[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: If you have your Bibles with you tonight, these are the last two Wednesday nights of this fall semester. This Wednesday tonight, and as I say, and next Wednesday night.
So we've been the whole fall semester, we've been talking about the epistles.
And I have never heard a study on the epistles of the New Testament that included Revelation.
But in my view, and it clearly states that it is a letter. A letter is an epistle.
It is unique in this sense.
It is a general letter to the church in which there are also seven personal letters.
So it says the book of Revelation is if Pastor Joey, your pastor sent us an email from Romania and it's a general email to the church at Buford. And then inside of it he said, but please say this to Todd and please say this to Manny and please say this to Mario. Then each of those letters fit inside the other. And that is precisely the formation of the Book of Revelation.
All of those individual letters, if you will, to seven churches in what is contemporary Turkey. Those letters are near the first. It, it is largely those that I want to deal with tonight and then on next week, sort of the balance of the Book of Revelation.
But let's just begin tonight, the revelation of Jesus Christ. Please notice, it is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. And he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant and John. Now pause a moment.
There is huge debate about which John this is in my view, I believe that it is clearly John the Apostle, who is the third most prolific writer of the New Testament. Paul is the most prolific. Luke is next and then John.
I believe that it is the apostle John and that he wrote this letter sometime near the end of his life or wrote this book as it was dictated to him and revealed to him sometime near the end of his life.
Ignatius, St. Ignatius, who lived in the generation right after the apostles. He was born in 35, which would have been just after the crucifixion of Christ and lived to 105. He said that John was banished to the island of Patmos, and this is written from that banishment.
When released after that, Ignatius wrote that John Lived to a ripe old age and died peacefully in his sleep.
As opposed to those other apostles, James, Peter and Paul, and the others that were martyred. So this is that, John, I believe, as an old man who bear record of the word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ and of all the things that he saw.
Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written therein. For the time is at hand, John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, meaning Asia Minor, meaning what we call Turkey.
Grace be unto you, and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. And he hath made us kings and priests. Unto God and His Father to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him. And all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so. Amen.
I am Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the ending. Pause just a moment. Alpha in the Greek Alphabet, A, Omega, Z, the last letter of the Alphabet. I am Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the ending saith the Lord, which is and which was and which is to come. The Almighty.
I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, it is not possible that we can benefit in one bit from this letter if we are not also to some extent, in the Spirit.
We cannot be as John was in the Spirit to receive this revelation. But grant us, O Lord, by your grace, as much as we can bear to be in the Spirit, that we may receive from this profit to our souls. We believe you for it. We thank you for it in advance. In the wonderful name Jesus, the Strong, Son of God.
Amen.
I warned you on last Wednesday.
Did I not warn you? And you came anyway, so this is on you.
I know that I have an unconventional view of the Book of Revelation. I'm not saying unique. I'm not saying nobody else feels this way. I'm just saying, I don't hear it taught this way. And so what I'm going to share with you, I know, is an unconventional view of the Book of Revelation.
I don't. There's much about the Book of Revelation I don't understand.
But I want to say this to you.
There's much about the Book of Revelation that nobody understands. And those people who think they understand it are almost certainly wrong.
Sometimes I hear people lecture on the Book of Revelation and they know more about it than God does.
I can see them. They have a timeline drawn on the floor of their living room. They know exactly what the second toe on the left foot of the beast means.
And I hear them lecture and point out all these details. And this definitely means that. And this definitely means that. And I always have this vision of God listening and turns. He turns to the angels and says, did you know that.
The challenge for us as Westerners reading the Book of Revelation is not only linguistic and revelational, it is also cultural.
We are a people that are given to engineering.
We are Westerners. We are the descendants of our Greco Roman ancestors.
We stand with our backs to the Caucasus Mountains and we peer to the setting sun.
We think in a linear way.
Finish this sentence. The shortest distance between any two points is.
Doesn't that make you feel patriotic?
Makes you want to stand up and sing the national anthem, doesn't it?
That's so American.
It's Western, but among all the Western nations, it's so American.
When you think about the cultural language of America, think about the things that we say.
Cut to the chase.
Just give me the bottom line.
Give me the short version.
Give me the abbreviated version. Those are such American things.
