Session 5 – A Study in Revelation; The Exalted Christ, Rev. 1-20: Mark Lanier, 02/11/24

Revelation Lesson 5
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[00:00:00] I, I know I've got Super Bowl on the brain. Um, Texas Tech is playing in the Super Bowl this year. Uh, we've got, uh, Patrick Mahomes, who has, uh, being supported by some people who went to other colleges that couldn't get into Tech. And- ... he's going to win the Super Bowl again. And so I was thinking about it, and I was thinking about just exercise in general and how I need to do better at exercise.

And exercise is kind of divided into three stages. Supposedly, if you're doing it right, you're supposed to warm up, then you're supposed to [00:01:00] do it, and then you're supposed to cool down. So I decided that's what we were gonna do today in scriptures, except for our warm-up, it's gonna be a review. Don't worry, Dale, this review has a whole lot of new material in it you've not heard before.

It's just a refreshing way to get it in our brain. Then we're gonna start reading more of the text of Revelation, and then we'll finish with points for home. That'll be our cool down. So the review is pretty quick. Let's go through it. We've talked about the Bible as a library as opposed to realizing, yes, it is a single book in the sense that it's the collection of God's scriptures, but it's a collection of God's scrolls or scriptures.

There were a lot of scrolls that were put into what's called the Bible. There were-- There've been a lot of writings, Jewish writings, Christian writings, that are not in the Bible. So how did someone [00:02:00] figure out which scrolls are in and which are not? I got an email from one in class this week, and he said, "Please tell me you're gonna cover who wrote Revelation and why it's in the Bible."

Good question. So I want us, in reference to this, to talk canon. No, I don't mean cameras, nor do I mean weaponry. By canon, I'm talking... Weaponry, by the way, has two Ns, I think. Um, by weapon-- uh, by canon, I'm talking about the word in the dictionary that comes from the Latin word canon, which comes from the Greek word, basically canon.

Um, uh, it was originally an Arabic word that the Greeks borrowed that stood for a type of papyrus or a reed that was used as a measuring stick. It was [00:03:00] an early ruler or yardstick, if you will. You couldn't just go to, um, the ancient Home Depot and say, "I'd like a tape measure." They didn't have that. But if you were gonna build something, you could take a good reed, and you could cut it off at exactly the size you want it to be and use it to make other cuts along the way.

And so a, a, a canon, a reed, was a measuring device, a measuring stick, and that's why if you look it up in the dictionary, one of the re- definitions will be the books of holy scripture received as genuine by the Christian churches, universally received as genuine. These are the scriptures. The canon are those writings, those [00:04:00] scrolls and letters that were deemed to be authoritative in a special way, inspired by God.

So when we talk about canonization or the canon or

developing the canon, the pertinent question is: How were decisions made about which scrolls to put into the Bible library? What goes in and what doesn't? It's fascinating to get on the internet, almost a waste of time in some ways, but you'll find videos of a lot of people who want to disparage scripture, and they'll say, "Oh, that's not even an accurate writing of what the Christians believed.

There are lots of Christian books that aren't in there, lots of Jewish books that aren't in there." Well, nobody ever claimed this was an [00:05:00] exhaustive library of everything ever written by anybody who claimed to be a Christian. The canonization of scripture, the idea of a canon, comes from the idea that these are the ones that are elevated above other writings.

These are the ones that are inspired by the Holy Spirit, inspired by God Now because our scriptures are divided into the Old and New Testament, there are entire-- Uh, we could teach easily a six-week series on the canon of scripture and the canonization. Uh, I've got David Capes over there nodding yes. He's volunteering to teach at least four of those six weeks, and he could do it and never repeat anything.

There's that much material. I just wanna get to Revelation, so I'm gonna do it in an abbreviated form. We'll have a longer class on canonization if we want one. But for the Old Testament, we can know [00:06:00] that the Old Testament was canon. It was the measuring rule. Uh, they were inspired scriptures to Jesus and to the apostles.

