| 10 September, 2000 | The Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy | Revelation Chapter One |
For the last couple weeks, I've been trying to decide where to
go next, and the same topic keeps popping up; prophecy.
I have mentioned to a few people here that I was thinking of going
through the book of Revelation, and they all say the same thing:
do it.
Prophecy. Bible prophecy. A lot of church denominations don't
like to get involved with prophecy, or they spiritualize and allegorize
prophecy until it's not worth the trouble, or sometimes it doesn't
even make sense.
There's a reason why they do that, and maybe we'll talk about
that sometime, but if you leave prophecy out of your Bible study
life, you'll miss out on a lot.
One-fifth of the Bible was prophetic when it was written. If you
put all that prophetic material together, it would make up about
13 out of the 66 books of the Bible, or an amount equal to about
half of the New Testament.
What kind of Bible students would we be if we skipped half of
the New Testament? Not very good.
Perhaps someone would say that "We don't need to be worried
about prophecy, we just need to preach the Gospel, and tell people
about Jesus, give our testimony, and tell people how to get saved."
Oh, really?
In Revelation 19:10, the Apostle John is talking to an angel,
and he sees things that so overwhelm him that he falls down to
worship the angel. The angel tells him not to do it, and then
says a most interesting thing:
"I am thy fellowservant
and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship
God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."
Isn't that interesting? The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy.
In other words, I can't talk about prophecy without talking about
Jesus, right?
And by the same token, if I want to tell the whole truth about
Jesus, give a full and complete testimony about Him, then I have
to include not just what He did in the past, and
what He is doing right now, but also what He
will do in the future, right?
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
To talk about Jesus and omit prophecy
is to leave out part of the truth.
To talk about prophecy and leave out Jesus is to leave out all
the truth.
That's why prophecies by Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce are a waste
of time: any prophecy that is not based on what the Bible says
about the 2nd coming of Jesus is useless.
It would be like teaching a class on skydiving that never mentioned
parachutes.
You could sky dive without a parachute if you wanted to, but it's
not a good idea. You would quickly discover why they call it "terminal"
velocity.
(Some of you will get that before the day's over.) But that's
what you get from prophecy that isn't built around Jesus: really
bad problems.
Prophecy and Jesus; Jesus and prophecy; they go together.
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Prophecy should reveal more about Jesus to us, and that's what
Revelation does.
The Greek word is apokalypsis, the Apocalypse, which means
to reveal or unveil something that was previously hidden; hence
Revelation.
I do think that the translators made a mistake when they titled
the book; "The Revelation of John", because it doesn't
reveal much about John at all, it reveals Jesus, in fact, that's
what the first verse in the book says.
Go ahead and turn to chapter one and verse one, and right in the
first verse, it tells us what the purpose of the book is.
Rev. 1:1 "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly
come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel
unto his servant John:"
That's His purpose; to show to His servants things which
must shortly come to pass. Not a complicated plan.
There had been prophecies about different things all through the
Bible, and this book; Revelation - is given to tie it all up and
sort it out.
It's purpose is to fill in the gaps and give any new revelations
to help the church understand anything it needs, until the time
that Jesus returns.
In John 16:13, the Lord had promised that the Holy Spirit would
"show you things to come", and that promise is fulfilled
in the book of Revelation.
One of the problems with people trying to figure out Revelation,
is there have been so many different interpretations over the
years that a lot of people decide that it's just too complicated
and they give up on it.
When you do that, you miss a great opportunity;
look at verse 3; "Blessed is he that readeth,
and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and
keep those things which are written therein: for
the time is at hand."
Did you know that this is the only book in the Bible that promises
a blessing to those that read it and
heed it?
Would you like a blessing? I would! You can get one by
reading this book and living according to what it tells us.
And right away, that ought to cue us in to something really obvious;
it can't possibly be all that hard to understand.
God is not going to tease us by tempting us with a blessing, and
then making it impossible to figure the thing out.
I mean, really; is God going to tell us; "Read this book,
and do what it says, and you'll get a blessing."
And we go; "But God, I don't understand it." And He
goes; "Ha Ha! Gotcha! (You're so dumb!)" I don't think
so! And neither do you.
The promise of a blessing to all those that read requires
the book to be both readable and understandable.
Maybe one of the problems is not so much that it is hard to understand,
but maybe it's just plain hard to believe.
Maybe the reason that there have been so many different interpretations
over the years is that a lot of people have trouble believing
that the book really says what it means, and means what it says,
and so they try and come up with an alternate explanation.
For instance, there has been the historical interpretation, which
tries to match the symbols of Revelation with different events
in church history.
