Pastor Nate continues his study in the final book of the Bible, Revelation.
[00:00:00] You are listening to the Through the Bible Studio series with Pastor Nate Holdridge. Join us as we continue our study through the New Testament book of Revelation. Here's Nate.
[00:00:13] The book of Revelation really provides us with a wonderful opportunity to see where the gospel of Jesus Christ is going to take those who believe and trust in Him.
[00:00:30] You might remember there in the book of Genesis that the book started out, the Bible started out in absolute paradise.
[00:00:39] And after the fall of man, God placed angels at the entrance to the Garden of Eden so that man would not go back into the garden to eat of the tree of life.
[00:00:50] But in that place and in that paradise before the fall there was the river from God, there was the tree of life.
[00:00:58] It was a beautiful, wonderful place that man was living in.
[00:01:03] And God through the gospel is desiring to take us as a race and as a people back to such a place but even better.
[00:01:14] This is how Revelation 22 ends the Bible.
[00:01:19] It says in verse 1,
[00:01:45] The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
[00:01:49] And so really in one sense the book of Genesis and the book of Revelation go together.
[00:01:53] They are wonderful bookends to the entirety of God's word.
[00:01:57] We see what we lost in the book of Revelation but we see where God is taking us through the glory of the gospel and His saving grace in the book of Revelation.
[00:02:08] And so a wonderful opportunity in studying this book.
[00:02:13] Now in approaching the book of Revelation we of course must recognize that this book has been radically confusing for so many people.
[00:02:22] Maybe as you read the book of Revelation you feel a little bit like I did on that day in elementary school when they began to introduce the concept of long division.
[00:02:33] In addition I understood. Subtraction I was down with.
[00:02:37] The multiplication tables I had under my belt but once we got to long division I felt like they were speaking a totally different language.
[00:02:46] And for many Christians that's how we experience the book of Revelation.
[00:02:50] We read the gospels, we read the epistles, we work our way through the New Testament and get to the book of Revelation.
[00:02:58] And we begin to scratch our heads. We don't understand how to read it, how to see it, how to view it or how to understand it.
[00:03:06] Now I want you to know as I embark on teaching this particular book that I'm going to teach this from a futurist view.
[00:03:13] In other words I believe that the elements that are found in the book of Revelation are yet to be fulfilled.
[00:03:21] They are yet future. They are literal and they are chronological.
[00:03:27] In other words I do believe that there's some symbolism in the book of Revelation and when we get to those obvious symbols we will interpret them as symbols.
[00:03:40] As we would in the rest of Scripture.
[00:03:42] But where we have the ability to just simply keep a literal approach like we would with the rest of the Bible,
[00:03:51] we'll keep that perspective in that approach.
[00:03:54] And so I approach this as a futurist interpreting it in a literal chronological sense.
[00:04:01] I'm not going to interpret this book in a historical sense.
[00:04:05] You know believing that every single image that's held out to us has some kind of historical significance.
[00:04:12] I'm not going to teach this from a spiritual or symbolic approach.
[00:04:17] Believing that every single image that we see has some kind of spiritual or symbolic meaning that is hidden behind it.
[00:04:25] And I'm not going to teach this from the perspective that all of this was fulfilled or most of this was fulfilled in the first century,
[00:04:36] especially at the destruction of Jerusalem and especially the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
[00:04:43] I'm going to teach this from the perspective.
[00:04:45] My personal belief is that this book was written years, decades after the temple was destroyed
[00:04:53] and I think there's strong external and internal evidence to indicate that.
[00:04:58] And so I don't believe that it's possible in the mind of John as he wrote this book
[00:05:03] that these things would have indicated the destruction of the temple or a description of the course of human history
[00:05:11] or just some kind of wildly spiritual or symbolic book.
[00:05:15] And the thing about any of those views of this book is that depending on the commentator,
[00:05:21] you're going to come up with wildly different interpretations of each and every passage throughout the book.
[00:05:29] A futurist view of the book leads to a fair uniformity in interpretation of what these different events actually mean
[00:05:41] as we study the book of Revelation.
[00:05:43] And so I think that's a great indicator.
[00:05:45] So I don't need to ditch all of the ways in which I've interpreted the Bible up to this point.
[00:05:50] I can embrace those same tools and methods now as I approach the book of Revelation.
[00:05:57] And we start out in verse one without further ado with the simple line that I think helps us understand where this book is going.
[00:06:05] John writes and says, The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
[00:06:08] This is the title for the book, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, The Apocalypse in the Greek.
[00:06:16] It literally means the unveiling, the unveiling.
