Meet Revelation #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time. So let's get right to it.

Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. Let's meet the audience. Let's meet the audience of the book to whom this book in the original context was given. We'll talk much more about this when we get to later parts and get into the book more properly. But the first chapter gives us the audience.

The first section in chapters one, two, and three tell us who the immediate audience of this book was. And it's seven churches. There are seven churches that were the immediate recipients of this message, and for that I want you to look at chapter one, verse nine.

This is just getting into the background of these things was very, very fascinating to me, and I can't wait to teach in greater depth about it. There in verse nine we read, I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches.

There's our audience. Send it to the seven churches. The immediate recipients of this book were seven churches, and the voice tells John exactly who those churches are.

It enumerates them. So you see in verse 11, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea. Now, those city names to somebody new to the Bible, somebody that hasn't had opportunity yet to really learn much about Bible background, those names might sound completely unfamiliar. Maybe Ephesus sounds familiar. I remember as a young Christian for a long time not being able to make a clear distinction between biblical Philadelphia and the city in Pennsylvania in the modern day.

It has nothing to do with modern day Philadelphia whatsoever. These seven churches that are identified are identified by the cities in which they were located, and all of these cities, if you think about a modern day map and think about the nation of Turkey and that landmass called sometimes known as Asia Minor, kind of a football shaped piece of geography there, these seven churches were located on the western end of that geographic region, located on the western edge of modern Turkey, you could say. And before I say any more about that, there's something very interesting about this that I want to say in just a moment. What I want you to see is that when you go to Revelation 2 and 3, you see these cities repeated, and it's interesting that they are repeated in the exact same sequence in which they are identified in Revelation chapter 1 verse 11.

So we're going to go through this really, really quickly. Look at Revelation chapter 2 verse 1 as we see the audience for this book. Revelation chapter 2 verse 1, to the angel of the church in Ephesus. That word angel could be messenger and be referring not to a heavenly being, but a human, maybe a human leader.

We'll talk about that another time. All we want to see is Ephesus. Chapter 2 verse 8, to the angel in the church in Smyrna. Chapter 2 verse 12, the angel of the church in Pergamum. Verse 18, the angel of the church in Thyatira. Chapter 3 verse 1, the angel of the church in Sardis. Chapter 3 verse 7, the angel of the church in Philadelphia. Chapter 3 verse 14, the angel of the church in Laodicea. Seven churches identified collectively in one place in chapter 1 verse 11, and then identified again in individual sequence as the Lord gives particular messages addressed to them in their situation in their time. And so you have these seven churches identified and in a particular sequence that is repeated in chapter 2 and chapter 3.

What's very interesting to me, you don't have to think this is interesting and still benefit from the message, but I find this interesting and there's clearly an intention in the way that all of this is given. If you pick up a Bible atlas or maybe look if you've got a map in the back of your Bible that shows these cities, what you'll find is this. The island of Patmos was just in the sea a little bit to the west of the western edge of the land mass.

So that's where John was writing from, where he had been exiled. And then you go and you trace these cities on a map, what you find is this, is that they are listed in clockwise order around the map. So you start at Ephesus, you go up to Smyrna and around to Pergamum, down to Thyatira, Sardis, and all the way back and you come up to Philadelphia and you've almost gone in a complete circle.

Loosely speaking it's more like an oval, but you've gone clockwise around a circle in the geographic order in which these cities existed. Very fascinating to me. And what Christ does with these churches is he addresses them in the early part of the letter. He addresses these first century churches as they existed and speaks to them, commends them, rebukes them, encourages them, promises that those who conquer will inherit the kingdom, so to speak.

And so that's the immediate audience. But beloved, there's something really interesting also in that it's on the face of the text the audience of this book goes beyond those seven churches. These churches were to hear what was said to the other churches and the terms of the book tell us that others were supposed to hear and heed this, including us today. So that you see in chapter 2 verse 7, He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Then in verse 11 chapter 2, He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Verse 17, He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Verse 29, 8.9 He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches." Chapter three, verse six, He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Verse 13, He who has an ear, Let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Verse 22, He who has an ear Let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Seven times to seven churches, it said He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Now, you don't have to do this.

You can if you want to. I generally don't don't like these kinds of things with interacting with an audience when I preach. But if if any one of you in this room just took your left hand, took your right hand and lifted it up and touched to the side of your face, you would feel an ear. Both sides, two hands, you can do your right hand to your left ear. You could do your left hand to your right ear.

