Okay, Revelation, we're just going to cover the highlights and I'm just going to do it so that I understand it completely. I mean, it's real easy. I think it's one of them. Once you understand it, it's easiest looking to Bible understand, so no reason to get it all filed out. So we'll begin at the beginning and explain the word Revelation as a matter of fact. Now, if you have a scope field Bible and I think most of you do, right by now, okay, you got it, you got this as much in there as I can give you more. But anyway, the word revelation comes from the Greek word apocolopsis. And most people that they think the word apocolops means some kind of a tragic end to everything. But that's not what the word means at all. Yeah, I don't know how many movies or books are out on apocolops. At the end of the world That's not what I mean. The word apocalyptic simply means revelation, unveiling another trick-or-treater. Yeah go ahead and there's some, I brought some, yeah, just bring it up there. A bunch of suckers, that's what I brought in. A bunch of other stuff too. Should've brought all. That is comical. I don't know why, but I knew this was going to happen. All the churches I've been in, I've never had Trick or Treat, you shopped on the door. Yeah, just don't tell the Baptist. We don't observe Trick or Halloween, but we're prepared. So I guess, what's that, that's the root word, to unveil, yeah, unveil, yeah, that is the root word. There are two words in the Greek dictionary, one is apocalyptic and that means to unveil and the other word is apocalyptic, which is where the word revelation comes from but the word revelation means to reveal. So they both mean exactly the same thing. Of course, then there's the Latin word, but the Latin word actually means the same thing, or reveal, revelation. So that's what revelation is, a revealing and unveiling. And, well, to get another one better understanding of that, go back to Daniel chapter 12, but I want you to know that I didn't prepare for this. Yeah, they're not the same. No, the word mystery is a different Greek word, it comes from Greek word, Musterion, a different word altogether, and a different, as a matter of fact, it's a different root word altogether. So they're not the same at all. I know that if you look at them, if you look at them, they almost mean the same thing, but they're really not. Well, they're three different, already, I mean, like, different languages, I think, so it's like the same meaning, right? No, it's the same language, they're both Greek words. Musterion and and apocalyptic are both Greek words, but they come from different root words. But if you look up the word mustyrian, which is mystery, it'll almost give you the same description, but there are two different words. Oh, you're going back in the Hebrew, it's the same? No, not the Hebrew. In the Hebrew, it's not going to have the same. No, but the word mystery, as it is in the New Testament, is not used in the Old Testament. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, okay. Okay, good, Daniel chapter 12 and we'll show you where the word revelation or revealing apocoloupes comes in. It comes in from the book of Daniel. Now there's two places in Daniel that Daniel has told this, but in verse four, Revelation chapter 12. But now, old Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. By the way, that's the perfect picture the way things are today, isn't it? Oh yeah, you can get on an airplane you go anywhere, get in your automobile and go anywhere, a bus, a boat, anything. You run to and fro, knowledge shall be increased. And that's a perfect look at the way things are going on today. See you and shut up the book. And then in verse eight, but I heard, but I understood not. Then said, I, oh my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? Why didn't he understand it? Because it wasn't revealed yet. It wasn't revealed, it wasn't unveiled yet. He didn't understand the church age. That's where the word mystery comes in. He didn't understand all the things that are written in Revelation. All he knew was that there was something was coming. And in verse nine, one again, once again. And he said, go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Now, you notice that he didn't say they were sealed permanently or forever. but they are sealed until the time of the end. And then he says in verse 10, here's the picture of the church age. Many shall be purified and made white and tried, but the wicked shall do wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand. You get that? There's where the word mystery comes in once again. The word mystery means the truth concealed until the time revealed. What is concealed the church age? The church age was concealed in the Old Testament, and now the church age has revealed. Okay, and many shall be made purified. What do you how you do that? Put your faith in Christ, right? And made white. Didn't know what revelation tells us? Absolutely. We'll see that. I'm down the road here. And tried or tested. Every Christian gets tested or tried. One way or the other, do you know? If you don't, there's something wrong. But I think every Christian, I know it has been tested, but the wicked shall do wickedly, isn't that the truth? It just continues and continues and continues and it's hard to understand. It's hard to understand why a politician who you think is a good person just makes