1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,000 Revelation. 2 00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:08,680 And I'll just put a disclaimer out there. 3 00:00:08,680 --> 00:00:10,920 I don't know how far we're going to get tonight, 4 00:00:10,920 --> 00:00:13,820 probably not far, but as I was telling Michael 5 00:00:13,820 --> 00:00:15,820 and talking to him before service, 6 00:00:15,820 --> 00:00:18,960 the good thing is we don't have a deadline on this study. 7 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:22,000 So we can just take as long as we need. 8 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:23,200 It takes multiple years. 9 00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:25,300 Well, then we get to spend multiple years 10 00:00:25,300 --> 00:00:27,500 studying God's Word together and that'll be great. 11 00:00:27,500 --> 00:00:31,800 So, Revelation, and as we get started, 12 00:00:31,800 --> 00:00:34,840 you remember last week we were talking about 13 00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:36,880 how we interpret Revelation, 14 00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:40,300 and we were saying that the genre matters, right? 15 00:00:40,300 --> 00:00:42,180 You have to really pay attention to the genre 16 00:00:42,180 --> 00:00:44,820 in order to make sense of what you're reading. 17 00:00:44,820 --> 00:00:46,480 You have to understand that it's a letter, 18 00:00:46,480 --> 00:00:49,420 that it is prophecy, and that it is apocalyptic. 19 00:00:49,420 --> 00:00:50,860 When you remember those things, 20 00:00:50,860 --> 00:00:54,160 you realize that Revelation is not a puzzle book 21 00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:55,200 that we have to decode. 22 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:57,000 Remember, it's a picture book, 23 00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:58,200 and we just get to behold it, 24 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:00,160 and it's telling a story, and it's God's story, 25 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:02,300 and it's beautiful, and so that's really cool. 26 00:01:02,300 --> 00:01:05,500 And tonight, we're going to talk about something 27 00:01:05,500 --> 00:01:08,000 along the same lines, which is, 28 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:09,940 well, how do we approach Revelation, right? 29 00:01:09,940 --> 00:01:11,980 We understand that it's a certain genre, 30 00:01:11,980 --> 00:01:13,980 and that's going to influence how we interpret it, 31 00:01:13,980 --> 00:01:17,840 but when we come to it, you might be surprised to learn 32 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:21,580 not everybody agrees on what's in Revelation, right? 33 00:01:21,580 --> 00:01:22,920 And it kind of reminded me, 34 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:24,360 and I know this is a little silly, 35 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:28,060 but Judah is currently making his way 36 00:01:28,060 --> 00:01:30,960 through Disney movies that I enjoyed as a kid, 37 00:01:30,960 --> 00:01:33,860 and so it's cool getting to rewatch them with him, 38 00:01:33,860 --> 00:01:36,360 except the Lion King, which has become one of his favorites, 39 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:38,900 and that's what really will tear you up as a father, 40 00:01:38,900 --> 00:01:41,140 so I can't watch certain scenes in that, 41 00:01:41,140 --> 00:01:43,300 but there is this interesting scene. 42 00:01:43,300 --> 00:01:45,400 If you've seen the Lion King, you remember the part 43 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:48,580 where you've got Simba and Timon and Pumbaa, 44 00:01:48,580 --> 00:01:49,840 and they're laying on their backs, 45 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:51,620 they're looking at the stars, right? 46 00:01:51,620 --> 00:01:53,080 And they start asking the question, 47 00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:55,580 hey, what do you think those are up there, all right? 48 00:01:55,580 --> 00:01:57,320 So they're all seeing the exact same thing, 49 00:01:57,320 --> 00:01:59,980 stars in the sky, and Timon, of course, 50 00:01:59,980 --> 00:02:03,300 he answers all companies, like, well, obviously, 51 00:02:03,300 --> 00:02:05,220 it's fireflies, and they got stuck 52 00:02:05,220 --> 00:02:07,700 in that blueish-black thing up there, 53 00:02:07,700 --> 00:02:10,000 but that's what they are, and it made sense to him, right? 54 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:11,600 He knows that fireflies make light, 55 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:14,640 and so he thought, okay, they're stuck up there in the sky. 56 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:17,600 And then Pumbaa was like, oh, well, 57 00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:20,940 I always thought it was balls of burning gas 58 00:02:20,940 --> 00:02:24,380 billions of miles away, which is hilarious, 59 00:02:24,380 --> 00:02:26,120 because he's made to be like kind of the dumb one, 60 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:27,880 but he gives the right answer, 61 00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:30,480 and Timon makes fun of him for that. 62 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:32,420 And then they press Simba, right? 63 00:02:32,420 --> 00:02:34,420 And you remember what he says, he's like, well, you know, 64 00:02:34,420 --> 00:02:36,920 someone told me long ago that it's the great kings 65 00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:41,000 of the past who were up there looking down on us, right? 66 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:42,200 And so I thought that was interesting. 67 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:44,700 They're seeing the exact same thing. 68 00:02:44,700 --> 00:02:46,800 They're all seeing lights in the sky, 69 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:49,440 but each one of them have a different understanding 70 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:51,240 of what those lights are, right? 71 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:52,400 One thinks it's fireflies, 72 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:53,840 and I think it's balls of burning gas, 73 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:56,040 and other thinks that it's gonna be 74 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:59,180 the great kings of the past looking down. 75 00:02:59,180 --> 00:03:01,420 And I thought, well, that's a pretty good, 76 00:03:01,420 --> 00:03:03,780 you know, introduction to revelation, 77 00:03:03,780 --> 00:03:06,020 because there are many things in revelation 78 00:03:06,020 --> 00:03:07,280 where you're gonna read them, 79 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:09,360 and your natural instinct is gonna be, 80 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:11,120 I know what that is, I've heard that before, 81 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:13,460 someone's told me that, I know what it is. 82 00:03:13,460 --> 00:03:16,400 I see 666, I know what it is. 83 00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,660 I see the seven seals, I know what it is. 84 00:03:19,660 --> 00:03:21,940 But even though you think you know what it is, 85 00:03:21,940 --> 00:03:25,600 someone over here says, actually, I think it's this. 86 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:27,740 And so there are a lot of different schools 87 00:03:27,740 --> 00:03:30,240 of understanding and interpretation and approaches 88 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:32,380 to revelation, some that you might be aware of, 89 00:03:32,380 --> 00:03:33,840 some that you might not. 90 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:37,740 And I think it's good to kind of talk about these 91 00:03:37,740 --> 00:03:40,720 because here's the important thing, right? 92 00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:44,760 We need to have a spirit of teachability 93 00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:46,920 in the church today, which is something 94 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:48,620 that we lack tremendously, right? 95 00:03:48,620 --> 00:03:50,660 We're living in the age of the expert, 96 00:03:50,660 --> 00:03:54,060 and so because someone has heard their preacher say it before, 97 00:03:54,060 --> 00:03:56,500 or they heard this growing up, or they Googled it, 98 00:03:56,500 --> 00:03:58,640 and they just happened to click on the first link, 99 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:00,100 and they listened to that teacher, 100 00:04:00,100 --> 00:04:01,680 they think they know the right answer, right? 101 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:02,940 We're living in the age of the expert, 102 00:04:02,940 --> 00:04:04,480 you can just Google anything. 103 00:04:04,480 --> 00:04:06,880 And so no one, almost no one, 104 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:10,620 has a spirit of teachability anymore in the church. 105 00:04:10,620 --> 00:04:13,480 And the Bible says in James 3, 17, 106 00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:17,420 that the wisdom from above, which is godly wisdom, 107 00:04:17,420 --> 00:04:22,360 is open to reason, meaning it's open to discussion, 108 00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:24,060 to having a conversation about things 109 00:04:24,060 --> 00:04:26,400 and to hearing solid arguments. 110 00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:30,940 Not only that, but Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 2,24, 111 00:04:30,940 --> 00:04:32,240 that a servant of the Lord, 112 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:34,340 anybody a servant of the Lord in here? 113 00:04:34,340 --> 00:04:38,280 Yeah, a servant of the Lord must be teachable. 114 00:04:38,280 --> 00:04:43,280 Now, that's hard for a lot of us, isn't it? 115 00:04:44,620 --> 00:04:47,720 Because we've made up our minds a long time ago, haven't we? 116 00:04:49,060 --> 00:04:52,400 And I think it's good to remind ourselves, 117 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:56,660 we're not God, and we could be wrong, right? 