You could do both. You have an ear. In fact, you have two of them. And as a result of that, those of us with ears are called to hear what Christ says to the churches. And so this this means that the audience is broader than those seven churches. This is a direct message that God intends all to hear.

We all have ears. We are all meant to hear and to heed. And beloved, when you get into the the messages to the seven churches, what you're going to find, I can't wait to get there. What we will find is, is that there are very particular, specific, clear, practical matters of instruction for us, calls to repent for us, calls and encouragements to persevere to us. This book has a message for us today. Book of Revelation speaking broadly. And so there's an audience. We realize we need to know something about that original audience of those seven churches.

And we started that just with the geographic, you know, clock face stuff. That's a Greek word. I don't have time to exegete it for you.

The stuff. But we also see that we're being called as those with ears that we're being called to hear and heed. And this is another aspect, beloved, of what I was saying earlier about not coming with a proud, haughty attitude that says I want to get to the stuff that interests me. This book comes to you and addresses you with authority and says you hear, you listen, you hear, you heed what you find written in this book. This book isn't something that we place under our heat lamp that we try, you know, that we try to keep french fries warm with or anything like that.

And we submit it to our examination is my point. This book comes to examine us. This book comes to examine you and call you to think about your life in light of the coming return of Jesus Christ. It comes and calls you to to examine your life for a church to examine itself in light of the authoritative examination which the Lord Jesus Christ gives through this inspired word communicated through his authorized representative, the Apostle John.

That starts to change things, doesn't it? I hope that there are at least a small handful of people either in the room or who hear these things later and are chastened by that enough to say, I need to change my attitude in the way I approach this book. I need to change the way my attitude in the way that I approach the Bible itself. The Bible is not an object for my examination as though I'm the one who's in charge and I'm the judge and executioner here. The Bible comes and speaks to me with authority. The Bible tells me what to think, tells me what to do, tells me how to repent. And with that attitude, you study it in a completely different way rather than just the idle curiosity of wanting to advance the argument on the next speculation about the latest book about millennialism that was written.

You can't rightly understand and respond to this book until you have humbled yourself like that. And so that's the audience. Now, thirdly, we want to meet the times. Meet the times. We've met the author, we've met the audience.

Now, thirdly, we want to meet the times. And there's a social context that you can see just on the surface of the text. There's also a spiritual context that you can see right on the surface of the text. When John wrote to these churches, the church was in a time of increasing persecution from the Roman Empire, written in AD 95, 96, something like that during the reign of a Roman emperor named Domitian, who was known and history is recorded that he persecuted the church. Revelation is written in a time of increasing Roman persecution so that we read again in Revelation 1, verse 9. John says, I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom of the patient endurance that are in Jesus was on the island called Patmos.

He had been exiled there by the authorities. And so he is a partner at the time that he wrote to these churches in the tribulations that they were going through. This is not the great tribulation of which we'll talk about sometime, but just the pressure of being a Christian in a pagan empire that was hostile to Christianity. You read on in chapter 2, verse 10. As our Lord speaks to the church in Smyrna. He says, he says, Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested and for 10 days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death. And so there's this, there's this threat of imminent suffering that's taking place.

Prison would lie ahead for some in the audience. And then in verse 13 at the Church of Pergamum, we realize that there was already a martyr that had had actually died as a result of the persecution that was going on. So we read in verse 13, the Lord says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells. And so we see that the social context in the culture was one of great hostility against the church, suffering, imprisonment.

Martyrdom, and these are the times in which this book was written. On a spiritual side, the times are these, and, you know, we'll talk again, we'll talk about this more later. But the churches had been in existence long enough to experience spiritual decline from the greater heights that they had once been at. And again, you see this in what in how Christ addresses the churches.

In chapter two, verse four, at the Church of Ephesus, Jesus says this, I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love that you had at the first. There was a love in this church for Christ, but time had gone on and somehow they had lost and abandoned that love in response. That doesn't happen overnight.

That doesn't happen quickly in a matter of months. This is something that took place over the course of some time, indicating that there had been time taking place. Time has passed that allowed a church to go from its heights down to a lower plain where they were now living.

