Embracing Revelation: Understanding and Sharing the Gospel

Bible Reading:
1) Revelation (no specific verses mentioned) [00:41 ]
2) Matthew 28:19 (implied in the phrase "go and make disciples of all nations") [47:49 ]

Observation Questions:
1) What are some of the key themes and images that you observe in the Book of Revelation?
2) How does the command to "go and make disciples of all nations" relate to the content and themes of Revelation?

Interpretation Questions:
1) How do the themes and images in Revelation inform our understanding of Jesus and His mission?
2) How does the command to "go and make disciples of all nations" shape our interpretation of our role as Christians in light of the Book of Revelation?

Application Questions:
1) How does your understanding of the Book of Revelation influence your daily walk with Jesus?
2) In what ways can you apply the command to "go and make disciples of all nations" in your life this week?
3) How can the imagery of Jesus in Revelation inspire you to share the gospel with others?
4) How can the worship language in Revelation enhance your personal worship and relationship with Jesus?
5) Can you think of a specific person in your life who you can introduce to Jesus this week? How can you do that?

Hey, welcome back to another episode of Between Sermons, where we are continuing the conversation. This episode is going to be special. This one is either going to be our shortest podcast ever or our longest podcast ever, and honestly, I don't even know which side of the coin it's going to fall on because we are wrapping up our series walking through the New Testament, and it's the Book of Revelation time.

So, I brought in Carlton McCarthy, Pastor Carlton, because I am not qualified for this conversation.

Yeah, after this conversation, I may not be qualified to be a pastor.

So, I guess we should put a disclaimer out there first. Even though you taught a class on New Testament survey and I've taught stuff and researched stuff, neither of us view ourselves as even remotely qualified to have the conversation we're about to have.

Yeah, my New Testament survey class on Revelation was just to let them know that the book exists. Like, this is a book in your Bible; it's at the end. Good luck!

So, yeah, we're not qualified for this conversation. We're going to say things that are probably wrong.

Absolutely.

We're going to do it in good faith. This is to our understanding because we're going to talk about other people's beliefs and different systems and different things. But the Book of Revelation can be an amazing book. I don't want people to ever think that I'm advocating for getting rid of the Book of Revelation. There have been people over the course of history that are like, "We should really just cut Revelation." I'm not one of those guys. I think that there's beauty in it. The imagery—there's some just great stuff in Revelation. I think it's also the most confusing book in the Bible.

I think there's also so much imagery; there's so much that's left for interpretation that if you're going to wrongly interpret scripture, it's probably Revelation.

Yep, absolutely.

Like, we're going to talk about it in a second, but there's like four primary views of Revelation. All four of them can't be right.

Right.

And yet, historically and even currently, three of my favorite Christian YouTubers literally have a different view of Revelation each one. But they line up in so much other stuff, but when it comes to Revelation, each one approaches Revelation completely different than the other. It speaks to the complexity of the book.

And so many people will try and say, "This is what it means; this is what it is." And I just want to start off by saying we don't know. We don't know. If anybody tries to tell you they know beyond a shadow of a doubt this is what that means, this is what that represents, this is what that image is, this is the truth, and if anybody doesn't believe what I believe, they're wrong—that person is wrong.

I mean, we will find out exactly one day.

Yeah, there will come a time, right? And so some of the things that we're going to talk about today, even our opinions may change. We may listen back to this podcast in a year or two and be like, "Wow, I really—man, I was really confident in that, but man, was I wrong."

And so we just, I guess for those of you listening, just keep an open mind as we approach this.

But, um, we are—yeah, we're good. This is going to be interesting.

Yep, we're going to have a good time. I mean, the last time we talked, it was a super long podcast.

Yeah, so we either get there or we get to like 20 minutes and we have nothing left to say.

I think this is the problem of the two of us. We have just long conversations in general.

Right.

Like, usually if you come down to my office, it's going to be two or three hours.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

We're done. I don't know if it's your fault or my fault or our fault. I don't know. I can't talk to anyone else like that, though.

This is great; we're going to have an awesome time.

I don't want to belabor the point anymore, but, um, yeah, so we're not experts.

We don't claim to be.

But this is a conversation that I think every believer should have.

But I want people to have a friendly conversation around this. I think if you start arguing over these details or fighting over these details, trying to split relationships or split churches over these beliefs, I think it's just foolishness. Just because it is left to interpretation and there's multiple ways to interpret it, we've chosen what we think is the right interpretation.

We don't know.

Yep, absolutely.

So we're going to dive into this. I guess my first question for you: there are a lot of people that are terrified of the Book of Revelation. My wife is one of them.

We're having a great conversation about it. I almost wanted to have her on the podcast, but she was like, "No."

But like, so depending on how you grew up, like what your church experience was, how strict your parents were—I mean, some people have used the Book of Revelation as a fear tactic for their kids.

And like, that's kind of how my wife grew up, was like the Book of Revelation—she was terrified of being left behind.

Right.

That like one day she was going to be out partying and she was going to come home and her whole family would have been raptured and it's just her out partying.

Yeah.

And so like, it literally—it was some of it was good for her because like it kept her from doing really bad stuff because in the back of her mind she was always fearful of being left behind.

So she was being scared out of hell, scared out of Jesus' arms, right?

Which is how a lot of people approach Revelation, how they approach all of this subject matter of hell and the future and what's that going to look like.

But for somebody like my wife that is afraid of—because even now she's like, "I honestly, I don't pay a lot of attention when I read Revelation. I could get through it as fast as I can because it's part of the daily reading."

But what do you say to people that are afraid of Revelation?

Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, don't be afraid of Revelation. I think the beauty of Revelation is that we know the ending.

Okay.

And that's something that we have to stick to as we read through it and the rest of the books of the Bible.

Yeah, I mean, we have victory in Jesus, and the end reveals that victory and tells us how it's going to play out.

And so it's like you're reading through something that you know has a happy ending, an ending that's for you, an ending of victory.

And that just gives you more motivation to really get through it, to find out how it's going to play out, what's going to happen.

You know, we may not understand the complexities of some of the things that are going to happen, but one thing that is true and remains true in the end is that we have victory in Christ Jesus and we will be with him in paradise for eternity.

