What to Do with the Revelation

Transcript

GR 1977
10/02/2016
What to Do with the Revelation
Revelation 1:2-4
Gil Rugh



We've just begun a study of the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ, so I invite you to turn to Revelation 1. And we've just looked into the introductory comments of this letter given by Christ to John to be given to His servants, passed on to you and me. We noted that it is the revelation of Jesus Christ, verse 1, “which God gave to Him to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.” You'll note, it is important we come to the book of the Revelation, it is a revelation, it is the apocalypse. That is the Greek word basically which means a revelation, an uncovering. It is sad that so many people see the book of Revelation as something mysterious and unknowable and confusing, when God begins at the very beginning of this book and says it is an uncovering, something He wants us to know, to understand, to be impacted by. It is a book that has to do with things which will shortly, soon take place; it is a book of prophecy. Prophecy is not to be something mysterious and hidden, it is to be something that we know and understand and live in light of and anticipate.

It just always amazes me, we come to the book of the Revelation and people think the book is confusing. Not everything is easy. The book of Revelation will require us to apply some effort. It will involve us in applying some effort to understand, but it is for His servants, His slaves, those who have been redeemed by His grace, who have come to salvation in Christ, who have the Spirit of God now indwelling them. He is the One who teaches us. It is so foundational.

A person who is not a believer in Jesus Christ, has not trusted Him and experienced cleansing from his sin does not have the Spirit of God dwelling in Him to be his teacher and the whole Scripture is confusing. But for those of us who have placed our faith in Christ, we are told we have the Spirit of God living within us. We looked at this in our previous study, 1 Corinthians 2, it is so that He might teach us concerning the things of God. The way He does that is we study what God has revealed in His Word, the Spirit of God enables us to understand and grasp this truth.

So,we are looking at the book of the uncovering, the revelation that has come from Jesus Christ from His Father and it is for us as the servants of God to know more of what God has planned for the future. And this is the book, as we have noted, that ties it all together. What began in the book of Genesis, God's work of creation, and then the sadness of sin entering will now be brought to its ultimate conclusion with God's final judgment on sin, His wrath poured out on an unbelieving world, the final sentencing of unbelieving men and women to an eternal hell, and the entering into eternal glory and all that was lost when Adam and Eve sinned and were closed out of the beautiful Garden of Eden now will be fully realized by the time we get to the end of the book. So, this book pulls it all together. It is God's final word to us so it holds a special place of importance. It was written about 95 A.D. you remember. John is John the apostle. He wrote the Gospel of John, the epistles of John—1, 2 and 3 John which in our Bibles are just a little bit before the book of Revelation. And this final revelation written by John the Apostle.

So the letter opened up, “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants.” We noted that is the word slaves. Those who have come to know Him and now serve Him. “The things which must soon take place.” Well, it has been going on 2000 years since John received this information. What do you mean by soon? We mean it is imminent. What is revealed in this book are the last things and they may begin to unfold at any time. There is no further information, there is no additional revelation. So, these are the next things that will take place in the plan of God. They are of utmost importance for us as His children to know and understand.

He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John. We noted what is unfolded here is God the Father giving this information to God the Son, Jesus Christ, who gave it to His angel, who gave it to John, who gave it to us. This angel will be crucial in the book, and angels are prominent in the book. Key thing for us to keep in mind is this comes from God; this is His Word to us.

We pick up with verse 2, this was given finally to John who identifies himself as God's slave. Common word for those who have been redeemed. “You are not your own, you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your bodies.” His slave, John, who was faithful. What did he do? “He testified to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.” And you will note that word “communicated” at the end of verse 1, many of you have a Bible translation like the New American Standard that has in the margin that little #1 in front of “communicated” in your margin, on the left-hand side of my Bible, is signified. There is going to be the use of signs in the communicating of this information, not to confuse but to clarify. So, because there were many signs in the book and the visions and the pictures there, this is apocalyptic. It's strange and it is confusing? No, these signs are given to help us understand it and to make it clear.

John gave his testimony, he was faithful to witness to the truth, to give it as God gave it to him. The testimony that came to him from Christ and he's going to give it this way about all that he saw. God revealed it to him and much of it was done by vision so that John could see things taking place. This will unfold beginning in Revelation 4 where we will move to the prophetic portion of the book. It is revealed to John in visual form. That is helpful to us because John records what he sees. It brings something that we can connect to and help us understand it. Sort of like you do when you are teaching children. With young children we use visuals, in the old days they used flannelgraph. Now we have more helpful and interesting things, but we want to picture it for them. God is so gracious in dealing with us as His children—I want to picture this for you to help you understand it.