One variation of this tries to match everything in the book with
what happened during the first three centuries of the church when
the Romans persecuted the church.
Other denominations say that the events in Revelation don't refer
to any real things at all, it is just an allegory for the triumph
of good over evil.
All kinds of different interpretations, some of them make a little
sense, a lot of them don't make any sense.
We're going to do something different; we're going to try not
to interpret the book at all.
If God tells us that this book is given to the church to show
us things that will come to pass, and there is a blessing in store
for all those that read and heed; then maybe it is simple enough
not to need a PH.D. to figure it out.
How about if we just take the book at face value, let it mean
what it says, and say what it means, and try not to interpret
it at all?
When God uses figures of speech or symbols, the purpose is not
to mystify us or confuse us, but to clarify and emphasize the
truth that is being presented.
Sometimes the symbols are explained by the context of what we
are reading.
Sometimes we need to go to another part of the Bible to see what
the symbol means, or discover the context.
As we go through Revelation, we need to go on the premise that
what we are reading might be hard to believe, because it is so
enormous, so global, and so incredible
that we have trouble grasping it, but not because it's so hard
to understand.
It's easy to understand, it's just hard to take it all in.
Something I want all of us to remember as we go through this book,
is the way that John tells us about it.
He says; "I saw" "I looked" "I beheld"
"I heard"; he is telling us as an eye witness the things
that God pulled back the curtain of time and showed him.
Something to remember also, this book completes God's Revelation
of Himself acting in history for us, and for the nation of Israel.
In the Bible, the number seven is the number of fullness or completion,
and John tells us 28 times in Revelation; "I heard."
That's 4 X 7.
Forty nine times John tells us; "I saw, or looked, or beheld",
all the same word in the Greek; that's 7 X 7.
That equals 11 X 7, or 77. This is God's subtle way of reminding
us that as the things in this book come to pass, His work of redemption
and the restoration of His creation is being completed.
Revelation is not just a book of judgement, it is also a book
of restoration.
In Genesis, God said that the earth was "very good."
At the end of Revelation, He makes a "new heaven and a new
earth", with the effects of the curse removed. Restoration.
There will be no more sorrow, or crying, or pain, or death, and
the Tree of Life will be in the midst of the paradise of God,
the game plan that God had in Eden will be restored, fulfilled
at that time. Neat, huh?
When I started going through the Gospel of Mark a year and a half
ago, I said that I was not going to get too in depth, but just
kind of stay on the surface.
I'm not sure how good a job I did of that, sometimes I really
got right on into it. This time, I won't make any promises, except
to promise that I will try and go where the Lord leads, and we'll
see what happens.
Here we go, verse 4 "John to the seven churches which are
in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and
which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which
are before his throne;
:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the
first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the
earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in
his own blood,
:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father;
to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
This reads kind of like a verification, an authentication, of
who the letter is from.
We see in verse 4, a reference to the Father's throne, and the
reference to the seven spirits refers to the Holy
Spirit.
We know that this refers to the Holy Spirit because in Isaiah
11:2, the Holy Spirit of the Messiah has seven attributes.
Isaiah 11:2 reads; "And the spirit of the LORD shall rest
upon him," -referring to the Messiah- "the spirit of
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the
spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD", so we are
confident that this is the Holy Spirit being referred to here.
And then it goes on and speaks of the Lord Jesus in verse 5, so
we have the whole Trinity here in this section, this is God putting
His stamp of approval, His seal of authenticity on what John is
getting ready to tell us.
Notice who the letter is to: the seven churches which are in Asia.
Those were real churches, they were the most notable churches
of the time, especially since the Christians at Jerusalem had
scattered, Jerusalem having been destroyed by the Romans about
13 years earlier.
Something that is interesting, Jesus directs His message here
to 7 churches, and when you count up the letters that the apostle
Paul wrote to the different churches, the pastoral epistles, he
wrote to seven churches also.
Since 7 is the number of completion, do you suppose that between
what Paul wrote, and what we are getting ready to read here, we
will find out all that we need to know about what a church is,
and what it is supposed to be?
I think so, I think we will. Verse 7:
"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him,
and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds" - or tribes,
same word, so this can only refer to the 12 tribes of Israel-
"all kindreds of the earth shall wail because
of him. Even so, Amen."
This is the fulfillment of the prophecy of the conversion, the
salvation of Israel, found in Zechariah 12, verse 10;
"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they
shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn
for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness
for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."
That's when Israel gets saved.
