This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
As we look at this book, Revelation, it is completely
different pretty much than any other book in the Scriptures.
A matter of fact, there was a lot of controversy in the early
church as to whether it should be part of the Canon.
Now, the apostles, obviously they're the forerunners of the
church, and what they were given is what we have today in our
Scriptures. But there was a lot of confusion
back then because of the inability to even begin to
comprehend in the slightest way what this book was saying it
that. I love spring cleaning.
It provides opportunities for reorganization, for getting rid
of excess clutter that I've held on to.
And occasionally I'll rediscover some lost thing that I'd
forgotten about. But sometimes I'll come across
something that I'm not quite sure what to do with.
The church at one point felt similarly about the Book of
Revelation. Unsure if they should even keep
it in the Bible today, Pastor Clark helps to unpack some of
the true intent and purpose of this amazing book.
Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation chapter one with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
You just can't arbitrarily take what's in this book and try to
make everything literal, because not everything is revealed yet.
We're still waiting for some of these things to develop in the
future. And there's an old term in
seminaries in Bible college called hermeneutics.
And hermeneutics is a study of how to interpret Scripture.
And it says, when the plain sense of Scripture makes common
sense, seek no other sense. But take every word at its
literal meaning. Unless studied in the light of
related passages, something else is indicated wise.
And so when we look at this, we're going to look at it in
regard to the related passages. But as we think about some of
the things that John was going to be writing about, a lot of
these symbols that he's speaking about really relate to personal
and national entities at that time that they were living and
what would eventually develop in the future.
Many of these leaders are portrayed as animals.
We see the symbolism of the Lamb and it refers to our Savior,
Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of
the earth. The dragon is referred, Satan
himself and the beast, the demonic spirits and the mutant
locusts, all these things that we'll read in time.
He also discusses cities and they're depicted as harlots and
a bride. And we look at Babylon and Sodom
and Egypt and Jerusalem and in the context of those kind of
things also at that time, as he looks at the symbols that he's
been given, they represent political upheaval that will
eventually occur and also terms of cosmic disruptions.
We read in Matthew about the sun and moon, and also in Revelation
being darkened, the stars falling, every island, the
mountain disappeering. Also, the number 7 is used
throughout this book and #7 refers to completeness and
perfection in the Scriptures and throughout the Scripture,
Deuteronomy, Psalms and Proverbs.
This numbers used many, many times.
In the Book of Revelation. This number is used to refer to
the seven churches, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the
seven bowls, the seven thunders, and the seven beatitudes.
There are beatitudes in the Book of Revelation and the first one
we read the day about. Those who read this book are
blessed, those who hear the words of the prophecy are
blessed, and those who keep those things which are written
in it. But the time is near.
That's the first beatitude of the seven in the Book of
Revelation. There's also fractions and
numbers given like 1/3 multiples of 12, like the 24 elders before
the throne and 144,000 witnesses during the time of the
tribulation, the thousand year reign. 10 days, one hour, a
little while he uses all these times.
As we look at this book, Revelation, it is completely
different pretty much than any other book in the Scriptures.
Matter of fact, there was a lot of controversy in the early
church as to whether it should be part of the Canon.
Now, the apostles, obviously they're the forerunners of the
church, and what they were given is what we have today in our
Scriptures. But there was a lot of confusion
back then because of the inability to even begin to
comprehend in the slightest way what this book was saying at
that time. But it is truly inspired by God
as a prophecy. It identifies very clearly to us
the name of its true author. It actually predicts the future,
and it's an epistle in the apocalyptic mode that predicts
events of the future under the inspiration of God, the Holy
Spirit. Now, the reign of this emperor,
the mission, he was a very, very terrible, mean ruler.
He wanted to persecute the whole region, and Nero just had the
ability to affect Rome at the time.
But as the church grew, this man who was in charge, the emperor
at the time, had the ability to deal with the whole area and try
to destroy everybody that lived at that time.