So, John is testifying to the Word of God. We cannot disregard this. We cannot take it lightly. We cannot overlook it. This is God's Word. There is no place you can go and find out about the future but to the One who knows the future, who as planned and ordained the future, and is going to carry out what He said. It is the Word of God. This isn't just John's word; it is John's word in that it came through him. He is the one who records it, but it is God's Word.

John is one of those, as Peter wrote about, who will be moved by the Holy Spirit so that he will record accurately what God has said. That's just foundational. If God intends to give a revelation to us, but somewhere in the process it becomes so garbled, mixed up and messed up such that we are not clear in what it is all about, God failed to communicate. Now obviously we do not even like to speak like that. God cannot fail. What He intends to communicate, He does so clearly and assures that it is recorded clearly, because if He communicated clearly but it wasn't recorded properly, what good is it? We realize it was given to John to show to Christ's slave, His servants what is to come to pass. So the purpose of God can't be frustrated, so we have the assurance this is God's Word given similar to the Old Testament Scriptures which Jesus used and referred to. The Spirit of God moved, directed, and guided individuals so that they would record accurately and correctly what God has said. And then He has preserved this Word so that we could have it and benefit from it today.

“All that he saw.” Now there will be some things that John is not to write down, but everything that God intended to be recorded is recorded. So here is the final word from God and what He wants us to know about the future. And with this much of the revelation He gave in prior time, even in the Old Testament, will be clarified. As we noted, the book of Revelation puts things in order and sequence. We looked at some of the prophetic portions of the Old Testament. You have pieces of prophecy, but now what the book of Revelation does is take the pieces of that puzzle and put them in their proper order in relationship, and so we see things much more clearly. Not that what was revealed before was deficient or wrong, it just hadn't yet, in the plan of God been put together in its final form for us.

We have in verse 3, in light of this was given to be passed on to those who are servants of Jesus Christ, been enslaved to Him, there is a promise of blessing. “Blessed is he who reads, those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near.” Again, wonderful book. God promises His spiritual blessings on those who read, hear and heed what is written here. We are familiar with this word blessed, we talk about the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and so on. It's the same word. God's spiritual blessings, His spiritual riches are for those first.

“Blessed is he who reads the words of this prophecy.” Remember, and we have talked about this, in the time of John and that period of time writing materials were rare and expensive. That's why in some of the manuscripts they find and so on of different writings people have reused it. They sort of tried to wipe it off and write over it. We find writing materials like paper, if we make a mistake, we just tear it up. They didn't do that in those days, writing materials weren't that available and when they were, they weren't cheap.

“Blessed is he who reads.” Do you know what is going to happen? This is going to be written to the seven churches and then from them for us. When each of these churches had this letter circulated to them. They gathered like you are here and say we have a revelation given to our beloved Apostle John by Christ from our heavenly Father. I'll be reading it to you today. And I start reading and I read, and I read and I read, and start at the first word and we go through the last word. You don't have a copy. You get up and leave and say that was terrific. But you know what happened when your mind wandered? You lost four chapters. There weren't chapters. But you know how it is when you are sitting there, none of you do this, but all of a sudden your mind goes off and all of a sudden you come back, sort of like you snapped out of it. And what was he saying? If you did that when this was being read to you, you just missed it because didn’t have a copy and could go back and read through that yourself. You didn't have your own copy. So you had a reader, and there is blessing to the one who reads this because he is not only hearing it for himself, he is passing this on as God intended. It wasn't intended to stop with John, it was written for His bond-servants. We see down in verse 4 it was written to seven specific local churches, initially. So, the one who is reading that, passing that word on by reading it to the people in that congregation, himself will be the recipient of God's spiritual lessons.

“So blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy.” This book is a prophecy, it's the revelation of Jesus Christ, it is a prophecy from Him, telling us most fully about the future. Prophecy is direct revelation and that's what is happening here. It's the only way you can learn about God if He reveals Himself. “The revealed things belong to us, the secret things belong to God.” We can only know what He chooses to reveal, but what He chooses to reveal are for us to know. So, blessing on those who hear the words of the prophecy. That's why the move of the devil, the enemy of God is always to move our attention away from the Word of God because God's spiritual riches of blessing are always connected to His Word. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word” concerning Christ. It is God's Word that must be heard and believed.