[00:06:21] And that's important right at the outset because when you look in the book of Daniel, for instance,
[00:06:26] Daniel chapter 12 verse four and verse nine,
[00:06:30] God would tell Daniel at the close of some of those prophecies,
[00:06:34] he would say seal up the vision, seal up the prophecy.
[00:06:39] But not so here in the book of Revelation.
[00:06:42] It is an unveiling.
[00:06:44] And specifically it's an unveiling of Jesus Christ, the revelation he says of Jesus Christ.
[00:06:53] And really in one sense this is an insight into Christ that you're not going to find elsewhere in the New Testament.
[00:07:03] You have Jesus and Matthew and Mark and Luke and John.
[00:07:07] You have Jesus there in the gospels and what a wonderful sense we come away with of who Jesus is from studying the gospels.
[00:07:16] But here in the book of Revelation, we see a side to Jesus as we'll see in a moment that you really don't find in the gospels.
[00:07:24] You can only find it in the book of Revelation.
[00:07:27] And for me what this book will do and does is it helps my heart to be full of the victory that is Christ's yet future.
[00:07:39] He won the victory on the cross, but so much of that victory or the reaping of the harvest of that victory is yet to come.
[00:07:47] And in reading the book of Revelation we get to see that victory in all of its glory.
[00:07:53] It's like teavowing a sports game and knowing the result of the game before you actually watch the game.
[00:08:01] And when you're watching it on your TV, you already know who won.
[00:08:05] And that's the way it is in this world and in this life. We already know who won.
[00:08:09] And so the book of Revelation is going to reveal Jesus.
[00:08:13] And so he says,
[00:08:44] The words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it for the time is near.
[00:08:53] And so he says here that verse one, he's going to write down the things that must soon take place.
[00:08:59] And at the end of verse three, he says,
[00:09:01] For the time is near.
[00:09:03] So we have this idea that these events are coming.
[00:09:07] They are coming soon and the time is near.
[00:09:12] Now of course we're sitting here at least at the time of this teaching almost 2000 years after John wrote the book of Revelation.
[00:09:20] And so for us, we feel like, gosh, this hasn't happened quickly.
[00:09:24] This hasn't happened soon.
[00:09:26] This hasn't been something that feels especially near.
[00:09:30] God tells us in 2 Peter chapter three verse eight and nine that we're not to count his patience as slackness but as long suffering.
[00:09:40] And so God is being patient.
[00:09:42] God is being gentle.
[00:09:43] God is being kind in waiting for the events of the book of Revelation to take place.
[00:09:48] We're not to count it as slackness but to count it as long suffering.
[00:09:52] But I think there's an element in what he's saying that they'll take place shortly and that the time is near.
[00:09:58] In which what he's saying is when these events occur, they will happen at a quick pace.
[00:10:05] We're to believe that they're to happen at any moment and they're to happen soon.
[00:10:09] But we're to also know that when they happen, they will unfold at a fairly rapid pace.
[00:10:15] And we'll see that and chase out that idea as we study this book.
[00:10:19] But did you notice verse three that there's a blessing attached to the study of this book?
[00:10:24] He says, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and those who hear it and those who keep what is written in it.
[00:10:35] And so in that we have really the only book in the Bible that contains inside of it this particular blessing just for reading it.
[00:10:44] Just for spending time reading it, there's a great blessing upon it.
[00:10:47] It's such a shame that many churches and traditions will just absolutely avoid the book of Revelation because they don't feel there's a blessing in it.
[00:10:55] They feel it's a curse but there's a great blessing in reading, hearing and keeping the book of Revelation.
[00:11:01] Verse four, John to the seven churches that are in Asia.
[00:11:08] Now this is especially interesting.
[00:11:10] He's going to actually address seven churches during his day that were in Asia, Asia Minor.
[00:11:18] This means modern day Turkey.
[00:11:20] And so he's going to address these seven churches, especially in Revelation two and three.
[00:11:26] But this whole book, the Apocalypse is for these seven churches.
[00:11:30] This is fascinating in one sense because understand that he has a very gentile audience in mind as he writes this book.
[00:11:41] This is not a book that is about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.
[00:11:45] He is writing to a gentile audience who is concerned with completely and entirely different things.
[00:11:51] And so he begins by opening up to these seven churches.
[00:11:55] Grace to you, he says.
[00:11:57] And peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.
[00:12:02] And from the seven spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of kings on the earth.
[00:12:12] And so John says that this book is from grace and peace to you from and then he includes the entire Trinity with wonderful titles for the entire Trinity.
[00:12:23] Notice first with the father, he calls him the one who is the one who was and the one who is to come.
[00:12:30] This speaks of the eternal nature of God.
