How to Study the Bible III - Revelation 1:9-20
Revelation 1:9-20 · Vern Peterman · Sep 25, 2016
How to Study Bible (2016), No. 37
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926539391789

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

Here is Revelation 1, 9 through 20, as we mentioned, implementing as kind of a practice case for the 10 points that we brought up last Sunday in terms of how do we go about interpreting Revelation. And one of the things that we said is once we get these 10 points in view, and they're not complicated, it starts with, for example, literal interpretation. Once we get these points in view, interpreting the book of Revelation is a piece of cake. And it's actually all, verse to verse, it's all quite clear. It's very clear. Now, so here we go.

One is, we notice there's Jewish rather than Greek symbolism. In Greek symbolism, which shows up like, you ever see like the Greek statues and things like that? They do a great job with those and a lot of those were that approach to statuary was continued on into the time of Michelangelo and some of those great artists where the form and the beauty of the appearance was everything you're focusing on, and you look at it and say, wow, that looks great. But that's not Jewish symbolism. Jewish symbolism doesn't ask what it looks like. Jewish symbolism asks, what does it mean?

And so that's a key thing. One of the points that we made this last Sunday, one of the ten, is that look for what does it mean, not what does it look like. It's one of the reasons, because our culture is more geared toward Greek symbolism, it's one of the reasons why people read Revelation and they'll think, what was that? because they're looking for what does it look like, and it looks like a mess, instead of what does it mean.

So let's step through the slides here. Here is the west end of what is now Turkey, then called Asia or Asia Minor. And it has the seven cities. You can see Patmos out there, underlined in red, a small island. Here's another drawing that kind of simplifies it. The seven cities go clockwise. Notice they start with Ephesus and then go clockwise along the Roman postal route.

Here is Patmos where John is on a prison island and outside of scripture, so this is not a biblical account, but outside of scripture he had been given a sentence of capital punishment by boiling an oil. But the Lord miraculously preserved him, and then he instead was put on this prison island. So here is the inside of what is traditionally John's cave. Something like this, it may be the case, we have no way to really confirm it, but it may well be the case.

Here is looking out from the cave entrance towards another part of Patmos there. Here's an artist depiction. There's an artist back in the 80s, a lady, actually, I think she did a good job. She went through Revelation and did a bunch of, you know, paintings of the different scenes.

Now, the one thing to point out is this is Greek symbolism. In other words, it tells you what does it look like. It doesn't tell you what does it mean. And so we still have that to deal with. Some of the symbols in Revelation are just kind of fantastic. And so she's done, I think, a good job of going through the various scenes in Revelation and painting it up, but understanding that it's Greek symbolism, what does it look like, not what does it mean.

Here's an artist's depiction of John in Revelation 1 at the beginning here. He's on the seashore at Patmos. And then he hears a voice. And we're going to see that the actual writing is he sees a voice. He sees a voice and turns and then a couple again artist depictions of here's what Christ looked like. Here's Greek symbolism again as opposed to what does it mean.

We have this outline of each of the chapters. In some cases, we've combined them. For example, chapters 2 and 3 are the messages to the seven churches. But it's the outline of the entire book that starts off with the churches, then rapture, then chapter 6 through 19, the tribulation period, and then the millennium, and then the eternal state. OK, so we're writing here in the very first chapter. And we have here the outline that we're going to look at in Revelation 119, things which were, things which are, and the things which will be after these things.

We also have this pattern here, and that is that we mentioned that Paul wrote like a lawyer and like a logician. He wrote, since this, therefore this, because of that, since that, And he used logic to develop his point. John writes instead like a musician. He starts with the earth and then goes in this heavenly crescendo, and then goes back down to earth, and he alternates about eight times throughout the book.

And so you can map out. But one of the ways in which that's helpful is you see, OK, where am I right now, and what's being described, and the fact that it's going to keep alternating through the book. So, let's do this. Let's go into the passage and we'll start with Revelation 1-9, which is in the upper middle.

First page, so it's Revelation 1.9, and this is a New American Standard that I'm reading.

I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the isle called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. John had spent at least the last couple of decades of his life prior to this in Ephesus, and with these churches. He would travel to these churches, but primarily stationed in Ephesus.