Also, He is coming back the same way He left. In Acts 1:11, two
angels told the apostles that Jesus would come again in the same
fashion that they saw Him go; in the clouds.
So this shows us that apparently the prophecy of Zechariah and
the statements of the angels in Acts fit together: Jesus will
come in the clouds, every eye will see Him, and the sight of Him
will convert Israel.
Verse 8; "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,
saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come,
the Almighty."
When you read Jesus using words like this to describe Himself,
there is no excuse for any cult, or person to say that Jesus is
not God, or else that He is something less than Jehovah God.
If Jesus is not absolutely equal to God the Father in every way,
then He could never use language like this, but He is, and He
can, and He does.
As we go through the rest of this chapter, John makes it obvious
that it is Jesus Christ who is speaking, and the language is uniformly
the language of one who is utterly and absolutely God.
Verse 9; "I John, who also am your brother, and companion
in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,
was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and
for the testimony of Jesus Christ."
John had been the pastor of the church at Ephesus, in what we
know today as Turkey, all the other apostles had been killed,
and then the Roman emperor Domitian exiled John to this little
rocky island Patmos in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey.
Verse 10; "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard
behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,"
Two possibilities here on how to understand this verse. One; the
Holy Spirit has come upon John, and is showing him this vision
of the Day of the Lord, that's how it is referred
to through out the Old Testament, and John refers to it here as
the Lord's Day
The other possible understanding would be that it was Sunday,
the Lord's Day, and John was in meditation and communion with
the Lord when God revealed these things to him.
For our purposes, it doesn't really matter. On the other hand,
I have begun to wonder if we don't take the Lord's Day seriously
enough.
The Lord's Day is not the Sabbath, and we are not under the Law,
the constraints that the Old Testament believers were under, but
I am starting to wonder if we have gone too far in the other direction.
Lately I have been making a conscious effort to try and spend
more time on Sunday afternoon or evening listening to the Word,
going to visit other churches on Sunday evenings, spending more
of the Lord's Day on things focused on Jesus; instead of just
doing the same things I do the rest of the week, and God seems
to be blessing as a result of it.
Just something to think about.
Verse 11; "Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the
last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto
the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna,
and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto
Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
Rev 1:12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And
being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
Rev 1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto
the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt
about the paps with a golden girdle.
Rev 1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white
as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
Rev 1:15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned
in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
Rev 1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of
his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was
as the sun shineth in his strength.
Rev 1:17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he
laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not"
When you read through the Gospels, you never find a physical description
of Jesus. In the different letters to the churches, there is no
physical description of Jesus.
But now, in Revelation, now that He is glorified, now
we find a description of Jesus.
It is almost as if God does not want us to be concerned with how
Jesus looked while He was on earth, what He wants us to know,
is how Jesus looks now.
The Man of Sorrows is now the Man of Glory. Over in Daniel 7:9
it says; "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the
Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and
the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the
fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.
:10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand
thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand
stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened."
You don't ever need to be ashamed of Jesus. You don't ever need
to apologize for the one we serve. And you don`t ever need to
wonder if He is able to keep His promises; He is able.
When John saw Him, he fell at His feet as dead, and the first
thing Jesus tells him is; "Fear not."
If Jesus is your Savior today, that is His message to you; "Fear
not."
Hebrews 10:31 tells us; "It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hand of the Living God", and the unsaved need to know
that; but Jesus has a different word for those that have genuinely
trusted Him for salvation; "Fear not."
Something else to notice about this passage; look where Jesus
is standing: in the midst of the seven candlesticks.
What is a candlestick? And what does this mean? Let's finish reading
the chapter, and let the Bible interpret itself, that makes it
simple and easy.
Continuing in verse 17; "I am the first and the last:
:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive
for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
:19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which
are, and the things which shall be hereafter;
:20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right
hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the
angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which
thou sawest are the seven churches."
The candlesticks are symbols for churches. He says so. Why do
you suppose that is?
What is a candlestick, and where is the first time we see them
in the Bible?
The candlestick is a menorah, a seven branched oil lamp, and the
first time we see them is in the tabernacle, in the Holy Place,
opposite the table of showbread and the altar of incense.
So then, a candlestick is an oil lamp, a lamp stand with oil and
a wick, it's purpose is to give light to the things of God, and
it's place is in the presence of God, the place where God dwells,
right?
Philippians 2:15 tells us to be "blameless
and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of
a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights
in the world."
We are to be candlesticks, menorahs, this
church is to be a menorah, a lamp fashioned according
to the instructions of God, a seven branched lamp, a complete
lamp, giving out a light to illuminate the things of God to the
people around us.