[00:12:34] And this will be repeated quite often in the book of Revelation.
[00:12:37] And then he refers to the Holy Spirit as the seven spirits who are before the throne, the seven spirits.
[00:12:46] Now this many times throws people for a loop.
[00:12:49] How could he refer to the Holy Spirit as the seven spirits before the throne of God?
[00:12:55] But I believe that this is a simple reference to Isaiah 11 verse 1 and 2, which when he speaks of the spirit of God,
[00:13:04] he speaks of the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord.
[00:13:12] Those seven elements indicate the sevenfold ministry of the singular Holy Spirit.
[00:13:20] And then in verse 5 he calls Jesus the witness, the firstborn and the ruler.
[00:13:28] The witness, he says, the faithful witness.
[00:13:32] And of course this is very much connects with John in his writings.
[00:13:37] He refers to Jesus as the Word who is God and the Word who was God, the perfect expression or logos of God.
[00:13:48] And so this is a concept that is very familiar to John and very familiar to the New Testament.
[00:13:55] Hebrews 1 verse 3, that Jesus is the express image of the person of God.
[00:14:02] He's the faithful witness. He testifies so to speak of who God is.
[00:14:07] The firstborn from the dead, he also says in verse 5 that Jesus, he's the first to not just rise from the dead.
[00:14:15] Lazarus and others beat him to that reality, but they were merely resuscitated only to die again.
[00:14:23] Jesus is the first to defeat death, actually die and then rise and defeat death forever.
[00:14:31] The firstborn from the dead.
[00:14:32] And he says the ruler of the kings on earth, he's the king of kings and the Lord of lords.
[00:14:39] We'll see in Revelation 19 when he returns.
[00:14:42] It says Nebuchadnezzar said in Daniel chapter 4 verse 31, he said,
[00:14:48] the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he chooses.
[00:14:54] And so Jesus is the ruler of kings on the earth.
[00:15:00] Then John goes on at the end of verse 5 and says,
[00:15:03] To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood
[00:15:09] and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and father.
[00:15:15] To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
[00:15:20] And so John just breaks out into a little bit of praise and he just extols Jesus.
[00:15:26] He praises him for freeing us by his blood, setting us free.
[00:15:32] The Old Testament sacrifices covered sin, but Jesus' sacrifice purges us from sin.
[00:15:42] What a glorious reality.
[00:15:45] We're to reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ.
[00:15:50] And he praises him for making us into a kingdom and people who are priests to God the Father.
[00:15:57] And so he says to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
[00:16:01] The idea of us being priests before God, a kingdom of priests,
[00:16:05] merely means that we're serving in the presence of God.
[00:16:08] You know, we're offering our spiritual sacrifices in worshiping the Lord.
[00:16:13] He says verse 7, behold, he is coming with the clouds
[00:16:19] and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him
[00:16:23] and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.
[00:16:27] Even so, amen.
[00:16:29] And so John gives us a promise here in verse 7 that when Jesus returns,
[00:16:34] first of all he says he is coming.
[00:16:37] This is a good point for us to embrace.
[00:16:40] Jesus Christ is coming. He will return.
[00:16:43] But when he comes, he says in verse 7, he's coming with the clouds
[00:16:47] and every eye will see him.
[00:16:49] This speaks of a very public return of Jesus.
[00:16:53] And Jesus indicated that in Matthew 24 when he talked about the coming of the Son of Man,
[00:16:59] he says don't listen to those who say he's over here or he's over there in some secret sense.
[00:17:05] Oh, it drives me crazy to hear of those who promote really anything that's a secret
[00:17:12] and unknown to the church.
[00:17:14] But especially the idea that Jesus has already returned in secret
[00:17:20] and is in some secret place.
[00:17:22] Jesus said that's not what it will be like.
[00:17:24] Don't be deceived by people preaching that message.
[00:17:27] When I come, it will be like lightning flashing in the heavens.
[00:17:31] It will be obvious and apparent to everyone.
[00:17:34] There will be the sound of an archangel, the blowing of the trumpet
[00:17:38] and the voice and a shout from heaven, Paul says to the Thessalonian church.
[00:17:43] The coming of Christ will be very visible, very vocal.
[00:17:47] He says every eye will see him here in verse 7, even those who pierced him.
[00:17:53] The people of Israel, even those who pierced him.
[00:17:56] And of course all of us put Jesus upon the cross.
[00:17:59] And all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him, John writes.
[00:18:03] There will be a mourning that comes when Jesus returns, a grief, a guilt.
[00:18:09] They will be crying because of a judgment when Jesus returns.
[00:18:14] Verse 8, I, Jesus speaks, am the Alpha and the Omega.