Now, think about this. Here's John. Is John an apostle? Yes, he is, right? So you can claim apostleship, but one of the things we notice about the apostles is they don't always go around saying, hey, I'm an apostle. They frequently will speak, you know, I'm your brother. Peter, when he writes to the elders, says your fellow elder. So there is a humbleness about their presentation. They don't just go, hey, I'm an apostle and I've got this authority and you better listen to me.

Now, brother and fellow partaker, and let's look at these words, the tribulation, does that mean the seven year tribulation period? Is he a fellow partaker in the seven year tribulation period? No. Okay, so that's not what he means. What does he mean by tribulation? Yeah, it means trouble, right? And it's an expression because the churches had been persecuted by both the Jews and the Romans now. The first wave of persecution started with Nero in the middle 60s.

The Romans took the Christians through ten waves of persecution. This was another one under Domitian. that they were going through. And then in addition to that, there was also persecution from the Jews. So they had persecution coming both ways. And sometimes the Jews would persecute by turning them over to the Romans, even if it was false accusation. All right, so he's on this prison island called Patmos, as he's writing here. And here's verse 10 at the bottom of page 1.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Adhara, to Sardius, and to Philadelphia, and Laodicea." So John wrote literally here, I was in spirit. So the definite article is not there in the Greek. He uses that same phrase, as we point out, in 4.2, which is on the heavenly scene. in 17.3 and in 21.10. So he sprinkles that kind of throughout the book, here towards the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. So four times this in spirit shows up. Does he mean that he's walking in the spirit? No. What is this, I was in spirit, what is that talking about?

Well, let's see, certainly he was probably praying. I would very much guess that. Yes? I would imagine something similar to being in Christ. Ah, okay, so that's a positional thing. Do you know if that's a capital S or a small s? In the Greek, they don't differentiate. But here's the thing.

I was in Spirit, and he sprinkles it throughout, and I believe what he's expressing there is a special state of revelation. In other words, it's not walking in the Spirit. Is he in Christ? He is in Christ, but this is a special state of revelation because he's seeing things that other people aren't seeing. So he's beginning to see things that other people aren't seeing, things that are particularly revealed to him. What I meant was, that's true, he's in Christ, but he's also in the Spirit, another person. So this is going to be different than positional in Christ.

So if you think of the spirit as the essential being, and I don't mean to get esoteric, would it be more of his essential spiritual being that he is in as he is being communicated with? Think about it, what does the spirit do? with respect to scripture.

In other words, the Spirit inspires. Peter writes that the prophets were carried along by the Spirit. So this is a special ministry of the Holy Spirit to John and he's going to be writing about the heavenly scene. All these 150 verses approximately on the heavenly scene And he's going to be doing so as a special ministry of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, Pat?

As that is written here, it seems kind of matter of fact, like this is not something that's totally unusual for him, that he might be in the Spirit a lot, not just at this... You know, while that's possible, what he does is he puts it towards the beginning here, and towards the end, and then a couple times in the middle. So it seems like he's continuously in spirit in this special state of revelation. Whether he does so before, he doesn't say. But he certainly, once he's in spirit, he continues in this special state of revelation through this whole book.

Next on the top of page two, He says, on the Lord's day, and some people think well it's a day in which the Lord was influential. Other people say, oh the day of the Lord was a term out of the Old Testament referring to this time from the Tribulation period on to the end of the present heavens and earth. But it turns out, first of all, he wasn't really in the Lord's day.

He was instead, I believe, referring to the exact Greek phrase that he used was used by other early church authors in that same period of time and same region. And so it just so happens that that was the custom for here is how you phrase Sunday. Here's how you phrase Sunday. That's what this is the exact Greek term that was used for saying the first day of the week.

Wasn't the Lord's Day, wasn't that for ages? Everybody knew that that was Sunday? Because I think even in the 1700s and you will read, you know, if you read, it's, I guess... People would call Sunday the Lord's Day, yeah. But even specific to that particular, you know, time and culture and location, other writers would use this exact same Greek words to indicate this was the first day of the week, Sunday. as we've come to call it.