If you go to Matthew fifteen three, Jesus says, "Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?" The commandment of God He's referencing there is out of Exodus in the Old Testament. So Jesus sees Exodus not as just some convenient Jewish writing. It contains the commandments of God.

He goes on like three verses later in this passage to say, "For the sake of your tradition, you've made void the Word of God." The Old Testament for Jesus was the Word of God. When He's confronting people who don't, uh, uh, question-- who question the resurrection of the [00:07:00] dead, He says, "For the resurrection of the dead, haven't you read what was said to you by God?"

Jesus viewed the Old Testament scriptures as canon, as holy writings. Paul, same thing. Romans 3, what advantage does a Jew have? Lots of them, but to begin with, they were entrusted with the oracles of God, the logion, the, the oracles of God. These are something that are special. Paul has no trouble in 2 Timothy 3:16.

All of scripture, these holy writings were breathed out by God So the Old Testament were scriptures, they were holy writings. They had been basically-- They, they, they were [00:08:00] in a, in a group unto themselves in the time of Jesus and the, and the early church. Now, fast-forward. Jesus, His words and the teachings of Jesus, they were canon, they were authoritative, they were inspired to the apostles.

Look at what Peter said in that first sermon in Pentecost in Acts chapter 3. Peter says, "Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet, Jesus. And it'll be that every soul who doesn't listen to that prophet will be destroyed from the people.'" As a prophet, Jesus is speaking the words of God Jesus is a prophet speaking God's word.

So if canon to the apostles, the words of Jesus were also canon to the church, because [00:09:00] this is Peter referencing it. This is Peter quoting it. So we've got now the Old Testament as canon. We've got the teachings of Jesus, what become the Gospels as canon, the Apostolic Gospels. And then we've got the Apostolic teaching itself, which the church found to be canon.

Even by the time of Peter, we read him referencing the writings of Paul. In 2 Peter, he says, "Some things in Paul's letters are hard to understand. The ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures." See, the other scriptures because the apostolic teaching was canon to the church This is [00:10:00] rooted in a promise Jesus had made that we read about in John 14:26, when Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will be sent by the Father to teach the apostles all things and bring to the apostles the remembrance of what Jesus had said.

So the apostles are an accurate reflection because the Holy Spirit's worked in them of the words and teachings of Jesus. That's what gives authority to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You're saying, "Wait a minute, Mark wasn't an apostle. Luke wasn't one, an apostle." They were recording other apostolic teaching.

They have the imprimatur mark of, of Peter and Luke, at least, of Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. So if we put it this way, as a three-layer cake, the church's recognition of the canon is rooted first in the Old [00:11:00] Testament, second in Jesus' words, and third in the writings and teachings of the apostles. You can see the way some of this played out by reading Acts chapter 15.

In Acts chapter 15, the early church is trying to figure out, now that the Gentiles are being saved as well as the Jews, should Gentiles have to become Jewish to be Christians or to be in the kingdom? And it's a big issue. Because remember, the Jews were, for 1,000-plus years, thinking of themselves uniquely as God's chosen people, God's elect, to whom the Messiah would come and bring the Kingdom of God.

And now all of a sudden, the Gentiles are flooding in I can remember when I was young and we'd be driving, and dad would come [00:12:00] up to a major street, and he'd need to turn left onto the major street. And, and it's-- we're at a stop sign, and all these cars are just going and going and going, and it looks like there's no end.

And my dad looked over at me one time, and he said, "Well, they left the gate open." I said, "What do you mean, Dad?" "Well, h- where are all these cars coming from? Look at it, man. The gate's been left open. They're all coming. We can't pull out." Well, that's what was happening to the early church. The Gentiles, somebody left the gate open, and they're just coming in by droves.

So the question is, I got Larry Lipton here, good Jewish brother, do I have to become Jewish to be a Christian? That was the question. So the church has this big meeting in Acts chapter fifteen. It's called the Jerusalem Conference. And the apostles and the elders of the church get together, prayerfully debating the issue.