And therefore, when we read the Book of Revelation, we read it culturally.
It is both a translation linguistically, and we translate it into our own culture.
So we see the Book of Revelation chapter by chapter, stretched out in a straight line.
Chapter three can't be before chapter two.
That's un American.
It has to be in a straight line. So we see the chapters of the Book of Revelation as stepping stones stretched out across the front lawn of human history. And they have to unfold in order.
Then we have the problem of language as well.
I hear people say all the time, I just want somebody to give me a literal translation.
No, you don't.
Even if you think you do, you don't. A literal translation from the original Greek wouldn't even make sense to you because the syntax is so mixed up. It wouldn't even make sense if you translated it literally. I can Give you an example. Forget Greek. How many people in this room speak Spanish? Let's see your hands. If you'll raise your hand. Four. Five? Six. Okay, good.
I know Manny does. Translate this simple sentence for me, will you, please? Just nice and loud for everybody. You got a preacher's voice. Tango ambre.
I'm hungry.
That's the right translation, isn't it? You speak Spanish? Did he translate it correctly? Yes, he did. That's not what I said.
But it is the correct translation.
If he had translated literally what I said, it wouldn't have made any sense to you, because in Spanish, you cannot be hungry.
You have hunger.
In English, hunger is a state of being, which may explain our tendency to obesity. But.
But in Spanish, you cannot be hungry. You have hunger. It's a. It's a possession. I have hunger.
I'm going to eat eight burritos. When I have the burritos, I will no longer have the hunger.
But in fact, you can't translate tango ambre. I have hunger. That wouldn't even make sense to you, would it?
It's even worse than that. I didn't even say I have hunger, because in Spanish, the verb tense tells you what the subject is, but you don't even have to say it.
So actually, if he translated. He translated it correctly because he knew you were Americans, and he translated it into English linguistically and culturally. It was the right translation. But what I said was, tango ambre. Translate that literally. It is, have hunger.
Have hunger.
If you think that'll work, when this church service is over, you go down to the McDonald's and walk up to the guy at the window and say, have hunger.
He's going to say, good for you, Tarzan. Do you have money?
So the Book of Revelation, we're reading it through a linguistic translation. We're also reading it through a cultural veil.
We are also reading it, in my view, in the wrong genre.
We think it's a textbook.
We think in textbooks we want this to be a book about calculus.
We just want to add up chapter two with chapter five, multiply by chapter six, and get the answer, because it's just so American.
But this is not a textbook.
This is a whole different genre.
What if, and I'm just offering this to you, what if we thought we were reading a textbook and we were actually watching an opera?
The genre doesn't quite translate.
Now, I don't know about you, I have an odd fascination with opera.
I love it. I don't pretend to understand it. I cannot explain to you all of the Various musical and production values of the opera. Aida, I don't understand all of the subplots or any of the rest of it. I just love the sound and the action and the costumes and the flamboyance. The craziness of opera appeals to me. It's just huge. Anybody here ever been to a live opera? Well, I. Yes. It's wild, isn't it? You got people marching around and things going on. Wagner, Wagner. I don't know what he was on. But let me just say this to you. I love Wagner. You know, it's all of the stuff. The Valkyries are flying around and thunder and lightning and the fat lady with the pitchfork and the steel brassiere and, you know, the whole thing.
Opera is just. Opera's just wild.
What I'm suggesting to you is that the Book of Revelation is a lot closer to a Hebrew opera than it is to an American textbook.
In fact, John tells us that almost immediately. He says, I was in the spirit.
It tells us straight away this whole thing is a spiritual experience.
Sometime.
Not during my teaching. On your own time, sometimes sit down and read through the whole Book of Revelation without stopping.
Just set aside enough time, read the whole thing and don't try to figure it out.
Don't try to figure out what this Gog is. That gog is Magog. Is this politician the Antichrist? What about this religious leader? Just let it happen to you.
The Book of Revelation was not dictated to John.
He experienced it.
He was caught up into the spiritual domain and this Hebrew opera exploded.
John was not a 21st century American.
He was a 1st century Oriental Jewish.
And not everybody thinks like we do.
Let me ask you a question.
You answer it for me, nice and loud.
Which comes first, January or December?
Come on.
January, right?
Not in the rest of the world.