Okay, so then as John writes a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, this is the first time he writes a loud voice, it's the first of 19 times that he writes a loud voice in Revelation, and every single time the loud voice is a heavenly voice, there's no loud voices down on earth.

So then, Verse 12, then I turn to see the voice. Now, can you see a voice? This is actually ellipsis, where we drop out, I turn to see the source of the voice, or where the voice was coming from. And so it's kind of dropping it down by dropping out those words, you see the voice that was speaking to me.

And I turned and saw seven golden lampstands, and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed in a robe, reaching to his feet, and girded across his chest with a golden sash." Okay. So now, let's look at this. Remember, one of the things we said is, what percentage of Revelation is straight out of the Old Testament? About 70% of Revelation is straight out of the Old Testament. So one of the things to look for in all these things is do any of these words or phrases show up somewhere in the Old Testament? And lo and behold, yes they do.

And so we have one like a son of man, that's Daniel 7.13. That's, by the way, the only phrase in which the son of man is used in that way in the whole Old Testament.

So Daniel 7.13. 7.13 and 14 go together. It makes reference to the Christ, the Messiah, which we give reference here to Matthew 16 and Ephesians 1 and Revelation 14. Christ referred to himself as what in the Gospels? Son of Man, frequently, and that's making reference to the passage in Daniel. Why would he call himself the son of man so often and not just use the son of God?

Yeah? Because he was the Messiah and he actually, according to the book of Institute 5, he came to earth as a man and yet in the image of God. So was he deity or man? Yes, both. And so he would use son of man to indicate he had become a human being. But while he left the privileges of deity, he did not cease to be deity. He always was. So the son of man encapsulates both his deity and him being man. Yes, and focuses on him being the Messiah. The Messiah.

And then there's something else to remember, and this is something you can use all throughout the Bible again and again and again, unless it's a genealogical connection, like Randy is my son. Unless it's a genealogical connection, son of or child of means like in character and close in relationship. You can use that everywhere you find it. So, we say son of man is like in character and close in relationship to man. Son of God, like in character and close in relationship to God. Even sons of disobedience, out of Ephesians 2 verses 1-3, like in character and close in relationship.

Then one of the things we see at the very bottom, the robe reaching to his feet and girded across his chest with a golden sash, is a direct picture of the Old Testament guard of the high priest. We have that in Exodus 28 and 39. And by the way, let's revisit something. We're actually going to see crop up again more than once as we go through the passage in Luke. John appears to have close connections to the high priest during the time of the Gospels, and appears to be in line for the priesthood. And we're going to see that even this morning in the passage in Luke.

So here's John, who is at one point in time in line for the priesthood, and remember the account in Matthew where his mother made sure he was well connected. Even coming up to Jesus and saying, hey, can my sons have the right and the left of the throne next to you? So she went around making sure that her sons were well connected. So here's John who was in line for the priesthood, and it is now about a quarter of a century since the temple was completely demolished, torn apart. And so this is all history, but John knew what this golden sash and all that meant. I mean, to him, I know what that means.

It again says, here's what it means, rather than just what does it look like. Now, there's one other thing, and that is, is Christ a high priest? Yes. He is a high priest, not according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchizedek. So this fits. Now, do we yet see who this person is? But we're starting to get a clue with this, right? And so this connects up with Hebrews. Hebrews 12, 17 to 10, 21. That whole picture gets connected. Let's look at the top of page 3 here.

Verse 14, And his head and his hair were white like wool, like snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire. And this isn't valley girl talk. Like, like, like. But what's the like there for? It's as. Like or as is a simile and so John does the simile kind of talk about a hundred times in Revelation so you see this is kind of the beginning of that point where it's like this, like this, like this and so he's describing things that just are you know fantastic using many times things that people can relate to.

So that's the first thing we look at here. White, wool or snow being white, which shows both wisdom of age, as well as moral and spiritual purity. And we have the passages Daniel 7, 9, 13, 22, and 13, 22, and then Micah 5, 2, and then Isaiah 1, 18. And one of the reasons for making all these references is one, is I'm not guessing here, right?

I'm not saying it seems to me like this. It is objective, you can look it up, I can look it up. So it isn't up to me to say, well Vern says this. It doesn't matter what I say. As a matter of fact, don't believe anything I tell you. They didn't have cataract surgery back in those days.