But in the [00:13:00] debating, they go to the scriptures. And when they go to the scriptures and they read the prophets, they figure out the answer. Then after this long time of debate and prayer and study, they write a letter to the Gentile churches, and in that letter they say, "It seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit to put the following on you."

Because they understood that the Holy Spirit was driving this understanding and driving the scripture. So the church has got recognition of the canon as this is developing in these ways. But the history of the canon is also what I call a history of need No, the Bible was not put together, uh, uh, the first year after Jesus was resurrected and ascended to heaven.[00:14:00]

They-- It wasn't even written. The New Testament had not been written at all because it wasn't needed yet. You had countless people who'd heard Jesus preach and teach. You'd had His apostles there in full force, and Jesus had ascended with the assurance and promise He'd come back when nobody's expecting it, but He would be back.

He even told His apostles, "You stay in Jerusalem right now until the delivery comes." But it wasn't the delivery of Jesus, it was the Holy Spirit that He was talking about. But they thought He was coming back any minute now. I mean, they're selling everything they've got and giving it to the poor because they think Jesus is coming back.

They don't have the need yet for these scriptures, but as the apostles are starting to die off and be martyred, [00:15:00] that's when the records start being written so that the next generation will have them. So I wanna give you some links here for Revelation, for making the point with them-- with it, I should say.

You've got the Apostle John. Now, some may say John didn't write Revelation. That's fine, but just work with me here. There are really good indicators, including early church history, that John was born around 10 AD. He was a young boy when he was following Jesus. Teenage years into his 20, 21-year-old age when Jesus dies.

And then maybe 22, 23. Then you've got him dying, the last of the apostles, around 98 if church history is correct. There was a student of his, a follower of his, named Polycarp. Polycarp was born in 69. So as a teenager, [00:16:00] he-- and a young man, he's at the feet of John just as John was at the feet of Jesus.

Polycarp, by the way, my favorite of the first-- of the second century Christians that we know about. The martyrdom of Polycarp, you can't read it without wanting to weep. But Polycarp, before he's martyred, has another fellow around him named Irenaeus. Irenaeus ultimately is also called Irenaeus of Lyon because he's a bishop in Lyon, France.

It was called like Lugdunum or something back then. But Irenaeus lives. These are very clear links. There's no fussing about this. Polycarp in 110 AD writes a letter to the Philippians

And in the letter, Polycarp quotes or references Matthew, Luke, [00:17:00] Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 1 Peter, and 1 John

He also says As it is said in these scriptures, "Be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun set on your anger." Do you realize where that comes from? Let me go back These scriptures, plural, that he's quoting include the Old Testament and Paul. Apostolic authority already clear Irenaeus also says the following, "While I was still a boy I saw you in lower Asia with Polycarp[00:18:00]

I recall the events of that time better than what's happened recently. Can anybody relate? For what we learn as children grows with the soul and becomes one with it. So I can tell even the place where the blessed Polycarp sat and talked, his goings, his comings, the manner of his life, the appearance of his body, the discourses which he gave to the multitude, and how he reported his living with John And with the rest of the apostles who had seen the Lord, and how he remembered their words, and what things were which he heard from them about the Lord, and about his miracles, and about his teaching How Polycarp received them from eyewitnesses of the [00:19:00] Word of life and proclaimed them all in harmony with the Scriptures This-- these are people back in the day who were recognizing the authority of various scrolls and letters.

This is the Muratorian list. I've got Charles Mickey in here somewhere. Charles. There he is. Charles has taught on this in this class way back in the day in, uh, uh, the chapel. Great class. The Muratorian fragment, that's named after a fella in the 1700s who discovered it. His name was, like, Muratoria or so- Muratorius or something.

But in one seventy AD or thereabouts, it lists the scriptures, and it lists all of our New Testament books except for Peter, James, and Hebrews. Doesn't mean Peter, James, and Hebrews were like, um, uh, not in the Bible or not in c-- It's just that's what the, this aspect of, of the [00:20:00] church was seeing where he was.

They didn't have the internet yet to pool their knowledge. But the Bible as a library is one that recognizes that these books have been collected as something special, and it's been done in the process of canonization. And within a hundred years of the writing of the g- of the Revelation and all the rest of the books, they're all considered part of, of scripture.