There was a spiritual decline in some of these churches. Look at chapter three, verse one, to the church in Sardis. Chapter three, verse one, to the angel of the church in Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Early on, apparently, this was a flourishing church, a living dynamic church. But now when Christ writes to them, he says, you're not alive, you're dead. Again, that doesn't happen overnight. There had been a passage of time to allow decline to occur, and in like manner.

And in terms of speaking about spiritual decline anyway, in Revelation 3, verse 15, the church at Laodicea, Jesus says, I know your works. You're neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot, but because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. You say I'm rich, I've prospered, I need nothing.

Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. And it goes on and Jesus gives them counsel in what to do in that condition. So there's some apostasy, there's coldness, there's decline in some of these churches, not all of them. But the whole point here is that we're deeper into the apostolic age. We're toward the end of the apostolic age. There must have been an interval of time to allow for decline to take place. And that decline took place over a period of time. That's one reason among many that the book of Revelation was not written prior to the fall of Jerusalem, which is one reason among many that the doctrine of preterism is inaccurate. It is not true. And you can read all about that in the book that I just released called When Christ Shall Come. I just mentioned that simply to say that that brief provocative statement that I just made is fully supported in other places that I'm not taking time to address right now. This was not written prior to the fall of Jerusalem.

This was near the end of the apostolic age. Now, we met the author. We've met the audience.

We've met the times just ever so briefly. And you can see that if there's a time of decline and there's disease in the church, how important this book must be. Fourthly, we want to meet the content.

Meet the content, again, ever so briefly. The content of this book on its own terms, the book of Revelation, is a book about future prophecy. On its own terms, what it says about itself, Revelation is a book about future prophecy. So that we read, again, in Revelation 1, verse 3, we read this. We read, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy. And blessed are those who hear and keep what is written, for the time is near. It's prophecy, the time is near, meaning the time is still future, meaning that this is looking forward to future events, not describing past events that have taken place.

It's looking to the future. Look at Revelation 10, verse 11. And I know that as we rush through these things, it might be in the back of your mind, I thought this was easy listening.

Well, it is. You just have to stay with me. Revelation 10, verse 11. We read, John was told, you must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings. Prophesy. Chapter 19, verse 10.

And if you just want to listen as I read along, you can do that. We read at the end of verse 10, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Chapter 22, verse 7. We read this in Revelation 22, verse 7. Jesus says, behold, I am coming soon.

Looking forward, I'm coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. Verse 10, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Verses 18 and 19, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to them the plagues.

Verse 19, if anyone takes away the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life. Prophecy, prophecy, prophecy. Looking forward, the time is near.

I'm coming soon. This is looking to the future, not describing things that have happened in the past. And in addition to that, again, as we remember those very key and central chapters in chapters two and three, this book of Revelation instructs the churches about their present condition and sets forth for them the prophetic future of God's final purpose. So God addresses the churches in verses two and three, and then He says, here's what's going to happen in the world in what follows in chapter four and beyond. And so the content addresses the churches, rebukes them, deals inside the church, you might say, and then expands out to look at the future of the purpose of God in the world as we know it. That's the content. It's prophetic, it's instructive, edifying to the church.

That's the content. And then fifthly and finally, we want to meet the method. Meet the method. And what I mean by that is, how was this book given to us? What was the means by which this was made known to John so that he could make it known to us? Because in his human ability, obviously, John could not literally step forward in his human ability into future time and see what was happening and then step back into it. We don't have the ability to teleport ourselves into the future. None of us can step into tomorrow now and then come back and tell us who won the game.

If we could do that, you could bankrupt the bookmakers, right? We don't do that. And so what's the method? What is the method by which we receive this book?

The apostle John goes to great lengths to say that this book is not a human production. And we're just going to look at it all so quickly. Go back again to chapter one. You start to see how important these opening verses are.

And I just want to point out, and I'll just ask you to, we won't try to have you keep up with me. You can just jot these verses down and listen as I read them. John goes to great lengths throughout the book to say that he was in the Spirit when he received these things. Chapter one, verse 10, we read, John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. I was in the Spirit.