unwise, unholy, ungodly decisions, constantly, constantly, constantly, and none of the wicked shall understand. They don't do that. They're trying to take God out of everything. They're taking him out of the Bible. They're trying to take him out of the funerals for our soldiers now. They're trying to take the flag, everything. They're just trying to the wicked shall do wickedly. But the wise, if you're a Christian, you'll understand. Understand what? Everything that's going on in the world. As a Christian, you should be wise and be able to understand everything that's going on in the world. Should the body of know? Not at all. Absolutely. Because everything that goes on in the world is proof. The God is who he is. Absolutely. Every time you see someone make a decision to take the prayer out of schools, something like that. Look, that proves God's real to me because they hate it. Because if he was real, it wouldn't matter to him. But it is real. Okay, now back to Revelation, if you will. Some call this the revelation of John, but it's actually the revelation of Christ in verse 1. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which means the unveiling, the revealing, what's he revealing, what he told Daniel to seal up. Now's the time, the time of the end, so we're going to get it now, right? The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto his servant. Let me tell you something. If he didn't write it to show unto you and I, then don't say you can't understand it. I don't know if people have heard, I don't understand the book of Revelation. Well, that's funny. God said, he revealed it to you to show unto the servants that you and I. You can't understand it. Well, the preacher doesn't understand it, but that's why they don't see it. Yeah, that's a fact. If the preacher doesn't understand it, it won't get taught. When I was a Catholic, our priest would tell us, the church told their people not to read the book of Revelation because it drives you nuts. Well, of course, I didn't want you reading the Revelation because you might understand something that the priest didn't want you to know. That's why they didn't want you to read it. And we were literally told that when I was a Catholic. I was a good Catholic too. No, never mind that. To show them which must surely come to pass, and he sent his dignified by his angel unto his servant, John, who bore witness of the Word of God, kind of testimony. money of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw, was Jesus Christ real? Yes, John, the apostle, says he is. This is a literal book written by a literal human being who lived with a literal Christ. Yes, it was all real. Now then, verse 3, blessed is he that read it. That's you and I. If you read this book, God promises you a blessing. You know how many preachers ignore that a lot. There is a blessing promised to those who read it and here the words of this prophecy, that's those who listen and those who read that includes all of us, right? The words of this prophecy and keep, the word keep needs to be translated. It means to watch, make note and consider. And on many times I've heard preachers say, well if you keep the things that are in it you'll be saved if you don't give me a break that's not what it means. That's why we study the Greek language and keep that means to make note consider those things which are written in it for the time is at hand now we realize this is if almost two thousand years ago but that doesn't mean anything to God two thousand years ago it's just like a day to hand a couple of days doesn't matter to him that's you and I it seems like a long time that's why the scholars say what where is it you know you'll be here just keep your eyes open and then we want to go to verse 18 yeah yeah no but I've heard preachers teach that way so in verse 19 we have a breakdown of the of the outline of the book of Revelation in verse 19 right the things which thou hast seen Vince Vince quoted this last week if you remember. That's the past. The things which are. That's the church age, the present. And the things which shall be hereafter, future. You could translate that after these things. And then we have in verse 20 the word mystery which we were talking about shortly but the mystery of the sentence of the word mystery meaning of truth revealed until the truth consumed time revealed. I know that Revelation sounds the same as Vince pointed out, but Revelation means to unveil, to reveal. Okay, it's not a mystery anymore. Yeah, it's not a mystery anymore. And this was a very last book written in a Bible, some people say in about 97 AD. I suppose it was, I wasn't there, I don't know, I just except the fact it was written somewhere around there. And then the book was written to the seven churches. We're going to briefly look at those seven churches, but I don't know if we're going to get to it tonight. But the seven churches represent, and I'm just going to take time to explain what the seven churches represent. So you'll have that in your notes somewhere. The seven churches represented seven literal churches at that time. They also represent seven types of the church. There are many, many churches in Madison, Ohio. The good churches, the churches that are founded on the Jesus Christ, there are basically seven types. That's what these seven churches represent. They also represent seven time periods throughout the history of the church. The