I introduce you to the book of Revelation for a few moments and we'll pick it up and look at Revelation in more detail in our next class. My goal in my discussion with you here of Revelation, this class and the next and the next after that, is to help you become more comfortable reading the book of Revelation, having more of a sense that you can make something of the book, how to navigate through it, and to make you not only comfortable yourself but to give you a sense of ease, so that if you're a teacher in the church, you don't quiver whenever you're done studying the book of Samuel or first Peter, what would you like to study next? Well, let's study Revelation so that you don't get the chills when they say that. So you're willing to say, yeah, you know, that's a good idea. Why don't we do an overview of the book of Revelation? I would like to at least equip everybody to have the sense that you could give a four-week overview to the book of Revelation, which is a really good way to start and hit the main themes of the book, that's what I'd like to aim for, and a minimum for all of you who are here. The strategy for the book, and that is one that's summarized by the acronym COPE, first thing you have to do is confess, let's see, confess that the book is difficult, read a really obscure passage and say to yourself, this is really obscure. I really don't know what this means. Number two, orient people to the basics of the book, things like who wrote it, when, why? And present the main themes that run throughout the book, actually, there are certain themes that pervade the book of Revelation, and would make a wonderful three or four-week study, even if you never want to delve into it in great detail. Before, you want to explain to them the options, the different ways of understanding the book. Here, if I can kind of go back the opposite direction, there's very important, unlike with Mormons, where you need to be tough with them. It's very important, when working through a book like Revelation, to be gentle and mild and agreeable, because Christians could get into fights over this, and we have to remember that the enemy is not our fellow Christian, that the enemy is unbelief, so you don't want to teach Revelation in a way that will cause division in your church, and if somebody disagrees you too sharply, it's really always the right thing to do when you're in a book of Revelation, just say, unless they're denying the deed of Christ or something, of course, or denying his return. But if it's a matter of interpretation, it's always important to be humble and to recognize that wonderful people have taken great scholars, have taken different views of the book. Good call to humility then. Okay. Now, let's just orient ourselves to the book a little bit, just kind of get the backgrounds going. A John wrote the book of Revelation, same John, I believe, that wrote first, second, and third John. He is a pastoral figure in this book, as he was, also in the letters for a second and third John. He's writing letters to seven real churches. When you look at the letters to the seven churches, you need to realize these are real cities with real people, we're having real struggles and joys in the year 90 or 95 AD when John wrote. That's real. Second, then, the readers are seven actual churches with particular needs, which we'll study. Although it's also for the church universal, we can see at a special at the end of the book, we talked about, you know, treasuring these words and not changing any words and so forth and we talked about the return of Christ and this coming of his kingdom, which we all need to know about. The genre of Revelation can be discussed, people have different ideas as to what it is. If you look at your notes, you can see what the book is. What is the book? If you read the book of Revelation, what does it seem to be? It seems to be prophecy. What else does it seem to be? It also seems to be a letter, seven letters, seven real churches. What else does it seem to be? It also seems to be apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature is literature with lots of imagery, perfusion of images, sometimes startling images and the book of Revelation is apocalyptic. In fact, if you look at Revelation, it has epistolary greetings and it writes letters to seven churches in verse 4 of chapter 1 and chapter 1 of verse 1, chapter 1, it says the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and the word for Revelation there is Greek apocalypsis, it's an apocalypse. It's also a book of prophecy. I want to ask you a question on what you think about it carefully before you answer it. The book of Revelation is prophecy, what time frame is it about? Is it about the past, the present, or the future? What do you say it's about the future? How many of you think it's about the present? You can raise your hand more than once. Present, everything is about the past. Very good, everybody's been exercising their right arm, has got the correct answer. Because prophecy is about the past, the present, and the future. If you know your Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah's day is equal, for example, others. They are often interpreting the recent past of Israel, or saying, you know, this happened to the nation, here's what it signifies, they