So those who hear it and those who heed it. “Those who read, hear and heed the things which are written in it.” I love the way that is put. That word translated heed in verse 3, you have in the margin of your Bible, or “keep.” That's the word that would often be translated to “keep” something which means you live in light of it, you obey it. The idea is “keep.” These weren't things just to supply some interesting things about the future. These were things that were to grip us, that we are to know and live in light of. People say the book of Revelation is about the future and there is a lot of disagreement on what it means. We have to live today, so it's good enough, I'm happy with just knowing that Christ is coming again and I don't need to get into all the details about which there is so much disagreement. Look what God says! If you want the riches of My blessings in your life, you have to know this. Not just to have information, but so you can live in light of it. Very important. I just don't understand how those who claim to be believers can say the future is just a lot of different views, and we respect all of them. Everybody can have his own view. It's not a revelation if it was meant to say something different to everybody who reads it. What is it really communicating? We are saying it is confusing.

If you teach a class and everybody that goes out of the class thinks you said something different than you actually said, there is either a breakdown in what you said or none of them were paying attention. Well, we know there is no breakdown in what God has said. Since He said this is an uncovering and I expect you to live in light of it, heed it, keep it, He must be saying I have spoken clearly enough, understandably enough that I can hold you accountable to what I have said. So all excuse is wiped out before we even are very far into the book. This is something I expect you to live in light of, which tells us it must be something you can understand.

Somebody explains computers to me and I say I don't have the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Well just put it into practice. I tried to connect my computer up to something yesterday. Do you know what Marilyn did? She says I'm going over to Bobby's house; you don't need the frustration. That's what it is. Why? I don't understand it, I don't know what to do. Well, if God communicated that way in the book of Revelation something is wrong. But He didn't. Now if you don't have the Spirit of God, you are like I am dealing with computers. You are in a lost world. But every believer who has the Spirit of God, and every believer does have the Spirit of God, can know the things given to us by God. So that's why we are studying the book of Revelation, so we are sure that we do know and understand these things. We are to heed the things revealed to us.

Come back to Deuteronomy. God never has spoken just to provide information. It has always been in the context of you hear what I have said, you put it into practice. Come back to Deuteronomy, we'll just take this one portion, Deuteronomy 4. Just an example as He is giving His word to Israel. What does He say to them? Verse 2, and this verse will come up at the very end, not the exact verse but the general content. You are aware there are hundreds of references and allusions to the Old Testament in the book of Revelation, but there are no direct quotes. We'll see this referred to in the background when we get to the end of the book of Revelation.

Deuteronomy 4:2, “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you nor take away from it.” That's one thing God says, when I speak, it's My word. You can take no liberties with it. You cannot become My editor and remove things. You can't add things you might think I should have said. You don't add to My word, you don't take away from it. What do you do with it? “That you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” You do it. I haven't said more than needs to be said, I haven't said less than needs to be said. I have said exactly what I wanted to say so that you could do exactly what I want you to do. Why do we act like we're confused? It's like your children, you say something to them and you say, is it clear? Do I make myself clear? You know what you are supposed to do. Then you come back and they say, I didn't think you meant everything you said. Why do people have kids? Or why did you tell your brother or sister to do that? I didn't tell you that. Well, I thought it would work and you are back and you get frustrated. But we are like that as spiritual children. God says don't add anything to it, don't take anything away from it. Just do it.

While you are in Deuteronomy come over to Deuteronomy 5. Look at the end of verse 1, “Hear oh Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking to you today in your hearing.” Sounds similar to Revelation, doesn't it? “That you may learn and observe them carefully. That's what we do. How beautiful is it that God has spoken. He has spoken so that we could understand so in understanding we could do what He says.

Down in verse 10, “showing lovingkindness,” this is what God does, “showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Jesus picked that up in the Gospel of John, “If you love Me you will keep My commandments.” Loving God is demonstrated in obedience. Down in verse 29, “Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and their sons forever.” It's for our good, our benefit, God says, that His people keep His word.

Deuteronomy 6:17, “You should diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you.” Deuteronomy 7:9, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant, His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments. There are no promises of blessing to unbelievers, there are no promises of blessing to those who live their lives in rebellion to God's Word. That's the dividing line. But He promises the riches of His blessing on those who love Him, submit to Him. Not that I am going to try to please Him by keeping the Ten Commandments. No, no, no. Please Him by believing first what He has said, what He has done for you, that as a sinner you first need His cleansing and forgiveness so you can be born again. Like Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again. I'm already religious, I already try to keep the Ten Commandments. You must be born again. But those who have been born again now live their lives conformed to God's Word. How gracious God is that He gives us instruction and it has been preserved. Now you and I have our own copy in black and white so we can constantly refer to it.