And I think that if we hold on to that, all the rest of the stuff is—not that it's of no consequence, but compared to the victory that we have in Jesus, it's almost as if it's of no consequence.

And so you can get joy in reading through Revelation because you know you're anticipating these last two chapters where you see the victory that we have in Jesus.

And I think that that's how people should approach it.

Yeah, you know, some of the things in it could be scary, but those things aren't necessarily for us as believers.

What is for us is the victory that we have in the end of it.

And even for the stuff that would be scary for believers, there's this promise that Jesus is with you through it.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

When it talks about persecution, it's not really talking about persecution any differently than the rest of the Bible talks about persecution.

And the promise is that Jesus is going to be with you. He's going to bring you through all of that.

So like, I love what you said—that it has a happy ending.

It has a happy ending for believers.

Yes, not such a happy ending for everybody else.

And so if you're looking—

The whole lake of fire thing is not exciting.

But if you're looking at the Book of Revelation as not good news for you, then really the question or the conversation isn't even about the Book of Revelation; the conversation is about you and Jesus.

Right.

You need to get right with Jesus. You need to be in relationship with Jesus and allow him to forgive you of all of your sins and all that.

And so if you have the right approach to Jesus, it is a happy ending.

Like, you don't have to be afraid; you don't have to worry.

Right?

Yeah, it gives you the fruits of your life.

Yeah, you could go down one path and it tells you where you'll end up, or you can go down another path and it tells you where you're going to end up.

And you know the path of going through Christ is such a beautiful path for you to take.

It's one where he's lifting burdens off of you and giving you peace.

But it's also one that we have to understand is that, you know, Jesus is not necessarily removing suffering from us, but he's helping us through the sufferings of life and of persecution and of the trials that we go through as Christians to the victory that he has for us.

Because that's where we're putting our trust in Jesus to say, "Okay, the trials, the tribulations, the persecution, the suffering that I experience, I'm trusting Jesus in that."

That A, he's with me in all of this.

Right.

B, he's not giving me something that I can't handle.

And C, there may have been some stuff that he knew I couldn't handle that he kept me from.

Right, right, right.

Like, just because you're going through suffering doesn't mean it couldn't have been worse.

Right?

Absolutely.

And so just our trust in Jesus is just saying, "Hey, I trust this is all going to work out."

I love what Pastor Jerry said on Sunday—that he's a pantheist.

Like, it's all going to pan out.

It's just all going to pan out.

Like, I think that that is probably the healthiest view of the Book of Revelation—that Jesus has got this.

Like, he's the winner.

He's the one on the white horse coming in, you know, with victory as a crown.

Like, he is Jesus.

It doesn't say, "In conclusion," and then the Jesus that is described by John—and I don't know if you wanted to get into this—is so much different from the Jesus that we know where we read about.

He's not the manger baby Jesus.

I mean, this Jesus is fierce.

And, you know, he's got a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth; he's got fire in his eyes.

He's love.

There's a pastor that says, "You know, the Book of Revelation is not Jesus."

Don't mean to offend anybody, but I love that.

Like, this is a very—like, this is powerful Jesus.

This is the lion.

Yeah, absolutely.

Lion and the lamb.

Yeah, and he's on my side, and I'm on his side.

Like, I want to be on that side of Jesus.

You know, I like that Jesus.

That's the warrior Jesus that's fighting for me in my life and for my eternity, who's with me, who's helping me get through persecution, who's helping me get through trials and suffering.

It's the best moment in Lord of the Rings.

It's that—it's when Gandalf—it's like, dude, Tolkien was like, "Let me write some Revelation here."

They couldn't recognize him; he has to tell who they were.

He's like, "Yes, they did tell me."

Get out of here!

Yeah, I love it.

It's beautiful.

Absolutely.

Yep.

How did we get to Lord of the Rings?

I don't know, man.

And then he comes on the east on the hill with the light.

Man, okay, anyway, so much.

All right, anyways, we're fans of imagery apparently, but in movie form, more than the Book of Revelation.

Okay, so a secondary question with that.

So a lot of people are afraid of the Book of Revelation. That leads to others—or maybe the same people—or maybe for totally different reasons—people that avoid the book.

Like, it's like, "I'm going to read 65 books of the Bible; the 66th book, I'm just going to leave that there."

Jude becomes the most popular book of the Bible, right?

And it ends.

So what do you say to people that are avoiding this?

Yes, so I really think that we should not be avoiding this.

One thing we just talked about is it gives us a new revelation of who Jesus is.

I mean, every time we read scripture, Jesus is revealed to us more and more.

And the Jesus that's in Revelation that's for us and that's on our side, it's a beautiful Jesus that we need to get to know.

We need to know who he is and how he affects us in our lives.

You know, Pastor Jerry talked about so many worship lyrics have come out of the Book of Revelation, and there's so many promises to the churches—the seven churches that Jesus is writing to through John—that apply to us.

You know, we get worship and praise; we get a warrior Jesus.

You know, we get a revelation of who Christ is and what the promises he has for us, and it really builds a new relationship with him.

And I can't imagine going through life fighting the battles that I fight and hardships, afflictions, or anything without understanding who that Jesus is.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

Yeah, so don't avoid it.

There's complications in it; there's imagery; there's some scary stuff; there's some stuff you're not going to understand.

You know, but don't avoid it because there is something good in it.

Right?

And it's one of those—the Bible is alive and active, right?

It's what we always say.

So you may read through Revelation this year and not really understand 90% of what you're reading.

You may read it next year and all of a sudden it's only 80% that you don't understand.

Right?

Like, you can have better understanding the more you read it, the more you study it.

So don't avoid it.

Right?

And this one thing, you know, the Holy Spirit also is speaking through us as we read through the scriptures.

It could be one thing that's out to us in Revelation.

We could read all 22 chapters, and it could be one verse that the Holy Spirit just plants in our hearts and in our minds that we need to live on this day.

And it could be different next year or the next 10 years for us because the Bible's a living word.

Yeah.

But, you know, we have to read with the mindset that the Holy Spirit is going to speak to us through his word, and we may not understand everything.

But I think God gives us something that we can hold on to for our life.