He keeps saying this all the time and I'm sure that his eyesight, well I'm not sure, but I would presume that his eyesight was probably not that good. There was probably a lot of things that he hadn't seen or been able to see. Let's ask this question. Is his physical sensory limitations with age Do those have to limit what he is now beginning to see? No, because he is in spirit. He is in a special state of revelation. He may have some clarity in his hearing, in his sight, in his touch, that goes beyond his physical senses, that reaches around them.

Flames of fire having penetrating judgment, and in this case it points to a couple of New Testament passages there in 1 Corinthians and Romans. So we have these things here. There's nothing here that's puzzling. There's nothing here where Verne says it's this and you're going, huh? Everything's connected with Scripture, and particularly the Old Testament, but not exclusively. Now let's look at verse 15 and 16.

His feet were like burnished bronze when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. On his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in its strength." So now you begin to see the importance of looking at it from a Jewish standpoint versus looking at it from a Greek standpoint.

This is starting to look grotesque. What would happen if you saw a guy by that description coming through these doors? Yeah, you'd say, whoa! This guy's got eyes like the sun and hair like wool. He's kind of like some sort of hippie that's drank some magic juice or something. And then he's got feet like, I mean, legs like bronze.

This is getting pretty wild. And he's got a five foot long barbarian battle sword hanging out of his mouth. Yeah, this is a scary looking guy when you put it together from a Greek perspective. But again, this is why we underscore its Jewish symbolism. Alright, so first the feet like bronze in the furnace, molten metal signifying purity, Exodus 38, 2-39, as well as being immovable. This is very heavy.

The next voice like many waters rushing. Have you ever been next to a really rushing stream or next to a large waterfall? It's just deafening noise. It can sometimes be so loud that a person yelling next to you is not audible. You can tell they're saying something, but it's just overwhelmed by the noise. That's what he's describing here. And here's again the like. It's not Valley Girl talk.

So in several places, Psalms and Jeremiah, and later on in Revelation, they'll continue to use the same things. But again, this is straight out of the Old Testament, right? The right hand from the earliest books in the Old Testament is the hand of what? Power, authority, security, and blessing. And we see that repeatedly, and it starts in Genesis.

And so I've given several examples. Is that all? No. No, there are more. Actually, you could look up. So again, I'm giving samples, but the idea of the right hand having special significance is very well entrenched in the whole Old Testament, starting in Genesis.

And it underscores that 70% of Revelation is straight out of the Old Testament. The seven stars that he holds, and this is one I'll kind of jump to quickly, it says in similar translations, the angels of the seven churches, but the word angels also means messengers, right? Some people have guessed it's angels, some people have guessed it's pastors. The idea that there's one pastor for a church is not anything in scripture.

So that doesn't match. But what does match is that this is a Roman postal route going from Ephesus clockwise. It's a Roman postal route and through those cities is a sequence. The idea is you would take, you have messengers. One messenger goes to Ephesus and he takes a copy of the scroll and takes it to Ephesus and reads it. The first part of the chapter says, blessed is he who reads it single and those who hear it plural. So the messenger takes the scroll, reads it to that church. The next church then gets the scroll and the other messengers keep going on this Roman postal route until you get to Laodicea, the last one, and the last messenger. So I believe that's the case briefly. You see them again in chapters 2 and 3.

So it says a lot about what he sees, but he holds the messengers of the seven churches. How would he know that the stars are that? Is that part of the discussion that Christ is having with him? We are going to see exactly, and it's another application, it's one of the places in verse 20 where he tells them what these things mean.

Exactly, he just spells it out, this is what these symbols mean. So as he starts off then, so in other words, Obviously, not obviously, but he probably sat down after this was all over and then finished writing this, right? Well, here's verse 20. I'm going to jump to it at the end of the lesson here.

For the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels, or messengers, of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Christ told him that when he was talking to him. Yeah, and that's Christ's words right there.