We study in history that Nicodemus was one of those who
were martyred during this time of this reign of this evil
emperor. Also Timothy.
Timothy was out in the streets speaking against the ungodly
role this leader and the things that were happening and the
people came upon him and clubbed him and physically beat him in a
couple days after his beating he he died.
It's taught that John the Apostle was boiled in oil before
he was sent an eggs out to this Isle of Patmos.
And so he, as he said in verse 9, I'm your brother and
companion in the Tribulation. He was experiencing the horror.
And so as we look at these churches, they were all at
different levels in their spiritual foundation as to how
they were following Jesus Christ.
As we study the book, you'll see there's a lot of allusion to
other parts of the Bible, but there's not one quote from
another book clearly defined in the Book of Revelation.
There's imagery from hundreds of Old Testament passages, though
it gives a symbol of 2 olive trees referring to the two
witnesses in Chapter 11. It echoes Zechariah 43, 11
through 14, referring to Zerubbabel and Joshua.
There's hundreds of allusions to familiar images in the Old
Testament from the book of Isaiah alone. 79 times alluded
references Daniel 53 times Ezekiel 48 Psalms 43 times
Exodus 27 times Jeremiah 22 Zechariah 15, Amos 9, Joel 8.
The Old Testament was the foundation of what the apostles
taught from. They didn't have everything like
you and I have now, so everything they drew upon was
the Old Testament scriptures. It also gives us the insights of
the matrix that are set up in the book.
Like for example it gives the illustration of the Babylonian
exile and Exodus and also comparing it to the life of
Jesus. We see an evil power in the book
of Exodus persecuting God's people, Pharaoh in Egypt, but we
see an evil power persecuting God's people in the Book of
Revelation, the Antichrist. We see plagues of darkness and
hail and locusts and boils and frogs and water and turn into
blood in the book of Exodus. We also see this revealed in the
Book of Revelation. It talks about being delivered
by the blood of the lamb in the Old Testament.
In the book of Exodus when the blood was put on the doorpost
and the Angel of God spoke to the children of Israel, saying
when God sees the blood, he will pass over that house that the
blood is applied to and they will not lose the life of the
first born. But we also see in Revelation
and that we are delivered by the blood of Jesus Christ talks
about the dragon, referring to the dragon in the Angel, the
demonic forces of the devil in the Book of Revelation.
Also in Ezekiel 29, three talks about the crossing of the Red
Sea where they sang the song of Moses and they're redeemed will
sing in the Book of Revelation the song of Moses and the Lamb.
In Revelation 15, it also discusses the Tabernacle and all
its furnishings in the book of Hebrews, it discusses that the
earthly Tabernacle is a model of the heavenly counterpart.
A matter of fact, when you want to learn about worship, and I
think we all have a lot more to learn about worship.
Even though we worship the Lord here in spirit and truth and we
lift our hearts up to God. We're only we got a glimpse, a
minor glimpse of what it's going to be like to worship in the
Kingdom of heaven. But if you really want to see
pure, divine, holy God centered in God ordained worship, you
read the worship in the Book of Revelation.
John describes the atmosphere, golden lampstands that are
present in chapter 1 verse 12. Hidden man associated with the
Ark of the Covenant in chapter 2 verse 17, the altar of incense
chapter 8 verse 3 through 5, the Holy of Holies in Chapter 11
verse one and 15 verse 8, and the Ark of the Covenant in
Chapter 11 verse 19. We think about the birth of
Christ and the death and the burial and the resurrection and
his victory over Satan. A reference frequently in this
book because it's all about Christ.
His birth and ascension is depicted in chapter 12, verse 5.
What's fascinating is when they talk about the two witnesses
that will be on the earth during the time of the Tribulation,
proclaiming the Kingdom of God and the coming of Christ.
They mirror Christ's earthly ministry almost identically.
Their ministry lasted 3 1/2 years.
Christ's earthly ministry after the baptism was 3 1/2 years.
Revelation 11/3 speaks of these two witnesses.