Come back to Revelation. I'm emphasizing this in Revelation because somehow the book where God promises blessing on those who read it and obey it has been taken to be a book that we can't understand and there is nothing in it for our life today so there is no great loss if we don't live in light of it. That’s just the opposite of what God says.

So “blessed is he who reads, those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things written in it, for the time is near.” We noted in verse 1 he is telling us about things which must soon take place. As we noted, it is near because it is imminent. What is recorded in the book of Revelation is what is next in God's plan. We'll talk about this more when we get to Revelation 4, the beginning of the unfolding of the prophetic portion. This is what is next so it is near. Those events could happen and begin to unfold at any time. We talk about we believe in the imminent return of Christ, meaning it could happen at any time. That's what he means here, the time is near, there is no further revelation to be given. We live on the brink of when these events can begin to unfold. That's how we are to live, that's part of what we live in light of. He tells us what is coming, and we must take them seriously because they could unfold at any time.

Verse 4 John picks up. The first eight verses are like an introduction to the book, the first three verses are something of a preface, part of that package of the first eight verses. “John to the seven churches,” he's picking up on what he has been told to do. So, verse 1, that revelation came from the Father to Christ to John. So he is to show His bond-servants, verse 1, “the things which must soon take place.” So what is John doing? He is writing it down to send it to the churches so that they should know. He is writing to “the seven churches which are in Asia.”

The number seven will be a key number in the book of Revelation, used I think 54 times. So seven, we'll talk talk about it more fully when we do get into Revelation 2 and we deal with the specific seven churches, of why seven. We know here he just says the seven churches that are in Asia. In verse 11 he'll say, “write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches.” And he tells us “the seven churches that are in Asia—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea.” As I said we'll talk more about those because when we start Revelation 2 he'll begin to address each of these churches individually. Asia, referring to, as we know it better, Asia Minor. It would be the eastern portion of Turkey. We'll look at a map just to see where they are and why these seven were picked out, because there are other churches in this area. One very prominent one is the church at Colosse, the church to whom the letter to the Colossians was written. But it is not one of the seven mentioned here. He is not saying he's writing this addressing every church in this region, but he has selected seven. John is passing this letter on to these seven. They won't necessarily limited to those, they would have gotten passed on and on and been passed on down to our day. But we'll talk about why these seven are selected to be specific.

They are seven local churches. There is confusion that comes as we sometimes talk about the invisible church. Some of you will be studying some of this in some of the history studies that you are involved in. The church isn't invisible. There is a universal aspect to the church. There are people in heaven from our congregation who have experienced physical death and now are in glory. They are part of the universal church, but the church on earth is visible. It is visible in every local church. So he is writing 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 before His throne and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” This short portion is packed with theology. I think of these believers that get this letter from John and somebody is standing up reading it. If you do any study on this, they talk about how people's minds were disciplined in times like this. We think of them as being background and not as educated. But their minds had been disciplined to learn to pay attention because what they were told and had to be implemented, they didn't have it all written out on sheets of paper like we can have. We can just spit it out and spit it out and spit it out. They were taught to pay attention, to pick up main points that would enable them to remember the other things. Now John is going to give them some encouraging notes. He doesn't elaborate much but it is serious theology about the doctrine of the trinity.

First he says “Grace to you and peace” coming from God, as we will see. These are churches so he is writing to them as believers. We'll get into the details in Revelation 2-3, but he wants them to experience God's grace. They have already experienced God's saving grace—"for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not as a result of works in order that no one can boast.” We are saved by grace, not by our efforts, not by our religious activity, not by our baptism. Saved by God's grace but that's not the end of that grace. That's the beginning of a life sustained and enabled and empowered by God's grace. So John, as Paul does in his letters, says that he wants them to experience the grace of God in their lives in all areas. That's why we can live lives pleasing to God, put into practice what He has said. In grace He has provided the Holy Spirit. By grace the Spirit enlightens out minds to understand and strengthens us to endure. That's what we call the biblical doctrine of sanctification. We have justification when through faith in Christ by God's grace we are declared righteous by God, we have been justified. But now we have the life that we live, our ongoing sanctification, which is related to the word holiness. “You shall be holy for I am holy.” He didn't save us and now say you are on your own. No, He saved us, and now by His provision we are to be filled, controlled by the Spirit. So it is God's enabling grace he wants them to experience in abundance.