And as we do that, Jesus is with us just as He was in the midst
of those seven churches in that day.
Jesus told His followers; "Where two or three are gathered
in my name, there am I in the midst of them." God delights
to dwell in the midst of His people.
In verse 16, it says that Jesus holds seven stars in His right
hand. In verse 20, it says; "The seven stars are the angels
of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest
are the seven churches."
The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. Hmmm. If
you have a Scofield Bible, there is a marginal note that says
that the Greek word aggelos, or angel, is a word
that means messenger, and that a messenger is someone that speaks
to the church, like a pastor, an elder, or such as that.
Well, that's probably quite true, but maybe the verse also just
says what it means, and means what it says.
In Hebrews chapter one, from verse 4 to the end of the chapter,
verse 14, we are given a job description of angels, and verse
14 tells us; "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent
forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?"
So one of the things that angels do is to minister to Christians.
With that in mind, I find it very easy to suppose that what Jesus
is showing us here, is that there is an angel ministering to each
one of those seven churches.
Which brings up an interesting possibility: something that we
have already mentioned, and will develop more next week, is that
these seven churches represent all the churches, throughout all
the ages.
What do you suppose about the possibility that each and every
church congregation, down through the ages, has an angel to act
as God's messenger, and possibly in other ways to that church?
I would not make any big deal about it, and I especially would
not want the idea to affect how we do things here, but maybe Jesus
has an angel detailed to keeping an eye on this congregation.
Can anybody think of any reason why that might not be true? Something
maybe I have missed? It's no big deal, but it fits the meaning.
One other final thing that we need to take a look at before we
finish this first chapter, and that is the great emphasis that
the Lord gives us here on time.
All through this chapter, there are a lot of references to time.
Verse one; "things which must shortly come to pass".
Verse three; `the time is at hand."
Verse four; "from Him which is, and was, and is to come."
Verse 8; "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,
saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come,
the Almighty."
Verse 11; "Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the
last:"
Verse 18; " I am he that liveth," - present tense- "and
was dead;" - past tense- "and, behold, I am alive for
evermore," -future tense.
Are you starting to get the idea that maybe God wants us to put
this book in the context of time, this book is about what Jesus
is, and was, and will be, and
how we will interact and relate to Him in the future? I think
so.
Now especially, look at what it says in verse 19; "Write
the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and
the things which shall be hereafter."
This gives us the time frame for how this book fits in for us.
Jesus tells John to write the things which he has seen; what would
that be?
Things that John has personally witnessed, and can testify to.
John was a teenager when he first began to follow Jesus, and now
he is an old man.
He has spent his whole life following Jesus, he was the disciple
whom Jesus loved, and now Jesus tells him to tell us what he has
seen, and can bear witness to.
Next, Jesus tells him to write the things that are, the things
of the church age, the seven churches that were already in existence,
and would continue in a similar fashion until the Lord comes again.
Those particular seven churches have gone, changed, but the next
chapter will explain what they did, what they were like, and how
churches with their same characteristics would continue until
Jesus comes back for us.
Along with that, Jesus tells John to write the things that will
be hereafter.
So that there will be no mistakes, turn to chapter four and verse
one: "After this" - same word, same phrase,
same thought- "I looked, and, behold, a door was opened
in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it
were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither,
and I will shew thee things which must be - hereafter.
Hereafter. Once again, same word in the Greek, same concept.
Jesus is showing John what will happen during the
church age, and then Jesus shows him what will happen after
the church age comes to an end.
When does the church age come to an end? When Jesus comes at the
rapture of the church and takes the church out of this world.
A door is opened in heaven; come up here.
This verse is a wonderful picture of the rapture of the church,
because from that point on, you never see the church any
more in the book of Revelation until Jesus returns in power and
glory.
You see gentile people coming to Christ, and you see the nation
of Israel coming to Christ, but the church is out of the picture.
It's not there.
We will go ahead and stop here for today, something that I would
like for you to do over the next several weeks is give me some
feedback on the depth of this series.
With Revelation, it is easy to get really in depth, and it is
also easy to skim over it too lightly.
If there is something that is a question to anybody, and I don't
cover it, come up and tell me, and we'll try and sort it out.
On the other hand, if it seems like I've gone down too deep, stayed
too long, and you're running out of air, and you need to come
back to the surface, tell me that too.
The goal of this study is to do just exactly what was in the first
three verses; to show us what is going to shortly come to pass,
to make it understandable, and to encourage us to keep the things
it tells us, so that we can get the blessing that is promised.
If we can all do that, then God will be pleased, and we will indeed
be blessed.