We believe they are Elijah and Enoch.
Some people believe Elijah and Moses, but Elijah and Enoch,
those two were the ones that never tasted physical death.
They were slain where Christ died, in Jerusalem, in the
streets there in Revelation 11/8.
After three days they resurrect from the dead in the sin in
Chapter 11 verse 11 through 12. So a literal return of Christ at
the end of the age is what we're looking at here and what we're
preparing for as we study this, all four approaches and when we
think about their views and how they look at things, in essence
anticipate this except for the full preterist view.
Now, one of the controversies in this book is the millennial
Kingdom. People usually don't argue about
what 666 means or who these two witnesses are with timing of the
rapture. That's usually not the issue
that divides the body of Christ. It's always surrounding this
issue of a millennial Kingdom. Is it a figurative Kingdom?
Is it a symbolic Kingdom? Or is it a literal 1000
millennial reign? We believe it is a literal 1000
millennial Kingdom. But even in the 2nd century, as
I said earlier when they were debating some of these things
and these centuries were closest to the days of the apostles,
what's the meaning of this thousand year reign?
Revelation 20 is probably the most debated and argued chapter
in the Bible and this chapter mentions 1000 year reign of the
Saints with Christ. Now there's 3 views of the
Millennium. The first view is
premillennialism. That's what we are.
We are a premillennial pre Trib Bible believing church.
We believe in a literal 1000 year reign of Christ on earth
after his second coming. We believe that Christ will come
to take his church one of this earth prior to the days of the
wrath of God being poured out upon the earth.
So we are pre Trib. We believe we will not be in
this tribulation that will eventually come upon the earth
and there's verses to support that.
Like God has not appointed his bride to wrath.
We'll get into that stuff from Thessalonians down the road, but
the millennial Kingdom will be a time of international peace and
justice. Christ will roll with an iron
hand. The greatest ruler of all time
will come and establish his reign on the earth at the end of
that 1000 year period. There will be one last battle
when Satan is released before the final judgment is poured
out. Now there's 2 views of this pre
millennial situation. You have the historic pre
millennial view and the dispensational pre millennial
view. We study the church fathers and
it goes way back in time where the majority of the church
fathers, those who were second to the apostles and some of them
were ordained by the apostles. They believed in a historic pre
millennial view. The dispensational pre
millennial view view is an interesting perspective.
And some of these things have become more alive actually in
the 18th century, but they sort of brought together a lot of
things that weren't really clear in earlier years.
And I believe that as time goes on, as we have more Bible tools
to study the scriptures, as we have more voices down through
the history of time, a lot of the homework has been done for
us already, which is a blessing. You get good commentaries and
you get good scholars and you lay the stuff out and you you're
able to then look at this whole thing and a very objective
manner. Dispensational premillennial
view. It differs from historic
premillennial view and that it has an emphasis on the
continuing centrality of the nation of Israel in God's end
time plan and anticipates a rapture of Christians to heaven
before the beginning of the tribulation.
We would be in that camp. We believe that Israel is very,
very important to the final combination of God's plan on the
earth. People who would not have a
historical pre mill view, people who would be all millennial
would look at the church today as being the fulfillment of
Israel and that the church in the New Testament is the
revelation of what God had always intended because Israel
had rejected Christ. But we know and Revelation 910
and 11, Paul says, has God finished with Israel?
No, he still has a plan for them.
And we know that whenever Christ comes, it says every eye will
see him. Well, how is that possible?
Now we have satellites and we have GPSI mean everything is
happening on the earth can be seen simultaneously by the whole
world. And the Bible says that they
will look up and see him whom they appears.
And many people will we get saved and be born again at the
second coming of Christ, referring to the many of those,
the Jewish descent that will come and believe in him.
So we believe these things. And as we go through the
Scripture, I want to sort of give you the view that we have,
but at the same time help you to understand why people have some
other views so that you might have some friends.
When you talk about these things, you're not ignorant.