118 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:00,840 And I think the more that you walk with the Lord, 119 00:05:00,840 --> 00:05:02,880 and immerse yourself in His word, 120 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:05,100 and you are experiencing His grace, 121 00:05:05,100 --> 00:05:08,840 the more it makes this teachable spirit in you. 122 00:05:08,840 --> 00:05:11,920 Because you should never just make up your mind on something 123 00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:14,080 and say, I'm totally closed off to this, 124 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:16,980 and I'm not even gonna have a discussion about it, 125 00:05:16,980 --> 00:05:19,360 because that's not the godly wisdom from above. 126 00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:21,360 The Bible says it's open to reason. 127 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:25,460 If you are not even willing to change your mind on something, 128 00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:29,600 it kinda seems like that's a pride issue, right? 129 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:31,500 So for instance, there have been plenty of times 130 00:05:31,500 --> 00:05:33,240 in my walk with Christ, 131 00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:36,580 where I held to certain theological beliefs, 132 00:05:37,740 --> 00:05:40,040 and I was sure they were right. 133 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:43,200 And the more I walked with the Lord, I changed my mind. 134 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:45,820 Didn't think I ever would, but I did. 135 00:05:45,820 --> 00:05:47,520 We're gonna talk, probably, I don't know when, 136 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:50,440 I was gonna say next week, but in a few weeks, maybe, 137 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:53,000 we're gonna talk about some other things 138 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,320 to go with Revelation, about ideas related to the millennium 139 00:05:56,320 --> 00:05:58,200 and things like that, and there's all this pre-mill, 140 00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:00,400 post-mill, ah-mill, dispensation, 141 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:02,520 all this kinda stuff, right? 142 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:04,840 There's pretty much four main views. 143 00:06:04,840 --> 00:06:06,320 Well, I'll tell you right now, 144 00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:08,920 I've held to at least three or four at some point 145 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:10,640 in my walk with Christ. 146 00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:12,040 And at any given point, I could go back 147 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:13,360 between one or two of them. 148 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:15,800 They're so close that I think either one 149 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:18,120 could really be right, I don't know. 150 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:22,800 The point is that as we come to a book like Revelation 151 00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:27,600 that is so disputed and has so many different understandings, 152 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:31,080 we need to come with humility and have a teachable spirit 153 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:35,880 and say, I might be wrong, and that's okay, right? 154 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:38,960 I don't need to be right on everything. 155 00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:41,600 I can change my mind if I find that the word of God 156 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:43,960 is saying that my beliefs are not in line with it, 157 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:47,240 I need to be willing to align myself with God's word, right? 158 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:49,920 And so I think that's important to say at the start, 159 00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:52,280 and I would also caution you with three things. 160 00:06:52,280 --> 00:06:55,440 Number one is that everybody has a reason 161 00:06:55,440 --> 00:06:57,840 for believing what they believe, right? 162 00:06:57,840 --> 00:07:00,400 Even the most ridiculous idea, 163 00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:01,960 and you can think of a few and you're like, 164 00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:03,800 well, that's ridiculous. 165 00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:06,640 Everybody has a reason for believing what they believe. 166 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:08,600 And I've learned this the hard way. 167 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:10,760 I've learned this through study 168 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,120 because when I first became a Christian 169 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:15,720 and I quickly joined a Baptist church, 170 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:19,160 I started noticing that there was a common thing 171 00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:21,560 within Baptist circles, I'm not saying it happens here, 172 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:25,360 but in Baptist circles, where you just dismiss infant baptism. 173 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:27,120 Oh, it's not in the Bible, 174 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:28,480 and you don't see that in the New Testament. 175 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:29,840 What are they thinking, right? 176 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:31,400 It's easy to stroll me in that position 177 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:33,200 and go, what a ridiculous belief. 178 00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:36,480 It's probably because you never studied it, right? 179 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:38,240 And so I was like, well, I'm not gonna do that. 180 00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:40,960 And so I went and I read like every book I could find 181 00:07:40,960 --> 00:07:42,720 on infant baptism, I listened to lectures, 182 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:45,200 I listened to sermons, I listened to podcasts, 183 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:48,640 and I started realizing I still disagree with the position, 184 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:51,760 but I understand where they're coming from. 185 00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:53,440 And it's not a simple wave of the hand. 186 00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:54,960 They have no case. 187 00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:58,120 They've got a very, very strong case for infant baptism. 188 00:07:58,120 --> 00:07:59,600 Again, I still think it fails, 189 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:03,320 and I think that believers' baptism is more biblical, 190 00:08:03,320 --> 00:08:05,680 but they have a reason for believing what they believe. 191 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:07,880 So if you disagree with me on revelation, 192 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:10,040 if I disagree with you, can we just all understand 193 00:08:10,040 --> 00:08:13,520 we all have our reasons for believing what we believe? 194 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:15,840 Not only that, the other thing I would caution you with 195 00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:20,840 is that you should never say I disagree 196 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:23,880 until you can honestly say I understand. 197 00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:26,040 So again, this happens all the time. 198 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:27,520 People dismiss infant baptism. 199 00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:29,000 Oh, I disagree with that. 200 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:32,000 Do you understand why they hold to that in the first place? 201 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:33,960 It's good to have that conversation. 202 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:36,440 You know, you might disagree with me on the millennium 203 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:37,840 or how to approach revelation. 204 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:40,600 You might disagree with me on certain aspects of theology, 205 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:43,320 but don't make a straw man out of that position. 206 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:47,120 Do your research, find out why I believe what I believe, 207 00:08:47,120 --> 00:08:48,280 and then if you still disagree, 208 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:50,680 at least you can say you understand, right? 209 00:08:50,680 --> 00:08:53,160 That's a humble approach, is it not? 210 00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:55,160 And then that's the last thing I would say is 211 00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:57,080 don't straw man other people's positions. 212 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:00,880 That's very intellectually dishonest, that's very weak. 213 00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:03,080 It's very insecure, and I would say arrogant, 214 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:06,000 because anyone can make a straw man out of any position, right? 215 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,120 Easy to knock down and just dismiss. 216 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:11,920 You should always try to steal man anyone else's position 217 00:09:11,920 --> 00:09:14,880 and make it the strongest it possibly can be. 218 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:16,320 And that way when you engage with it, 219 00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:18,120 it's actually on an honest level. 