-Where people start to freak out about how to read!
-I’m going to present my current reading of how to interpret this writing, subject to changing over the course of my life!
-What I’m presenting isn’t anything new, isn’t heretical, but it may be different than what you’ve currently heard. When we got to Revelation in seminary, my professor regularly said “This is the conclusion I’ve come to, try it on for size, see if it makes the most sense of the WHOLE Bible.”
-Bryan Chappell’s book.
-There are legitimate options for how you interpret this book. But it is probably the most difficult book to get 100% correct. And part of this is because we’re reading an ancient text, this is the last book written, and it’s still written something like 1,931 years ago. This reminds me of a post I saw a few years ago on how to read the Bible literally.
-Please don’t divide fellowship with other Christians who believe differently than you!
PRAY
-What we’ve learned so far:
-Numbers are almost always symbolic. 7 being the most used, referring to perfection. We’ve also seen 12 or multiples of 12 come up (24 elders) signifying God’s plan. We’ve seen 4 come up signifying all creation (4 living creatures, 4 corners of the earth). 10 often signifies completeness (10 commandments, we have 10 fingers & toes)
-Representation. Remember the angels of the churches in heaven, representing them around the throne. Last week we saw the prayers of the saints being like incense around the throne. There are spiritual (heavenly) implications to the things we do on earth.
-Another way of saying this is: what’s seen on earth isn’t always the true picture. I read an article this week titled ‘A Christian revival is under way in Britain’ One of the fascinating things I’ve been reading is the way even atheists are changing their minds about Jesus and Christianity. There were 4 people referred to as the “4 horsemen of the new atheism” One of them, Richard Dawkins, just admitted he is now a cultural Christian. After actively trying to tear apart Christianity for decades, he’s suddenly changed his tune after finally seeing the good Christianity has brought to Western civilization. We’ll get to the reason this is taking place as we work through today’s sermon.
-Last week we saw the centrality of Jesus in everything (God, creation, salvation)
-The way of Jesus is as a slain lamb. It’s not responding in kind, it’s not repay evil with evil, it’s trusting ourselves to a good God who has a plan for us and all of history to lead to His eventual outcome: God’s people in God’s place, serving under God’s rule and reign.
-But before we get there, there are some things that will be happening.
- The Seven Seals (6:1-8:5)
-There are 3 sets of 7 that we’ll be looking at, the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls. I found the way my professor at seminary explained it very helpful.
-Grand Canyon (or any big hole in the ground), walk right up to the edge. Then you come back and walk a little further but eventually come back close to the edge, then you come back and go a little further and this final time you actually go and look straight over the edge.
-If that doesn’t make sense, he used another illustration of having 7 seals, then using a magnifying glass and zooming in on the 7th seal to find 7 trumpets, then zooming in on the 7th trumpet to find 7 bowls.
-This is called recapitulation, that is restating or repeating the same event from different perspectives.
-One author summarized it this way: “In the seven seals we are seeing things from the perspective of the suffering church. In the seven trumpets we are seeing things from the perspective of the world as it is being called to repentance. In the seven bowls we are seeing things from the perspective of the temple, from the throne of God.”(Discipleship on the Edge, 303)
-4 horsemen of the apocalypse
-White horse – some debate about whether this rider is Jesus, because in Rev. 19 we see Jesus riding a white horse. Also picks up the “conquering” language that we saw with the churches
-Red horse – wars, and these happen regularly
-Black horse – the rich get richer, and the poor can’t survive
-Pale horse – ¼ of the earth dies by plagues, famine, animals.
-Nothing about them is unique to the future, happens over and over again and will continue happening over and over again. Think of what Jesus says in Matt. 24 “You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because these things must take place, but the end is not yet.”
-5th seal: martyrs are begging God to end all things, but they’re told not yet.
-6th Great earthquake, not literally, as the earth we knew it could not continue. Marker of the judgment of God, every person on the earth realizes it. They’d rather die by an earthquake than face the wrath of the Lamb.
-Again, think of what Jesus says in Matt. 10:28 “Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Eternal death is far worse than earthly death.
-Then there’s a big interlude in 7 to the beginning of 8
-Chapt. 7 – The great tribulation, sealing of God’s people. Think of the sealing of the scroll that we saw in chpt. 5.