So he's explaining, and that's one of the things in Revelation, people will sometimes go to great lengths to try to figure out something that's already explained. And this happens numerous times, where John explains what a symbol means. So between the references to the Old Testament, between saying like or as, between that and looking at things that are explained explicitly, Revelation is not an unclear, puzzling book. By the time I pull the ten points together, the book of Revelation is a piece of cake. It's all verse to verse to verse, very clear. And there is also redundancy. That is, sometimes I'll have several different things pointing to this is what this means.

Okay, so then from Christ's mouth comes a five foot long barbarian battle sword, a ramphaya. The two swords were a machaira, which is more about this length. And this was the standard issue for the Roman foot soldier, right? So they have a machaira. Machaira is what Peter used to go and cut off the high priest's servant's ear, right ear, named Malchus. So that's a machaira. The Romphia was five feet long. It was used by the barbarians. They would swing it overhead like this helicopter. And the idea was that anybody that got within this ten foot circle was going to get sliced. That was the idea with this tool. Yeah.

What are the Bavarians at the time? The Bavarians were the tribes to the north. And it's from the sound bar-bar-bar to try and imitate the fact they speak some language I can't understand. So is it like the British tribes? No, this is more Germanic. Germanic, but also other tribes typically coming from the north of Rome. used in Iran and Iraq when they beheaded those people, right? That was pretty big. Yeah, I would say similar in terms of being large, yes. And that's the thing, it was so large, and of course they kept it really sharp, that if you got hit by this thing, you're going to lose something.

Okay, so what we have then is that, the Romphia, coming out of his mouth, and that continues in the book of Revelation until chapter 19. Chapter 19, it ends. Why would the Romphia end at chapter 19? The tribulation is over, Christ comes back, there's judgment when he comes back, but then it's done. He's no longer a warrior. He is instead ruling and reigning. And times are peaceful. So then, and again, it all makes sense.

Isaiah 49.2 is where that sword out of the mouth figure first shows up. Again, Old Testament. It's the source for 70% of the book of Revelation. Christ's face is compared to the sun at strength and being in comparable glory.

Any of you go out and stare at the sun for a while? Not so much, right? You try not to do that. The sun is extremely bright, and so John is just saying, I could hardly look at him. It was just, whoa, I see it, but I'm not going to stare. This is intense.

Sometimes used as a picture. of God, and even in one place in Malachi, a son of righteousness, referring to Christ. Now, let's think about this for a minute. How long had it been since John had seen Jesus? Six years. It had been about six decades, just a little bit more. But it had been a long time. since he had seen Christ. And what did Christ look like when John had last seen him? He was ascending. Well, he looked very much like a man. Yeah, he looked like a man, and he ascended. That's the last time John saw him. Now, six decades have passed. John has not seen him during that time. All of a sudden he's seeing him now, and why is John's description of him so different?

He's God-man, so he is man, but he is fully glorified. He's been fully glorified, right? He has had this heavenly place where he's been seated at the right hand of the Father, where he has been carrying on this high priestly ministry. You see that with the golden sash and the robe going down to the floor. This is the first time that John has actually seen who Christ is, because when he was on earth, According to Philippians, he was not closeted, but some of his deity was cloaked for the sake of us, for the sake of those he was interacting with, because if he was essentially who he is in the heavenlies, nobody would have heard what he needed to say, because they would have been overwhelmed. Did Christ have a five foot long barbarian battle sword coming out of his mouth when he was on earth the first time? No, he did not, right? So here, this is very, very different. This is looking forward to Christ's second coming when he will come in judgment initially. One more comparison. John saw him right after he was crucified, which is not an especially powerful image. And now he sees, oh, he has all authority. So that would have been tough to negotiate, because even though they knew he was the Messiah, now he sees him as the Messiah.

Verse 17, which shows up on the top of page 4, When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. Had John seen Christ as a dead man? Yes. Isn't that something? Sharp contrast, now that he's glorified, and John is seeing him, just feels like a dead man.

He placed his right hand on me saying, do not be afraid, I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead and behold I am alive forevermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. So we have several things to look at. One, falling at the feet like a dead man is Ezekiel 1.28, Daniel 8.18, 10, 8, 9, 17, 18. So here straight out of the Old Testament. Yes. And more importantly, it also does not say, get up. Like in Daniel, when they fell at the feet of an angel, they said, get up and don't worship me. And here, Christ places his right hand on John as was done with the prophet Daniel.