And His peace. When we get to the churches we'll see they need His peace. There are trials, there are difficulties, there is conflict, there is persecution, there is suffering. But I want you to experience the peace of God in your heart. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and because we now belong to Him, having been brought into a relationship with Him the enmity has been ended. His peace can stand guard at our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Paul puts it in Philippians 4. That's what he is talking about here—I want you to experience His ongoing peace. It’s not that your life will be a tranquil life. In the world you have tribulations, Jesus said, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. So even in the most trying of circumstances we can experience the tranquility of heart and mind. That's what John is expressing as his desire for the churches that he is writing to.

This grace and peace come first “from Him who is, who was, and who is to come.” Now first thought, that must be Christ, He is the One who is, who was, and He is the One who is going to come. The problem with that is Christ is mentioned down at the beginning of verse 5. This grace and peace comes “from Him who is, who was and who is to come,” and verse 5, “and from Jesus Christ.” So he is not talking about Christ first here, he is talking about God the Father. He is the eternal God and He is the God who is coming. We think Christ is the coming One, and He is, but so is God the Father. The Old Testament prophets warned about God coming in judgment and we see the unfolding judgments of heaven. Judgment is coming from God in the book of Revelation, He is the coming One, and Christ is. Those judgments will culminate with the coming of Christ the Son of God, according to the plan of God at Armageddon in Revelation 19 when we get there. But God will have come in judgment in that sense. And ultimately God the Father will come to the redeemed earth and His throne will be in the presence of His people as we see in Revelation 21-22. So He is the God who is, who was, and who is to come, the eternal God and the One that we anticipate.

So grace and peace come from Him, but not just from Him. It also comes from “the seven spirits, the end of verse 4, “who are before His throne.” The seven spirits before His throne, some have said this would be angels, and angels play a prominent part in the book of Revelation. The problem is we are never told in the Bible that grace and peace come from angels. And you'll note the seven spirits, this grace and peace comes from God the Father and then in verse 5 from Jesus Christ, God the Son. It would be inconceivable to put angels in the middle of this as the source of this grace and peace. The seven spirits are a reference to the Holy Spirit of God. They are the seven spirits before His throne. We'll see more of this as we move into Revelation. Why seven spirits? Are there seven Holy Spirits? No, we have this number seven, used to denote completion and fullness. The background comes from the Old Testament.

Come back to Isaiah 11, there are two possible references as the background. And just an aside while you are turning to Isaiah 11, keep in mind these seven churches in Asia, these are not Jewish churches. There may be Jews in them but it's not like you are writing to Jews in the church at Jerusalem. These are people saved like in the city of Ephesus who had been raised in the context of the worship of Diana, the goddess, Artemis. Not like Jewish children who would have been raised in the Old Testament Scriptures. And yet there are these constant references that draw from the background of the Old Testament. You understand these believers in these churches didn't have a copy of their own of the Old Testament. They heard the Old Testament. They had to come and have it read to them, But this is written as though they will have familiarity with these things. God's expectations of us as His children are high. We are satisfied with a little bit of knowledge, but He expects and requires the churches in Asia to be able to grab onto this truth. Why does he talk about the seven spirits?

Well one possibility is look at Isaiah 11. “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,” when I don't give you a reference, I'm always beginning in verse 1 unless I begin in another verse and forget to give you the reference. Verse 1, “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.” Obviously, that's a Messianic promise since Jesus the Christ comes from the line of David. “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom, understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.” There is some discussion, are there six or seven things here. But at least this is a passage that could refer to it. It just doesn't say the Holy Spirit, it is wisdom, understanding. He keeps saying the spirit of, the spirit of, the spirit of, beginning with the Spirit of the Lord. And that would connect to the seven spirits before the throne, drawn from this where we have the reference to the spirit repeated. But it is referring to the Holy Spirit who did come upon Christ at His baptism, like a dove, remember, it rested on Him, and so on.

Another reference I think involved is Zechariah. Look at Zechariah 3. And we'll pick up, this is a picture here. The chapter opens up, Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord who is the preincarnate Christ, with Satan standing at his right hand to confuse him and then the cleansing that will take place in that context that we won't be going into now. Verse 8, “Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you, indeed they are men who are a symbol.” So we are told certain things are going to be symbolic, he explains the symbol. “For behold I am going to bring in My Servant the Branch.” Well, that's a prophecy of Christ. We just read in Isaiah 11 about He'll come from the line of David as a stem and so on, as a branch. “For behold the stone I have set before Joshua, on one stone are seven eyes.” Now that helps a lot. Now I have a stone that has seven eyes. Have you ever seen a stone that has seven eyes? And now that helps me understand the seven spirits before the throne in Revelation 3. I think I am going backwards. But we keep going.