They say it depends on where you're standing.
Because the rest of the world sees the year as a circle.
Harvest, drought, planting flood, harvest, drought, planting flood, harvest, drought. Which one comes first, December or January? Well, if you're in December, December's first. December comes before January.
Can you understand what I'm saying?
So in much of the world, time chronology is thought of as a rolling wheel, not as a straight line.
So imagine then.
My goal in this lecture tonight is to get you so confused that at the end you don't know what to ask.
But just imagine for a moment that you are John the Apostle, an old man alone in an exile island. The island of Patmos was basically a gravel pit for the Roman Empire.
All of his colleagues are Gone.
He's an old man now. He's in the second. He has lived over into the second generation of Christianity.
And he's.
He's on the Lord's day praying, when all of a sudden he is caught up out of himself into another domain, another dimension.
And suddenly a canister descends around you.
And this canister is made up of a series of poles.
And on each pole there is a panel.
And on each panel a picture.
And on the back of each panel another picture.
And you stand in that canister of pictures on poles and you move at first looking at each of the pictures. And then suddenly the canister begins to revolve.
It begins to move slowly at first, but as it moves, each individual panel also moves so that it changes. This way, that way, this way, that way, this way, that way. As the canister moves, each panel begins to rotate until the panels are spinning and the canister is spinning.
And you're experiencing this flow of pictures. And you see this here, and then it's over there, and then it's over here. Then it's again. And over here there's sound effects. And over here there's roaring. And over here people are weeping. And over here they're crying out. And over here they're praying. And then there's incense. And then there's a dragon. And then there's ocean. And it's over here. Wait a minute, the ocean's over there. Wait a minute. The dragon's over here. I know, it's the same drag. No, it's a different dragon.
And it begins to whirl faster and faster and faster. And then suddenly it stops. And the canister lifts.
And God says, now that which you have seen right, in a book, and you say, they're. They're not going to get this.
So that you struggle to write what you. Not what you have been taught, but what you have experienced, what you've seen.
Think through your own memories.
Think of the first time you ever went into a warm kitchen on a cold winter day and somebody was cooking something that smelled wonderful.
You can't really tell anybody about it.
You can tell them something about how you remember you felt, but you can't really describe that smell.
So that John says, the streets in heaven are paved with gold.
And literal minded Americans think, wow, gold, man.
I walk right out there on that street and pick.
And if John were standing here, he'd say, no, not gold, gold, gold. Like no gold. Like no gold you've ever seen. Like no gold you've ever thought of. I don't know how to describe it to you. Gold like glass.
You say you can't have gold like glass.
He says, no, I know, but it was. See, it was like.
And that's basically my view of the Book of Revelation.
Is that it is a different genre than anything else.
It is vision, it's insight, it's revelation, it is all of those things.
But it's a whirling.
I don't mean to sound blasphemous. It's a whirling Hebrew opera.
It's got dragons and beasts and oceans and people crying and people rejoicing. And sometimes it's the same people and it's full of numbers. Here's a number over there. There's 12 and there's 12 times 12 and 12 times 12 times 12. And then there's all these. And you say, lord, what is this all? What does this all mean?
What's it all?
We know that the book of Revelation is filled with symbolism.
It is filled with symbolism.
The problem is that we as Americans, we want to decide which things are actually literal and which things are symbolic.
So we quibble over which things mean what it says and which things say something, but they mean something different.
Let me give you an example.
Turn to verse 12.
And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me.
And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and gird about the papes with golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like a flame of fire, and his feet like undefined brass, as if they burned in a furnace. And his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars and out of his mouth when a sharp two edged sword. And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
Now pause.
What if somebody came in here right now and said, what are you all talking about? What is all this about? Well, we're talking about Jesus.
We're talking about Jesus.
And he says, okay, I want to go to heaven. I want to see Jesus.
What does he look like? What does Jesus look like? We say, well, the Bible tells us he's.
His hair is white as snow.
He's got a sword in his mouth, his feet glow in the dark.
Do you really think that's.
Do you think that's what that.
That's what it says?
Do you think when you see Jesus in heaven, that he's going to have a sword in his mouth?
He's not going to have a sword in his mouth.
He's going to have a sword in his mouth, but he's not going to have a sword in his mouth.
