There is an unimaginable amount of information that we need to walk through in order to understand what’s going on in the book of Revelation.
But it shouldn’t be surprising because Revelation is one of the most confusing books in all of God’s Word. It is a book that the average modern Western Christian is literally scared of, right? It’s a book that has given people nightmares throughout the years.
So many of the people that I know or have grown up with or other things like that have stories about going to a revival service and hearing basically like a horror movie sermon out of the book of Revelation about what it’ll be like to be left behind, what it’ll be like to be there for the reign of the Antichrist and to witness God pouring out His wrath on the unbelieving world and blah blah blah blah that they’ve spent the rest of their lives literally afraid of the book of Revelation, literally avoiding the book of Revelation.
And so, there’s a very good chance that you fall into one of these two categories.
Maybe you have been desperate to wrap your head around the book of Revelation for years.
Or maybe you have spent your life just running from the book of Revelation.
But whatever the case, I think that once we get into the thick of it, the way that you think about the book of Revelation is going to change. The way that you feel about Revelation is going to change.
I’m going to say something that is going to be kind of shocking right now. But as we get further in, you’ll start to understand what I mean, and that is that Revelation is pretty straightforward.
Revelation is pretty simple and Revelation is not scary.
All of the bizarre and creepy, really off-putting, frankly kind of superstitious stuff that we have heard about the book of Revelation comes from exactly one source, and that is not knowing the basic vocabulary that Revelation is using. Not knowing the basic context that Revelation is coming from, not knowing the basic story that is hanging in the background of the book of Revelation.
What’s happened for a very long time is that preachers and teachers have completely skipped past the part where you sit down for however long it takes, dig as deep as you can into every resource that’s available to you, and do whatever is necessary to figure out exactly what John was talking about when he wrote Revelation to the extent that we can—to understand what this word that he uses over and over and over again would have meant to the people who originally read the book of Revelation. What this idea would have meant in the context that John used it. What this image over here would have brought to the minds of the original readers of Revelation.
All these things are vitally important if we want to understand the book of Revelation.
We flat out cannot understand Revelation if we cannot put ourselves into the headspace of a first-century Christian receiving the book of Revelation from John.
For a really long time, modern Western preachers and teachers haven’t even tried to do that. And as a result, you read this commentary on Revelation and it says a whole bunch of stuff super confidently. And then you read this other commentary on Revelation and it says a bunch of completely different stuff that contradicts all that stuff super confidently. And then you read another commentary on Revelation and it says a completely different thing from the other two that totally contradicts both of those other two.
And you keep on doing that and every new commentary you read just confuses you more.
You say, “Okay, um, what does it actually mean? What is it actually saying? No two preachers or teachers seem to say the same things about Revelation. Why is that?”
It’s because for a very long time, what’s happened is that so many modern Western, especially modern American preachers and teachers have essentially just kind of been making stuff up.
That’s not a very charitable way of looking at it. And I want to not think the worst of people, but we’re surrounded by John Hagees. We are surrounded by Jonathan Cahns. We are surrounded by all kinds of preachers and teachers who honestly seem to just kind of be opening up Revelation, picking a word, and then playing a word association game. Literally making stuff up about blood moons and tetrads and stuff like that.
And the result is that after preacher after preacher after preacher, teacher after teacher after teacher just kind of coming in and saying a bunch of honestly kind of random stuff, eventually we lose faith that we will ever actually be able to understand any of what is going on in Revelation.
Revelation Was Written to Be Understood
But here’s the thing.
When John wrote the book of Revelation to the seven churches, it wasn’t meant to be mysterious.
It wasn’t meant to be confusing.
When he wrote the letter to these seven churches, he expected these seven churches to understand exactly what he was talking about. He expected them to understand exactly who he was talking about.
When he says things like, “The number of the beast is 666,” he says, “This is the number of a man. Y’all know who I’m talking about.”
He’s not saying, “Hey, this is a mysterious thing.”
He’s saying, “Hey, you know that thing we’ve talked about, 666? Yeah, this is that. You know who I’m talking about. You know what I’m talking about.”
When he talks about the beast and he describes it with these specific images, he expected them to know exactly what he was talking about.
When he describes the great prostitute, when he describes the mark of the beast, when he describes all these different things—the seals, the trumpets, the bowls, and on and on and on, the great dragon and the woman giving birth and so forth—these are images he expected them to recognize and have no issue understanding.
He wasn’t writing them a puzzle to be solved.
He was writing them a letter to be understood and then applied.
And yet we have this problem.
And that is that we live almost 2,000 years removed from those seven churches Revelation was originally written to.
And as a result, there’s a whole bunch of things that they would have immediately been familiar with, immediately recognized, and immediately been like, “Okay, yeah, so he’s talking about this,” that we have no familiarity with, no background in.
And as a result, he will say things that were meant to be very simple and straightforward that he expected them to understand immediately, like the beast, the great prostitute, the mark of the beast, 666, and so on and so forth.
And we say, “What could this be? This is mysterious.”
And we start speculating, well, maybe it’s this microchip. Maybe it’s the United Nations. Maybe it’s this thing over here.
Well, actually, it’s probably not any of those things because none of those things existed during the days of the seven churches.
Everything he is writing about is something that those seven churches would have been able to recognize and identify and then do something with.
The seven churches can’t do anything with microchips because microchips don’t exist for them. They can’t do anything with the United Nations because the United Nations doesn’t exist for them.
When he talks about, you know, locusts that look kind of like scorpions, he’s not talking about Apache helicopters because Apache helicopters didn’t exist for them.
Those would be useless things for him to point out to the seven churches because there’s nothing for them to do with that.
So, what is he talking about?
We are going to break down every single challenging, confusing, difficult, strange piece of the book of Revelation.
All of these things that have thrown us for a loop for years.
And by the end of this process, I think you are going to agree that when it comes down to it, the book of Revelation is actually not complicated.
Once you’ve ironed out the big pieces of context, the background information that they would immediately have had on their minds in the seven churches, but that we today often are not even familiar with, once we have those things in place, Revelation becomes pretty straightforward.
Revelation becomes actually shockingly simple.
And most importantly, Revelation stops being scary.
It stops being nightmare fuel.
And instead, it becomes remarkably encouraging, remarkably joyful.