Yeah, I love it.

The reality is people are going to read Revelation, and there's going to be some confusing things.

What do you do with the confusion?

Oh man, you—what do they say? What's the saying? You chew the meat and spit out the bone or something to that effect?

I don't know if that applies here, though.

But the things that you don't know, I mean, you could do some research.

There's a lot of scholars and theologians and people that'll tell you all different kinds of things.

There's a lot of—you know, four different interpretations at least, four different interpretations of it.

For the things that we don't know about, we just rely on the Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's not to put all the work or the importance on the Holy Spirit in a moment, but—or the burden, I guess I should say, on the Holy Spirit—but I say, "Holy Spirit, if you need me to understand what this means, what this symbol means, what this passage is, then you'll reveal it to me in the way that you want me to receive it."

Yeah.

Because, you know, there's the right answer as far as what exactly what it is that God knows, and then there's something that's part of the interpretation that he wants me to receive.

And I think I lean on that for the things that I don't know that's in Revelation.

I ask the Holy Spirit, "Reveal to me what you want me to know about this thing."

Yeah.

It helps to get, you know, historical background and scholarly evidence and, you know, theology and all that stuff.

But that could be more confusing.

And sometimes I think, you know, if we're in touch with the Holy Spirit, he can speak to our hearts and say, "Okay, you may not understand some of these things, but of the things you don't understand, this is what I want you to know about it."

Yeah.

And so we really need to rely on the Holy Spirit speaking to us.

I love that because there's a reality that the more I studied into the viewpoints of Revelation, the more confused I got.

Absolutely.

Because it's like I would read one guy's writing, and I'd be like, "Man, he's making a really strong argument. He's totally right. I see it; I see it now."

And then I read an opposing argument, and I'll be like, "I see it now; this guy's making great arguments."

Yeah.

At the end of—I mean, I had a strong position about something in Revelation up until this morning when I spoke to you.

And in like less than a paragraph, it kind of like changed my whole theory on it.

Like, I was so strong in what I believed about something, and it was like, "Wait a minute, that makes sense. I can totally tear down anybody's ideas."

I don't know what you should believe, but—

Right.

Anyways, yeah, I think that the whole confusion thing, I would just add—that's why taking notes when you study the Bible is great.

Like, have a little journal, have a notepad, write down your questions, right?

Because you want to come back to those things.

And then the second thing I always encourage people: pick up a study Bible.

I love—so, so much of the imagery in Revelation is actually quoted from the Old Testament.

It's Isaiah; it's Daniel; it's some of the Psalms.

Like, there's so much that is—like when it talks about the lampstands, okay, find out where it first talked about lampstands in a prophetic way.

And so like all of those images are used somewhere.

The bowls are used somewhere; the trumpets are used somewhere.

Like, none of it is just exclusive to Revelation.

But if we're not reading the entire Bible, we miss out on some of that stuff.

So a great study Bible will give you like the references.

It's like, "Okay, in Revelation 3 here, when it says this, he's quoting Daniel."

So then you can flip back to Daniel and read it in that original context because that's the challenge of reading John's writing today.

Like, John was a Jewish man writing to a Jewish audience that had a Jewish understanding of the Old Testament.

We don't have that 2,000 years later.

And so there's things that he'll say that we're confused by, but his original audience would be like, "Oh, I see exactly what you're saying."

Absolutely.

Especially because like the Jewish thought process was very image-based.

And so there's just a different learning style today.

And so we have to do a little bit more, and that's why we can't do a verse a day keeps the devil away.

We have to read the Bible in its entirety so we can really understand what's happening.

Yep.

So, yeah.

All right, so if you're afraid, go for it.

You know, don't be afraid.

Remember, Jesus is the winner, right?

It's good.

Right?

It's good news for all of us that are saved.

And so if you're still afraid of that, get saved.

That's the answer.

That's Soul's approach, right?

My wife's approach was like, "I'm just going to give my life to Jesus so I don't have to be afraid of the Rapture."

If you are avoiding it, stop.

You know, there is good meat here for everybody.

If you're confused, study, research, and rely on the Holy Spirit.

Yep.

Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you.

Absolutely.

That was the easy stuff.

Oh man, you ready for the hard stuff?

No, man, come on.

You ready for the hard stuff?

Let's do it.

All right, Carlton McCarthy, when was the Book of Revelation written?

Oh, the Book of Revelation was written about 90 AD, maybe between the late 80s of AD to mid-90s AD.

I'm trying to go back to my survey days to figure that out.

So John was a really old man.

Yeah, so it's a little bit of a trick question in the sense that there's two opposing views.

Oh no, what's the opposing view?

So the opposing views are: did John write Revelation before the fall of Jerusalem or after?

So if he wrote it before—so this is why it becomes an issue, and this is why it becomes important to have a stance on when it was written.

Because if it's written before the fall of Jerusalem, then it's written somewhere between 67 and 69 AD because Jerusalem falls in 70.

And so, okay, if John writes before the fall of Jerusalem, then you can interpret a lot of Revelation as the fall of Jerusalem is coming.

So the future end times things that he's talking about—that would be really early, though, like two years later.

Right.

So a lot of people will say, "Okay, it makes reading Revelation a little bit easier because you can then say, 'Okay, 666 is Nero,' because if you write out the Nero Caesar—Nero Caesar, whatever—it's 666."

Or 616 if you use it in the Greek or whatever.

And we can get into some crazy details about all that, but most people have your stance of it's written somewhere in the 90s—maybe even as late as like 96.

I've seen a few people that say like even like—oh, I think that's just a little—little John would be extremely old.

But yeah, so like late 80s, early 90s, early to mid-90s—that's kind of the standard view based on the writings and stuff.

Sure.

And where he was in life and where he's writing and all that.

So the timeline makes way more sense there.

But then the Book of Revelation becomes all future issues.

So you can't blame Nero as the Antichrist; you can't use—what was the emperor after Nero?

Domitian.

Domitian, yeah.

You can't call him the prophet because like if you have the pre-Jerusalem fall, then Nero is the Antichrist.

Yeah.

And Domitian is the prophet that's promoting the Antichrist afterwards.

Yeah.