They're all part of that three-layer cake: Old Testament, teachings of Jesus, and apostolic, uh, anointed works. So next point of review, the apocalyptic genre. I don't need to spend much time on this because classes one and two went into great depth. But there are all sorts of literature genres back in the time of, of the writing of the Bible.

And the biblical scrolls, we see God using all of those different forms of communication to communicate His truth within those scrolls. And so when we look at the biblical apocalyptic type of writing, [00:21:00] and that's a specific type of writing, we'll read it very clearly in Daniel, we'll read it in Revelation, we'll read it in some of Isaiah, some of Zechariah, a good bit of Zechariah, and Ezekiel.

It's a very specific type of writing, and it's a type of writing that not only is unto itself but has certain traits. Again, not to go into detail, you can go to the last class for these traits. But what you typically see in that type of writing, apocalyptic writing, are traits of symbolism, especially with animals, but not only animals.

You'll see also a peculiar use of numbers. I wanna underscore a couple of these from last week. The number three in ancient biblical times of the Middle East, and I'm stretching all the way up into Greece as well, the number three was a very divine number. [00:22:00] It represented the divine, the spiritual, the holy The number four was considered a very earthly number.

The four winds, the four elements. You've got four as a, a very earthly number. That represents the totality of the earth. And if you think about it, what they were really good at doing is basic math. So if you take all things that are heavenly and spiritual and all things that are earthly and physical, and you put them together, what do you have?

You have everything. If instead of putting them together by addition, you do multiplication, three times four is? 12.

Good job. Which are very complete numbers, and they'll play with those numbers. Seven times seven on forgiving sin or 70 times seven, the idea of just being complete and complete and complete. So we've got numbers that, that are used in a [00:23:00] different way than we use them today. Doesn't mean they can't also be literally true.

You've got to try and understand, but it's-- they've just got this added layer of meaning, and you, you've got to read with discernment. Lots of visions and dreams in the apocalyptic literature. Lots of talk about a coming cataclysm or huge problems and an age to come. Lots of talk about angels and demons.

Many of them are not written by the person they claim to be written by. All of that's been covered in previous classes, though not in the detail of the canonicity. Now we get to reading the text. So we started last week here with Revelation 1:1-2. "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.

He made it known by sending his angel

to his servant John." Now, the big question is [00:24:00] John who?

And the answer is, first of all, John, who's famous enough that he doesn't need to say John who Doesn't say John Wayne Doesn't say John Doe. It's John. And it's not just here, it's multiple times during the Revelation. And it sets John on the island of Patmos, which is where John the Apostle had been exiled, offshore Turkey If we roll forward a few years, and I'm gonna suggest to you that Revelation was written around 95 AD Justin Martyr is born about five years later.

Justin Martyr is, um Really important church father [00:25:00] He was born a pagan somewhere around the age... I'm doing this off memory, so David Cates can tell me if I get it wrong. Somewhere around the age 35, he becomes a Christian. And he had studied a lot of Greek philosophy and logic. He was a Stoic in the Greek tr- philosophical trend, sense.

He'd studied a lot of Plato, and he became one of the biggest defenders of the Christian faith. He was the first, what we would call, apologist, and that's not like, "Oh, I'm sorry." That's from the Latin word apologia, which means a defender. He was one of the first defenders of the Christian faith. He ultimately was martyred, and we've got very accurate historical, uh, uh, data to his [00:26:00] martyrdom.

He was beheaded with, like, six, I think, uh, of his other Christian brothers, and he was beheaded. He'd written, like, something to the emperor defending Christians and Christianity, kinda, like, rose him pretty high on the radar. Um, anyway, Justin Martyr said the following: "Revelation is by a certain man with us whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied by an apocalypse a revelation that was made to him."