The experience of reading and meditating on Revelation actually becomes fun.
But not only fun, it becomes something that imbues us with purpose, imbues us with passion, with joy.
The 10,000-Foot View of Revelation
And so, let’s start off by giving kind of the 10,000-foot view of Revelation.
Here it goes.
Revelation was written by the Apostle John to encourage seven specific churches that were under his leadership—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea—to remain faithful to King Jesus during a wave of extreme persecution from outside the church and unimaginable temptation from false teachers inside the church to join Rome’s culture of idolatry, wickedness, and injustice.
And he’s writing using a common, widely known, and clearly understandable form of ancient Near Eastern writing called apocalyptic literature. Although apocalyptic literature is unfamiliar to us as modern Westerners, he writes using common language, common figures of speech, and common images that they would immediately understand, but that we tend to miss because of our cultural distance.
He writes using hundreds of direct Old Testament quotes and references that they would immediately have recognized, but we often don’t because we’re less familiar with the Old Testament as modern Americans.
He writes using then-recent historical events they would immediately have remembered and understood, but that we are often not even aware of because we are so far removed from that history, as examples.
He writes using a very specific structure that replays the story of King Jesus’s victory over the devil and the forces of darkness from multiple angles and with multiple different metaphors and symbols to remind the seven churches of the true source of their hope, the victorious, glorious return of King Jesus, so that they can overcome these specific attacks that the devil is waging on them in particular by the power of the truth.
That was a mouthful. That was a lot.
But that is the big picture. That is the 10,000-foot view.
If you can wrap your head around that, you will wrap your head around the whole book of Revelation.
If you can remember that John is writing what you are reading each day to encourage these seven specific churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, you will have a much easier time figuring out what he’s trying to say in each chapter.
If you can remember that he is writing these things in order to encourage them to remain faithful to King Jesus while they are going through a wave of extreme persecution from outside the church, then you’ll have a much easier time figuring out what he is saying in the chapter you’re reading for the day.
If you can remember that he is writing these things in order to encourage these seven churches to remain faithful to King Jesus as they experience unimaginable temptation from false teachers inside the church to join Rome’s culture of idolatry and wickedness and injustice, you will have a much easier time understanding what he is saying in the chapter you are reading for the day.
If you can remember that he is writing using a really common, really widely known, really clearly understandable form of ancient Near Eastern writing called apocalyptic literature that they were very familiar with but that we are not familiar with, then you’ll have a much easier time understanding what he’s saying.
If you can remember that he is using common language that they would immediately have recognized, he’s using common figures of speech they would immediately have recognized, he is using common images they would immediately have recognized, even if you and I have a hard time recognizing those things at first without studying, you’ll have an easier time understanding what he’s saying.
When you remember that practically every verse of Revelation has at least one direct Old Testament quote or reference that they would have been super familiar with, but we are not super familiar with, you’ll have an easier time wrapping your head around what he’s trying to say in the chapter you’re reading.
If you remember that a lot of these things are literally referencing historical events that they just lived through and would immediately have recognized and been like, “Oh yeah, okay. So that’s talking about that earthquake. That’s talking about that thing. That’s talking about that thing. That’s talking about that thing,” it becomes a lot easier to wrap your head around what he is trying to say.
If you remember that he is writing the book of Revelation not in chronological order—just because something happens one chapter later doesn’t mean it happens after this thing. Sometimes a thing a chapter later happens before a thing a chapter earlier, stuff like that. He’s not writing in chronological order.
Instead, he’s going over one sequence of events that starts with the coming of Jesus and ends with the return of Jesus. And he tells that story several different times in different ways from different angles using different images to make somewhat different points.
It becomes a lot easier to understand what he is talking about.
If you can remember that the point of all of these things is to remind the seven churches of the true source of their hope, that the source of their hope is King Jesus and His kingly return, that every single thing he talks about in Revelation is ultimately meant to point them towards the fact that the true source of their hope is King Jesus and His kingly return, then you will have a much easier time understanding what he is saying in the chapter you were reading.
And if you can remember that absolutely everything in the book of Revelation is meant to help the seven churches overcome the specific problems they were having at that time in the first century, you will have a much easier time understanding what he’s saying.
I know that was insanely repetitive, but it’s because I want to drill this into our heads right now.
Revelation Is Not a Puzzle to Be Solved
At its very core, the book of Revelation is not a puzzle to be solved.
It is not a code to be cracked.
It is not a mysterious bunch of future predictions that we’re supposed to figure out so that we don’t get duped by the Antichrist or whatever.
That’s not what Revelation is at its very core.
At its very core, Revelation, you could say, is a discipleship manual.
It is teaching us what it looks like to be faithful when we are under attack from the outside by a world that wants to destroy us and under attack from the inside by false teachers who want to derail us.
At its very core, Revelation is a spiritual warfare manual.
And so, let’s start at the beginning and let’s just break down kind of that big picture to sort of set a foundation for ourselves.
Who Wrote Revelation?
Before anything else, Revelation was written by John.
The author names himself John.
Now, scholars have debated exactly which John this is talking about. There were multiple important Johns in the early church. So, for almost 2,000 years, there’s been some amount of debate over exactly which John this is.
Is it John the Apostle? Is it John the Elder? Is it one of the other important Johns that we know of from the early, early church, from the first-century church?
Now, different scholars have come to different conclusions. And the scholars who have come to a different conclusion than what I’m about to say are not crazy.
But what I’m going to argue is that this is John the Apostle.
This is one of the 12, right?
This is the disciple Jesus loved.
This is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John. This is the same John who wrote first, second, and third John.
There’s a long list of reasons why I think that is ultimately the best conclusion, but the most important one for me, I think the simplest one, is that the early church fathers—so that is pastors and teachers and church leaders who came in the years just immediately after the apostles themselves, some of whom were literally trained by the apostles, right? The early church fathers who literally knew the apostles. The early church fathers, some of whom literally knew John the Apostle—they say Revelation was written by the Apostle John.
One really important one is Irenaeus.
Irenaeus was a second-century church father. Irenaeus was discipled by an even earlier church father named Polycarp.
Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John.
So John discipled Polycarp. Polycarp discipled Irenaeus.
And according to Irenaeus, Revelation was written by John the disciple of the Lord.