You understand why people have some various views and maybe
make you a little stronger in regard to your own personal
convictions about these things. Now the post millennial view,
this is considered eschatology of hope and what they view is
that Christ comes after the thousand year period.
That's when his second coming occurs.
The Kingdom is established by evangelism on earth.
So in other words, all of us have such a great influence,
impact on the world that the world begins to become Christian
and not Pagan. Most people will become
Christians prior to the thousand year reign of peace, before
Christ returns and His second coming.
And so they see the disasters of the past and also the things
that are written in Revelation. They're more preterists in their
view that all those things happened already.
Well, I don't know about you guys, but I've been living on
the face of the earth for 58 years.
I don't see things getting better.
I wish they would, but they're getting worse.
And the Bible declares throughout the Scriptures that
the things are going to get worse.
That doesn't keep us from sharing our faith, bringing hope
to people and seeing people's lives change because of the
Gospel, right? We just don't give up and say
there's nothing we can do. Things are going no, we have to
have faith and believe because it could be another year, could
be 1000 years before these things come to pass.
But I sense that they're much closer than they've ever been
before. Then this all millennial view,
and this is a view of your Catholics and your Orthodox,
your Anglican, some Presbyterians, some Lutheran's.
This view is that the thousand year reign is symbolic, it's
just a long period of time from Christ's initial coming to His
second coming. They believe that the binding of
Satan happened spiritually at the cross at the reign of the
Saints is in the present age, and the loosing of Satan is a
final period of deception coming on the world at the end of the
age. They believe the second coming
is what relates to revelation when it says fire from heaven
that devours the wicked is the second coming.
This is a view of Augustine and many of the reformers, but the
early church fathers. And I've studied a lot of this
stuff because I'm curious about it and why do people have the
views that they have? And you go back and you'll find
that many of those early church fathers were premillennial.
They believed in a literal 1000 year reign and as we study this
book, you'll, I believe, come to some of those same conclusions.
What influenced the amillennial view were the Greek and Roman
influences. They call it the Alexandrian
philosophy at the time. And so that's why a lot of
people began to receive or accept the amillennial view.
I hope some of that help. But let's look at chapter 1
again and verse 1, the introduction of 1st 8 verses.
We're just going to look at a few of the verses this morning.
9 through 20 talks about the vision of the risen, glorified
Christ, the Lord of the church. Verse 1, the revelation of Jesus
Christ which God gave Him to show His servants things which
must shortly take place. God's intention all the time for
His people is to be alert and aware of what is on the horizon.
He does not leave us ignorant. The reason people are ignorant
today is that they don't study the scriptures.
They don't listen to the scriptures.
That's why people have so many wild and crazy ideas.
But God's intention through the apostle John, given this
revelation by the angels of God and by Christ himself, was that
we might understand the things that will occur at the end of
time. Now he says that these things
will shortly take place. You might say, well, he wrote
this over 2000 years ago. It doesn't seem like it's too
short, you know, seems like it's a long time.
Well, Peter tells us, especially in regard to the end of time,
that one day with the Lord is like 1000 years and 1000 years
is only one day. So we got 2000 years that have
passed. And God's time, what we call
Kairos, is 2 days. Earth time is chronological
chronos, God's time is Kairos. And as a result, there has been
little time that has gone by. From the perspective of the one
that sits on the throne. The time is at hand and it's
imminent. The Cairo's focus of God's
timing is the expectation that Christ can return at any moment.
And that's how the apostles live, and that's how we're to
live. Jesus himself said, look up.
Even when he was on earth, he said, your redemption draws
nigh. And so John bears record of
these things. He saw and he heard, and Jesus
revealed these things to him. John saw it and he recorded
these things without air, that Christ would be revealed for our
benefit. And so he sent and signified by
his Angel to his servant John, who bore witness or bear record
to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ.
All the things he saw blessed. Is he who reads and those who
hear the words of this prophecy. I've talked to some people and
they say, oh, I don't like Revelation.