Daniel 8.18 and 10.10. So, what's the significance of the right hand again? Power, authority, and blessing, and all those things. So he didn't just say he put his hand on me, he put his right hand on me.

So then, do not be afraid, that was also said to Daniel, Daniel 10, 19, I am the first and the last, out of Isaiah 41, 4, 44, 6, and 48, 12. And who says I'm the first and the last? This is God, right? I am the first and the last. And by the way, in the Greek Old Testament, it has ego eimi. In one place, ego eimi, ego eimi. Twice. Then we have, I was dead, I'm alive, which speaks of Christ's death and resurrection. So John was personal witness to Christ as he died and as he was resurrected. John had been witness to both, now Christ is proclaiming them.

Who does John think this guy is right now? A father? I would assume he would know it was Christ. He doesn't look like Christ did 60 some odd years before. But the description we're getting is... John knew this was his Lord. Yeah, this is my Lord. And I would assume that the affection the Lord had for him on earth was still, I mean the connection, the gnosko, the relationship never ended. That's right. So this is not, so when I read this I don't think okay this is like a law scene or a legal scene, there's a meeting after decades and the love has even, it's grown. Yes.

And so, and just to make clear, death in Hades, Hades is the place of the dead. So death and its place no longer hold the power themselves. Who has the key? Christ himself. But what you see through all this is a continuing connection to the Old Testament. 70% of Revelation is out of the Old Testament. You keep seeing it. Let's go on to verse 19. Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things. Now this is a very potent verse. It's not long, it's not complicated, but it's very potent. Let's first ask a couple of questions.

What form of verb is right? What form of verb is translated right? Must. Just imperative, right? And he guesses as to, you know, perfect tense, is it present, is it future? Or present, like right now, you must write. That's a guess. Aorist. Aorist. And here's the thing. The Aorist tense does not mean, as some people think, the past always. The Aorist tense, does not mean once for all, as some people think. The aorist tense means the past in the indicative and participle form, but aside from that it's a decline to state.

Look elsewhere. And so we have the timing The timing of this verb elsewhere, that is the things that you have seen, past tense, the things which are, present tense, and the things which will take place after these things, the future. So, past, there's a little bit of past, there's some present with the seven churches, and then there's future things, chapter four on. So if I understand you correctly with the eris, just to double check, it can't mean past, but you have to look elsewhere for the other tenses. Yeah, if I use an eris and I don't use an indicative or participle, what I'm doing is I'm saying look somewhere else in my sentence or in my context for timing. For timing, because unlike many verbs in Greek, this particular one, with the exception of indicative and participle, is saying look somewhere else. It's the clue, look somewhere else for the timing indicators. And this actually says, look somewhere else and it's past, present and future. Right? Yeah. Okay, so here, so write the things which you have seen.

So he is told to write the things about the heavenly scene, 150 verses, that Paul was told you are prohibited from writing or talking about them. They'll take you to heaven, but you've got to keep your mouth shut. Don't put your pen down on papyrus and tell people about this. You're prohibited. Why? Why would Paul be prohibited? It's John's job.

The apostles did not have a uniform assignment. The apostles did not have a uniform assignment. John, and this is another thing, John does not write about the rapture in Revelation. He writes about the results of the rapture. It's Paul's job to explain that. John does not write about identification in terms of explanation. You can find it in the Gospel of John 15 and 17. Whose job is it to explain identification? That's Paul's job, see?

They have complementary assignments. Well, and they, you know, Peter, in one of his, he refers back to Paul. These are difficult things. Go to Paul for his information, because Peter had a different ministry. And so they, but they all understood whose ministry it was. Sure. And so they'd point, for this information go to Paul, for this information go to John, for this information go to Peter. That's a very valuable insight, just to look and see that these guys didn't have some uniform, you know, okay, we always all do the same thing. They had different assignments and they respected the other one's place.

Well if you look back through all the writings of Paul, he spends very little time talking about his personal relationship with Christ or what Christ was like, or what his personality was like, or how he related to him, or anything else. It was basically legalistic and how things work. And this book is definitely not designed to show how things work, but it's about Christ.