A guy who was discipled by the guy who was discipled by the Apostle John said that Revelation was written by the Apostle John.
Now that is not the only reason to believe that Revelation was written by the disciple, the Apostle himself John. But I think that is an unbelievably strong reason to believe that.
And so on top of all the other reasons that we don’t really have time to get into here because it’s just not that important, I think the testimony of the people who knew the Apostle John saying Revelation was written by the Apostle John is an extremely good reason to say, “Okay, this is written by that John.”
Now, if it was written by a different one of the early influential Johns who were among the apostles, that wouldn’t be a problem.
And so this is not, “The Bible says this was written by John the Apostle,” because actually the Bible does not say that.
The Bible says it was written by one of the Johns. It doesn’t tell us which of the Johns.
So this is not an issue of, “Is the Bible true or not?”
This is an issue of which of the Johns.
And I think that the evidence points us very strongly to the conclusion that this is written by the Apostle John who followed Jesus around, was trained by Him, discipled by Him for years during His earthly ministry.
And that means that we need to take the book of Revelation just as seriously as we take the Gospel of John.
That means that the book of Revelation is just as important as the Gospel of John.
And so we can’t really cling to the Gospel of John, but really ignore the book of Revelation because the Apostle John felt it was just as important to write these things down for us as he did to write the things he wrote in his Gospel for us.
He wrote the Gospel of John to be read along with the Revelation of John.
He wrote the letters first, second, and third John in order to be read along with the Revelation of John.
And that means Revelation matters.
We may have spent 20, 30, 40, 50, 80 years as followers of Jesus ignoring the book of Revelation.
But no longer.
Revelation is just as worthy of our attention, our study, and our meditation as every other book that the Lord breathed out through the apostles and the prophets and then providentially had bound up together with the other 65 books that make up our Bibles that we can buy in a store today.
Revelation Was Written to Seven Specific Churches
And so this was written by John.
Why?
To encourage seven specific churches that were under his leadership.
This is maybe the most important thing to understand about Revelation.
If you understand this, you will eventually get Revelation.
Revelation was not written to humanity in general.
Revelation was not written to Christians in general.
Revelation was written to seven specific churches.
It was written to the church in Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamum, the church in Thyatira, the church in Sardis, the church in Philadelphia, the church in Laodicea.
Every single thing in Revelation is meant to specifically help the Ephesian church, the Smyrna church, the Pergamum church, the Thyatira church, the Sardis church, the Philadelphia church, and the Laodicea church through this crisis of being attacked from the outside and from the inside, through that problem.
John literally opens up Revelation in exactly the same way he opens up first, second, and third John, in exactly the same way that Paul opens up his letters, that Peter opens up his letters, that James opens up his letter, and so on and so forth.
He says:
John to the seven churches in the province of Asia.
In chapters 2 and 3, he literally opens with kind of introductory addresses to each of those seven churches.
A lot of times what happens is we read those as if, okay, well, the first few chapters of Revelation are these letters to seven churches and then he gets into all the future stuff.
No.
All 22 chapters of Revelation are a letter to these seven specific churches.
Revelation 4 is part of the letter to the seven churches.
Revelation chapter 10 is part of the letter to the seven churches.
Revelation chapter 13 is part of the letter to the seven churches.
Every single word in Revelation is written to the seven churches.
I want to be as clear as I possibly can.
Revelation is basically fourth John.
There’s not three letters or epistles by John to the churches. There are four letters by John to the churches.
There is 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and fourth John, which we typically call Revelation.
Revelation is no different from 1, 2, and 3 John except that it has a somewhat different method of teaching and communicating, but it is a letter to seven specific churches that John is in leadership over.
And that’s really important because that means when John talks about the beast, he’s saying to the seven churches, “You watch out for the beast. You guys are dealing with the beast.”
When he talks about the mark of the beast, he says, “You watch out for the mark of the beast.”
He’s not saying, “2,000 years from now there’s going to be something called the mark of the beast.”
He’s saying, “Right now, you be careful of the mark of the beast.”
When he talks about, you know, all these other things, he’s not saying, “Hey, there’s really no reason for you to know this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. 2,000 years from now, there’s going to be this thing.”
No.
He’s saying, “You seven churches are dealing with this thing right now. And this is a roadmap to help guide you through the profound difficulty that you are going through as you deal with the beast, as you deal with the great prostitute, as you deal with Babylon, as you deal with all of these things.”
The way that I would put it is 90% of the book of Revelation is about first-century stuff.
10% of Revelation is about the future.
90% of Revelation is about stuff that was literally happening to the seven churches at the time that John was writing.
So many of the things that we have maybe grown up thinking are about some distant future are actually about stuff that was literally happening in Pergamum when John was writing, that we can literally open up our history books and read about.
This is the most important thing to understand in order to understand the book of Revelation.
Revelation is not primarily about laying out a chartable roadmap for the very, very end.
It is primarily about helping Pergamum deal with the problems they were having right then and there.
Helping Laodicea break out of the dark cycle it had slipped into right then and there.
Helping Ephesus come out of the really bad pattern it had fallen into right then and there.
He’s not saying, “Dear Smyrna, here’s a bunch of stuff that is really mostly for people who are living 2,000 years from now, but good luck getting murdered by the Roman government in the meantime.”
It’s not, “Hey, dear Ephesus. Just so that you know, here’s some weird stuff about like an implantable microchip 2,000 years from now. I’m going to tell you this so that—I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re going to do with this, but I’m telling you.”
No.
He’s saying, “Smyrna, Ephesus, Pergamum, Thyatira, and so on and so forth. Here is the Word of the Lord to you right now.”
And this Word will guide you through the devil’s attacks from the outside in the form of persecution and the devil’s attacks from the inside in the form of these false teachers who are trying to bait you into compromising.
Revelation Is for Us, but It Was Not Originally Written to Us
The Bible is absolutely written for us.
The Bible is written for all of God’s people throughout all of time, but it was not originally written to us.
Revelation is for us, but it was not originally written to us.
It was written to these specific seven churches.
And it deals with these specific problems of these specific churches just like the book of Romans, just like 1 and 2 Corinthians, just like Galatians, just like Ephesians, just like Philippians, just like Colossians, just like first and second Peter, just like first and second and third John, just like James and Jude and Hebrews and so forth.