But if you study these guys, it almost even makes sense because Domitian called himself Lord and God.

He even takes the term "the Lord's Day" and uses it for himself, that they need to worship him on this day.

And they called it the Lord's Day in worship of him.

My day!

Yeah, and so if you think about, you know, the kind of person that he was—I’ve read that he would look to a raven to predict the future.

And it's like, man, there's so many parallels of this bad guy in Revelation.

You know, he wanted people to worship him on the Lord's Day, and John mentions that in chapter one, talking about Jesus and what the real Lord's Day is.

And, you know, the Book of Revelation is—well, I think it's a futuristic book predicting the future.

And Domitian really thought that he had the ability to predict the future.

Yep.

And so it's a lot of parallels there that could give you some pause to think that, "Hey, this guy probably was the Antichrist at the time."

And I could listen to—and we'll get into this term in a minute—some preterist teaching that will point to the early writing of the Book of Revelation and show you Nero and show you Domitian and all of that, and you will walk away 100% convinced.

Absolutely.

This is accurate; this is obviously written at this time.

Then you can take somebody that has a futurist view, and they'll talk about why we believe that it was written around 90 AD, and they'll lay out the evidence for that—the historical evidence, the timeline, the style, all of that, the language—all of it.

And you'll walk away going, "I'm convinced."

Right, right, right.

And a lot of the issue is that, you know, the first part of Revelation, John is writing to seven churches.

Right.

And in that, he's correcting their character; he's getting them right with God.

He's saying, "God is—you know, Jesus is outside knocking, trying to come in."

And it's like, what is he getting them ready for?

He's getting them ready for the eternity that's to come because of what they're going through—persecution that they're under currently.

And so you could think like, "Oh, well then that's accurate to the time."

Yeah, yeah.

And you could say that, you know, there's never been greater persecution than that first-century church.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, Christians being dipped in oil and used as torches.

Absolutely.

Being mauled in the Coliseum, being crucified, rowed next to each other—suffering insanity, like crazy level of persecution.

So you could absolutely look at Revelation and be like, "Hey, that was prophesying Rome," right?

And what Rome was going to do to Christians for a hundred years or so.

Right.

And you'd be like, "Yeah, it makes sense."

But if you know history, there's a lot of—you know, the plagues come and the Middle Ages, and then you have Hitler and the Holocaust; you have World War I or World War II.

Like, there's so many things that—you have so many events in history that you'd be like, "This is it; this is the end times."

Yeah.

So what do you do with all that?

You wait for Jesus.

You focus on Jesus.

Yeah, I mean, like you take it all and you say, "Okay, well, first of all, we got to look at time."

Because, you know, time is completely different.

What we think is near, soon, or happening now, we could be off by thousands of years.

We could not be off by thousands of years, and it could be around the corner.

And what we say, what we believe is around the corner.

Yeah.

And so we can't focus on trying to predict the future because we don't know.

You know, as far as a timeline of the future, what we have to do is get our hearts right with God.

Yeah.

So that we can be ready for when he does return, that we can be a part of that victory celebration.

We can get caught up and, you know, spend eternity with Jesus.

Yeah.

One of my favorite things that I've heard about the Book of Revelation is that we don't read Revelation as a puzzle book; it's a picture book.

Right?

So it's giving us a picture of Jesus; it's giving a picture of what the church is going to go through and what these end times things are going to look like.

It's not supposed to be a puzzle book that we sit down and try and figure out all the pieces.

And if you could just interpret Revelation the right way, then you could know when the end times are coming, and you could know who the Antichrist is.

Right?

Like, so random story—I think I shared this at our sermon planning.

When I was living in Mexico, I helped move our pastor's office.

Yeah.

And so I got to box up all of his books, and he's an American guy in Mexico, so like a lot of his books were in English, which I'm like, "This is awesome; I'm getting like a glimpse into his knowledge."

And I'm writing down like, "I should totally buy that book; I should check that one out."

And so I'm putting all these books in, I reach up and I pull off a book from the shelf, and it says, "88 Reasons Why Jesus is Returning in 1988."

And I'm sitting there—this is probably like 2005—and I'm sitting there going, "Well, that didn't happen."

And I'm laughing, and like I brought some people over to laugh at the book with me and just had a great time of how ridiculous this is.

Put it in the box, and I kid you not, I reach up on the shelf, the next book I pull off is "89 Reasons Why Jesus is Returning in 1989."

Same author.

I'm like, "How do you get away with writing the same book?"

Right?

And saying, "Whoops, I was wrong; I was off by a year, but here's one more reason."

So now do we like start over?

Now we have reasons.

I don't even know.

Yeah, start from scratch.

One reason why he's coming back in 2011.

I don't know, man.

But our brains work like that.

It works to solve a problem, to put together a puzzle.

I love puzzles; I love problem-solving.

Absolutely.

You know, we watch detective shows and all kinds of things, you know, a mystery to be solved.

Yeah, it's not.

But, you know, I think Jesus wants our minds to be transformed to look at it like a picture book.

Okay, let me read exactly what Jesus is trying to tell me through the imagery of Revelation and not try to put a puzzle together.

Because he warned us that we're not going to know.

And he says, you know, "Only the Father knows."

So Carlton, stop.

Yeah.

And just look at me through this book.

Yeah, I love that.

When somebody is like, "Hey, I figured it out. You know, the Mayan calendar ends at this point."

And so that's what—what does the Mayan calendar have to do with—

You're calling Jesus a liar is what you're doing.

Yes, exactly.

And I just want to just read for them that scripture where Jesus says, "No one is going to know."

Right?

It's like a thief in the night.

Right?

Absolutely.

This is not something you can prepare for in that sense.

Right?

And so, yeah, we can get into a lot of that.

But so let me—let's talk about the thing that we are the least qualified to talk about.

And that is the four major viewpoints of the Book of Revelation.

So—and I'm going to even butcher some of these titles because I'm just—this is not my thing.

All right, so you got the preterist view, which essentially is all of the things in Revelation have already happened.

And you got full preterism, and you got partial preterism.

Full preterism, I would argue, along with pretty much all of Christianity, that full preterism is heresy.

Right.

Because it basically says there is no second coming of Jesus, and, you know, we're already in the new heaven and the new earth.