And John had that relationship and that fellowship, which was really, really special, probably, of all the disciples, right? And he was able to connect that in a priestly way as well. So you're right, he was a perfect guy for this. Who was assigned to take care of Mary? John. John. Were any of the other disciples given that task?

No. So that's something to realize as we look through the New Testament, that different apostles were given different assignments of different things. And it wasn't just some blanket thing, you're an apostle therefore duh. It just didn't work that way. And I just realized that Christ would have had brothers walking, so it only struck me as interesting that Christ didn't say, okay my brothers. you know, that's your biological mom. He pointed to John that didn't have a biological relationship, but that was the one who was given, okay, now you take care of Mary. And the usual thing would have been to pass that along to the next oldest brother, right? But different assignments here.

So, we have, therefore write the things you have seen, chapter 1, the things which are, chapters 2 and 3, and the things which will take place after these things, and that's chapter 4 on. And let's take a look at the last page, the biblical phrase, after these things. It turns out that after these things, in the Greek Metatauta, after these things starts in Genesis, They have a one-pager supplement that looks like this.

It starts in Genesis, it's used throughout the Old Testament, with the exception of Leviticus 26.18, which is a conditional, if after these things, all the other occurrences on into the Book of Acts, all the other occurrences are historical sequence and historical reality. Ding! So when John uses after these things in the book of Revelation, what does he mean?

Historical sequence and historical reality, but in the future. In the future. There are those who have proposed the idea that Revelation is somehow a bunch of repeated things that overlap. This is the typical amillennial view where there's seven couplets and they all refer to the same period of time. After these things is one of the strong clues that revelation is to be understood in sequence. Historical sequence and historical reality. It is also, since it's historical reality and historical sequence future, it's to be taken as that and not as some have done, where it's just some vague description of the difficulties the Church will go through.

So, its use in Revelation is consistent, and by the way, one of the other places where that same phrase is used is in the Gospel of John, from the beginning to the end, and again, it was conveying a sequence in historical reality. Okay, back to our lesson.

This is number 20. As for the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So we should look for those clues throughout the book of Revelation and look for where something is explained.

They have a symbol and it's explained. It does something else for us, though, too, and that is what it looks like is not the intended message. What it means is the intended message. So it underscores what we've said previously, this is Jewish symbolism, not Greek symbolism.

So this puts into action, puts into practice, the ten points that we brought up last week. And as we go through the passage, what we find is that everything is very clear, and even in some cases have redundancy, in other words I'll have multiple passages that are telling me this. I'll have bringing together, okay, 70% out of the Old Testament, you know, look in the Old Testament for these things. This is something you can carry out, and it's, you can carry those things out throughout the whole book.

Rod of iron, okay? We said in Psalm 2 that the rod of iron, that Psalm 2 is about the end of the tribulation period and Christ's, you know, second coming. And it mentions the rod of iron. And you look in the New Testament, and guess what? At Christ's second coming, in chapter 19, there's the rod of iron, right?

So things connect. And Revelation is actually a very clear book every single verse. Yeah? So in verse 20, where it says, as for the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, is that that these people, these men, who are going to take the revelation to each of the towns on the postal, was that saying they have my authority to, or is there any connection? Because if the right hand is the hand of authority and protection and security, do they connect? You think about this, okay, so these messengers are taking this scroll to each one of the cities, right?

And by the way, if you're traveling along a Roman road, Is that without risk? That's with tons of risk. Tons of risk. Lots of risk. Because there are robbers and thieves. Robbers and thieves and that kind of thing just lurking at every corner. But he says, I've got them in my right hand. They are going to get there. Right? Okay, so that is there. These guys are going to get there. They're going to take this scroll. They're going to deliver it to each of the churches and they're going to read it. to each of the churches. Read the whole thing. Blessed is he who reads, singular, and those who hear, plural. The words of this book. By the way, it's the only book that starts off with a promised blessing.

Yes? So, I'm sorry, I probably missed this part, but the seven stars refers to the churches? No. The seven stars are the angels or the messengers of the seven churches. Thank you. The messengers of the seven churches. It's translated angels. It's angelos, which can mean angels or messengers. Again, some have proposed that that means the pastors, but several things about that don't work. Pastors are never called messengers, angelos. And churches do not have just one pastor, biblically. So that doesn't fit.