It was written to these specific seven churches to encourage them, one, to remain faithful to King Jesus during a wave of extreme persecution from outside the church, and two, to remain faithful to King Jesus amidst an absolute onslaught of temptation from false teachers inside the church to join Rome’s culture of idolatry and wickedness and injustice.
Persecution from Outside the Church
Now, we’re going to dive really deep into both of those things as we get into the actual text of Revelation, but the short version is this.
When John was writing Revelation to these seven specific churches, they were going through a really specific thing.
They were living through the wicked rule of these wicked rulers like Nero, like Tiberius, like Domitian, like Trajan and so on and so forth who ruled over the wicked empire that was Rome.
And these wicked rulers and this wicked empire, the wicked pagan government, violently persecuted the Christians all throughout the empire, but especially in these seven cities where these seven churches are located in Asia Minor.
What happened was that the Roman government was putting intense pressure on all Romans everywhere, including Christians, to join something called the Imperial Cult.
We’re going to talk in depth about it, but the short version is the Imperial Cult was kind of like the core religion of the Roman Empire.
Imperial Cult essentially said, “You must worship the emperor of Rome. You must worship Emperor Nero. You have to worship Emperor Domitian. You need to treat Nero, treat Domitian, treat Trajan, treat Caesar not just as a ruler, not just as a king, but as a god, essentially as the god of gods.”
In fact, you were supposed to refer to Caesar as Lord and God.
You were supposed to refer to Caesar as your savior.
And if you refused to worship Caesar as a god, if you refused to be part of the Imperial Cult, the cult of the empire, if you refused to worship Caesar and worship Rome, in a sense, you were viciously punished.
You could be imprisoned, you could be exiled, you could be executed, and no matter the case, you would be relentlessly tortured in the process.
John himself was in exile on the island of Patmos.
That was a punishment that he was given because he would not worship Caesar and worship Rome as a god.
In Pergamum, one of their leaders, a man named Antipas, had been murdered by the Roman government because he refused to worship Caesar and worship Rome as a god.
He says:
“Antipas, my faithful witness, was put to death in your city.”
John says:
“I am your companion in tribulation. I am your brother in the tribulation, in the suffering, in the persecution because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”
If you refused to worship the emperor, you would be viciously persecuted, viciously marginalized, maybe even killed in exactly the same way.
The Trade Guilds and the Pressure to Compromise
In order to work, in order to set up a shop in the marketplace, in order to be able to effectively able to buy anything or sell anything, in order to be able to participate in any way in public life in so many of the cities throughout Asia Minor, where the seven churches were, and the Roman Empire in general, you had to be part of these guilds.
These were merchant guilds. These were labor guilds. These were things like that.
These were not like labor unions exactly. These were a different type of thing, but essentially they were devoted to different pagan gods and they were devoted to the emperor.
They were devoted to Caesar.
In order to be part of these guilds, to be able to work as a merchant, to be able to set up your business, to be able to do almost anything, really had to be part of these guilds.
And being part of these guilds required you to worship the gods that the guilds were dedicated to.
And so you had to worship Artemis if you were in Ephesus. You had to worship this other god if you were in this other town. You had to worship this other god if you were in this other town.
Otherwise, you couldn’t be part of the guild, which meant you couldn’t be a merchant.
You couldn’t start a business.
You couldn’t sell anything.
And functionally speaking, you couldn’t buy anything.
You effectively couldn’t buy or sell unless you worshiped the false gods of the guilds.
And specifically, you had to go to these idol feasts that they would do.
They would do special feasts in honor of the false gods that the guild was dedicated to.
And you had to participate in a worship service for these false gods.
You had to sacrifice an animal to the god and then eat the meat.
You had to literally participate in a pagan ritual in order to be allowed to buy or sell.
Keep that in mind when we get to the mark of the beast.
It’s not a microchip.
In the first century, you basically couldn’t buy or sell anything unless you worshiped the false gods of the trade guilds, the primary of which was the Roman emperor.
What did they refer to the Roman emperor who demanded to be worshiped or else he would kill you?
They referred to him as the beast.
It’s not a puzzle.
It’s not a code.
When John talked about the beast, he expected them to literally recognize, yeah, he’s talking about Nero, talking about Domitian, talking about the emperor.
He talked about the mark of the beast that you can’t buy or sell without getting.
He expected them to pretty quickly get like, okay, yeah, if we don’t join the trade guilds and worship their gods and worship the emperor, we literally cannot start a business, cannot own property, cannot participate in any way in the economic life of the empire, will be totally marginalized, refusing to worship the Roman emperor whom they called the beast.
And the Roman Empire, which they called Babylon.
Actually, they also called the Roman Empire the beast. It’s a whole thing. We’ll get into that.
But if you didn’t worship the empire and the emperor, you were viciously persecuted.
And so the seven churches are hanging on for dear life as their property is taken away, as they are thrown in jail, as they are relentlessly beaten and persecuted, as their family members are executed in front of them, and on and on and on.
False Teachers from Inside the Church
And at exactly the same time as all of this is happening, as a result within these seven churches, false teachers have started to arise.
He talks about two different types of false teach—really three different types of false teachers. But honestly, it seems like all three of these false teacher groups that he mentions are really kind of one group, different expressions of one thing.
He talks about the Nicolaitans.
The Nicolaitans were a first-century group that we can literally point to and identify.
It’s not about the future.
The Nicolaitans were right there in the first century.
He talks about the Nicolaitans. He talks about the, you could say, like the Jezebelites. And he talks about what you could call the Balaamites.
But again, really what it comes down to is all three of these seem to sort of be the same thing.
What’s happening is that these false teachers rise up and they are like Jezebel in the Old Testament.
They are like Balaam in the Old Testament.
They are leading God’s people to worship false gods.
And they are leading God’s people to abandon God’s will and God’s ways to live in ways that dishonor the Lord.
And so in places like the church in Pergamum, the church in Thyatira, he says, “These false teachers have led you into pagan worship and these false teachers have led you into sexual immorality.”
When he talks about sexual immorality, he’s probably not just talking about doing things that God has forbidden.
He’s probably talking about the fact that at those guild feasts in honor of the pagan gods, they literally had orgies.
You would perform these pagan food rituals and then you would perform pagan sex rituals.