220 00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:19,240 So that's what we need to remember 221 00:09:19,240 --> 00:09:20,360 as we approach revelation, 222 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:22,880 because whether you believe it or not, 223 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:24,480 whether you know it or not, 224 00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:28,320 these are the main approaches to the book of Revelation, okay? 225 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:30,280 And this isn't quite the chart you have 226 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:32,640 in your hands right now, but I just wanted to show you, 227 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:36,040 kind of just to give you an idea of what these are, right? 228 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:37,680 So we're approaching Revelation, 229 00:09:37,680 --> 00:09:39,560 and you think, oh, it's very straightforward. 230 00:09:39,560 --> 00:09:43,680 Well, and the words of Lee Corso, not so fast, sweetheart. 231 00:09:43,680 --> 00:09:47,400 So you have the Preter's view, 232 00:09:47,400 --> 00:09:50,560 and if you want just a very simple diagram 233 00:09:50,560 --> 00:09:52,120 of the Preter's view, 234 00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:55,360 they would say that after the crucifixion 235 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:56,680 of Jesus' resurrection, 236 00:09:56,680 --> 00:10:00,120 let's imagine that this is church history, right? 237 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:03,240 Well, they would say that almost all of the book 238 00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:08,240 of Revelation is fulfilled right here in AD 70. 239 00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:13,120 So you're thinking, and you've heard, 240 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:14,680 and you might believe, 241 00:10:14,680 --> 00:10:16,600 well, Revelation is a book about the future 242 00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:18,000 and all the things that are to come 243 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:19,760 in thousands and thousands of years 244 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:21,320 or hundreds of years or however much, 245 00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:24,440 but there's a very large portion of believers today 246 00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:26,960 who believe that everything in Revelation, 247 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:29,360 apart from maybe one or two chapters, 248 00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:34,160 was entirely fulfilled before AD 70 or around AD 70 249 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:37,120 with, anybody know what happens in AD 70 besides Joseph? 250 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:41,520 Temple was destroyed, it's the fall of Jerusalem. 251 00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:42,880 And so that's the Preter's view. 252 00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:43,920 So they look at Revelation, 253 00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:46,520 they say pretty much everything, first century. 254 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:48,000 Then you have the futurist view, 255 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:51,720 which is primarily the view that the majority 256 00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:54,160 of the church holds today and has held 257 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:58,720 since about the late 19th century 258 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:00,960 and into the 20th century. 259 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:04,920 And they would say, well, if this is church history, 260 00:11:04,920 --> 00:11:07,120 that the majority of Revelation is fulfilled 261 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:10,920 at some point in the future, really distant future, 262 00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:14,160 it could be after a rapture per se, 263 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:16,040 and before the second coming of Christ 264 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:18,480 with maybe some stuff continuing after, 265 00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:20,480 but the futurist would look at Revelation 266 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:22,640 and you can see they're totally opposite 267 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:23,920 from the Preterist, right? 268 00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:26,640 They say everything is gonna take place 269 00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:29,480 at some point in the distant future. 270 00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:31,600 Well, then you've got the historicists 271 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,840 and they, I'm gonna run out of ink with this one, 272 00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:37,840 they say that the book of Revelation 273 00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:42,160 is actually fulfilled throughout all of church history 274 00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:44,160 with very specific events. 275 00:11:44,160 --> 00:11:48,080 So they see events written about in Revelation 276 00:11:48,080 --> 00:11:51,680 and they will say that corresponds to historical events 277 00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:54,400 that happened throughout history. 278 00:11:54,400 --> 00:11:57,400 Even things like the French Revolution and stuff like that, 279 00:11:57,400 --> 00:12:00,520 they'll say that's written about in Revelation 280 00:12:01,680 --> 00:12:05,280 and it's fulfilled throughout the history of church. 281 00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,000 And then you have the idealist view, 282 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,840 which they would say that the majority of Revelation 283 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:15,200 is actually all of Revelation is a symbolic book, 284 00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:16,960 that everything within Revelation 285 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:19,200 needs to be taken as a representation 286 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:20,880 and as something symbolic. 287 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:23,880 And so they would see fulfillment happening 288 00:12:23,880 --> 00:12:26,240 in kind of patterns throughout history. 289 00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:29,920 So it's just occurrences of the same thing 290 00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:33,720 over and over again throughout all of history. 291 00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:35,960 Now those are the major views 292 00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:38,600 and maybe you look at this and you go, 293 00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:40,400 okay, I see where I fall. 294 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:42,160 I know which one I already believe in. 295 00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:45,240 And I think there are probably people in this very room 296 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:49,720 who hold to more different views than you in this room. 297 00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:51,480 So you might have some futurists in here, 298 00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:53,600 you might have some preterists in here, idealists, 299 00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:56,400 whatever the case, but understand, 300 00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:58,840 they still believe that Jesus is the Christ 301 00:12:58,840 --> 00:13:02,280 and that salvation is through Christ and Christ the what. 302 00:13:02,280 --> 00:13:03,560 But here's my question, all right? 303 00:13:03,560 --> 00:13:05,320 And just to show you how this plays out 304 00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:06,320 with the book of Revelation 305 00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:08,840 and to show you why it's so significant, 306 00:13:08,840 --> 00:13:11,280 that's why we're gonna get into that chart 307 00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:14,360 is because when you come to Revelation 308 00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:17,280 and you see certain things, you have to understand 309 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:19,040 it's not always as cut and dry 310 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:21,520 as we try to make it out to be, right? 311 00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:23,840 We look at certain things and you might think, 312 00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:25,840 well, I know what that means, 313 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:28,800 but there's someone else who's gonna totally disagree with that. 314 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:33,720 So I wanted to put a number of instances of famous things 315 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:34,880 that occur in Revelation. 316 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:37,240 I could have picked a whole bunch of stuff, 317 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:38,840 but I just, I picked four things 318 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:40,720 and I thought it'd be interesting to see, 319 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:43,040 well, what do the different approaches make 320 00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:44,720 of these things, right? 321 00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:47,840 So we wanna start, you start with the preterist, right? 322 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:49,840 Remember, preterist, pretty much everything 323 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:54,040 is fulfilled in the first century leading up to AD 70. 324 00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:56,160 So you come to the seven churches, right? 325 00:13:56,160 --> 00:13:58,480 You have Revelation chapters two and three, 326 00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:00,760 John's addressing the seven churches. 327 00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:03,040 What do you think the preterist believes 328 00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:04,280 about the seven churches? 329 00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:07,280 What's gonna be his interpretation of the seven churches? 