first church was the apostolic age church, but we're not going to get in with all that. I just want you to know what they represent. We're not going to take time to teach them, but once you know what they represent, you can read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions. If you ever get the opportunity to teach it, you'll know how and so forth. I have to read it for yourself. If you read it, we may look briefly at what the seven types of church teach, we may look at that briefly. My basic concern was the basic understanding of the divisions of the Book of Revelation. That's what I want to teach. Once you get that, the rest is relative easy. Verse 4, John, to the Seven Churches, which are in Asia, Greece, be unto you, peace, from him who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the Seven Spirits, who are before his throne. And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first we got into the dead, and the Prince of the Kings of the Earth, unto him that loved us, and washed away our sins in his own blood. There's only one way to have eternal life, and that's by having your sins washed and blood washed. I'm going to point out something before I go any further. There are two types of sins that we commit. Or actually, I should rephrase that. There are two types of forgiveness of sin. The first one is the forgiveness of sin that gets you into heaven. Salvation. Once you have that, no matter what you do after that salvation is a done deal. Verse 4, he washed us from our sins in his own blood. That's salvation. You cannot lose it. The second type of forgiveness is in 1 John 1 verse 8 through 10, chapter 2 verses 1 and 2. The second type of forgiveness is the forgiveness that we need for our daily walk with the Lord Jesus Christ called fellowship. On a daily basis, we need to go to the Lord and ask Him to forgive our sins. That way we have fellowship with Him, we have access to Him, access to all that He has promised us, access to the Kingdom of God, access to God to follow through Jesus Christ, access to understanding His Word. That's what we have when we have fellowship with Him on a daily basis. That's the second type of the forgiveness of sin. And then we see in the Word piece here in verse 4, there's two kinds of peace. There's peace with God, that salvation, and peace of God, that service. Peace with God goes back to forgiveness of sin, for salvation. Peace of God, which is my service, goes to the second type of forgiveness, my fellowship, my daily walk. And then in Hebrews chapter 2 and 3 we see the two kinds of rest. The first rest is salvation. That's peace with God and that's eternal forgiveness. That gives me access in the heaven. I'm safe. The second rest is the rest of service. That is the same thing as the piece of God that comes from serving Him. That is the same thing as the second type of forgiveness of sins which is my fellowship, my daily walk, you see. And all this has to do with salvation and service and keeping them separate. And here we have the peace from him who is, who was, who is to come in verse 4, then verse 6, and have made us, King, a kingdom of, or kings, and priests, unto God and his Father, to him the glory and the manifest, that's important. Why is that important? Well, hold your place here over to chapter 4, if you will. This is very important. He has made us, kings, and priests. Let's see here. Where do we want to go? Let's go to chapter 4 verse 4, if you will probably will start there. In chapters 4, now let me point something else out too, for Gnepriber. Chapter 4 and 5 are a picture of, you need to get this, a picture of the church in heaven immediately following the rapture. 4 and 5 are a picture of the Church in heaven immediately following the rapture and just before the anti-Christ is revealed chapter 6, verse 1. We have an instantaneous picture in two chapters of the church in heaven. Chapter 4, verse 1, heaven was opened. There was a voice, the Trump of God, come up here and so forth. That's a picture of the rapture. When the rapture takes place, the Lord Jesus Christ will appear in the heaven. be a door and the door into heaven will be open. Whatever that is, I don't know, not a literal door, I don't think. And then you hear the trumpet which is the voice of God and then the voice of God will say, come up here. And if you're safe, born again, Christian, if you're still alive, you'll hear that voice while you're in your physical body. And if you're not, your dead body will rise from wherever it is called the rapture of the church. Come up here. And in verse two, immediately I was in the spirit and behold the throne was said in heaven and once that on the throne. First thing we're going to see when we get there is God the Father and God the Son together. That's one of the first things we're going to see. And then when we get up there we're going to see all the other church looking verse 4 if you will. These all seats literally called thrones. And 4 and 20 elders sitting closed in white Raymond. They had on their heads crowns of gold. Remember what we were talking about the white in Daniel Chapter 12, White Raymond, and on down in the book of Revelation, we'll see that when you get to Heaven, you're going to have two Raymond's. You're going to have the underclothing and the outerclothing. You're going to see that, okay? And then the elders represents the church, and we can