You would literally be part of an orgy with a bunch of enslaved pagan temple prostitutes, which typically were like 13-year-old girls.
So, these were pagan pedophile sex parties.
He says there are false teachers who have actually led you to start participating in pagan pedophile sex parties.
And he describes that specifically by pointing backwards to Jezebel and pointing backwards to Balaam.
He says in Revelation chapter 2:
“But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans likewise. Repent therefore, or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth.”
Essentially, these false teachers, the Nicolaitans, the Balaamites, the Jezebelites were teaching some version of, “You can be a Christian, but also go participate in the pagan practices with the pagan guilds so that you can buy and sell, so that you can own a business, so that you can be a merchant, so that you can build wealth, so that you can build power, so that you won’t be persecuted, so that you won’t be marginalized. You can compromise with the wicked pagan values of Rome in order to avoid persecution.”
He says when they do that, they are being just like Balaam and they will be destroyed just like Balaam was.
They are being just like Jezebel and they will be destroyed just like Jezebel was.
And when you follow after them, you will be destroyed just like the people who followed Balaam and Jezebel.
So, we basically have this twofold problem.
The churches in Asia Minor, the seven churches of Revelation, are being squeezed from the outside.
The pagan empire Rome is saying, “Worship Caesar or we will crush you.”
And they’re being squeezed from the inside by false teachers saying, “Hey, it’s fine. Just go along. Just compromise with pagan Rome so that you won’t be persecuted.”
John is writing Revelation to draw them back to faithfulness to King Jesus while they are being ripped apart by persecutors from the outside and false teachers from the inside.
And so ironically, in that sense, Revelation is actually basically just like almost every other letter in the New Testament.
And in a very similar way, just like pretty much every other letter in the New Testament, Revelation does all of this using language that the original readers would have immediately understood, but is kind of confusing us.
Revelation Is Apocalyptic Literature
What we specifically have to understand is that Revelation is written using a very specific type of ancient Near Eastern writing, ancient Near Eastern literature.
It’s called apocalyptic literature.
Revelation is apocalyptic literature.
And the important thing that we have to understand about apocalyptic literature is that apocalyptic literature primarily communicates using symbolism.
It primarily communicates using metaphors.
It primarily communicates using images that are not meant to be taken literally.
This is really important.
Apocalyptic literature is not meant to be taken literally in really any sense.
And so when you are reading apocalyptic literature, you basically have to assume that none of it is meant to be taken literalistically unless it clearly indicates to you that it needs to be taken literally.
Meaning what?
It means that when it talks about the stars falling from the sky, it’s not meant to be interpreted to mean that the stars will literally fall from the sky.
When it talks about earthquakes, it’s not meant to be interpreted to mean that there are literally earthquakes.
When it talks about, you know, diseases and famines, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there are literally going to be diseases or famines.
When it talks about locusts covering the earth, it doesn’t necessarily mean locusts will literally cover the earth.
When it talks about a seven-headed monster, it doesn’t mean that there will literally be a seven-headed monster.
When it talks about the beast from the sea, it does not mean that a beast will come from the sea.
When it talks about the beast from the land, it doesn’t mean that a literal beast will literally come from the land.
When it talks about how one of the beasts has a head wound, it doesn’t mean that there will literally be a head wound on some person.
When it talks about having to take a mark on your hand or your forehead, or else you won’t be able to buy and sell, it doesn’t mean that there is any kind of literal physical mark that is going to be put on you.
And it doesn’t mean that there will literally be anything happening at the supermarket, right, where you’re going to scan the mark on your hand, otherwise you can’t do it.
That’s not the point.
On and on and on.
These are all images that are meant to communicate kind of a big-picture sense, but they’re not meant to be mapped out into literal historical events.
They point towards literal historical things, but they do it using flowery imagery that the original readers who were super familiar with apocalyptic literature would immediately have recognized.
Yeah, this is apocalyptic literature.
We don’t have anything like that today.
And so we read the stuff in Revelation. We’re like, “What’s going on? What’s with all these dragons?”
We cannot understand Revelation unless we understand that this is apocalyptic literature.
Pulling Back the Curtain on Spiritual Reality
The point of apocalyptic literature was never to build out complex timelines.
The point of apocalyptic literature was to reveal the great spiritual war that was happening behind the scenes of the mundane events of day-to-day life here on Earth.
And so, apocalyptic literature would talk about things that were pretty mundane using catastrophic language.
And so, it would talk about a king of a nation being deposed and replaced with another one, which is, it’s a big deal, but it happens almost every day.
But it would use language like, “The great star of the north exploded and the flames of the exploding star filled all the corners of the earth. And then a little star sprouted up in the place where the exploding star used to be.”
And it’s talking about a king who got assassinated and then replaced with one of his nephews.
Why does it do that?
It does that because the point is to show you that even though what’s happening on the surface is pretty mundane—kings get deposed every day, kings get replaced every day—in reality, behind that really mundane act, a spiritual battle was happening.
The devil and the forces of darkness are waging war on the Lord and His people.
And that spiritual war takes shape in more forms than we could ever even begin to imagine.
Things that you would never imagine have anything to do with battles between angelic and demonic forces are rooted in battles between angelic and demonic forces.
That includes the rising and falling of rulers.
That includes elections.
That includes wars between nations.
That includes economic upheaval.
That includes diseases that tear through the world.
That includes all these different things.
And it includes stuff as small and as simple as conversations that you have with people that ultimately lead to them coming to know the Lord and being redeemed.
This is how ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature works.
It uses apocalyptic language to describe things that may seem mundane, but they’re not mundane.
They are part of a vast spiritual battle.
As John writes fourth John, the book of Revelation, he is using this apocalyptic writing style that they would have been intimately familiar with, that they would have immediately recognized, to guide the seven churches through this crisis where they are being attacked from the outside and from the inside.
Because this was the tool that the Lord determined would be the most useful for them this moment.
And so to be completely clear, just to make sure there’s no confusion, when the seven churches received the book of Revelation from John, at no point would it even have crossed their mind to think that these bizarre apocalyptic images were meant to be taken literally.
They never even would have gotten to think that he’s talking about literal beasts or literal dragons.
They never even would have begun to think that when he talks about the 144,000 that it’s literally talking about 144,000 people as like an exact number.