And it just takes some things to such an extreme level where it's like, but now you're disqualifying most of scripture.

Yeah.

And it gives me no hope.

And there's no hope.

There's no hope for any—

Yeah.

But partial preterism is basically, "Hey, all of these major events already happened."

This is where you have that pre-Jerusalem fall view of when it was written.

You've got this, "Okay, it's already been fulfilled in Nero. He was the Antichrist. You don't have to be looking for an Antichrist because it already happened."

Right.

But there's still—it's partially fulfilled, so there's still another judgment day coming.

Yeah.

I don't know, maybe this is the thousand-year reign, I think the preterist view would—and this, I'm so out of my element—would also be that, you know, the thousand-year reign is metaphorical, like not a literal thousand years.

It's just kind of—

We're at 2,000 years now.

We're at 2,000 now.

It's like it's gone on for a little while.

So you kind of have to adjust.

So that's preterist view.

What's another major view?

Idealist.

Idealist, yeah, which that's an interesting one because it essentially makes it so that everything in Revelation is symbolic.

None of—you're not supposed to be looking for who is this person, who is that person.

Including the most simple things.

Yeah, everything—literally everything is—these are ideas; this is symbology.

It's a spirit that you're looking for.

The Antichrist isn't a person; it's a spirit.

It's, you know, a way of people operating.

And, you know, these bowls—they're not—like, these aren't real moments that are going to happen; these are just concepts or ideas.

And so that would basically mean, you know, a lot of the prophecy in Revelation is stuff that just repeatedly happens over time.

And which makes a lot of sense when you talk about war and rumors of war and famine and stuff.

It's like, well, that's been happening for 2,000 years.

Right.

And they'd be like, "See, told you."

And so there's—yeah, it kind of makes me want to throw out the book then.

Yeah, it's a little—it's almost hopeless.

Not as fun.

I think there's still possibly some application, but, you know, it's not my favorite way to view it either.

But there are some guys that I respect that hold that viewpoint.

Same with preterists; there's some that I respect that have that viewpoint.

You know, the Bible is the infallible word of God, and it's living, so a lot of things can apply to what we're going through today.

And I think that's what makes Bible reading so interesting and so much fun is that I can pull scripture that was written to a church in Corinth or anywhere, talking about a singular moment.

There's still application there.

Application to where I am in my life now, 100%.

And so that certainly could happen with some of the things in Revelation.

But along with that, I do think that it's pointing to something else.

Yeah.

All right, so third view—not a very popular view.

And actually, so far what we've looked at, I think preterism would probably be the most popular of the ones we've looked at—the one that's most popular.

We'll save to the last, but number three would be the historicist view, which is—it's actually one that I'm still trying to wrap my head around.

But it's this idea that you basically take the Book of Revelation, you lay it on top of a timeline with whatever time you're living in as the end.

And then you kind of back up and fill in all the historic events.

It was popular on both sides of the Reformation, so you had the reformists that were looking at the pope as the Antichrist.

And it's like, "We've got to break away because he's taking the church; the pope is the Antichrist."

They made a strong argument for why that was the case.

And then the Catholics would look at the reformists and be like, "No, Martin Luther is the Antichrist; he's trying to pull us away from the pope and from the holy scriptures."

And like both sides are looking at it.

The problem with the historic view and the reason why it's not popular today is time continues to move forward.

You always have to move that timeline back.

So that thing is always adjusting.

So whereas the preterist says all of this happened on a set time, it doesn't matter how much time we get away from that moment; it always happened in that moment.

And the argument is that that moment is a range of time.

Right?

It's not like a day, an hour, a minute; it's a range of time.

And so if you can argue that you could be living in a range of time, which is that set time, but once that range of time is over—because how many ranges of time have we had for it to be the end time?

It's always moving; it's always going back.

Especially the moment you define the time—it's 100 years.

Well, what happens in 105 years?

Exactly right.

You have to adjust your—you know, it's why you have to write a second book, "89 Reasons."

Like, time moves on, and obviously you were wrong.

And so, not a popular viewpoint.

And it falls apart basically as time goes on.

But it's interesting because there's probably people today that are looking at things and going, "Now is what it's talking about."

2023 is the end.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And so then they just back up and they backfill all of the relevant data.

Israel and Hamas have been fighting for a long time.

For a very long time.

This isn't the first time; probably it's not going to be the last time.

So this may not be necessarily the end times, right, in that sense?

Yeah.

Okay, and then probably the most popular view—probably the view that I think if you pushed either of us, we would say, "I think this is my view."

I'm open to, you know, a change of mind at some point, but it's kind of what I was raised up in; it's what I saw the most.

So it's probably part of my, you know, bias towards it is probably just Western Christianity—Western Christianity being a part of a Pentecostal church as a child, just a totally charismatic church.

Now, you know, it may totally be that influence, but it's the futurist view.

And so it's the idea that the Book of Revelation—and it's really—there's a breaking point in Revelation where John says, you know, "And now I'm having this vision of future things."

We take that literally.

So it's like everything up until that moment was present day.

He’s addressing churches in that moment, but then he—because what's the verse that says, you know, "I'm writing about things that are, things that were, and things that will be"?

I'm butchering scripture, which is awesome for a pastor to do.

I don't have my Bible in front of me, people.

Anyways, it's this idea that all of this is prophecy for future events.

Things are going to happen.

That's—that'd be your viewpoint.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And I think that you brought it up that there's a transition for what John is preparing those churches for in the moment and their character and what Jesus wants for them through him to them.

Yeah.

You know, John makes a shift, and I do believe that it's the future.

And, you know, define future, Brent.

You know, for John, the future was coming very soon.

And for us, it's like, "Okay, John, we're 2,000 years later; you're still not right."

Right?

So the future is always ahead of us until the events actually happen.

And I really believe that because, you know, to say that they have happened or that we're in the midst of it, you know, kind of leaves some room for some things that the Bible says or that Revelation says should happen that we're probably not seeing just yet.

So I do believe that it is in the future.

When in the future, I have no idea.

But when I read it, at least for me in my interpretation and what I feel like the Holy Spirit speaking to me, it's not—it hasn't happened in the past; it's not currently happening, and I do believe that it is in the future.