prove that when, if we, in First Chronicle Chapter 24, we're not going to take time to do that, I don't think, but it represents the church. Now the throne proceeded lightnings and thunders and there were seven lamps of fire burning and so forth. And then known up in if you will, and oh, let's go to verse 10, I guess. The four and twenty elders fell down before him that has sat on the throne, that's the church called before Christ, who lived forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne. What crowns? The crowns of gold we saw in chapter four, in verse four, rather. The crowns are your rewards or service when you get in the heaven. It's that simple. You're not going to go up to heaven and be crowned a king or a queen or the queen of each if you're none of that stupid stuff. Your crowns are your rewards and you'll notice that you cast your crowns before the throne. What does that mean? Yes. You thank the Lord for his, for everything that he's given you. Your rewards that he's given you once you get up there. You've cast them before his throne. In the verse 11, if you were a Lord to receive glory and honor and power, that was created all things. And here's a question that some people ask, why did God create all things and why did four by pleasure they are and were created, his pleasure, his pleasure, not my pleasure, not somebody else's pleasure, all things were created for his pleasure. And then on down, go to chapter 5, if you will, verse 8. And when you take in the book, we're going to take a look at the book the next time we meet probably. And I want you to get a good idea of what the book means. But anyway, verse 8, when you take in the book and the four beast living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the land, having every one of them harps and golden vials for the odors and cents, which are the prayers of saints. You know we pray on Sunday morning, do we not? We have a prayer service. You know some people may think that's foolish, but it isn't. Your prayers are lifted up before God like incense, and every time you get home and I was going to talk tonight about prayer. You know prayer is the most important thing you do there are certain ways to pray and certain ways not to pray. I remember when I was out in Rome, I had a guy out there that I used to work with, come walking in the door one day. He found out I was a pastor and I didn't know he was even a Christian but he came there. He was a rough, rough guy, a rifle lineman and he always had a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. But I used to ask him to take up the offering and I'll tell you that guy could pray. The only thing is I had to ask him one time if He didn't mind taking cigarettes out of his pocket when he did the offering. I hate to do that, but anyhow, he didn't mind it, but I'll tell you, he could pray. This guy, the first time I heard him pray, I couldn't get over it. I'll never forget it. When he prayed, he didn't pray to Jesus, or God, he prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he just boarded it out, a dynamic prayer. But anyway, all those prayers that you and I pray, and he prayed, and all the other Christians pray, are incense before God. Isn't that amazing? I don't know what's the link of the calendar church that's why they had to spoke to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I thought about doing that. I thought about just writing up a cigar, but you know, this is both a cigar, but whatever. I don't know what people do. And in verse 9, they sang a new song saying, though, or if you could take the book to to open his seal for thou was slain and has redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of every kindred and tonne and people and nation. And that's made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. Now go back to chapter one, if you will. Look in verse six, and that made us kings and priests unto God, his Father. That was before the rapture. So when we, when the rapture takes place, we will be kings and priests. What does it mean to be a priest? It means. It means the one, the thousand-year reign takes place, we will reign like priests on this or think about that. No Catholic priest, not like that, we will be literal priests unto those who are lost out there, a priest of God. That's what that means. That will be part of our function in the kingdom. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Yeah, man. Me? I don't feel priestly. Well, I don't either. I don't even feel revered. Yeah. I don't even feel revered. I don't have any idea. I really don't know. I don't think there will be any of those things. I think it'll be responsible for the world. the word of God. That's my opinion. I don't know and law-shape metaphor, but they're yet to remember indicating them. A lot of people will be lost and they'll need to be, they'll need the gospel given to them. And they'll be and those that are lost will probably have mental problems and so forth. And we're just going to be spiritual counselors. I don't know. We won't have. They won't. Yeah, absolutely. They won't. One of the very things that were preached, I just think of, you know, nothing saying, you know, about, I'd be preaching it, but I think of self-righteous religious stuff. That's, well, I hear that word for this, but that's what, but that's what people made it into. Yeah, but that'll all be changed. Right. Exactly. But you