Down in Zechariah 4:2, “And he said to me, what do you see? I said, I see behold a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on top of it. Its seven lamps on it with seven spouts.” So, these oil lamps and the bowls hold the oil, and the spouts and so on that run from it. “Belong at each of the lamps or on top of it.” Then we come down, what is all this about? Verse 6, “This is word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.” Now we begin to tie these things together. The Holy Spirit, come down to verse 10, “Who has despised the day of small things, but these seven,” seven things he has been talking about, going back to Zechariah 3:9, the seven eyes. Then we have the seven lamps and the seven spouts, then he said this is all by the Spirit. “These are the eyes of the Lord which range to and fro throughout the earth.” Without going into it any further what we want to pick up here is the picture of the seven.
The seven eyes on the rock, the seven spouts, God's Spirit. And these seven eyes, what do they picture? God roaming, His knowledge of all that is going on throughout the earth. Well, why didn't he just say the Holy Spirit is everywhere as the omnipresent God. He could say that, but I go back to my original analogy, our children. What do we do? We create pictures for them so that they can understand.

Since Ashley started teaching first grade, I spend my life following Marilyn around, looking for first grade books just for her to ask me, what do you think of this? It has great pictures because you want to do something interesting. So, God is doing that. What do eyes do? They open up things to us, they enable us to know He is the omniscient God. So we are talking about the Holy Spirit picture here. The seven spirits before the throne, we'll talk about that number seven more fully, but it has a completeness to it. It ties back to Old Testament prophecy. It's the eyes of the Lord. Why did he say seven eyes? Well, it denoted that He knows all, there is a completeness in His knowledge, and so in His authority and power and the exercising of judgment.

So we have this background. Now keep in mind we have these churches in Asia and they are hearing this read. They are thinking that reminds me of what is in Isaiah 11. They didn't have chapter divisions but we use that for our help. I remember that from when they read to us from the scroll of Isaiah. And then remember what we heard when they read from the scroll of Zechariah? Now think about yourself with your own Bible, how quickly was your thinking running to Isaiah 11 and Zechariah 3 and 4 when you read about the seven spirits? And we even have the help of the marginal references that can take us back there. But God is building on His Word, and He expects His servants to be serious in the study of His Word so that they know it and it pulls together. This will be the most difficult thing in the study of the book of Revelation. Our knowledge of the Old Testament tends to be spotty and therefore the book of Revelation has hundreds of references or allusions to the Old Testament. You may be thinking I'm not familiar enough with the Old Testament to make the connection but we'll work that through for all of our benefit.

And it comes, come back to Revelation, we'll elaborate on these things because what he is saying will come out further in the book of Revelation. Don't say I'm not getting this, he is going to repeat and we'll elaborate in ways, I think, that will help us get it more clearly.

It's from the Spirit and “from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the rulers of the king of the earth.” He is the faithful witness. Jesus told Pilate in John 18, I came to testify to the truth. He is the faithful witness, the faithful testifier. He is the firstborn of the dead and we'll pick up with this. He has priority, not only first to be raised, glorified from the dead, but He has priority and rule. We'll see some passages there. And then He is the ruler of the kings of the earth. This comes from Psalm 89, but since we don't have time to do Psalm 89, you will have time to read it this week. Then next week when we come, you will be ready to connect Psalm 89 with what he says here because these references to Christ basically draw from portions of Psalm 89. Again we see at the very beginning the book of Revelation not directly quoting but drawing from these references that help put things together. Revelation is going to enable it to be a complete picture by the time we are done.

Let's join together in prayer. Thank you, Lord, for your grace, blessing, patience with us. Lord, we acknowledge that we are greatly privileged, not just to read and hear but to have our own copy of your completed Word. From the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation we have all the words that you have given to be preserved for us your people. What a rich treasure is ours in your Word. Lord, I pray that our hunger for your Word will deepen, we will desire to know it better, more thoroughly so we can know you better, so we can please you more, show the depths of our love for you in response to your unfathomable love for us as we live in obedience to your Word, anticipating all that you have promised us in Christ. We give you praise for the greatness of our salvation. In Christ's name, amen.