And I would say your answer there of "When in the future, I have no idea," is the only acceptable answer to that question.

See, anybody else that says, "I know when in the future," I lose all respect for that person.

Like, just because Jesus says no one's going to know.

And the issue is we talked about it a little bit ago—you're viewing the Book of Revelation as a puzzle book, and you're trying to take the numbers and do the math and figure out these—okay, this world event means this, and this world event means that.

And that's part of the danger of the futurist view.

You know, I can be honest about our struggles with it too, is that we try and figure it out.

And so every time there's a war, it's like, "Oh, this is it; this is it."

Every time there's a famine in the news, it's like, "Oh, this is it; this is one."

There's a natural disaster, there's a tornado, there's an earthquake, there's a fire, there's a flood.

The futurist is trying to point at that and say, "Here's proof."

Yeah.

Of what we're going through.

And the reality is for 2,000 years there have been wars; there have been famines.

Yes.

For the next 2,000 years, there's probably going to be wars and famines and all kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

And I think the problem is that we tend to idolize the symbols or the events.

Yeah.

And what Jesus wants—he tells us that we're not going to know so that we can just follow him.

Yeah.

And if we follow him, then we're fine; we're set.

We have comfort and the hope that he's given us in being with him for all of eternity, and that should be our focus.

But we tend to put him and what he said on the shelf and follow the events.

We follow politics, and we want to figure society and countries and nations and people that are in power, and we want to try to figure it out.

And the devil does a very good job of, you know, transferring our focus onto what's going to be the end times or when is the end times coming.

And Jesus says, "No, I gave you Revelation so you can have hope in me."

Now, once you have that hope, now it's time for you to just follow me.

Yep.

Okay, so we get into all kinds of other stuff, but I think we've covered this sufficiently.

But, okay, like we could get into pre-, post-millennialism, pre-, post-tribulation, you know, is there a seven-year tribulation that's coming?

Does Jesus save the church and the Christians before, during, or after the tribulation?

And honestly, it's one of those things that everybody will argue their stance, their interpretation of scripture.

Right?

For me, it's not worth it.

Right?

Because I can tell you to go look at scripture, but how you read scripture and how I read scripture could be completely different.

And it goes back to that, when did John write it?

If he wrote it before Jerusalem fell, then hey, we're post.

Right?

Like, it already happened.

Right?

So, yeah, I think that there's just—I don't know, there's a lot that could be said there, but I think it's just going to distract us more than anything else.

But I feel like we have to address this idea, and it's anytime Israel is in the news, it sparks people's interest in end times and their interest in the Book of Revelation.

Why is that?

What does Israel have to do with this conversation?

Well, Israel's God's chosen people.

And, you know, I'm going to say it predicts that, you know, the whole world's going to come against Israel.

And we're seeing, you know, protests on other sides of the border like we haven't seen before.

And it's kind of like, okay, is this the prerequisite for the whole world coming against God's people?

And so that kind of like, you know, puts our antennas up and says, "Okay, wow, is this the start of the end times?"

Yeah.

You know, are we going to see, you know, the wars happening towards Israel?

And is Jesus going to come back during that time at the battle of Armageddon?

Yeah.

And it's something that we, you know, kind of are interested in because, you know, it's a call for us to not only pay attention to what's happening in the world but to look at our own selves and our own lives and say, "Okay, where am I with my relationship with God?"

But studying where Israel is at any moment in history and in time and in the present, you know, kind of raises people's antennas of, "Okay, is this the start of the end times?"

And rightfully so because so much of the prophetic imagery and conversation in Revelation is about the nation of Israel and what's going to happen to the nation of Israel.

But if you have a viewpoint of the later writing of Revelation, so you're not looking at the fall of Jerusalem as the catalyst for all of this, that means that between John's writing of it and 1948, whatever it was when—

Yeah, 48 or so.

48, I think.

Yeah.

Where Israel becomes a nation, it can't be fulfilled within that time.

Absolutely.

Right?

Because you can't have a nation that isn't in existence—that's not an established nation.

Yeah.

So from 1948 until now, you can actually have the conversation, "Okay, now it could be."

Now Israel is a nation.

What do you say to people that are like, "But Israel's not God's chosen people anymore. He was their chosen people, but now the Christians are the chosen people"?

Okay, so you got grafted into the tree.

What changed?

The tree.

Beautiful, thank you.

I mean, I don't know, maybe you can help me answer that question.

Like, I know I got grafted in; like, I'm a part of God's chosen people.

But the structure of the tree still stands.

And we look at it and say, "Well, you know, a lot of, you know, Jewish people don't believe in Jesus being the Messiah."

Well, you can read through the entire Old Testament, and most of the time they've turned their back on God.

And there's so many prophecies and speeches and stories of God trying to get his people back and them going through persecution and being in exile and just that whole battle.

Like, this isn't new for his people.

And the Gentiles being grafted into the tree doesn't change the structure of the tree.

Paul at the end of Acts says, "You didn't listen, so now we're preaching it to the Gentiles."

God adding them.

And the imagery throughout the Bible, throughout the New Testament, is Gentiles are being grafted into the tree.

We're not a new tree; we're grafted into an existing tree.

Or it uses the language of adoption into the family.

God didn't start a new family.

Right?

He's not the deadbeat dad that's like, "You know, kick those kids out; I'm going to get a new wife."

The foundation of the family still stands.

Yeah, it's still the family.

And so for anybody that says, "Well, the nation of Israel is not God's chosen people anymore," I would have a really hard time looking at scripture and coming to that conclusion.

Right?

Because of the language of being grafted in and adopted into the family—that means that it exists.

The thing is there.

The thing was Israel; we're being added to it.

Right?

So, yeah, I think some people like to take a pretty heavy stance against Israel right now, and I understand some of it from a humanitarian standpoint.

I can't even get into the politics of that.

I've been in Israel; I've hung out with IDF soldiers and talked to them.

And man, the reality of when everybody around you just wants you dead—like, I'm sorry, but the conversation of Palestine, you know, wanting land—no, they want the eradication of Jewish people.

Right?

Yeah, they've had an opportunity to have a state.