330 00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:18,480 That's right, that's exactly right. 331 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:21,920 So literal and first century. 332 00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:27,720 So literal first century, that's what you have 333 00:14:27,720 --> 00:14:30,960 with the preterist view there of the seven churches. 334 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:33,720 And that makes a lot of sense 335 00:14:33,720 --> 00:14:38,600 because John was writing to seven real churches at the time, 336 00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:40,600 but you go to the futurist and remember, 337 00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:42,720 the futurist says, well, everything is gonna happen 338 00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:45,640 in the future, so they come to the seven churches. 339 00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:47,600 What do you do with that? 340 00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:50,320 What do you think the futurist makes 341 00:14:50,320 --> 00:15:05,600 of the seven churches in Revelation? 342 00:15:05,600 --> 00:15:06,680 Yes, beautiful. 343 00:15:06,680 --> 00:15:10,520 So they acknowledge that there were seven real churches 344 00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:14,040 by those names in the first century, 345 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:20,280 but they say that it represents seven periods in time 346 00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:23,080 throughout church history that the church is gonna go through. 347 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:26,440 So for instance, if you just wanna hear an example 348 00:15:26,440 --> 00:15:27,960 of what this sounds like, 349 00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:29,960 they'll say the Ephesian church, remember? 350 00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:32,520 You have abandoned your first love. 351 00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:35,120 They say, well, that corresponds to the nature of the church 352 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:39,280 pretty much from 8070 to about 8170 353 00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:41,200 when the church right after the fall of Jerusalem 354 00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:42,280 abandoned their first love 355 00:15:42,280 --> 00:15:44,720 and there was a lot of stuff going on then. 356 00:15:44,720 --> 00:15:46,680 Then you have the church in Smyrna, 357 00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:48,720 which was the persecuted church. 358 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:51,600 And they'll say, well, that happened immediately after 359 00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:55,760 that 8170, pretty much leading up to Constantine 360 00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:58,280 because there was a lot of persecution at that time 361 00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:00,080 and a lot of things were going on. 362 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:02,040 So that was the persecuted church. 363 00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:06,040 You had Pergamum or Pergamus, the compromising church. 364 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:09,560 They'll say that was pretty much from the time of Constantine 365 00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:12,400 up until when Boniface III was crowned 366 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:15,000 the universal bishop when the church was making 367 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:16,880 all sorts of compromises. 368 00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:18,920 Thyatira, the worldly church, 369 00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:22,440 they say that that extends from the period of 8600 370 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:26,120 to about the Reformation time somewhere in there. 371 00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:28,800 Sardis, which is the dead church, 372 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:31,960 they say took place during the time of the Reformation. 373 00:16:31,960 --> 00:16:34,760 And Philadelphia, the overwhelmed church, 374 00:16:34,760 --> 00:16:37,000 the church that had a lot going on, 375 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:38,800 but had an opportunity for evangelism 376 00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:40,200 and a lot of good works. 377 00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:45,200 They say that that took place between AD 1750 and the 1900s. 378 00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:49,040 And then the Laodicean church, or the nauseating church, 379 00:16:49,040 --> 00:16:50,800 is the church today. 380 00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:51,800 So that's what they believe. 381 00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:54,600 Actually, you can put this for the historicists. 382 00:16:54,600 --> 00:16:58,040 They pretty much believe and on board with the same thing 383 00:16:58,040 --> 00:16:59,920 that they believe that the seven churches 384 00:16:59,920 --> 00:17:02,560 represent seven ages throughout, 385 00:17:02,560 --> 00:17:05,040 or seven periods of time throughout church history 386 00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:06,240 that the church must go through. 387 00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:10,840 Now, a couple of things could be said there. 388 00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:12,960 What would you say to that? 389 00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:15,000 If that's maybe your first time hearing it, 390 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:17,920 what are your initial thoughts and responses? 391 00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:28,640 Okay, why are they specified 392 00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:30,440 as being a geographical location? 393 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:33,160 Again, trying to still man the futurist position, 394 00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:34,520 they would say we acknowledge 395 00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:37,120 that they were real geographical locations, 396 00:17:37,120 --> 00:17:39,440 but the problems going on in those churches 397 00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,240 were also going to be predominant 398 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:44,200 within a certain period within church history. 399 00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:46,080 So it corresponds. 400 00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:48,240 And so we acknowledge the church is going through this, 401 00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:49,400 but the church at large 402 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:51,400 is gonna go through this at another time. 403 00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:54,320 Anybody else? 404 00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:55,600 Responses to this. 405 00:17:55,600 --> 00:18:02,320 See what I did? 406 00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:03,040 Yeah. 407 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:08,800 No? 408 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:11,040 Who was there? 409 00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:12,200 I'm not sure. 410 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:13,680 Scri pride. 411 00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:20,720 I thought this was for this hour, 412 00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:21,640 but then I was left as the recipient two weeks before, 413 00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:23,000 so I keep second. 414 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:34,560 Yeah, so I think in trying to again answer, so just to show my hand, I'm not a futurist, 415 00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:39,880 I don't hold this position, but I think they would respond and say that revelation being 416 00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:47,220 a symbolic book, the nature of the book itself gives way to a symbolic interpretation or 417 00:18:47,220 --> 00:18:51,160 at least some sort of correspondence that could play itself out within church history. 418 00:18:51,160 --> 00:18:56,680 I think a couple things that come to my mind is, you know, you end up with a person who's 419 00:18:56,680 --> 00:18:59,040 having to make the dates, right? 420 00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:01,600 So it's not something given by God. 421 00:19:01,600 --> 00:19:05,840 You have human beings who are sinful and fallible who are having to look at history and go, 422 00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:09,880 okay, where do we set these dates to correspond with the church? 423 00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:11,280 That would be number one for me. 424 00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:16,280 Number two would be calling the Reformation the dead church. 425 00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:20,680 They say that Sardis, the dead church, took place during the time of the Reformation. 426 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:22,240 And that was when the church was coming alive. 427 00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:23,880 That's when the gospel was rediscovered. 428 00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:27,120 That's when there was great revival and there was great preaching going on and all this 429 00:19:27,120 --> 00:19:28,120 kind of stuff. 430 00:19:28,120 --> 00:19:32,560 I mean, you had Knox and Luther and Zwingli and all these great men of God who were doing 431 00:19:32,560 --> 00:19:36,520 these amazing works and the church was alive and well. 432 00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:38,080 So I have a problem with that. 433 00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:42,880 But the other interesting thing to know about this position is that, and this is interesting, 434 00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:46,680 you can go back and look at this throughout the writings of church history. 