Yes? I heard someplace or read someplace, I can't remember, that Patmos was also a, maybe you said it was a mining area where a lot of people were sent to mine something, right? Wasn't it? That was one of the things Patmos was. I don't recall any details on that. I know that it was a prison island. You could have visitors, right? But they have soldiers stationed around to make sure that nobody's leaving with their visitors. I would say for John, he's old enough that they're probably not expecting that. That wouldn't be the case.

So, any thoughts, comments, questions on this? Does it appear very clear to you? It's really abundantly clear, and all those 10 points that we talked about, we've seen multiple examples of most of it. And John is very consistent. Jesus does not have a ramphiah coming out of his mouth at one place and a mechaira coming out at another. He continues to use the word mechaira. There's loud voices 19 times. They always come from heaven. John writes with great consistency. Unlike Paul who writes with complexity, John writes with simplicity. But all taken together, this book is a prophetic masterpiece. It is a phenomenal piece of work. It is an amazing piece of work.

So anyway, we're not going to obviously go through the whole book of Revelation, but we've had to hear the ten points to remember when interpreting the book, and then here are the example of how it works out in this passage, you could just keep going from one passage to the next, keep track of where you are, where's the location, and the book of Revelation down to every single verse makes good sense. It is not actually a mysterious book.

Yes? And I would assume that since John wrote this from the isle, that this is probably not the only thing that he ever wrote from there, and probably wrote things to the churches. So it's interesting that God only gave us this and not the letters. By the way, we do have other outside of scripture accounts of this part of John's life. Really interesting.

One of the accounts is he talked to one of the elders of one of the churches and there was a young man who had become a believer, and John told his elders, now look, you discipled this guy. You teach him. And then later on, John runs into this elder and asks him, did you disciple the guy?

And the elder says, no, I didn't. Well, where is he? Well, on this road out here, Between this place and this place, I forget where it is, on this road out there, he's ahead of a band of thieves. And so John went out there on that road and walked back and forth until this guy with his band of thieves came and tried to rob him. And John looked at him and said, I'm going to teach you. and then taught him and discipled him.

So anyway, it's an extra-biblical account, and you're correct. There are other writings by other people, and it may very well be that a lot of apostolic letters are just not in our possession. 1 and 2 Corinthians is two of four letters to the Corinthians, and we have evidence of the other two inside 1 and 2 Corinthians. So yes, and then Paul writes to Colossae and he says in the letter that I wrote to Laodicea, you know, read that, you know, we don't have it. So there are, yes, multiple indications that they wrote other things that we simply don't have. So you're right about that.

So there are things about the Apostles we have only in the New Testament. Just James is the only one who is killed, that's Acts chapter 12. John's brother is the first Apostle killed. We don't have in Scripture the record of any other Apostle being killed, but outside of Scripture we have some kind of tradition about every single one of them.

So do you think 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John was written when he was rather young? I think 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John and the Gospel of John were written before the Book of Revelation, but probably when he was in Ephesus. The Gospel of John, according to some of the people who were first or second generation disciples of John, was written from Ephesus later in his life. What does Jesus say to Paul when he meets him on the road to Damascus? Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And that's one thing to remember, Christ takes it personally. If we go through stuff, He takes it personally, especially persecution. And so, I think that's something for us to keep in mind as a perspective. We might be thinking, well, God doesn't care, I'm going through all this and that and the other thing. Oh yes, He does. He very much does. And He takes those things personally as against Him.

So that's something that I think first to keep in mind as a good perspective. In Acts, was it Peter, they rejoiced. When they first went through suffering for Christ, they were ecstatic because they were worthy to suffer as their Savior. So I think it's another perspective that the Apostles held. Yeah, we'll be going through Acts, if the Lord allows, and that's got some really rich stuff in it.

Other comments, questions? We have people waiting out there, so we'll probably call it quits. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this marvelous book, this prophetic masterpiece. that you inspired John to write and we just thank you for the clarity that you built into it and that we can understand verse to verse what it is that you intended to convey and we thank you for that and we know that you did it because you love us and care for us.