The earliest references we've got from the church make it clear that John the Apostle wrote the, the Revelation

So he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all he saw. Now, those of you who read your Bible well, [00:27:00] if you know this might be the Apostle John, all of a sudden these little phrases like bore witness to the Word of God take on new meaning because this is the John who wrote, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory." To the testimony of Jesus Christ, he continues to say. That's also out of the Gospel of John, that Jesus was the testimony of God. So, "Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy. Blessed are those who hear it and keep what's in it because the time is near."

Now new-- I mean, that was new material off of an old text, but let's keep going. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia. [00:28:00] Now, we're gonna read those letters, assuming God grants us the grace to be here. We're gonna read those letters to the seven churches. We'll start them probably next week. But your brain should already be jiggling just by hearing that word seven.

Why? What does seven represent? Complete. These letters to the seven churches apply to you and me. These letters to the seven churches are to all of the churches. Happen to be to seven churches. They're still literally letters to seven churches. But we should see in this something for everybody, a letter to the whole church.

Book of Revelation wasn't simply written to those seven. It's written for everybody. So here we've got it. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you. Charis is a very Greek [00:29:00] way of expressing grace, an opening in a letter, very typical. And peace. Eirene is the word for peace. That's a very Jewish way to open a letter.

Paul uses these two all the time, combines grace and peace, grace and peace, grace and peace. It's Greek and Jewish greeting all wrapped up in one, grace and peace. Bruce Metzger points out that you really can't have true peace unless you first have God's grace and, uh, makes a, a, a good preaching point off of the way that these are ordered by the scriptures.

Grace and peace from Apo in the Greek, from... Now look at this. This is-- Th-this is fun stuff. You don't need to read The Da Vinci Code and all that kind of garbage. You can read real stuff. From [00:30:00] Apo, from, number one, Him who is and was, and is to come How many of those things, how many describers there? Three.

And what is three? Holy number. Who was, and is, and is to come. It's not only a holy number, it's an echo of Exodus 3:14-15, where God's appearing in the burning bush to Moses, and God defines himself. Moses says, "What's your name? I wanna know your name." And part of it in Greek says, "Ho on," the one who is

But it's more than that. It's the one [00:31:00] who is and who was and who is to come We're in Exodus 3:14 What's your name? People are gonna wanna know. God said, "I Am Who I Am." That's got ho'on in it. He said, "Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you. Say this to the people of Israel: The God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has sent me to you."

That's the God who was. The God who is, I Am. The God who was, your fathers. And the God who will be. "This is my name forever. Look, and I'm to be remembered throughout all future generations." The one who is, the one who was, and the one who is to come. [00:32:00] Now, that's not the only person this revelation is-- or grace and peace are coming from.

"Grace to you and peace from Him who is and was and is to come, from the seven spirits who are before His throne." Now, you might be thinking, "Wait a minute. Thought there was one Holy Spirit." And so some people say, "Oh, maybe this is talking about archangels." Doesn't say archangels, says spirits. Maybe this is talking about, uh, something we don't know about Or what does the number seven represent?

Complete, whole The Holy Spirit, the seven spirits is a [00:33:00] way of expressing the one spirit. You say, "Where did you get that from?" Well, don't blame me. That's what this stuff's written like The earliest commentary we have on the Book of Revelation is by a guy named Victor- Victorinus of like, um, Polot- Politu or something, some weird town you'll never hear of again.

It's the oldest trans-- um, commentary on Revelation we've got. It dates from the 100s, late 100s. Um, he said it So just don't, don't, don't blame me. Says seventh... By the way, look at this. Look at Isaiah 11:2, lest you have any doubt about this. Isaiah 11:2, and I'm gonna have to show it to you in the English. If I was in Capes' Greek [00:34:00] class, we'd look at it in the Septuagint because the Septuagint makes it even clearer the way they do it.

Isaiah verse 2, "And the Spirit" of the Lord shall rest upon him So it's the Spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and of counsel, and of might, and of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. The Spirit

Or the seven spirits. There are seven, the fullness of the Spirit. So the fullness of the Spirit is also giving you grace and peace. [00:35:00] You're not gonna have any grace and peace in your life except it's coming from the Spirit. It's coming from God. But those are just two, and don't we know divinity comes in threes?