435 00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:51,920 Every person who's trying to do this at any point in church history always puts the present 436 00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:54,680 day church as the Laodicean church. 437 00:19:54,680 --> 00:19:59,360 And so one of the very first times that this was written about in the 1700s, they said 438 00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:03,320 that the church at that time was the Laodicean church. 439 00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:07,600 But now when people look at this position today, they say that we're the Laodicean church. 440 00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:09,440 And so it's always moving back. 441 00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:10,440 It's always stretching. 442 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:12,760 You're always having to reimagine things. 443 00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,800 And then finally, you have to get back to authorial intent. 444 00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,520 You have to ask yourself, and the answer may be yes. 445 00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:21,720 Again, it's a valid position for some. 446 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:25,520 But you have to ask yourself, what was the authorial intent? 447 00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:31,240 When God inspired John and when God gave this revelation to Jesus to give to the saints, 448 00:20:31,240 --> 00:20:38,480 did he in any way intend to represent these seven real churches as seven symbolic ages 449 00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:41,040 throughout church history? 450 00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:44,440 Seems unlikely to me, but you might come to a different conclusion, but that's at least 451 00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:45,440 that position. 452 00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:48,160 And the seven churches aren't as cut and dry as we thought, right? 453 00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:51,200 Like, you look at that and you think, okay, I know what it's talking about, but other 454 00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:53,720 people might disagree with you. 455 00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:58,760 And then you have the idealist position, which they would say that it's every church, I'm 456 00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:04,720 really going to run out of room, so every church, every way. 457 00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:10,560 That pretty much the problems that were existing within the churches at that time in the first 458 00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:15,840 century are the same problems that all churches at all times deal with throughout all of history. 459 00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:22,200 And I think that's another solid response to this seven periods thing, because think 460 00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:25,120 about the persecuted church, right? 461 00:21:25,120 --> 00:21:26,560 The Smyrnyn church. 462 00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:31,600 Well, they said that that period was right after the first century, and that period represented 463 00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:33,360 the persecuted church. 464 00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:39,360 My main problem with that is that the 20th century had more Christian martyrs than the 465 00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:41,600 previous 19th centuries combined. 466 00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:44,440 Shouldn't that be the Smyrnyn church? 467 00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:48,320 And yet, many people who hold this position would say that's the evangelistic church, 468 00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:49,920 that's the Philadelphian church. 469 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:57,560 And so it's better, I think, to say, and more appropriate to recognize that the seven churches 470 00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:02,680 were real churches who had real problems, but the problems that they faced were the 471 00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:04,760 same problems we face today. 472 00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:09,400 Like Ephesus, we still leave our first love, and we abandon Jesus all the time. 473 00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:12,240 Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. 474 00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:14,480 You have the Smyrnyn church who, again, persecuted. 475 00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:19,200 We have Christian martyrs today who are being persecuted more than any other time in history. 476 00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:23,400 You have like Pergamum and some of these other ones, Thyatira, we're compromising. 477 00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:25,520 We can become worldly like Sardis. 478 00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:27,320 We can become dead like Philadelphia. 479 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:32,520 We might be overwhelmed, but we still have great opportunity for evangelism like Laodicea. 480 00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:33,760 Sometimes we're nauseating. 481 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:35,080 Are we not? 482 00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:39,720 And Jesus just won't spit us out of His mouth because we're making all sorts of compromises 483 00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:41,120 and we're lukewarm. 484 00:22:41,120 --> 00:22:45,640 And so I think it's a good interpretation to recognize these were real churches, but 485 00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:50,160 the messages to these seven churches have relevance for the church at all points in 486 00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:51,680 all human history. 487 00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:54,800 And I just think that's a fair way to say that. 488 00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:58,320 So then let me just, we'll go quickly through some of these. 489 00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:00,360 The seven seals, right? 490 00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:05,200 You have the seven seals in Revelation you read in chapter six and you can go back and 491 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:06,200 study some of these. 492 00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:10,080 You have a rider on a white horse and a red horse and there's black and all this kind 493 00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:12,160 of stuff and death and destruction. 494 00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:17,040 And there's these seven seals being opened and it's like, okay, what do these mean? 495 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:20,680 Well, if you ask, for instance, the Futures, what do you think the Futures is going to 496 00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,480 say? 497 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:24,480 Happens in the future. 498 00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:29,760 These are events that are going to happen in the future. 499 00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,800 And specifically, it can be different. 500 00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:38,120 Many people in this camp would say that the seven seals are going to be opened during 501 00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:41,520 the seven year tribulation period or at least the six seals will. 502 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,880 And the seventh seal is going to be when Christ returns and there's going to be the millennium 503 00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:47,200 kingdom and all this kind of stuff. 504 00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:52,920 Or they might push it further back some Futures and say that this would be the very end when 505 00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,680 the kingdom is consummated and all that kind of stuff. 506 00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,400 So there are variations within it. 507 00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:03,200 And they would put this at some point in the future probably after the rapture, right? 508 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,400 What do you think the Preterist says about this? 509 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,640 It's already happened. 510 00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:11,720 Do you know when it happened? 511 00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:20,520 What it corresponds to? 512 00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:25,720 The Jewish Wars of the first century. 513 00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:30,560 Remember around the fall of Jerusalem, Rome and the Jews were really going at it and there 514 00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:34,880 was a lot of Jewish persecution and Rome was on the move and all this kind of stuff. 515 00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:35,880 And so it's interesting. 516 00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,320 I actually wanted to read this to you. 517 00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,080 This is a Preterist interpretation of the seven seals. 518 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:51,200 So he says, the rider on the white horse who was bent on conquest represents the victorious 519 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:57,120 Roman march toward Jerusalem to engage in the Jewish war in the spring of AD 67. 520 00:24:57,120 --> 00:24:58,640 He actually dates it. 521 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,760 The rider on the red horse who takes the peace from the earth. 