hell. He is the Savior not just from something, but saved us also to something. The next, He is Jesus Christ.

Christ, as we have it in English, is an Anglicized form of Christou in the Greek. The Greek means the Anointed One, and the Hebrew equivalent is Hamashia, or as we have it in English, as Messiah. That's how we've learned to pronounce that in English. And what it means, since it means Anointed One, in the Jewish culture, the anointing was done for three different kinds of people.

Prophets, priests, and kings. Let's get that up there. First, Christ is indeed a prophet. And there's a couple of Old Testament passages that speak foretelling of Christ being the prophet. The second one here in Isaiah 61 is where Christ gets up in the synagogue and is asked to read. And the reason it says 2A is He stops right in the middle of that verse because the rest of that verse talks about his second coming. But first Christ is a prophet. Next he is a priest, and this is something that Psalm 110 foretells, and Hebrews all the way from chapter 2 through chapter 10 addresses this, as the men have been studying on Tuesday for some time here.

Third, he is king, king of the Jews. And that's foretold in a couple of Old Testament passages here at a minimum, and then referred back to where Jesus is asked directly, are you the king of the Jews? He says, it is as you say that I am. That's in Matthew. So he's prophet, priest, and king.

For those three roles, a person would be anointed. Christ qualifies as all three. So he's called the anointed one. The Messiah. And something else, the Messiah isn't just a nice guy. He isn't just somebody who comes and helps a lot. He is God. There are Old Testament passages that make that clear.

And one of them that I'll ask you to turn to is Zechariah 12.10.

Zechariah 12.10, written many centuries before Christ was born, it says, I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication so that they will look on, and notice this carefully, this is God speaking, they will look on Me whom they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. John quotes this verse in both the Gospel of John and in this book of Revelation that we're about to study. You see, the one who was on the cross crucified for us was not just a human being. This was God who died for us, died in our stead.

Now, One of the things for us to take a look at here is, as we look this morning, I want to end with an invitation. I want to invite you this morning to read and study with me through this book as we start digging into more and more details with it. We'll be looking at it in the weeks and months to come or until he comes. It may be that we don't get to finish this study and that would be good. But we'll study it in the weeks and months to come or until he comes.

And it won't just simply be an intellectual exercise. I don't want to waste your time and mine with that. There is indeed a lot of intellectual challenge in this. The best minds have been put to it. There's 22 chapters here just full of all sorts of things that you can dig into. But that's not our purpose here. We're not going to end it there by just doing an intellectual exercise.

It's not simply to learn what will happen on this planet in the years to come. Some have gotten to that point. You may even have heard some folks that seem to focus on that. All they're interested in is finding out what's going to happen, what's going to happen, what's going to happen. And that's not our point either. We'll be looking at those. There are indeed verses that will talk about that. But that's not what we're looking at.

Our intent here is to have a heart for the blessings that Jesus Christ has woven strategically throughout the book for you and I. This is a book in verse 3 that says, blessed are those who hear it and read it. Okay? We'll be looking throughout for those blessings. And that's one reason why I have you looking for each of the seven places in the Revelation where it talks about those blessings. Because I want us to be looking ahead for those in the same way that we looked for His coming. We need to look ahead. These blessings are not there by accident. They're there for a reason. They're there for a purpose.

You see, we need to have a hungry heart for what the Lord is about to reveal. Do you have a hungry heart for what the Lord is about to reveal? I think that's really the key thing. We have to have a hungry heart for who Christ is, the life He is in us, and with whom we'll spend eternity. John put it this way.

In another piece that he wrote, 1 John 3.2, he said, Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

That's what we ultimately need to have our focus on, isn't it? So let's pray. Lord, as we embark on what could be a long study, unless you come sooner. As we start that, Lord, we pray that certainly we would dig in with every bit of intellectual honesty, but beyond that, Lord, and beyond satisfying our curiosity as to what will happen in the years to come, we pray, Lord, that we would see this as you have begun this very first verse, as a revelation of Jesus Christ, all of who He is, all of the person with whom we are now seated, all the person that, as John said, we will one day see face to face. We will see Him as He is. Now, Lord, as we look ahead to this study and look to all the marvelous things that are in it, we look to You and just ask, Lord, that You would indeed make our hearts hungrier, that we would long for all the things that You have to reveal, all the blessings that You've woven intricately through these very special passages. We just pray this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.