-One thing to note about this sealing: John’s using Israel to describe all of God’s people. Just as what John heard about the lion in chpt. 5 didn’t match what he saw (a lamb), here we have 144,000 (12×12, then 10x10x10) then when John looks to see it’s more people than anyone could count from every nation and tribe, people and language. The gospel has gone to the 4 corners of the world, and everyone is now welcome!
-7th: no judgment, just silence: All creation pauses before God
-But God isn’t pausing: the prayers are being brought before God. Don’t forget that prayer changes things. God listens, God responds, they don’t stop at the ceiling.
-The description of this event will come up again, same wording and phrases for the other 7s.
- The Seven Trumpets (8:6-11:19)
-Again, the first 4 come out in quick order: 1/3 of the earth burned up, 1/3 of the sea becomes blood with 1/3 of the creatures dying, 1/3 of the rivers and springs, finally 1/3 of the sun moon and stars. Almost as it the creation is becoming undone. What God had done in Genesis couldn’t withstand these terrors.
-The key fraction is 1/3 – both a lot, yet noticeably less than half. The majority world (or could call it the 2/3 world) could say that these judgments have already occurred, or are already occurring.
-5th trumpet: notice that the pit is opened, these woes are overtly demonic, those who argue this is just helicopters or human warfare don’t acknowledge the spiritual component, just as some argue that Jesus’ miracles weren’t supernatural events
-Believers are still protected (9:4) This tells us that believers will be there in the midst of these events.
-6th trumpet is allowing 1/3 of humans to be killed. We’ll talk about the pictures John is drawing from when we get here, but it is meant to be repulsive.
–9:20 – Still no repentance from unbelievers, meant to lead to repentance. Even God’s judgment is intended to lead people to repentance, so this signifies that people will have no excuse when the final day of judgment comes.
-Once again, after the 6th event there’s another interlude:
-Little scroll, similar to a story where Ezekiel was told to eat a scroll, but this time there will be no more delay, and John is commanded to continue to prophesy
–Chapt. 11 we have an interesting story about 2 witnesses, who are they? It’s important to remember that the Bible requires 2 witnesses to make a matter stand. It’s not enough to have just 1 witness, you need 2.
-Vs. 4 describes them as 2 olive trees and 2 lampstands. Olive trees picks up an idea from Zech. 4where Joshua the priest, and Zerubbabel the governor are described as 2 olive trees, the last time we saw lampstands was in Rev. 2-3 describing the churches, so most scholars believe these 2 witnesses is a way of signifying the church. The church is the true witness, who is protected and preserved by God in the time between Jesus’ 2 comings (what we’re living in now) So the olive tree signified God’s people as the new kingdom and priests (we saw that last week in Rev. 5:10)
-There’s some timing listed in this chapter too, that I haven’t talked about before, but there’s a number of ways it’s described: time and times and half a time, 42 months, 1,260 days all signifying 3.5 years. That 3.5 years is half of 7. 7 is a way of signifying the perfection of God (7 churches), 3.5 is a way of signifying it’s not God’s final word on these matters. I get that from the way a 1st century Jew would have thought. For anyone born in the early 90s, if I say 9/11 what comes to mind? The World Trade Center. If I say “4 score and 7 years ago” what comes to mind? Gettysburg address. There are certain phrase that become so embedded in the culture they become shorthand for referring to something bigger. 3.5 years is the time of a major event known as the Maccabean Revolt where a group of Jews fought off the invaders and won! So 3.5 years became identified with a period of extreme suffering that would only last for a period of time and then stop. It also unlike 7 where it’s perfect, it’s half of it saying it doesn’t have the final word.
-This also shows us that things won’t only get worse or only get better as time moves on. I love the way my professor at seminary summarized what we see taking place: progressive polarization in the world. People respond to the gospel message, but increased persecution is also a reality. Both things will be taking place at the same time. And don’t we see that in the world around us? It seems like there’s always little pockets of places where the gospel is flourishing and spreading like wildfire, and then other places where it’s receding and falling away. Rise and fall, but the gospel continues to spread, and Satan continues to fight.
-I’m actually going to jump ahead to chapter 16 now, because I want to conclude in something that blew my mind from the middle section here
4. The Seven Bowls (16:1-21)
-Here we see the wrath of God being poured out as from a bowl. There is enough similarities between the events taking place here, and the 7 trumpets to think that they could be referring to the same event.