Chapter four, verse two, John says, at once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne. He was in the Spirit. In chapter 17, verse three, we read this. He says, and he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names. He was in the Spirit. And finally, in chapter 21, verse 10, as he talks about the eternal state, he says again, he carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. He was in the Spirit as he received these revelations to the churches. He was in the Spirit when he saw the throne of God in chapter four. He's transported into the future in the Spirit in chapter 17, transported somehow into the eternal state in chapter 21. This is breathtaking, beloved, when you think about the significance of it all, the magnificence that John, a man of like flesh like us, had experiences like that and truth like that deposited and that he was responsible for to have it distributed to the churches.

What does it mean to be in the Spirit? Well, somehow, somehow, John's inward senses and his inward perception were opened to the spiritual realm that is normally beyond the reach of human ability. The Holy Spirit gave him perception to see things that others could not see. And beloved, this is really important, but our time is going to make you think that may or may not have been too important.

He didn't say spend that much time on it. He received this revelation of things in the spiritual realm, things from eternity, things in the future, things about the present aspect of the church. He received it in a way, the Spirit gave it to him in a way that he was able to describe in human terms. There was a limit to the human language as he gave it. You can see him struggling as he's describing these visions, said, I saw something that was like this.

It looked something like this. And so he's seeing things that are beyond human ability, and yet he's given it to us in such a way that human words are adequate for us to receive the message. The Spirit lifted John beyond time to see future history before it happened. And that in the Spirit, what we'll see as we go along through the text, the Holy Spirit facilitated John's remembrance of the Old Testament and Old Testament imagery so that he was able to interpret the things that he had seen for the edification of the people who would read this book over the course of subsequent centuries and millennia. The point for today, beloved, as we wrap this up, is that the book of Revelation is a supernatural book with supernatural content that is beyond the ability of human intellect alone to understand. The book of Revelation is a book that is closed and locked that keeps out the unregenerate, that keeps out the ungodly from a proper understanding of it, and therefore it is so important for us to examine ourselves. Am I in Christ as I come to this book to understand it? Am I walking in the Spirit in order to understand what the Spirit has given? Am I in step with the Spirit who gave this to John? Beloved, that's the only hope that we have of understanding this book, is that God would give us supernatural enablement, supernatural help, supernatural illumination to understand the supernatural revelation that he gave to John that is preserved for us in this book. We're at the threshold of the household. In other words, as we want to enter in, enter into the living room of this book to sit down, to get comfortable, to learn from it. But as I said earlier in the message, beloved, you and I, we need to check our feet.

We need to look at our shoes. Is there the mud of sin in my life? I need to wipe that off. I need to repent before I embark on this study. That's what the book requires.

Am I coming to this book with a sense of dependence? God, help me to understand that which is given here. Those spiritual characteristics are the product of meeting the book of Revelation. And I invite you, I encourage you, I call you to examine your heart, examine your life in light of the things that we've seen, to repent where that is necessary, and then come with a humble, dependent spirit before the word of God, with the spirit that says, speak, Lord, your servant listens. Let's pray together. Gracious Lord, it's a wonderful joy for us to open this book, to anticipate the study, and we just ask for that kind of help. May you help each one of us to rightly examine ourselves. Father, knowing that it's so easy to fall into the trap of spiritual indifference, spiritual pride, even spiritual cynicism and skepticism. Well, Lord, we need to repent of all of that, and we pray that by your spirit we would, and that as we move into a greater study, further study of this book in the weeks and months to come, that you would indeed help us, that you would wash us, that you would cleanse us and prepare us, that we would purify ourselves as we look toward the return of our glorious Lord Jesus.

In his name we pray, amen. Well, my friends, before we go for today, I just wanted to let you know about a companion resource to this series that we're doing on the book of Revelation. There is a perennial interest in the end times from a biblical perspective, and there's so many different opinions about things that are out there. There's amillennialism and premillennialism and postmillennialism and various views of the rapture, and it's hard to sort all of that out.

I get it. Well, I wrote a brief book that functions both as an introduction to end times and also examines an aspect of end times that you're going to want to get. The book is titled When Christ Shall Come, and it gives you an overview of biblical end times, deals with matters like Israel today and the question about dispensationalism, and also has an expanded study on the topic of preterism, if you're familiar with that term. And so you can go to our website, thetruthpulpit.com, and look for the link to my books. And when you click on that, you'll find a link that would allow you to purchase a copy of When Christ Shall Come. It is a resource that will help you. So go to our website, thetruthpulpit.com, and look for the link titled Books. We'll see you next time. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's word.