522 00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:09,240 He is a representation of the famous Pax Romana being eradicated. 523 00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,560 You know Pax Romana was the Roman peace that they had for so long. 524 00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:16,360 But when the Jewish Wars happened, well that peace was gone. 525 00:25:16,360 --> 00:25:22,320 The riders on the black and pale horses represent famine and death issuing from the Jewish War. 526 00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:27,000 The fifth seal, which is the martyrs crying out, how long, oh Lord, how long they say 527 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:33,680 it represents God's people being persecuted during that time of the Jewish Wars. 528 00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:39,520 And then finally the sixth seal with every mountain is moving away. 529 00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:46,040 He says, alludes to Roman legions, construction crews removing mountainous impediments to 530 00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:51,120 the progress of the massive army into their building banks at the tops of their protective 531 00:25:51,120 --> 00:25:53,000 walls surrounding the Jewish cities. 532 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:58,480 You remember there's also that famous prophecy there in Revelation chapter six around this 533 00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:03,800 seal where it says, on that day when his face is shown and the judgment comes, all this 534 00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:08,800 kind of stuff, that people will say to the mountains, fall on us, hide us from him who 535 00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:10,400 is coming, right? 536 00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:14,760 And they say that actually corresponds to people in the Jewish Wars who ran to the mountains 537 00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,560 for hiding places during the time of persecution. 538 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,600 So again, pretty interesting, right? 539 00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:24,040 It's something you look at and you're like, definitely takes place in the future and then 540 00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:29,560 you read this and you're like, well this guy has a strong solid argument for taking place 541 00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:31,200 in the first century. 542 00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:35,560 I'm not a preterist by the way, I do reject that and I don't think that's what that refers 543 00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,760 to but it is a legitimate view and if you are a preterist you've got a strong case for 544 00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:40,760 it. 545 00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:47,480 The historian says that they are events to take place in human history. 546 00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:52,400 So events in history and they correspond to very specific events. 547 00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,040 That's the other thing with historicism. 548 00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:58,880 You have to remember it's not just events throughout history, it's specific events throughout 549 00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:00,240 history. 550 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:06,520 And then finally with the idealist they would say that it represents events in history and 551 00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:11,800 I don't have room to write this down here but basically everything with the idealist 552 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:15,320 is about the perpetual fight between good and evil. 553 00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,960 So they would look at the seals and they would say this is what you expect when man is against 554 00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:25,720 God and when man is against man and these are just symbolic representations of the effects 555 00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:30,920 of that enmity between God and man and then man and man. 556 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,720 So let's get to a very interesting one. 557 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:43,400 666 and the beast, what does it mean? 558 00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:44,400 Any cries? 559 00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:47,920 Okay, yeah, that's one possibility. 560 00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:56,560 If you're a preterist and you see 666 and the beast, who are you accusing? 561 00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:10,520 Here, why is that young Joseph, our resident theologian and 666? 562 00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:15,240 Dependent. 563 00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:16,240 You getting close? 564 00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:17,240 Yeah, you're on it. 565 00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:20,360 No, you were closer with Greg. 566 00:28:20,360 --> 00:28:22,360 Yeah, yeah. 567 00:28:22,360 --> 00:28:23,680 Okay, tag me in. 568 00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:24,680 Got it. 569 00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:29,120 So yeah, Joseph's right. 570 00:28:29,120 --> 00:28:34,760 The preterist would say that the number 666 corresponds to Nero, Nero 1st century Roman 571 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:40,880 emperor who hated Christians, hated Jews, was highly persecuting both of those groups. 572 00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:45,920 And interesting, if you look at the name Nero, right, and you write it in a certain way if 573 00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:53,440 his name is Nero Caesar and you add up those numbers, so basically to explain this, before 574 00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:58,360 there was the Arabic number system like we have today, 1, 2, 3, 4, letters used to hold 575 00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:02,360 a numeric value, and specifically like Hebrew and Aramaic letters. 576 00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:10,480 So if you take Nero Caesar and you transliterate it from the Greek into Hebrew or Aramaic, 577 00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:17,480 the value of his name adds up to 666. 578 00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:18,480 It does. 579 00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,480 It does. 580 00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:22,560 Now there's a lot to be said there. 581 00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:31,840 One thing in particular is that it's Greek to Hebrew, but he was the Roman emperor, which 582 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,640 means most of the time his name would appear in Latin. 583 00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,600 And if you add up the numerical value, so if you transliterate from Latin to Hebrew or 584 00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,360 Aramaic, the numerical value is 616. 585 00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,360 So that really holds water. 586 00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,880 You kind of, you lose out on that right there. 587 00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:51,480 The other thing about this is that no one can agree on what the title actually was. 588 00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:53,920 Was it Caesar Nero, Nero Caesar? 589 00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,760 There's all, there's sorts of titles and names that Nero went by. 590 00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:02,040 And so you have to choose a very specific title in a very specific language and then 591 00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:06,440 transliterate that back into a very specific language in order to get 666. 592 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:11,000 And you have to ask yourself, if you're John and you're writing to seven churches, remember 593 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,800 it's a letter, he's writing to seven literal churches, you're writing this and all these 594 00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:17,320 churches are Gentile churches. 595 00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:18,560 That's something we'll get into later. 596 00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,640 They're not primarily Jewish churches. 597 00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,160 These are Gentile churches. 598 00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:26,120 Do you think these Gentile churches, seeing the number 666 would have immediately thought 599 00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:30,080 to themselves, okay, Nero's a pretty bad guy. 600 00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,040 We can maybe target him for this. 601 00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:36,280 Let's put his name in a very specific title in Greek and then let's find someone who knows 602 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:40,360 how to speak Hebrew and Aramaic and let's get them to transliterate it back for us and 603 00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:45,120 then let's see if it adds up to 666 or 616, you know, whatever the case may be. 604 00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,760 There's just a lot of steps that I don't think the first century readers receiving this 605 00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:53,480 letter would have gone through in order to try to figure out who this is. 606 00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:54,920 So, but that is the Preter's view. 607 00:30:54,920 --> 00:31:00,520 They say that it is Nero and that he is the representation of the 666 and the beast for 608 00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:01,520 all they did. 609 00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:06,760 What do you think the futurist says? 610 00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:08,760 Coming in the future, Antichrist, right? 