[00:18:21] This is the Greek version of A to Z, the first and the last letter of their alphabet.
[00:18:27] Says the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come.
[00:18:32] You see that title there?
[00:18:34] The Almighty.
[00:18:36] And John writes in verse 9.
[00:18:39] So that's our greeting.
[00:18:40] Now in verse 9 he declares a vision that he received.
[00:18:44] I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation
[00:18:48] and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus
[00:18:51] was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God
[00:18:55] and the testimony of Jesus.
[00:18:57] So John had at some point because of preaching the word of God
[00:19:02] and because of testifying of Jesus was banished to the island called Patmos.
[00:19:10] And church tradition at least says that they tried to kill him by boiling him in oil
[00:19:16] and it was ineffective.
[00:19:18] He was kept alive by God supernaturally
[00:19:22] and so he was banished as a prisoner to the island of Patmos.
[00:19:26] And you know from that vantage point
[00:19:28] he could almost in his mind's eye look to the east
[00:19:32] and see the region or the land that would lead him to Asia Minor.
[00:19:38] And so there he is writing this letter.
[00:19:40] Verse 10.
[00:19:41] I was in the spirit on the Lord's day
[00:19:44] and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying
[00:19:48] write what you see in a book
[00:19:50] and send it to the seven churches
[00:19:53] to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum
[00:19:56] and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia
[00:20:00] and to Laodicea.
[00:20:01] And so John has this vision on the Lord's day.
[00:20:05] He's in the spirit on the Lord's day.
[00:20:07] Now the Lord's day could mean one of a couple of things.
[00:20:11] It could mean that on Sunday, the Lord's day,
[00:20:14] the day of Jesus' resurrection,
[00:20:16] he's having his own personal church service.
[00:20:19] He's in the spirit and he receives this vision
[00:20:22] a loud voice he hears and he receives a vision
[00:20:25] and is instructed to write the things that he's about to see.
[00:20:29] It could also mean that he was in the spirit on the day of the Lord.
[00:20:33] In other words, he in a spiritual sense saw the day of the Lord
[00:20:38] a very Old Testament concept
[00:20:41] but an idea of a day of judgment and a day of wrath.
[00:20:44] So he's instructed to just write down the things
[00:20:47] that he sees in a book
[00:20:48] and give them to these seven churches in Asia Minor.
[00:20:52] Then I turn to see the voice that was speaking to me.
[00:20:58] On turning, I saw seven golden lamb stands.
[00:21:02] We see these seven golden candlesticks
[00:21:05] and we'll see in a moment what those represent.
[00:21:08] And in the midst of the lamb stands, one like a son of man.
[00:21:13] You remember that title for Jesus?
[00:21:15] The Son of Man.
[00:21:16] John uses that same title here
[00:21:18] and there's a recognition with John.
[00:21:20] He says, I know this character.
[00:21:22] I recognize this character.
[00:21:24] One like the Son of Man.
[00:21:26] A title that originated there in Ezekiel and Daniel
[00:21:29] that Jesus used of himself over 80 times in the New Testament.
[00:21:34] And so John looks at this character and says,
[00:21:36] I recognize him.
[00:21:38] He looks different.
[00:21:39] He's like the Jesus that I knew but he's all together different.
[00:21:44] I see a similarity but he's different.
[00:21:47] He says, first of all, he was clothed with a long robe
[00:21:51] and with a golden sash around his chest.
[00:21:55] This is beautiful because the long robe
[00:21:58] could easily signify the priestly garments of Christ.
[00:22:01] We learn in the book of Hebrews that Jesus is
[00:22:04] our great high priest who lives to make intercession for us
[00:22:08] and so there he is in those priestly garments.
[00:22:10] But notice he's got a golden band girded around his chest
[00:22:16] and this indicates of course anytime you see someone
[00:22:19] girding up their clothes in the Bible and Bible times
[00:22:23] they would take their garments and gather them together,
[00:22:26] tie them up together when it was time for hard work.
[00:22:30] And so Jesus, the Lord our God who never slumbers nor sleeps,
[00:22:35] he's girded up working on our behalf.
[00:22:38] He says, verse 14, the hairs of his head were white
[00:22:43] like white wool like snow.
[00:22:47] This whiteness in the hair of Jesus as he sees the eternal
[00:22:52] Son of God the revealing, this is the revelation
[00:22:55] of Jesus Christ, he sees his hair white
[00:22:58] and of course this indicates a couple of things
[00:23:01] in scripture, white like snow indicates a purity
[00:23:05] that Jesus is perfect and pure.