So number three, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness

Kind of cool to see the Trinity there with the grace and peace, isn't it? You've got the God of Sinai, Moses. You've got the Spirit in its fullness, in his fullness, her fullness. You've got the, the divine Christ, the faithful witness By the way, just can't pass it up. I'm telling you, this is the fun of this stuff.

If you're making notes, [00:36:00] Jesus Christ, how do you wanna define him? Put some attributes on there. How many would you like to list? Oh, I'll take three, the divine number, please. So he'll be the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. Three descriptors because he's the perfect heavenly being John continues, "To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen." To him who freed us. I don't know, David Capes, what verb you used for the paradigms in the first-year Greek class you teach, but we learned, one of the verbs we learned, uh, was luo. This is luo[00:37:00]

Luo is, um It's an interesting verb. It means to loose, to untie To break a chain, to unbind something And he has freed us, he's untied us, he's broken chains of, he has delivered us from our sins by his blood. Sin sticks to you Sin drags you down. Sin enslaves you. Sin controls you. But Christ has freed us from our sins [00:38:00] by his blood.

If you're reading this in the Greek, there's something really cool that's happening here. "To him who loves us," that participle is a present participle. And you don't ever wanna push participles too far in their tenses, but a present participle-- Jesus loves us every minute of every day and every second.

It's present, right now, at this moment. Right now, at this moment, Jesus loves you. You wonder when he loves you? Right now, and right now, and right now. I can't ever describe a moment in history when Jesus doesn't love you. It's present tense. It's always there. It's always active. He's always loving you. But he changes tense with this participle to the aorist tense What he did, he freed us.

This was something that's happened before [00:39:00] You're already free. If you're not li- if you walk in Christ and you're still in bondage to sin, you gotta figure out your walk better, because you've been set free. He has untied us from our sins. So to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom.

It's Jarrett's series right now. This morning's message, if you heard it or you will hear it, it's from the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, about how to have a kingdom heart. He's talking about a spiritual EKG where you can check your heart and see what condition it's in. And he goes through each of the Beatitudes, puts a word with each one to teach us how the kingdom heart should be.

And that heart is so important [00:40:00] because He's made us into a kingdom, but look what He's done, to be priests to His God and Father. We weren't created in Christ just to enjoy the Super Bowl or ponchos Or ship, please Uh, maybe Shipley's

We were put into a kingdom to be priests to God. What does the priest do? Whatever God tells him to. He serves God by interceding with people or on behalf of people. And that's why we've been saved and put into a kingdom, why we've been freed from our sins so that we can help those who are in bondage [00:41:00] to sin.

We are a kingdom of servants This is the kingdom to which we have And so as kingdom priests to God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion Forever and ever, amen. Now John is quoting here from a Randy Travis song

I may have gotten that backwards

But I love the Greek here. I, um, aionas ton aionon. Amen. Um, those are built off of a Greek word, ion. We get the word eon from it, [00:42:00] E-O-N, ion. Ion is the longest span of time in the Greek language

And what he does here-- So I, uh, um, I have a deal with... I had it with my kids, now I've got it with my grandkids. And certain personality types within my kids really got into it more than others. Same with the grandkids. But I would say to, uh, Ebba, one of our granddaughters, I said to her when I saw her a few weeks ago, uh, uh, she said, "I love you."

She calls me Mark-Mark. "I love you, Mark-Mark." I said, "Ebba, I love you times a hundred." And she said, "I love you times a thousand." And I said, "I love you times a million." And she said, "I love you times a trillion." And I said, "I love you times a trillion and [00:43:00] one She said, "Well, I love you times a trillion and a trillion."

And I said, "I love you times a trillion and a trillion and one." I love you times a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion trillions, all the trillions in the universe. And I said, "I love you the same amount plus one And it's so interesting to watch their little minds try fitfully to win this competition.