I'm confused or I think it's boring.
How can anybody think this is boring?
This is like the most exciting book they could read on the face
of the earth. But people don't like reading it
because it causes anxiety for some folks, which it should if
you aren't a follower of Jesus Christ.
But it's a blessing for us today.
Even just the fact that if I did nothing else today, guys, and I
just read this book to you and you listen to it and we live
these things out. The blessings are promised by
God. We're blessed whenever we read
the whole Bible. But there's a specific blessing
in regards to reading this book and to do this thing that it
says. Now in the early church, they
didn't have the Bible like this. So when the church gathered and
they didn't gather in buildings, they gathered in homes, the
teacher would read what was in the letters wasn't a bound book
like this. It was pages.
And the people didn't have this to look at.
We're so blessed. You guys can pull out of the Pew
or your own Bibles today and follow along.
But back then, the people listened to the person who was
reading it. One person would read this
epistle while the others listened.
And there was again, I said, promise blessings.
So as we study this book in the days ahead, the most exciting
thing for each of us. And I get discouraged sometimes
when I see the things that are going on in the world and the
government and the heartache and the horror and tribulation and
the insanity of the economic system.
Everything seems very unstable to me in these days, very
uncertain. But one thing I do know for sure
is that God's on the throne and that nothing is out of control
because He's sovereign. Everything is coming along
according to His plan. And the final triumph of God
over sin and of Satan and the final safety of the believer in
the Kingdom one day is 100% assured by the things that are
taught in this particular book. As we study this book, we focus
on one all the allegories assembles, the fascinating
events, the judgments, all the focus on futuristic events.
All well and good exciting, but this is what we focus on.
The him who loved us, Jesus, the one who washed us from our sins
in his own blood. That's the most important thing
and has made us kings and priests to his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, all men.
So today I look at you as students of God's Word, but I
must also see you as kings and priests here today, as you would
see me that way. We have been given a royal
privilege to be called not only the sons and daughters of God,
but to be called priests and kings.
I don't have a big empire. You don't either.
But He has the empire that extends throughout all the
universe, and He's chosen you to be a priest and a king within
His Kingdom. So as we look at what's going on
today and the struggles and the difficulties, the best is yet to
come, isn't it? For those of us who know Christ
and are called according to His purposes.
So I encourage you to read ahead.
We're going to go slow through this book.
We'll be working through this first chapter in the weeks to
come. May the Lord open your heart.
May He excite you about what He has planned to teach you through
this, and may He cause the Person of Jesus Christ to become
more real. I'm more alive to you than He's
ever been before. That's my hope, my prayer for
all of us. Thanks for being with us today
here on Living Waters of Grace. We are in the Book of
Revelation, and we find it fascinating how influential and
involved the angels are in this book.
They bring about whatever it is that God has instructed them to
do, but it's through their actions that much of the
judgements come on the earth. The angels are in submission to
God as their authority, but He utilizes them in unique ways
throughout this book. Like angels have a specific
purpose from God, you have a unique purpose and plan to.
God wants to use you in your life as a testimony to others
and to bring others who are currently lost into the fold of
God. God would love more than
anything for all who are willing to come to Him for salvation.
He wants it to be their choice, not a forced situation.
This is the way God works, not forcing himself on anyone, but
giving each person free will. If you're interested in learning
about this choice that's free and that it's a gift, go to
calvarychapelonline.com and click on the About Us tab and
then find the link for what we believe.
We'd love to be a help and a resource for you as you walk
through what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
If you find the contact tab on our website, you can get in
touch with us or submit a prayer request.
We'd love to hear from you. That's all for today's edition
and Revelation, but there's much more that Pastor Clark plans to
share with us from this culminating book of the Bible.
Stay tuned for that and make sure to mention this radio
program to others. Invite them to tune in to Grace
FM 91.7 FM and they can stream worldwide at Grace Radio dot FM.
This has been living Waters of Grace.