[00:23:08] But white like wool or the whiteness of hair in scripture
[00:23:13] indicates an oldness that Jesus is ancient,
[00:23:18] he's the ancient of days right?
[00:23:20] He's one who we would look out and say
[00:23:22] I've got such great respect for him
[00:23:25] and you know has such great experience
[00:23:28] and I would just say this with the eternal wisdom of Jesus
[00:23:32] we ought to follow him and follow him completely.
[00:23:35] His eyes, he said, verse 14 were like a flame of fire.
[00:23:42] This indicates that he sees all things,
[00:23:44] that he judges all things perfectly and purely.
[00:23:47] His feet, verse 15, were like burnished bronze
[00:23:51] speaking of judgment, refined in a furnace
[00:23:55] and his voice was like the roar of many waters.
[00:23:59] Just imagine a powerful waterfall, the crushing mighty
[00:24:03] deafening sound and that's the voice of Jesus there in heaven.
[00:24:08] In his right hand he held seven stars
[00:24:11] and from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword.
[00:24:16] So he's holding in his hand, his right hand seven stars
[00:24:19] we'll see in a moment what these indicate
[00:24:21] and from his mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword.
[00:24:24] Speaking of course we read in Hebrews chapter 4
[00:24:27] the sword of God's word.
[00:24:29] It's like a double-edged sword piercing down to the
[00:24:33] most minute divisions inside of a man.
[00:24:37] So he's got the word of God coming out of his mouth
[00:24:40] and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
[00:24:45] It speaks of the glory of Jesus,
[00:24:47] the countenance of Christ, the glory of God
[00:24:50] and so just a wonderful description
[00:24:53] of the exalted, ascended, resurrected Jesus.
[00:24:58] Quite different from the Jesus we read of
[00:25:00] in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
[00:25:02] Now I've purposefully sort of flown through that description
[00:25:05] because elements of that description of Jesus
[00:25:09] will be recounted for us in Revelation 2 and 3
[00:25:14] and so we'll camp out on some of those descriptions
[00:25:17] later on in this book.
[00:25:19] When I saw him, verse 17
[00:25:22] I fell at his feet as though dead.
[00:25:26] He's humbled, he's broken, he falls down dead
[00:25:30] like Daniel before him at this vision.
[00:25:33] But he laid his right hand on me saying,
[00:25:36] fear not, I am the first and the last
[00:25:40] and the living one.
[00:25:42] I died and behold I am alive forevermore
[00:25:45] and I have the keys of death and Hades
[00:25:48] and so notice he also has these keys
[00:25:50] and we'll see those in a moment as well.
[00:25:53] Right therefore the things that you have seen,
[00:25:56] those that are and those that are to take place
[00:25:59] after this.
[00:26:01] Now I'll discuss this more in our next session
[00:26:04] but really what we have in Revelation 1, verse 19
[00:26:07] is a perfect outline of the book.
[00:26:10] He says first of all, write the things that you have seen,
[00:26:13] that's chapter one.
[00:26:15] Write the things that are, that's chapter two and three.
[00:26:18] Write the things that are to take place after this.
[00:26:21] That's chapter four all the way to the end of the book.
[00:26:25] And so the book of Revelation, the only book that comes
[00:26:28] with its own divine outline.
[00:26:31] He says as for the mystery of the seven stars
[00:26:33] that you saw in my right hand
[00:26:35] and the seven golden lampstands
[00:26:37] who is about to tell us what those represent.
[00:26:39] He says the seven stars are the angels
[00:26:42] of the seven churches which could literally mean
[00:26:44] the most important thing in the book.
[00:26:46] The seven churches which could literally mean
[00:26:48] the messengers of the seven churches.
[00:26:51] Perhaps the pastors or perhaps an angel,
[00:26:53] an angelic being over each one of the churches
[00:26:56] and the seven lampstands are the seven churches
[00:27:00] and so Jesus there in the midst of these seven churches
[00:27:03] in Asia Minor holding their pastors
[00:27:06] or their angels in his right hand
[00:27:08] watching over them, guarding them, protecting them
[00:27:11] and ready to speak to them.
[00:27:13] And so we get to embark now on an exciting journey
[00:27:16] in Revelation 2 and 3 to see the word
[00:27:19] that Jesus wants to speak to the seven churches
[00:27:22] in Asia Minor.
[00:27:24] But the revelation of Jesus Christ,
[00:27:27] what an opportunity to see where the gospel
[00:27:30] of Jesus is taking his people.
[00:27:33] God bless you and amen.
[00:27:35] Thank you for listening.
[00:27:37] For additional resources and teachings
[00:27:40] or to contact us,
[00:27:42] please visit us at NateHoldridge.com