Do you think his feet are made of brass?
Brass is just the best thing John could think of to describe the fact that every other hero in the world, sooner or later has clay feet.
But Jesus is perfect.
Why is his hair white?
Do you really think Jesus has white hair? Has he gotten old?
If he's old enough to where his hair has turned white, maybe he's senile. Now we're in deep soup.
No. Why is his hair white? Because white hair is the ancient and virtually universal symbol of wisdom.
If you go to the United Kingdom, the magistrates wear white wigs. Even to this day they wear white wigs because it's a symbolism of their wisdom. I think we ought to give American judges white wigs. At least let's have the wigs.
But Jesus doesn't have white hair. He isn't old. He doesn't have a sword in his mouth. His feet don't glow in the dark.
And when he talks, do you think it sounds like Niagara Falls?
Says his voice is the sound of many waters? He's telling you something, but you have to feel it.
You have to experience Jesus.
You have to describe it the best way you can. But you have to describe things in the spiritual domain with words that work in the worldly domain, in the earthly domain, in the natural realm, and they are insufficient.
So I just want to be clear with you on this, if I can. Amidst all the confusion I hope to inflict on you, let me say this.
I'm not saying that what you've always thought or believed or even taught or preached about the Book of Revelation is wrong. I'm not telling you you're wrong. I'm just saying that you don't have it right.
Because if you have it right, then everybody else has it wrong.
So I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying people spend countless hours and years of emotional psychological energy struggling over whether or not gog means China and magog means Russia. And who's going to move from there and who's going to come here instead of understanding what God is saying to you?
What is the opera about?
The opera is about Jesus.
It's the revelation of Jesus Christ.
He's not revealing anything else to you.
Everything else in the opera is a prophet.
Everything else in the opera is secondary. Every other singer is just simply a poor assistant.
The opera is Jesus. It's about Jesus. It reveals Jesus. It is Jesus.
The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ in history, above history, beyond history, in the spiritual domain, in heaven, forever and ever. Yes, in earth. And yes, there's still stuff that's going to happen and things that are going to go on, but at the end of it, we're going to end the Book of Revelation next Wednesday night with exactly where we began it tonight, and that is Jesus. The Book of Revelation begins with Jesus. Every page is about Jesus. At the end of the book, it's all about Jesus.
The Book of Revelation is not scary stories for Christian kids.
Behave yourself or the Book of Revelation will get you.
There are Christians who won't read the book, won't even crack open the Book of Revelation because it terrifies them.
It's not supposed to make you scared.
It's supposed to make you victorious.
It's Jesus, our son. Travis preached not too long ago on a portion of the Book of Revelation, and he told something that I thought. I never forgot it. It was so good.
I was born in Dallas and I've infected my son with a devotion to the Dallas Cowboys. Nobody say a word.
They are God's team. That's in the Book of Revelation, and he adores the Cowboys.
He said in his sermon that the other night that somebody had a rerun of the last Super Bowl. The Cowboys won.
And he said when they got behind, he said he was so relaxed because he said, I knew how it came out.
He said, I was just enjoying the game.
The other team got a little bit ahead, and they're cheering and jumping up and down on the sidelines. He said, I was sitting in the recliner thinking, you stupid guys, you're gonna lo.
And then he said, that's the Book of Revelation.
Instead of being scared of the beast, what we understand is the game has already been played.
Now, let's talk about this first part.
This is very, very important. And I want to deal with this first part. And that is the letters to the seven churches.
So there are seven churches scattered around the country we now know as Turkey.
And in each of these seven letters, the letter to the church at. The letter to the church at. The letter to the church at. There are commonalities in each of them.
The first is this.
Each one of these letters begins with some kind of identification of who Jesus is and a statement of his authority.
This is who I am, and this is why I have the authority to speak to the church.
Second, there is a statement of his knowledge. The reality.
I see the truth.
No matter what anybody else sees or thinks they see, I see the truth. The third thing is, he calls each one of them to overcome in some way.
Fourth, he offers them a promise if they overcome.
And fifth, he calls on every one of them to hear his voice, his identification and authority, his revelational knowledge, his invitation to be overcomers, his call to be overcomers, the promise to those who do overcome, and a summons to hear his voice.