-Jim Hamilton’s comments.
-But notice this time, there’s no break between any of these judgments. No interlude, no more waiting. We’ve gone back to review it enough, and the judgment is now here! So just as I said at the beginning, we’ve seen the repeats, now John is seeing the whole thing in front of him! And this time we get a loud voice saying “It is done” That should bring to mind a phrase we think about on Good Friday “It is finished.
-One other thing is the increasing severity of these judgments. Where initially it was ¼, then we went up to 1/3, and now there’s no one and nothing left out. It’s as if all creation is coming undone because of the wrath of the lamb! More to come on these, because now I want to look at a couple things from the middle section which explains the way the battle continues to unfold.
- The Dragon vs. the Lamb (12:1-15:8)
-We looked at the first 6 verses of this on Palm Sunday: it’s a heavenly perspective on the Christmas story. But John continues, and goes on to talk about the way the war would unfold. The dragon is called the devil and Satan, he is thrown out of heaven, and is described as the accuser and deceiver. That’s literally his job! He is right now doing any and everything he can to fight against Jesus and His followers – the church.
-Then we have the completion of what’s been called “The Satanic trinity”
-Satan doesn’t have complete power, so all he can do is copy. And that’s what he’ll try to do! Copy everything God has done, but it will always fall short and be insufficient in some way.
-The second part of this trinity is a beast from the sea. John picks up descriptions from Daniel 7 to describe it, which tells us this beast is kingdoms of the earth. Rulers, governments, earthly authorities that refuse to submit to the Lordship of Jesus and instead try to become god. And the beast is the one behind it all! It’s described as appearing to be fatally wounded, but is healed, and how often have we seen that with various forms of government across the world? Think of the 20th century: the rise of Naziism, which dies and has communism take its’ place, and followed by nationalism, and then socialism, and on and on the isms go. This is the work of the best in human history! But it’s not just 1 beast, because then there’s a beast from the earth who supposedly looks like a lamb (where have we seen that before?) but speaks like the dragon! This final beast empowers worship of the sea beast. People using worldly standards, and looking to worldly powers to solve all their problems. Of course the world is going to oppose the work of the lamb, they’re empowered by the devil, and he’s had millennia to hone his craft!
-vs. 18 has to be one of the most misunderstood texts in the Bible, and I won’t say this is most definitely the correct interpretation, try it on for a bit, think of the rest of Scripture.
666 – Gematria, but doesn’t really make sense because “Six hundred, and sixty, and six” in Greek. I think a better way of thinking about this is referring to the unholy trinity. Just as God’s perfect number is 7, so the trinity would be 777, but Satan falls short every single time. So you can read 666 as Fail, Fail, Fail.
-I want to end with Rev. 14, because I’m still reflecting and processing an interpretation I read from a commentary this week. It’s a section titled ‘Reaping the Earth’s Harvest’
-Most scholars believe there are 2 different reapings taking place. The first section is Jesus reaping out the believers. Think of what Jesus says in Matt. 9 “the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few.” So reaping is positive throughout the NT.
-What I’m still processing is whether or not the second reaping is also positive. Here’s why. There’s enough language that’s the same between the 2 accounts, that they could be referring to the same event. Throughout the Bible, there’s also references to Israel as the vine of the earth throughout Scripture. So the first readers could have heard this referring to the true Israel of God’s people.
-Then we have anther significant phrase “outside the city.” There’s a pretty significant event that took place outside the city in the Bible: the crucifixion of Jesus. That is the place where God’s wrath was laid out in full. And is there enough blood in that event to cover over the sins of everyone? Listen to what he says:
-Now, it may be true that these connections are just a little too clever, and I wouldn’t say it’s most definitely correct, but it does make sense of the text, it makes sense of the Bible, and it makes sense of the cross.
-Church don’t miss this. Jesus’ precious blood that was shed on the cross is enough to cover every sin you have committed, will commit, and is the only way you can ensure you’re following the way of the Lamb instead of the way of the dragon.
-As we continue seeing our world continually polarized, our command hasn’t changed: make disciples of Jesus. Whether you were alive in the 1st century, the 4th century, all the way down to the 21st century the command hasn’t changed. We faithfully focus on telling everyone the truths of the gospel, and living in such a way that shows that we believe it.
Pastor Mike's Musings 