A.   I think the Book of Revelation is pretty much written in chronological order, but there are exceptions to this.

One exception is when there’s too much happening for John to explain it all at once, because we can only talk about one thing at a time.

I liken it to a sports commentator trying to explain everything that’s happening in a football game. There are 22 players on the field but he can only describe the actions of one of them at a time. So he uses instant replay and stop action tools to do it, backing up to show us something that’s already happened.

It’s the same with John. He has to describe things in heaven and things on earth all happening at the same time. So from time to time he’ll “stop the action” to show us everything that’s going on.

The other exception is when it makes more sense to follow a thought to its conclusion even though its end takes you out of the time frame of its beginning.  Rev. 20:7-17 is a good example of this. John followed Satan’s story to its end, spanning the entire 1000 year Millennium to do so, and including the Great White Throne Judgment. Then he backed up to the beginning of the Millennium to describe the New Jerusalem in Rev. 21.

There are several clues that confirm this.  First, Rev. 20:7 begins “When the thousand years are over…”.  Then Rev. 21 opens with a direct quote from Isaiah 65:17, which is about the millennium on Earth, and goes on to describe the New Jerusalem.  Rev. 22:1-2 is a summary of Ezekiel 47:1-12, another millennial passage.

A. Rev. 6:15-17 reads,

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

This wrath is described as their wrath, referring to both Father and Son. The Trumpet judgments do precede the the Abomination of Desolation that kicks off the Great Tribulation. Some describe the bowl judgments that follow as the Wrath of God.  But Rev. 15:1 says that with them God’s wrath will be completed, meaning that they bring about the end of God’s wrath, not its beginning. The phrase “great day of their wrath”  means the Wrath of God and the Wrath of the Lamb are the same thing, and include the Seal, Trumpet and Bowl judgments.

A. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:  “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.  For the accuser of our brothers,  who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” (Rev. 12:9-10)

John heard a voice in Heaven saying that Satan is our accuser.  According to this verse, the people he accuses are the believers, making sure God is always aware of our sins.  Unfortunately, he won’t be cast out of Heaven until just before the beginning of the Great Tribulation.

But don’t worry.  The Lord is right there to defend us every time we’re accused. In Romans 8:33-34 Paul wrote:

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Prologue

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw – that is the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ.  Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it, and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. (Rev 1:1-3)

It was 95 AD, over 60 years since Jesus had walked among His people. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed, leaving the Jews defeated. Paul was dead, beheaded in Rome nearly 30 years earlier. Peter had been crucified there about the same time. Of all the disciples only John was still alive. He had written his gospel and his 3 letters sometime earlier, and had served for a time as the Bishop of the church in Ephesus, having moved there with Mary, the Lord’s mother, about the time of the Temple’s destruction in 70 AD.

It’s not that the Romans and Jews had left John alone. Tradition has it that several times they’d tried to kill him, even throwing him live into a cauldron of boiling oil, but the Lord had prevented it, fulfilling His promise of John 21:22. (Responding to Peter’s question about what would become of John, Jesus had said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?“) Finally the Romans had exiled him to Patmos, a prison colony off the coast of modern Turkey, thinking they had heard the last of him.

But the Lord had other plans, and appeared personally to John, commanding him to write one final letter and send it to seven churches in Asia Minor. As an old man at the end of his life, John was about to undertake one of his greatest challenges. After writing the Revelation, he died of natural causes in about 100 AD.

By the way, your Preterist friends have had to give the book an early date to get around verse one because they contend that it was all fulfilled by 70 AD, but they needn’t have bothered. In the first place the later date is pretty well established, but the word translated soon or shortly actually means quickly or rapidly and describes the speed with which events will unfold once they begin, not their chronological nearness to John’s day.

Greeting to the Seven Churches

John, to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us to be a kingdom (or kings), and priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.  So shall it be. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev.1: 4-8)

Of the 404 verses in the Book of Revelation, 278 are taken from the Old Testament. In fact, Esther is the only Old Testament book not directly quoted. So it’s not surprising to find these Old Testament constructions like him who is and who was and who is to come and the seven spirits who are before his throne. The first is an approximate translation of God’s name and the second is a name for the Holy Spirit, literally the seven-fold Spirit of God. We’ll see plenty of these through out the book, and in chapter 19 we’ll see the untranslated Hebrew word Hallelujah (it means praise the Lord) used four times. It’s the only place it appears in the New Testament. In fact the Revelation has so many Old Testament nuances that some believe that John was actually translating from Hebrew into Greek as he wrote.

The phrase Alpha and Omega comes from the first and last letters of he Greek alphabet and refers to God the Father and recalls His claim to Israel. “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior. (Isaiah 43:10-11) Jesus will later use the phrase of Himself.

Vision of the Son of Man

I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.  On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea” (Rev. 1:9-11).

By this command it’s clear that John is actually going to witness some events that the Lord wants him to document and then distribute to the seven churches he has named. Some contend that John saw all this in a vision on one Sabbath Day, while others say he was actually transported through time to the Day of the Lord. I lean toward the latter.

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.  His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance (Rev. 1:12-16).

Though the man speaking to John was clothed in light and had a distinct otherworldly appearance, John recognized Him. He had seen Him looking like this once before, on the Mount Of Transfiguration. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. (Matt. 17:2) It was the Lord!

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead,  and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

“Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches (Rev. 1:17-20).

In this way, the Lord divides the Book John will write into three sections. The things John has seen, contained in chapter 1, those that are, which will fill chapters 2 and 3, and those that will take place after this, chapters 4-22.