611 00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:12,400 He's going to be the Antichrist. 612 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,760 There's just way too many views within the futurist. 613 00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:18,840 Like futurist is this kind of like, there's so many different aspects of it, people who 614 00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:21,440 hold different variations of it. 615 00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,800 But essentially they would say that the beast is the Antichrist. 616 00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:30,680 He represents a very specific person who is to come at some point in the future and 666 617 00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:37,680 probably in some way corresponds to his name in some capacity and that the mark of the 618 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:42,360 beast typically, I've seen variations, but typically it's technology. 619 00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:48,640 It's going to be some form of technology that's advanced that we receive a mark. 620 00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:49,640 People thought it was barcodes. 621 00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,880 When barcodes first started coming out, they thought it was the mark of the beast. 622 00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,000 Other people think that there's going to be a future technology that people will have 623 00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:01,360 implanted in their heads or their wrists or their hands that will be the mark of the beast 624 00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:04,920 and show your allegiance to the Antichrist who is to come. 625 00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,600 So that's what the futurist says. 626 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,600 What do you think the historist says? 627 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:15,600 Did what now? 628 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:20,600 Oh yeah, you've got something on there, don't you? 629 00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,960 All right, so this one's fun, right? 630 00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:29,960 The Historicist, if you have this title, Vicarious Philly Day, which means the vice-regent 631 00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:34,280 of the Son of God, you know who holds that title? 632 00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,080 That's the Pope. 633 00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,840 Papa Pope. 634 00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:43,680 And so the Historicist, so basically the reason I had that title in there is because if you 635 00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:48,480 add up the numerical value of that title, it adds up to 666. 636 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:53,120 So they try to do the same thing with this title that the futurist does with Nero. 637 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:57,840 And so they look at the Pope's title and they say that adds up to 666. 638 00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:00,160 The Pope is the Antichrist. 639 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,120 He is the beast who is to come. 640 00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:04,640 Now a lot of things to say there. 641 00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:06,240 The Pope has a lot of different titles. 642 00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,440 It kind of goes back to the Nero thing where you could pick almost any title. 643 00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:15,400 You could probably rearrange my title with some form of my name and it'll equal 666. 644 00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:16,960 I don't think I'm the Antichrist. 645 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,120 I hope I'm not. 646 00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,680 I told Jordan one time when I was like 10 years old, I had this thought. 647 00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:24,960 I was like, oh man, what if I'm the Antichrist? 648 00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:29,480 I wasn't even a Christian, but I was just the YMCA and they had showed us the left behind 649 00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:30,480 series. 650 00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:31,480 I'm like, that's not me. 651 00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:32,480 That'd be terrible. 652 00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:36,920 I don't think any other people worry about that on a regular basis, but anyways. 653 00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:39,640 So I think you can do this with pretty much any title and name. 654 00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:43,880 You can make it into 666 if you wanted to. 655 00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:49,000 The other thing to mention about this is like, is the Pope the Antichrist? 656 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:50,800 He is a Antichrist for sure. 657 00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:52,800 So that's what we'll say. 658 00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:54,000 We'll just leave it at that. 659 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,320 He's probably not the bad, big bad Antichrist. 660 00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:58,800 Is he a Antichrist? 661 00:33:58,800 --> 00:33:59,800 100%. 662 00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:00,800 Absolutely. 663 00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,120 He's the Antichrist John and what you look at in the Antichrist. 664 00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:04,120 You are to come. 665 00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,040 The Spirit that is within them, for sure. 666 00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,400 He is an Antichrist, but not the Antichrist. 667 00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:11,480 And then you have the idealist. 668 00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:17,680 What do you think the idealist says? 669 00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:18,680 They keep popping up. 670 00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:19,680 Yeah, pretty much. 671 00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:27,760 So it's really kind of hard to summarize this, but I think one way is man in sin. 672 00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:29,800 So they look at 666. 673 00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:33,640 And we said this last week, what is the number of completeness in the Bible? 674 00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:34,640 Or perfect? 675 00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:35,640 7, right? 676 00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:36,640 It's 7. 677 00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,560 6 falls just short of that, does it not? 678 00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:44,080 And so they look at this and they say 666 is deficiency. 679 00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:45,160 It's incompleteness. 680 00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,280 It's imperfection, which is a sign of sin. 681 00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,800 And it really, 6 unfortunately corresponds to man in the Bible. 682 00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,200 The man was made on the sixth day. 683 00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:56,320 Man works for six days. 684 00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:58,920 There's a lot of man in 6's in the Bible. 685 00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:05,920 And so they would say that 666 is a general representation of mankind in sin and that 686 00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:07,920 we cause a lot of harm in this world. 687 00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:09,720 It's a pretty good idea. 688 00:35:09,720 --> 00:35:10,720 They're not wrong. 689 00:35:10,720 --> 00:35:16,360 So there's a lot more that we could say about that, but we will continue for now. 690 00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,000 Let's go through this last one very quickly. 691 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,000 Babylon, the Preterist. 692 00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,120 Anybody know what he says about Babylon? 693 00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:25,920 The whore of a city that is called in Revelation? 694 00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:26,920 Rome. 695 00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:27,920 Okay. 696 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:28,920 Actually, no. 697 00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:29,920 That's not. 698 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:34,800 So there are multiple versions of Preterist. 699 00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:41,840 So I'll put it up there because there are some Preterists who will say Rome, but there's 700 00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:42,840 another view. 701 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,520 Anybody else know what the other view is? 702 00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:47,160 Jerusalem. 703 00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:54,440 That's a more common view is that Jerusalem is actually Babylon, the city that was unfaithful 704 00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:58,000 to the Lord, the city that played the whore to the Lord. 705 00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,880 And so you look at this and you're immediately thinking maybe literal Babylon, maybe Rome, 706 00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,440 maybe some great, you know, something to come. 707 00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:05,840 Actually they'd say it's just Jerusalem. 