They would never have thought that the mark of the beast was literally a mark that you have to scan on something.
They would never even have begun to think any of these things.
They would have immediately recognized, okay, this is apocalyptic literature just like the book of Daniel in the Bible, just like the book of Enoch, just like the book of Jubilees, just like so many other apocalyptic writings that we’ve grown up reading and learning.
They would have immediately recognized that above all else, what Revelation is doing is lifting up the curtain to show them the unseen spiritual reality that is behind the struggle that they are experiencing right now.
He’s using a common, well-known, and for them easily understandable type of writing called apocalyptic literature.
Images the Original Readers Would Have Recognized
At the same time, he is using common language, figures of speech, and images that they would have immediately recognized and understood, even though we tend to miss them because we’re 2,000 years separated.
When he talks about Babylon the Great, it wasn’t a puzzle.
He’s using a common ancient Jewish image, metaphor, that they would immediately have recognized and they would have known exactly what he was talking about.
When he talks about the mother of prostitutes, the great prostitute, he was using a common, well-known image that they would have immediately recognized.
They would have known exactly what he was talking about.
When he talks about the beast, he’s using a common and well-known ancient Jewish image that they would have immediately recognized and known exactly what he was talking about.
When he uses the term 666 or 616 depending on the manuscript, those were actually both ancient Jewish and ancient Christian metaphors, images that they would have immediately recognized and known exactly what he was talking about.
When he talked about Gog and Magog, he was using a well-known ancient Jewish image, metaphor.
They would have immediately recognized and known exactly what he was talking about.
And on and on and on.
Revelation Is Saturated with the Old Testament
And in the same exact way, he is using hundreds of direct Old Testament quotes and references that they would have immediately recognized and known what he was talking about, even though we often miss them because we’re not so familiar with the Old Testament.
He is quoting extensively from Daniel chapter 2, chapter 7, chapter 10, 11, and 12, and on and on and on.
He is quoting extensively from Ezekiel.
He is quoting extensively from Exodus.
He is quoting extensively from Isaiah.
He is quoting extensively from Zechariah.
He is quoting extensively from the Psalms.
He’s quoting extensively from Genesis.
What do you notice about all those books?
Those are the books nobody reads.
Why is Revelation so confusing?
Because we didn’t read the books that help us understand Revelation.
When he talks about the beasts that came from the sea, that came from the land, and so on and so forth, that’s an image that Daniel originally gave to us.
When he talks about one like a son of man who receives authority over all things, that’s an image that Daniel introduced.
When he talks about these blasphemous rulers who set up in the temple the abomination of desolation, these are images that Daniel introduced.
And when he talks about sealed prophetic visions and so forth, these are images that Daniel introduced.
When he talks about the throne room and the Son of Man, that’s Daniel 7.
That’s Ezekiel chapter 1.
When he talks about these creatures with all these different heads and so forth, those are images that Daniel and Ezekiel introduced for us.
When he talks about the seven seals and the seven trumpets and the seven bowls, he is using images and language that came from the 10 plagues from the Exodus.
When he talks about Jesus as the Lamb who was slain, that’s an image that Exodus introduced for us.
When he talks about God pouring out His judgment on the false gods of the empire, that’s an image that Exodus introduced for us.
When he talks about God laying waste to this false god king over this wicked empire, that’s an image Exodus introduced for us.
Pharaoh was a king who claimed to be a god, just like Caesar is a king who claims to be a god.
Caesar is a new Pharaoh.
Pharaoh was an early Caesar.
Pharaoh was an early form of the beast.
Caesar was the current form of the beast.
Egypt was an early form of Babylon.
Rome was the current form of Babylon.
And on and on and on.
When he talks about the new heavens and the new earth, that’s an image that Isaiah introduced for us.
When he talks about God wiping away our tears, that’s an image Isaiah introduced for us.
When he talks about a restored Jerusalem, a restored Zion, that’s an image Isaiah introduced for us.
When he talks about the nations streaming in to the Promised Land to worship the Lord, that’s an image Isaiah introduced for us.
When he talks about these four living creatures that surround the throne that look like all these different things, that’s an image that Ezekiel introduced for us.
When he talks about this great unfaithful prostitute who leads all the nations away from the true God, that’s an image Ezekiel introduced.
When he talks about this thing, Gog and Magog, waging war against the Lord and His people in the end, that’s an image Ezekiel introduced for us.
When he talks about the four horsemen, that’s an image Zechariah introduced for us.
When he talks about the lampstands and the olive trees, that is an image Zechariah introduced for us.
When he talks about the Lord standing on the Mount of Olives waging war on the armies of the enemy, that is an image Zechariah introduced for us.
When he talks about the true King, Jesus, ruling the nations with an iron scepter, that is an image Psalm 2 introduced for us.
When he talks about all the nations worshiping the one true God around His throne, that’s an image that Psalm 96, 97, 98, 99 introduced for us.
When he talks about the devil as a kind of serpent or dragon, that’s an image that Genesis introduced for us.
When he talks about redeemed humanity as His bride, that’s an image Genesis introduced for us.
When he talks about being marked on your forehead and your hand, that’s an image Exodus introduces for us.
God marks His people with the mark of the Lamb in Exodus 12.
In Ezekiel 9, God marks His people with the mark of the Lamb to be spared from judgment, from condemnation.
In Deuteronomy chapter 6, He tells His people to mark His instructions, to bind His instructions as a sign on their hands and on their forehead.
You are marked by the Lamb.
It means you belong to Him.
And in the same way, when you are marked by the beast, it doesn’t mean you got a microchip put in your hand or your forehead.
It means you worship the beast.
It means you worship Caesar.
It means you worship Rome or whatever form of beast experience in your own time.
Whatever form of Babylon you experience in your own time.
He’s using images and concepts from the Old Testament that they would have been intimately familiar with.
They immediately would have recognized, but that we tend to miss.
Revelation’s Repeating, Overlapping Structure
He uses a really specific structure that they would have immediately recognized even though we tend to miss it.
He structures the book of Revelation as a kind of cycle.
It’s kind of like if you ever saw that Dennis Quaid movie Vantage Point.
The movie Vantage Point, it’s like the movie starts and it tells the story of like an assassination of a political leader or something like that from the perspective of like the agent who’s investigating him.