But whatever they say, and then she comes back from her dad and says, "I have a new word." And I said, "What's that?" "I love you infinity." And I said, "I love you infinity and one." "Well, I love you infinity and a trillion trillion trillions." John's doing that here. He takes the longest time span in the Greek language, aiōn, and he makes it a plural, [00:44:00] aiōn's.

And then he multiplies it by the same plural, aiōn'on. He says, takes the longest period of time there is, aiōn, makes it plural, aiōn's and aiōn's and aiōn times and aiōn's

and times aiōn's. That's the way they did numbers, by the way. They had zero qualm multiplying the numbers to make things more intensive. We'll get to 144,000 being in heaven or being in God's kingdom later, but I'm gonna sc- spoiler alert, I'm not gonna go Jehovah's Witness on you, and I apologize, don't wanna offend any of the Jehovah's Witnesses watching this who think there's exactly 144,000 in the kingdom.

I'm gonna suggest it's 12 times 12 times 1,000. It's the fullest times the fullest times the kicker to make everything even more full. Everybody who belongs in the kingdom's gonna be there[00:45:00]

This is the way they did their thinking. Take the largest number there is, make it plural, multiply it by itself. That's who's ... That's how long God's gonna have the glory and the dominion. Amen Because behold, he's coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.

Even so, amen. Nye amen

There are three passages of scripture if I had time I would get to with you. But let me, uh, and maybe I'll start here next week. But Daniel 7:13 helps us understand this image. He's coming with the clouds because Daniel 7:13 is that fourth vision of the coming kingdom, and in that kingdom comes one who is like the Son of Man coming with the clouds.

[00:46:00] Im in Hebrew, but here meta, with the clouds. Clouds themselves, very symbolic in the Bible for the appearance of God. Exodus 13:21, God led the Israelites through the wilderness. How? By day in a cloud Doesn't say He's coming on the clouds. It says He's coming with the clouds. That's those accompany the presence of God leading His people And every eye will see him

Even those who pierced him. This is Zechariah 12:10, and, uh, it, it's good enough I, I, I really will. I'm just gonna pick up next week, so this is like a foretaste of what's coming. But Revelation, more than any book in the New Testament, quotes the Old Testament or refers to it and uses its imagery over and over and over.

As we try to understand the [00:47:00] symbolism and the imagery in Revelation, we're just gonna keep going back to the Old Testament because it's all biblical imagery. God in His scripture has given us the key to understanding the Book of Revelation

So I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord God, who is and was and is to come, the Almighty That whole concept, alpha and omega and all letters in between, that's the first and last letter. Um, okay, look, we've, we've gotta get to the points for home, but trust me, you're gonna see a map of Patmos next week, and I'll bring out part of that verse.

Here's... That was your warm-up. That was your do it. Now we gotta do the cool down before I let you go. Number one, we can rely on scripture for life. These are the oracles of God. This is the Holy Spirit whom the Father sent in Jesus' name to teach us the things we need to know and bring to remembrance [00:48:00] to the apostles the things that He had said.

This is reliable, and it teaches us that God reaches all of us. That's this alpha and omega. He's there for your past. He's there for your future. He's certainly there for your present. Doesn't matter what you're going through right now at this point in life, you can be assured of something. Jesus loves you right now, and His sovereignty covers your life right now.

He can, He can heal you from your past. He can take care of you into your future, and He can provide for you in your today. So let's serve our King. He's made us into His kingdom to be priests to Him. We've got the greatest calling anybody could ever have. I hope you're enjoying this study. I'm excited to come back to you next week.

Let me bless you in the name of Jesus, and then I'll see you next week, God willing. Father, we do in the name of Jesus ask Your blessing upon [00:49:00] all who hear the words of Your scriptures. May Your Holy Spirit enlighten the hearts of those who are listening and reading, to draw them into Your kingdom and to put them to work in service to You in that kingdom with the kingdom heart as taught to us this morning.

We pray these things through the one who was and is and is to come, the Alpha and Omega, the Sovereign Lord of lords, the King of kings, the Almighty Pantokrator. We pray this in Jesus Christ's most holy name. Amen.