The fact that the Lord is seen standing in the midst of the seven lampstands indicates His direct involvement with the church.  Holding the seven stars in His right hand speaks of the intimate relationship He has with its leaders. Whether you see them as the pastors or as angelic overseers, He’s got them in the palm of His hand.  The number 7 figures prominently in the Book of Revelation. In fact, before we’re finished we’ll see it used 52 times. And isn’t it interesting that 5 plus 2 equals guess what? Seven!

The Lord’s use of first and last here recall the two most important steps in the process of product development.  The Greek word translated first is protos, from which we get prototype. A prototype is the original. It sets the standard to which all subsequent copies are compared to make sure they conform.  Paul wrote, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). When we’re perfected we’ll be exact copies of our prototype, the Lord, and that’s the way God already sees us (2 Cor. 5:17).

And the word for last is eschatos, the superlative, the perfect example, the highest and best that can be achieved. Though we’re destined to look like Him and act like Him, we can never be Him.

And so ends chapter one, but we’re just getting started. There’s plenty more to come.  See you next time.

A. There are two places in the Revelation where God wipes away the tears of His people. One is in Rev. 7:17 and pertains to Tribulation Martyrs newly arrived in Heaven, and the other is in Rev. 21:4 speaking of believers in the New Jerusalem at the beginning of the Millennium. In both cases the idea is that once a child of God arrives at his/her eternal home the old order of things passes away and eternal bliss characterizes the future. Once we leave Earth there are no more tears.

What got to me is, John only mentioned “the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God” and he did not see the souls of other believers who had died due to old age, sickness of killed by accidents, etc. And too, how about the souls of people like Noah, Abraham, Job, David, Samuel, etc. etc. Aren’t they too suppose to be under the alter as well?

A. The souls John referred to in Rev. 6:9 are the first of the Tribulation Martyrs.  I’m not aware of any place that says people who die of other causes, or Old Testament saints, will also petition the Lord for vengeance in this way.

In  Rev. 6:11 they’re told to be patient until the number of all those who would be killed in this way (martyred) was completed.  This confirms that John only had Triblation Martyrs in view here.

A. The Revelation is a book of signs and symbols.  This is explained in the first verse where it says that Jesus signified it to John.  This means he rendered it into signs.

Revelation 4 is one of 4 views of the throne of God in the Bible. In Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1 there is no mention of thrones other than the Throne of God.  Daniel had a vision of the Throne in the end times and saw other “thrones”, but gave no detail. (Daniel 7:9)  John’s view is the only one to identify 24 other thrones and describe those seated upon them.  They were elders, indicating they were not angels but men.  They were seated, not standing, meaning they were in a position of authority. They were dressed in white and had crowns on their heads. The Greek word translated crown there means the victor’s crown, or the crown of the over comer.  When King David organized the priesthood into 24 divisions, the number 24 became associated with priests.  But priests didn’t wear crowns and didn’t sit on thrones, only kings did.

So in Rev. 4 we see 24 thrones on which are seated elders who are over comers and have the appearance of kings and priests, and who have never been present in any previous view of the Throne of God. In Rev. 5:9 they sing a new song, the words to which are,

“You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals;  For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.”

Only the Church can sing this song.  The 24 Elders signify the newly raptured Church.

We are grateful to you for all your help, and grateful to the Lord for you.

A. A careful reading of Rev. 20 shows that Verses 7-15 are a parenthetical insert  that John used to carry the dispositions of Satan and the unbelievers to their final conclusion while he was on the subject.  Then in Rev. 21 he returned to the beginning of the Millennium to describe the New Jerusalem, home of the Church.

There are several clues in the text that support this view.  First, Rev. 20:7 begins, “when the thousand years are over” indicating that John has skipped to the end of the  Millennium.  Second, Rev. 21:1 is a direct quote from Isaiah 65:17 where the context is clearly Israel’s Kingdom Age, aka the Millennium, and third the first 5 verses of Rev.22 are a summary of Ezekiel 47, which is also about the Kingdom Age in Israel. And then there’s the mention of the trees growing a different fruit each month in verse 2.  This reference to time confirms that John was not talking about eternity, which by definition is the absence of time.

Also, the word translated new in John’s quote of Isaiah 65:17 can also mean refreshed or renewed.  It refers to the time Jesus called the renewal of all things in Matt. 19:28 and Peter mentioned in Acts 3:21.This will take place at the time of the 2nd Coming.

In my opinion the traditional view that Rev. 21-22 are about our eternal state is incorrect. Rev. 21 describes the New Jerusalem during the Millennium and the first 5 verses of Rev. 22 are about Israel during the Millennium.  The Bible does not address Eternity except to say there is one.

” And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.”  Rev. 16:12 (KJV)

A. It’s pretty early for the Euphrates to be drying up due to supernatural intervention like Rev. 16 calls for.  More likely it’s just what it appears to be, the effects of drought combined with poor water policies.  This is not the first time such a thing has happened to the Euphrates.  About 10 years ago the National Geographic ran a story on Turkey’s ability to control the flow of the river, and how upset the down stream countries were about it.

A. Let’s correct two widely held but mistaken assumptions about Rev. 22:1-6.  Correction number one is this river will be in Israel on Earth, not in the New Jerusalem.  So as lovely as the passage is, it doesn’t describe the heavenly home of the Church. Our home is described in Rev. 21:9-27.

And the second is that due to the mention of time and growing cycles this passage has to be talking about the Millennium, not eternity.  These verses are a summarized version of Ezekiel’s view of the Kingdom Age in Israel which he described more fully in chapter 47.  Beyond telling us there is one, The Bible doesn’t give any detail about eternity.