And then it tells the same story from the perspective of like the Secret Service person who’s supposed to be protecting him.
And then it tells the same story from the perspective of like the terrorist who carried out the assassination.
And it tells the same story from the perspective of like his daughter or something like that.
And so you see the same exact thing four different times from different perspectives.
In the same way in Revelation, you see the exact same series of events play out over and over and over again, but from a bunch of different vantage points, a bunch of different perspectives.
And we can see that in the fact that if you read Revelation, it makes zero chronological sense.
Like I said before, Revelation is ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature, and apocalyptic literature usually was not chronological.
The book of Daniel is not chronological.
In Revelation, you can see a prime example of the fact that it literally cannot be chronological because the world ends at least three separate times in Revelation.
This is something that we have a tendency to miss because again, you know, we’re so far removed from the days when this type of literature was normal and widespread and common.
But the end of the world keeps on happening in Revelation.
The world ends six chapters into Revelation.
Then everything starts over.
Then the world ends again in chapter 11.
And then everything starts over.
Then the world ends again in chapter 16 and 17.
What’s going on?
In the same way, in chapter 12, suddenly it stops everything and goes back to the beginning of time.
What’s going on?
That’s really confusing if you’re trying to read Revelation as a chronological account where everything that happens flows into the next thing, right?
But that’s not what’s happening.
Revelation has this cyclical structure.
It has this kind of overlapping structure.
It has a kind of multi-perspective structure just like the book of Daniel, just like the book of Ezekiel, just like the book of Zechariah, just like all apocalyptic literature.
And so what happens is you get the seven seals.
And the seven seals are not something that’s going to happen way in the future.
The seven seals are telling the entire story of human history from the time of Jesus all the way through the actual end.
The world ends at the end of the seven seals.
And then John says, “Okay, let’s replay the tape, but this time we’re going to go to a different camera.”
And he tells the exact same story in the form of these seven trumpets.
The seven trumpets tell the story of human history from the time of Jesus all the way through the very end.
And then the world ends at the end of the seven trumpets.
And then John says, “Okay, now let’s watch that again, but let’s switch to a different camera.”
And he lays out the seven bowls.
And just like before, the seven bowls tell the entire story of human history from the time of Jesus all the way through the end, but from a different perspective.
In the same way, you get to Revelation 12 through 14.
You see the whole story of redemption and restoration from a completely different vantage point.
You get to Revelation 17-19.
You see the whole story of redemption and restoration from yet another vantage point and on and on and on depending on how you interpret it, right?
Revelation 20 you could potentially argue tells the entire story of redemption and restoration from yet another vantage point, although that one is more debatable.
This is not a chronological Revelation.
Chapter 1 is the beginning and then chapter 22 is the end.
It is a repeating, overlapping cycle.
We’re hearing the same series of events over and over and over using different metaphors, using different symbols, using different images, using different language to make different points.
The Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls Tell the Story from Different Perspectives
Just a case in point, when John tells the story of redemption and restoration all the way through the end in the seven seals, he focuses primarily on the persecution of God’s people.
He focuses primarily on like the ongoing reality of Satan’s war against God’s people in the form of conquest, war, famine, death, martyrdom, stuff like that.
And then in the trumpets, he tells the exact same story of redemption and restoration all the way through the end.
But this time, he focuses primarily on God’s warning to humanity, on the way that God is calling humanity to repentance, warning humanity to return to Him.
It’s telling the same story, but it’s focusing primarily on the way that God is warning humanity and calling humanity to repentance.
And then when it gets to the bowls, it’s telling that same story again, but this time it’s focusing primarily on the wrath of God towards rebellion.
It’s the same story, but from three different perspectives with three different themes.
It’s kind of like, you know, if you’ve ever watched—you know, so there’s like 20 different movie versions of like Little Women, right?
Elyse, my wife, the 1990s version of Little Women with Winona Ryder, it’s like one of her favorite movies. And so she wants to watch it, you know, all the time.
They came out with another one like five years ago, and it’s pretty good, you know, it’s not bad.
But it’s the same story, but they focus on very different aspects of the book.
They focus on very different themes from the book.
It’s kind of like the seals are the 1990s Little Women. It’s the same story, but they focus on these themes.
And then the bowls are the 2019 version of Little Women. It’s the same story, but they focus on these themes instead of those themes.
And then, I don’t know if I said bowls or trumpet, but you know, you get to the trumpets or the bowls or whatever, and it’s like the 1922 version of Little Women.
Same story, but focuses on totally different themes than the other two.
John’s Explanatory Pauses
And amidst all of this repeating and cycling and overlapping, going over that same story from different perspectives with different points and different themes, Revelation is filled with moments where John hits pause on the videotape and he suddenly breaks down what we just saw and basically explains what it means.
It’s like case in point in Revelation chapter 7.
He’s just gotten almost to the end of the seven seals and he says, “Okay, now here’s what you need to understand.”
You need to understand that yes, judgment is hitting the world, but you don’t need to worry because God has sealed His people.
And he jumps into this image, this metaphor of how the Lamb has sealed His people on their foreheads and hands amidst the judgments.
In the same way in Revelation 10 and 11, John hits pause during the seven trumpets.
And it basically says, okay, yes, the plagues are falling.
God is pouring out His warnings, but those warnings are actually not going to bring people to repentance.
What’s going to bring people to repentance is God’s people will be persecuted and killed.
And yet God will raise them up.
He will vindicate them.
And people will see the way that God has raised up, vindicated, empowered His people to endure and overcome the suffering and persecution they poured out on them.
And that is going to be the thing that melts their hearts and brings them to repentance.
In Revelation 12-14, John hits pause after the trumpet cycle, but before the bowl cycle starts, and he says, “Let’s lift up the hood and look at what’s going on underneath all these things.”
Underneath all of these seven seals, the persecution of God’s people.
Underneath all these seven trumpets, these judgment warnings that God is giving to humanity.
Underneath all these bowls, the wrath that God is pouring out on wickedness.
Here’s what’s happening underneath it:
The dragon is waging war on the Lamb.
We could do this all day.
The point is that Revelation is not chronological.
It is a series of images that are meant to paint the big picture of this history-long war between the true King and the false usurper serpent king that ultimately ends with the victory of the true King.