Yeah.

So how do you negotiate with a group that says, "Okay, our only condition is you have to die"?

Right?

Yeah, there's no good faith negotiation there.

And so, yeah, like I said, we're probably going to get canceled over this.

People are like, "I can't believe Pres said that."

But, you know, we do things.

It's all right; we love people.

Yeah, but who's the God that we serve?

Right?

Exactly.

So his people are his people.

We can't change that, no matter what our position is or what we believe or what we say.

It's totally not up to us.

And it doesn't even mean that his people don't do really bad things.

Oh, yeah.

That's what I'm saying.

If you read the Bible, my goodness, read it.

His people do look—his Christians, yeah, his Christian followers—there are many times that they don't worship him.

He tells them to do one thing, and they do the other thing in order for their culture not to be tainted, for their religion and faith in him not to be tainted.

How many of the New Testament letters were written because non-Jewish Christians were acting stupid?

Oh, you're right.

Right?

Absolutely.

Like, it's not even just an Israel thing; it's a—yeah, we can examine ourselves, right, and find the same things, the same problems and issues.

So why do you think Revelation matters today?

What's the—you know, as we kind of land this plane a little bit.

Revelation matters because, yeah, Revelation matters because our time here on Earth has an end.

And I think that's why it matters the most, because with the understanding that our time here on Earth is going to come to an end, it lets us, you know, really examine, "Okay, what's going to happen to me? Where—am I right with Jesus? Do I have a relationship with Christ enough to be on the better side of that ending?"

You know, am I going to join with Jesus in the victory that he has over the enemy?

And I think it kind of puts my life in perspective.

Like, we're not just living in oblivion.

You know, we're not just going to die and just go off into the ether, into nothing.

There's a destination for us, and Revelation kind of points that out—that, hey, you know, this time is going to end, and then there's a destination.

There's a destination that's left and a destination that's right.

Yeah.

And I want to go to the destination that's right.

And so, yeah, from knowing that, Revelation gives me hope and gives me victory.

Yeah, I want to now focus my whole life on making sure that my relationship with Jesus is right.

Yeah, I mean, the Bible says, you know, "I present to you two choices: life and death."

Choose life!

Like, he even tells you which one to pick, like just in case you're not sure which one is the good one—pick this one!

Right?

And so really, yeah, that's what it's all about—choosing Jesus, following him.

I mean, he gives us such a vivid ending.

He's going to separate us like sheep and goats and being thrown in the lake of fire.

Yeah.

You know, he tells us exactly what's going to happen, and I want to be caught up with him.

I want to spend eternity in paradise, worshiping him and serving him.

And regardless of how you interpret what hell is or what hell is like, the reality is it's not where you want to go.

Yeah, right.

Whatever you think hell is, it's separation from God, and that's not where I want to be.

Not a good thing.

Right?

Yeah.

So I know my stance when it comes to people that want to argue over all the stuff we talked about.

Like, if preterists come in and are like, "You're wrong, and here's why you're wrong," and they just want to create this argument, my stance—I don't engage.

Just because part of me is like, "I don't care."

Because for me, I'll give my answer, and then I want to hear yours.

If the Book of Revelation is talking about things that already happened, if it's talking about things that are going to happen tomorrow, or if it's talking about things that are going to happen in a thousand years, my job today doesn't change.

My responsibility is to follow Jesus and tell others about him.

And so if the fall of Jerusalem is what John was prophesying, cool, I still follow Jesus and invite others to do the same.

And that's it; that's my job.

Right?

If it's—if the end times are tomorrow, if tomorrow I wake up and it's the Rapture, it doesn't change what I do today.

Absolutely.

If I've got a whole lifetime that I'm going to live and I'm going to die an old man, and the end still isn't going to come, it doesn't change what I'm supposed to do today.

Right?

So I just don't engage.

Right?

What about you?

Yeah, I like to engage.

It could be a long—but I usually come down to what does that mean to your salvation today?

Yeah.

Okay, let's lay out what you believe.

All right, we can talk through that.

You can prove it to me through scripture and history and theology and blah, blah, blah.

What does that mean for your salvation?

Right?

Yeah.

Because that is—that's what matters.

Jesus didn't tell us to go and interpret Revelation; he told us to go and make disciples of all nations.

And so I can agree with you on that, then we really don't have anything else to talk about.

I just want to make sure your salvation is straight.

Yeah.

And that you're right with God and you have a good, strong relationship with him and with the Father.

Yeah.

And so once we've got that, I really believe that the Holy Spirit does a lot of the other work that I don't need to do.

He opens people's hearts and minds and gives revelation and gives interpretation of scripture that's fitting for your life.

I think we get into a lot of arguments with people where we just need to be discipling them towards Jesus.

And we're doing work that Jesus is saying, "Hey, I've sent the Holy Spirit to kind of do this work for me."

Yep.

I just need you to be the catalyst to allow someone to see Jesus in you and to introduce them to who I am.

And then the Holy Spirit will start revealing things to them, whether it's theology or, you know, history or interpretation of Revelation or not.

And the Holy Spirit can say, "I don't want you to be concerned with it; I just want you to be concerned with your relationship with Jesus."

I love it.

I think that's healthy.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm always curious of what you believe and why, but man, I can fellowship with people that have different interpretations of scripture as long as we match up—we align on the absolutes.

It's something we just talked in our Discipleship Essentials course at Life University.

We talked about what are the absolutes of the faith—the heaven and hell issues.

These are the things that like there is no leeway; there's no, "Well, you have your opinion; I have my opinion."

No, no, no, this is what scripture says.

Like, Jesus is Lord; he died for our sins; he was born of a virgin.

Like, these are things that we can't get away from—the triune God, the Trinity.

Like, these are absolutes; these are heaven and hell issues.

Okay?

Like, if you break away from those things and say, "Well, the Bible, you know, isn't really useful today," sorry, you're out.

Like, we have to align on some things.

But there's a lot of stuff that people will try and kind of tack on, and I think that's inappropriate.

Like, I think interpretation of scripture outside of the absolutes—so when it comes to the Book of Revelation, I don't—outside of Jesus as Lord, I don't think there's anything in Revelation that becomes an absolute.