got to remember that you're going to have, when you, when you, when you get your brand new, You're going to look like Christ, but you're going to have on these white, clean, shiny garments. That's going to be, and you won't have to wash them. I'll never get dirty. It won't be a longer mat. But you will literally, you know, are priests today addressing their priestly garb. So that they can be noticed and looked up to and all this other garbage. But you will look like a priestly person. But like Ron said, they won't have the Holy Spirit. I know a lady right now, I'm going to tell you who it is. She came to our church a few times, stared out the window, her husband went through the Bible. But she is a leans toward pedicostalism. And she seems to think, and you keep this to yourself. I don't want this to get now, but she seems to think that she could be healed, the Lord to unhealer. She has a lot of problems. Now she has emotional problems, which are rounded on guilt. But what if the Lord doesn't unhealer? And there's gonna be an awful lot of people like that in the kingdom that will need your help as a priest. There's a lot of people. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of people right now. As a matter of fact, you are considered and the priest said, now, did you know that? All you have to do is repeat it. And if you read chapter 1, verse 4, he had made us kings and priests, even today. That's 10. So even today you have that people don't see it, and you probably don't see it in all of them, but you have that ability. You have that station. That is your station. So that's what he's done. And so in chapter 4 and 5 we see that the church has assumed their priestly role 100% permanently in chapter 4 and 5. four and five. They've received their crowns. Okay? Now let's go back here if you will the chapter one. Now there are a couple of things that some people may not understand. I won't try to point those out before we run out of time but I want you to go to verse eight if you will but you hope with this is claim that Jesus Christ has not got Almighty but look at verse eight. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. Say at the Lord who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. And then if you read Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, he's called the mighty God, isn't he? Yeah, he's Almighty, all right. What's that? Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. You'll probably have a reference here in your Bible if you have a schoolfield. Okay, you'll see that he is all mighty and then on down in the if you will in Verse 11 I am Alpha and Omega the first in the last why did you say Alpha and Omega? Well because the Alpha and the Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet So every word that's written in Greek in the New Testament is him The first and last letter Yeah, the first and last letter all the way through the entire alphabet. You know, if you go through the Greek alphabet almost every language is based on the Hebrew alphabet, which goes into the Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet is almost a copy of the Hebrew, and almost every language is a takeoff of the Greek. Did you know that? It's awesome. God knows what he's doing, doesn't he? You sure does. And I am out on the meg of the person in the last, and what I'll see is right in the book and send it into the seven churches, which are in Asia, unto Ephesus and Smurna, and to Pergamum, Pergamum, Pergamum, and unto Thy attire and Sardis, and fill it up, and lay it to see if the seven churches. And I turn and saw a voice that spoke with me being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, or lamp stands. What are they? The seven churches. He tells us what they are on down here, if you will, in verses 19 and 20. The Bible always answers the Bible. Write the things which thou hast seen in verse 19, and the things which are and the things which thou be here after. The mystery of the seven stars which thou saw in my right hand are the seven golden candlesticks. So the seven stars and the seven candlesticks, the seven stars, which I saw as my right hand, are seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which now saw are the seven churches. The word angels simply means messenger. There are two kinds of messengers in the Bible. the Christian messenger and angels. They're all messengers. And I don't know if you know this or not, but do you have an angel that watches you or the an order not? Follows you around everywhere you go. Isn't that something? Bob is me sometimes. Yeah. Hey, don't pay attention to this. I'm sorry. Go somewhere else. You probably do. Yeah. Did that get something rather? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Probably the same thing. But that's what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that. We could do a study on angels someday. Yeah. You do entertain the angels unaware. A lot of times you had met an angel and didn't know it. It looked like a person. And that's when you entertain the angels unaware. Why would… Why would we have to do that? And that's when you entertain an angel's unaware, why would why would you have to do that? Yes, he tests your message. He does that intentionally to test your message. I remember a pastor one time telling me, he said, do you give money to everybody that knocks on the door? Your church, I said no. He said, yeah, but the Bible says you might entertain an angel unaware. I said, that has nothing to do with giving some drunk, $20 or some drug addict, $20, so you can go out and get drunk and beat his wife up. I said, that has to do with the message you get. I said, if I give money to anybody, the first thing I'm going to do is tell them how to be saved. And then, if I think they need money, which I don't usually do, but when I used to have to go through that, I used to offer to take the person out to eat, that was the end of that. They didn't want that money to go out to eat, they wanted money to do whatever they want to do. Anyway. But that's literally what that means. When you entertain an angel, when you entertain an angel, unaware if you're talking to some person that you don't know usually, and that person that the angel can become identified with people. They look like people. They take the form of people. They can do that. That's quite awesome. And we see at least three times that Jesus Christ said in verse 18, I am He the living, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen, and have the keys of hell, hell, Hades, and the end of death. Everybody ever ask you who has the keys? Christ does. He has the keys. I don't want to say, well, Satan has the keys of death. No, he doesn't. My Bible says Christ does. No, and I saw on TV one of these as they had nothing but Halloween shows on. And this guy told his soul to the temple. You can't do that. I haven't flipped the channel again. Oh, brother. Well, I did that human nature, you know, you got to expect that stuff. You know where false religion comes from? foundation of false religion with would you say would you say false religion comes from one word pride pride yeah I can do it without God or he can do it but I'll help it yeah anyway whatever it is false religion always is based on pride because Satan's fall was based on pride. Yeah, man's fall is based on pride. It's always pride. So if you guys ever get the opportunity to teach the Bible, don't let pride have anything to do with it. I don't know how many times I've seen TV Bible teachers that think they know the Bible. I was watching them last night. They're the guy by the name of Dr. Reagan. And he had Charles C. Ryrie on his show. You know who that is. you heard of the Ryrie Study Bible? Well anyhow, Charles C. Ryrie gave us the Ryrie Study Bible with a lot of people, a lot of people have it and they were saying that the paraphrase Bible is a good Bible to read because it helps people understand I'm thinking you've got to be kidding. The paraphrase Bible is a joke. The New American Standard Bible is the best you can get other than the King James but it's a joke and they were saying how hard to King James has to understand. No, it isn't. Once you begin to study the Bible, the King James Bible is easy to understand. I don't have a problem with it. And it has more elegance than any of the other translations altogether. It's an elegant translation of whatever I didn't understand that. I couldn't believe that Charles C. Riley even said that. The one church in Texas, they said you You can't get the jaffle message for only from the King James personally. That's not true. It's a King James version or something. I'm like, well, I understand that point where there's someone from the King James version at the back. But you can't say, you can't go like a different Bible in the next truth to be made. I'll tell you how I looked at it. I look in and like, I like the King James. I recommend it. I try to get everybody in our first to have one. If you care another Bible, I'm not going to condemn you for it. A Bible is a Bible. OK, they do. Oh yeah, the King James only people are like that. But if you follow everything, they teach their hypocrites. Oh yeah, that's not the only thing they're hypocritical about. But I do. I'm very adamant about recommending the King James, especially the Scofield. Yes. I've heard a lot of people criticize me. Yeah, but they do. You know, the bottom line is, they don't know anything one more thing. They don't, because they're not Bible students. They're not Bible students at all. A lot of Bible students doesn't say that. Because they believe something else, and they want to take this out of value. They would have built a few of these themselves. So they can change from the majority tanks. Yeah. And it was translated in 1611, and it was translated again in 1789, I think it was. And those are the only two translations that were literally translated from the majority text, and they're the best that we have today. And like Ryrie said, the last translation of the last one, there could have been more, but we've got more. We've got all kinds of translation. They're debunked. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, we do have more. But the King James is the best. That's my opinion. Yeah. Majority text is the text used to translate the King James Bible, the original King James Bible, all the other texts after that have not use the majority text, they used our court and something else, the original manuscripts. They have to remember how to do the last, the first time they have last, then what can the majority take? Yeah, that's it. The majority text, you might just make it simple by saying they are closest to the original text. That's what the majority text is. And thank God we do have it because none of that, did you know, the skill field, when And he translated the Bible and gave us this Bible study that we have today. He was criticized and condemned by the church. He was condemned by it. Whenever something new takes place, if it's not, what he did was give us an excellent translation. He studied the Greek and the Hebrew and gave us all notes and I think a real problem was jealousy. That's what I think a real problem was. really condemned and what he led through it. Okay, so we have the basics of Revelation, chapter 3, chapters 2 and 3 are written to the seven churches. And they are a description. I already told you what those mean. Then chapter 4 and 5, we have a picture of the church in heaven receiving rewards. We also have a picture of the book, the scroll. We'll be on that next week. We don't have time to talk about the scroll tonight. But then immediately following the record of the church, chapter 4 and 5, the church in heaven, we see a picture of the church in heaven, immediately following that in chapter 6 is the revealing of the antichrist in chapter 6, verse 1. And in chapter 6, verse 1 through chapter 6, verse 17 or 16 really is a picture of the first half of the three and one half years, the first half of the seven-year tribulation. The first half, this is a description of what takes place in the first half, but I want you to notice verse 17, if you will, verse 17, for the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to stand. What does that mean? That means that the last half of the tribulation is coming. It's called the Great Tribulation, or the Great Rat. So the last half is going to be worse than the second half. So you get a picture of this so far. First thing we have is Revelation Chapter 1, the past. Revelation Chapter 2 and 3, the present, the church age, and then Revelation Chapter 6, the beginning of the future. And then as we go through Revelation, you'll see pictures of vast present futures. These are called parenthesis. A parenthesis is added just to add a little more wisdom or knowledge into what you're reading. Let me try to give you a good example of our parenthesis and how it works so you'll be able to understand when we get to it. If you were reading a book or something and a book said something like, I don't know, this is not the best example probably but if the book said something like John and Mary are happy in their new life on the farm and then the parentheses would be previously John and Mary lived in the city with all the crime and murder and so forth but now they're out of the city living on the farm that would be a parentheses so the parentheses would tell you a good explanation before they came from what they why they came from it and so forth. So that's what Revelation does. So once you understand that, the rest is easy. You see? So it's a qualifying word or explanation that adds more wisdom to what's you're reading. And so you're going to see a lot of parentheses in the book of Revelation. And that is the reason. A lot of people get filed off. They don't understand because God will be giving you an explanation of something and then all of a sudden something is added. So let me give you you a good example here, okay? And then we'll close with this. For in Revelation chapter 6, we have a picture of the first three and a half years of which are the first six seals are opened. Now remember there's seven seals. The first six seals are opened during the first three and one half year, then in verse 17, for the great day of his, with his wrath, for the great day of his wrath has come, that's the second half. But before that comes we have already in chapter 7 a parenthesis. This is a parenthesis. And in the parenthesis we see, we're not going to get on this this week, but we see the tribes of the nation of Israel. And these are the verses that the Jehovah Witnesses try to use to say that 144,000 Jehovah Witnesses are going to be going to the Let me show you, show you where that's wrong before we go any further, then we'll close, okay? Yeah. They are wrong because, number first four. And I heard the number of them which were sealed, and they were sealed 144,000. And all the tribes of the children of Israel can't be go with us, can't it? And then he goes in the list of the tribes, and then next week we're going to talk about the tribes you'll see that the tribe of Dan is not mentioned here, but we'll look at that next week and you'll see why it's not mentioned. Yeah, the church of Dan, the church of Dan, nice clothes like, what's his name? Benny. Good old Benny. Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyhow, I don't want things. You guys know the Bible, and I'm proud of you, and it's proud of the fact that I'm being able to teach it. But that don't mean I know everything. So when it's all said and done and after everything is done, and you come up with something that I didn't teach you, just remember I'm just thinking of a day. I don't know anything. All right. Let's have word of prayer and we'll close it, if you will. Now, there's a lot we just thank you for your words of Bible, and we'll also thank you for the trick or treaters who came. to show them that we're just people too. And we just thank for the opportunity to be human. But we also thank you for the opportunity to learn about the Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll thank you for it in His name. Amen. I am very proud of the fact that this is…