And that means that if you try to force everything into like a chart, a timeline, it’s not going to work because this wasn’t intended to be put together into a chart or a timeline.
This is meant to give us a series of images, symbols, metaphors that helps us understand what God is doing in the world and where all of this is ultimately headed.
How Revelation Guides the Seven Churches
And in that process, what John is doing in all of these images is he is carefully and uniquely guiding these seven churches through these specific ways that the devil is attacking each of them uniquely by the power of the truth.
The church in Ephesus is doctrinally solid, which is great.
They are morally serious, which is great, but they have lost their love for the Lord.
They have rightly been waging war on the false teachers like the Nicolaitans, but in the process, they’ve lost their love.
They are all fight, no love.
Part of what John is doing in Revelation is he is teaching them to fall in love with King Jesus again and to fall in love with the lost humanity they’ve been sent out to bring to repentance again.
The church in Smyrna is facing extreme poverty, imprisonment, persecution, even martyrdom and death.
They’re under intense pressure from the pagan government of Rome.
And John is writing Revelation to help them understand that Rome may kill them.
The beast may kill them.
Babylon may kill them.
The great prostitute may kill them.
But they have a deeper, richer, truer life that death can never take from them.
The church in Pergamum has been allowing the Balaamites, the Nicolaitans to pull them away from true faithfulness.
They’ve been compromising with pagan Rome.
They’ve been going to the pagan guilds, joining the pagan guild feasts.
They’ve been practicing the pagan rituals.
They’ve been participating in the pagan pedophile sex parties.
They’ve been doing all of this to avoid persecution.
John is writing Revelation to show them that this compromise is not saving them from Rome.
It is separating them from King Jesus.
Same thing is true for the church in Thyatira.
They’ve allowed the Jezebel to move them to compromise with pagan Rome.
And if they continue to allow this, they will end up like the church in Sardis.
He says the church in Sardis has a reputation for being alive, but is actually dead.
They’re not even being persecuted.
Why?
Because they’ve already compromised so much that there’s nothing for Rome to take issue with.
They are rotting from the inside.
The church in Laodicea is a prime example of what happens when a church like Sardis continues down that path.
Their compromise with Rome has made them rich.
It’s made them powerful.
They’re not only not persecuted, they are part of the elites in Laodicea.
And as a result, they’ve been spiritually blinded.
They’re spiritually impoverished.
They have completely fallen in love with their comfort and out of love with their King.
On the other side of the spectrum is the church in Philadelphia.
They have been persecuted.
They are being arrested.
They are being killed.
They are being robbed of everything they have.
They are unbelievably weak in worldly terms.
And yet John is writing Revelation to say:
“You’re the one who will be glorified in the end. You’re the one who will be exalted in the end. Everything that has been taken from you will be restored sevenfold.”
He is writing Revelation to these seven churches to show them that history is not run by the beast, by Babylon, by the serpent.
History is run from the throne room of God surrounded by worship.
It is run by the crucified Lamb.
And that means that their suffering doesn’t mean they have been abandoned.
Their suffering means they are walking with the Lamb who was slain.
He’s writing Revelation to show them that the only power and wealth that matters is the power and wealth that comes from the blood of the Lamb, the One who is seated on the throne.
That no amount of humiliation, persecution, rejection, and suffering can ever take away the riches of what the Lord has in store for them.
The Message of Revelation Is Timeless
But the big takeaway from all of this is actually really simple because what we are going to find is that the guidance that John has for each of these seven churches may have been dealing specifically with the situations they were going through at that time.
But the guidance that he gives them is applicable for every church in every place in every time throughout all of history.
The primary meaning of the book of Revelation is timeless.
The primary meaning of the book of Revelation remains the same regardless of how you interpret the minor details.
Regardless of what you believe about the rapture, the primary meaning of Revelation is unchanged.
Regardless of what you believe about the modern nation of Israel, the primary meaning of Revelation is unchanged.
Regardless of what you believe about world governments or whatever, the primary actual meaning of Revelation is unchanged.
The core message, the core meaning of each passage in Revelation remains exactly the same regardless of where you fall on these other kind of secondary issues that have been debated.
And so this may frustrate you, but my goal is actually not to change your view of the end times.
For the most part, I don’t care what you believe about the end times.
I will talk about what I believe this is saying.
My goal is not to make you stop believing in this and start believing in that. Stop believing in that and start believing in this.
If you’re a rapture person, I’m not going to try to convince you to stop believing in the rapture.
If you’re a non-rapture person, I’m not going to try to convince you to start believing in the rapture because the rapture has nothing to do with the book of Revelation.
If you’re a Zionist, I’m not going to try to convince you to stop being a Zionist.
If you’re non-Zionist, I’m not going to try to convince you to start being a Zionist because Zionism, the modern nation of Israel, has nothing to do with the book of Revelation.
I’m not going to try to convince you to think any particular thing about the United Nations or the European Union or whatever because those things have nothing to do with the book of Revelation.
The message of the book of Revelation has nothing to do with any one specific government except the government of Rome at the time of the seven churches.
But it unveils the invisible spiritual warfare that plays into every government in every nation throughout every time period.
We could do this all day.
I’m not going to try to change any one of these things for you because none of those things actually have anything to do with what Revelation says or what Revelation means.
Instead, what we’re going to do is break down what each of these chapters literally means.
And what we are going to find is that 90% of what Revelation has to say is timeless.
That the core meaning of each of the pieces of Revelation has nothing to do with any particular timeline of the end times.
So long as we grasp that core meaning, the secondary and third-order debates that we have about pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, rapture or no rapture, what is the mark of the beast? Is it a microchip or a barcode or something else entirely? Should the temple be rebuilt or not? Who has a rightful claim to the land that used to be Israel? And on and on and on.
Those debates aren’t really important so long as we grasp the heart, the core of what John is laying down for us.
Because John did not write the book of Revelation—God did not inspire the book of Revelation—in order to answer any of those questions.
God breathed out the book of Revelation through the Apostle John to guide us through the spiritual war that was playing out in the seven churches 2,000 years ago in one particular form and is playing out in our churches today in another particular form and will play out in every church, in every place, in every time period in its own form.
And if you follow along and trek through Revelation, it will be absolutely transformative for your life and your faith.
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