708 00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:10,320 It was an unfaithful city to the Lord and that's why it was destroyed in the end in 709 00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,240 8070, at least that's what they say. 710 00:36:12,240 --> 00:36:18,440 So Babylon for the Futurist, what do they say? 711 00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:19,440 New coming of Babylon. 712 00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:20,440 That's right. 713 00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:30,440 The literal Babylon, that the actual city of Babylon will rise to prominence again and 714 00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:35,440 exert some sort of impact and influence over the world. 715 00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:37,800 The Historicists, what do they say? 716 00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,760 Who's Babylon for the Historicists? 717 00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:44,960 Yes, very good. 718 00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,720 The Historicists, they just do not like Catholicism. 719 00:36:47,720 --> 00:36:49,520 So let's call that what it is. 720 00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:55,320 So yeah, Rome or the Roman Church, you can put the Roman Church, that's who they believe 721 00:36:55,320 --> 00:37:02,280 Babylon is because Catholics have been widely adulterous to the Lord and played the whore 722 00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:03,960 and gone astray and all this kind of stuff. 723 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:09,360 And so yeah, they just say, well, Babylon is Rome and the idealist, anybody know what 724 00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:13,720 the idealist would say? 725 00:37:13,720 --> 00:37:14,720 Or have been many? 726 00:37:14,720 --> 00:37:15,720 Okay. 727 00:37:15,720 --> 00:37:19,760 They're going to make it more symbolic throughout all time. 728 00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:27,360 So they would say that Babylon represents, going to have to get down, the world in the 729 00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:31,560 church. 730 00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:36,840 That whenever the world infects the church and corrupts the church, they have become 731 00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:41,520 a Babylon and they have played the whore to the Lord. 732 00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,960 So as we conclude, we got through it, right? 733 00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,680 Just a couple things to take note of. 734 00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:52,320 We just wanted to do this to show you that you see these things that seem common and 735 00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:57,200 understandable in Revelation and we just need to have the humility to understand. 736 00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:01,960 Not everybody agrees and that there are people who have different views and they have reasons 737 00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:07,160 for their views and we need to engage with them honestly and not just straw man them 738 00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:08,920 and dismiss them. 739 00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,800 So my question is, which one of these is right? 740 00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:13,800 We need an approach, right? 741 00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,760 We're going to be studying Revelation for, I don't know how long. 742 00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:17,760 We need an approach. 743 00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:29,960 Which one of these is right? 744 00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:44,560 Very good. 745 00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,440 I want to say it's going to be our approach for Revelation. 746 00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:52,200 So again, as we go throughout it, I will acknowledge these views and I'll give credence 747 00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:54,600 to them and say these people believe this. 748 00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,800 But in general, our approach is going to be kind of what Nick was hitting out there, that 749 00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,960 like you look at this and you go, well, I could see a lot of different truth aspects 750 00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,000 in a lot of these approaches, right? 751 00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:08,920 Like the Preterist takes seriously the first century reality of the writing. 752 00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:15,040 The Futurist recognizes that there are things to come in the future that we need to anticipate. 753 00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:20,920 The Historist recognizes that these events that happen in Revelation can be seen throughout 754 00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:24,400 the history of the church and the Idealist recognizes that a lot of these things are 755 00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,600 symbolic and a lot of these things are repetitive. 756 00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:32,120 And so what we want to adopt is what's called the eclectic approach. 757 00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:36,200 And that's what we're going to go with is the eclectic approach, which basically tries 758 00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:40,840 to take the best of each one of these and combine them into one approach. 759 00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:45,920 So you give credence to the historical reality of the first century church. 760 00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,600 You recognize that there are things to come. 761 00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:53,280 You recognize that history does show a lot of these things to take place. 762 00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:58,280 But most importantly, and I think the Idealist has a very strong case, which is why it's 763 00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:04,040 so prominent in the eclectic view, is that there are many symbols that represent something 764 00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,720 else in Revelation, but they're also very literal things as well. 765 00:40:07,720 --> 00:40:12,320 But the Idealist recognizes the cyclical pattern of Revelation. 766 00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:16,440 So you look at things that happen, you're like, this might not be a set of chronological 767 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:17,480 things to happen. 768 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:19,440 This might not be a chronology. 769 00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:23,080 It might just be telling us like three or four different. 770 00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:26,720 They might be saying the same thing in three or four different ways and showing us that 771 00:40:26,720 --> 00:40:31,800 history is cyclical, that the church is being persecuted all the time, that we are going 772 00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:36,760 worldly at all times, we're compromising all the time, that these things happen in cycles. 773 00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:38,480 And so we need to remember that. 774 00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,280 And I think that's a good approach to have is just to recognize the best of what everybody 775 00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:46,800 else has to offer and say, let's put that together and make a solid approach of it. 776 00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:51,440 And so my very last thing then is going to be, how do we approach Revelation? 777 00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:53,240 Here's what I want you to remember. 778 00:40:53,240 --> 00:41:01,040 Humbly, we approach Revelation humbly dependent on the Holy Spirit while maintaining a teachable 779 00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:03,320 spirit. 780 00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,760 It means you can have your view, I can have my view, but let's have a discussion about 781 00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:07,760 it. 782 00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:11,680 Let's just have an open, honest discussion and have a teachable spirit. 783 00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:13,680 You could convince me to change my view. 784 00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:14,680 I'm okay with that. 785 00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:16,480 If it's more biblical, I'm totally fine with it. 786 00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:18,160 I hope that you feel the same. 787 00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:22,720 You might have your beliefs now, but if you find that the Bible starts leading you in 788 00:41:22,720 --> 00:41:26,120 another direction, are you willing to change your view? 789 00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:27,640 Are you open to reason? 790 00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:28,640 Are you teachable? 791 00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:30,680 Those are some of the main things we want to take away. 792 00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,080 And I think next week we'll get into all the fun stuff about the millennium. 793 00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:38,040 And again, teachable spirit, I might reiterate that next week. 794 00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,520 Teachable spirit, we can disagree, we believe in Christ. 795 00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:42,520 Amen. 796 00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:46,520 All right, Michael, how about closing us in prayer? 797 00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:48,520 Thank you. 798 00:41:48,520 --> 00:42:17,520 Thank you.