interpret the past. They of course interpret the present, they give words for the present, and they also speak to the future. And of course, in a way, we can understand that because a prophet has the mind of God, and God sees past, present, and future, we might say indifferently. And therefore, he can speak to the past, and the present, and the future equally. For those who say the book of Revelation is about the future, then we say, you're absolutely right. We have to be agreeable, remember that? As somebody says, the book of Revelation is all about the future, we say, you're right, it is. As somebody says, it's about the past, we say, you're right, it is. The main thing I would say, though, as somebody said, what do you think the book of Revelation is about? I would say the book of Revelation is about Jesus, because it says so. The book says that it's prophecy in chapter 1, verse 3, for example. It says, less it is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and it also calls itself prophecy in chapter 22 about four times. Chapter 19, verse 10, says, when John meets an angel, the angel says to him, don't worship me, worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. I take that to be a central statement in the book of Revelation. The testimony of Jesus is a spirit of prophecy. It is a book of prophecy, and it is the responsibility of prophecy to testify to Christ. Any ways to do that, not always talking about the cross by any means, but it is about Christ. When was the book written? I believe the book was written, most people say it was, during the reign of Domitian, an emperor who was reigning at the end of the first century, died to think of the year 96 AD, and there's a reason why people believe that. There's a bit of church history or tradition that says that. There's something about a demission that makes it right, and that is, the demission was one of a handful of emperors in the first century AD, who insisted on his deity during his lifetime. Did we talk about this earlier? How the emperors, when they died, would become a God, but they were feud, or who they work, a few that, Caligula was one, Nero was another, demission was the third, there's one who wanted to be granted deity. Now if you could just picture it this way, if you were a friend of the emperor, it could be a kind of a tricky question as to what you would call him, couldn't it? Now here at the seminary, students occasionally wonder what they should call me, let's say if we go to the same church, or if I bump into them often and we talk to each other a lot, what shall I call you? My general rule of thumb is if I have sneakers on, you can call me Dan, and if I have a tie and black shoes on, probably call me Dr. Dorianne, especially if it's the classroom, especially if the sneakers on, if you're playing basketball, pass the ball to me, Dr. Dorianne, but at the time you finish saying you've run out of cord or cover or something, so just call me Dan. All right. What do you call the emperor, demission, if you're his friend? Did he just say, just call me Dom? No. Demission said, just call me my Lord and my God, and if you do not kill you, and he didn't. Or if you wish, if my wife is with me, you may call us our Lord and his consort. Those are the two titles that pleased Demission, and so you see, since of course a Christian would not call demission my Lord and my God, and since a Christian would not call him our Lord and his consort, Christians were liable for persecution by the power of the Roman government, which is indeed what we have, constantly, especially chapters 13, 14, 17, 12th or 14, especially in the book of Revelation. The problem of the Roman Empire demanding worship for its governors is the backdrop for the book. When was the book written? The book was written during the reign of the mission then, it seems, and never says it anywhere, of course. There's one other thing that makes us think that it was written around then because the church has to be old enough or mature enough to have the problems that are described. The church at Ephesus, by the time Revelation is written, has stagnated and lost its first love. Church at Ephesus was planted by Paul, also visited by Peter and by Paulus and Priscilla and Aquila repeatedly in the 50s and 60s. It takes a little time to go from being the centerpiece of Christianity, its region, Asia, and all these apostolic visits to coldness takes a few decades. Can you see that? You can also look at the church at Leia de Sia, which is chastise for pride over its riches. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 6061 AD, takes some time to rebuild, and most of the New Testament has to be written because the book of Revelation is steeped in the New Testament. Now I have the citations in front of you, I'm not going to insult your intelligence. I'd rather say, would you please read this and see how the book of Revelation shows itself to be grounded throughout in the words of Christ, the words of the Apostle Paul, the teaching of the apostolic body, and what it's going to happen is, when you look at this book, you're going to see that Revelation in this crisis in the life of the church is going to draw on all of the scriptures, the whole scriptures, to see how this time of challenge from the mission shall be met.