Right?

And so you can have different interpretations; we can still fellowship, and then we have to understand that the devil likes to use that to tear us apart from each other.

He likes to take our focus off of the absolutes of Jesus being Lord onto these other things, like post-trib, pre-trib.

He wants us to focus on that.

I mean, families are getting ripped apart because there's an argument over pre- and post- like—

Right?

That's just dumb.

Like, come on.

Absolutely.

Right?

Yeah, but if Jesus is both our Lord, then we can high-five our way to heaven.

All the way there.

You go, un the believers.

I like it.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, the last thing PJ talked about on Sunday, I loved it.

It was really, "What do we do with Revelation?"

Like, this is the picture book—confusing stuff, scary stuff, all of this.

But what I love is that he brought it back to—it is giving us a picture of Jesus with the instruction to come to him.

Right?

Come to Jesus, repent, come to Jesus, bring others in relation with him, and then—

So come, Lord Jesus.

Right?

Exactly.

And then just the number of times when worship is talked about or the language is about how amazing God is and the worshipfulness.

And so I think that we can take Revelation and be reminded to invite others into relationship with Jesus, first of all, check on our own relationship with Jesus.

Have we come to him?

Are we in relationship with him?

And then who are we bringing with?

Because I think the worst thing that a Christian can do is just keep the information to themselves.

Right?

Like, you're saved, and now you're not going to tell anybody about it?

Like, you're just going to let them go to hell?

Like, what's wrong with you?

And so I think the duty of a Christian is to tell others the good news.

Right?

Yeah.

And in that, we worship God.

Yeah.

And our encouragement is we get a wonderful revelation of who Jesus is in Revelation.

Like, the imagery of the Jesus that's in Revelation is so encouraging for me to go out and to tell people who he is because it's like, "Okay, I'm not—I love baby Jesus in the manger, but I love the warrior Jesus on the horse with a sword and fire in his eyes."

I love that Jesus, and that's so encouraging for me to try to get souls to him.

Yeah.

And then with that, I get to learn and understand how to worship him with some of the way that Revelation is written—the verses that just give him worship.

It's just so beautiful to me.

And I love those two aspects of Revelation.

If there's anything that I get out of it, it's that I get a fresh revelation of who Jesus is, and I learn how to worship him.

I love it.

That's what we do with the Book of Revelation.

Perfect.

Awesome.

All right, we finished.

We got through it.

We probably offended everybody that listened that has a different viewpoint than us.

Probably going to get nasty emails talking about how wrong you are and you don't even understand the preterist view.

Why were you even trying to discuss it?

Okay, as long as they get to Jesus, I can care less about what their ideas are.

We said at the beginning, I'll say it again: we are not qualified for this conversation.

We're just two guys that love the Bible and love Jesus.

Yeah.

Is it funny that like people are like, "Why don't you love studying Revelation? You're a Bible guy; you love the Bible."

Like, I'm always talking about studying the Bible.

I'm like, "Yeah, but those things—like, I can suss out the history of it and the application for it today, and I can put those pieces together, and it's beautiful, and it helps me in life."

And then I get to the Book of Revelation, and I'm like, "I don't know, man; there's too many opinions out there. There's too many viewpoints that all make sense."

Like, I've talked to the preterists, and I'm like, "You are making a lot of sense right now."

I've talked to futurists, and I'm like, "Sure, totally; that's my stance too."

But man, everything in between, I'm like, "I don't know."

If that makes me fickle or if that makes me, you know, a leaf blown in the wind, but this—but it makes us human.

Who are we to understand God and what he has for us and for his creation?

It's not up to us.

It's not up to us for us to know and to know when.

And hey, maybe one day the Holy Spirit's going to be like, "Here's the Book of Revelation," and I'm going to preach on it for like a year, and it's going to be great.

You think so?

No, probably not.

But anything could happen; you never know.

The Holy Spirit may speak, and I do—I think I have walked away from the study for this conversation and the sermon and everything with a greater appreciation for Revelation.

I think you and I have joked—I was one of those.

I was just like, "I'll read the other 65; I've read Revelation a couple times; I get the gist; I'm going to study the other stuff."

But I think I've got a greater appreciation for it after this series, and hopefully our audience feels the same way.

Yeah, you believe in Jesus; it's all going to pan out.

I am a pan—pantheist.

Like, it's all going to work out; it's all going to pan out in the end.

Yep, that's it.

Sweet.

All right, next week, I promise this conversation will be way less ambiguous, controversial.

See you next week; we're going to be talking about parenting, and it's going to be great—more practical stuff.

And then we go into a finance series.

Awesome, let's do it.

I like good conversations.

Skip—so hope—skip over.

You're a parent; you have a child; his name is written on your arm.

It is.

He's 30.

30?

Well, I mean, he is; he's 14.

14 on 30.

He is a full-grown man.

Anyways, we're going to talk about that and then finance.

It's going to be great.

So hopefully you will join us here at Between Sermons.

1. "The reality is for 2,000 years there have been wars, there have been famines. Yes, for the next 2,000 years there's probably going to be wars and famines and all kinds of stuff. We tend to idolize the symbols or the events, and what Jesus wants is for us to follow him. If we follow him, then we're fine, we're set, we have comfort and the hope that he's given us." 35:37

2. "We tend to put Jesus and what he said on the shelf and follow the events. We follow politics and we want to figure society and countries and nations and people that are in power. The devil does a very good job of transferring our focus onto what's going to be the end times or when is the end times coming. Jesus says no, I gave you Revelation so you can have hope in me." 36:33

3. "Who are we to understand God and what he has for us and for his creation? It's not up to us. It's not up to us for us to know when. Maybe one day the Holy Spirit's going to be like, 'Here's the Book of Revelation,' and I'm going to preach on it for like a year and it's going to be great." 53:46

4. "I think the worst thing that a Christian can do is just keep the information to themselves. You're saved and now you're not going to tell anybody about it? The duty of a Christian is to tell others the good news. In that, we worship God." 51:26

5. "I get a fresh revelation of who Jesus is and I learn how to worship him. That's what we do with the Book of Revelation. We're just two guys that love the Bible and love Jesus." 52:24