So let's look at these quickly, just quickly.
The letter to the church at Ephesus is probably the most famous of the seven.
He says, I know that you've lost your first love, and nobody else may look at you and see that.
But I see you. I know you.
The letter to the Church of Smyrna, he Sundays, there are two of them that are positive, by the way, of the Seven. Smyrna is one of those.
He says, I know that you're rich in works. I know you're going through poverty, tribulation. I know what you're going, but I know that you are piling up riches in the spiritual domain.
The Church at Pergamum, he says, I know you're swallowing bad doctrine, hook, line and sinker.
The Church of Thyatira, he says, you're tolerating the spirit of Jezebel. In your church.
The Church of Sardis, he says, you are dead.
The Church of Philadelphia is the second of the positive ones. Of the two positive ones, he says, I know you. You have kept the truth.
The church at Laodicea is the second most famous of the seven, and he says, you're lukewarm.
To each of them he offers a promise to Ephesus, he says, if you overcome, if you listen to me and overcome, I'll give you to eat of the tree of life.
The Church of Smyrna, he says, if you will hear me, listen to my voice and overcome, you'll never taste second death. You don't have to fear the second death.
To the church at Pergamum or Pergamos, I will give you a white stone with a new name written on it.
To the church at Thyatira, he says, I will give you power to live and walk in the nations of the world.
To the church at Sardis, he says, I will give you white raiment, purity.
The Church of Philadelphia, he says, I will make you like pillars in my temple and I'll write my name on you.
To the church at Laodicea, he says, if you overcome, I'll let you sit with me in the heavenly realm.
Let's take all seven as a composite invitation to the church.
He says to all of us, if you overcome, I'll allow you eat of the tree of Life. You'll never taste of the second death. I'll give you power to live and walk through this present age. I'll give you white raiment. I'll dress you as holy saints, and I'll give you the power to confess my name. I'll make you like a pillar in the church of the Living God, and I'll write my name on you. And when you die and you come to heaven, you will sit with me in glory.
That's the array of the promises of God. If we will hear and listen and obey.
Behold, he says, I stand at the door and knock. And if anyone will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in.
I will come in. I'll walk with you. I'll sit with you. I'll talk with you. He says, I'm not abandoning you in this world.
I love you. I want you to hear my voice. Everything. It's as if he says, now, here are these seven letters. All of these seven letters point to one thing. The rest of the book with all of its wild visions, which we're coming to next week. I'm not abandoning you. We're coming to that. But he says the whole rest of the book is about me saying to you, this ends right.
This ends right.
He says the purpose of the Book of the Revelation is not to make you afraid. You are afraid.
The purpose of the Book of Revelation is not to tell you that there are beasts.
Who in this house is so naive that you don't know humanity always produces a beast?
Was Hitler the beast? He was a beast.
Was Mao the beast? He was a beast.
Was Stalin the beast? He was a beast.
But every time the ocean, the tempest tossed ocean of humanity, produces a beast, it washes back into the ocean. And what do we know? Another beast is coming. And another beast is coming. And another beast is coming.
What difference does it make whether the beast in our generation is a beast or the beast?
What difference does it make? People ask me all the time, is this the Big. Is this the greatest tribulation?
The Great Tribulation is the one you're going through?
I don't. The Great Tribulation? What difference would it make if there's some greater tribulation yet to come?
If you're under arrest in the KGB headquarters in downtown Moscow and they're torturing you and raping your Wife in the next room. Is it the Great Tribulation or not?
So the Book of Revelation is not to illumine you to the reality that there is tribulation in this world. It is to say to you that at the end of tribulation, if you overcome, you will live and walk with him in eternal glory.
The Book of Revelation doesn't make us scared of beasts. It makes us know the beasts will all be conquered.
The beast. A beast. Beast after beast. The Antichrist after Antichrist after Antichrist. The spirit of Antichrist is loose in the world.
It doesn't take the Book of Revelation for you to know that.
Turn on the news.
Turn on the news.
It doesn't take the Book of Revelation to tell you that there is a crack in culture when you see the monstrosities that are going on in the world. Not in the world, in our country. In our old culture, when you got parents taking their preschool children to watch drag queens expose themselves at the county library.
Does it take the Book of Revelation to tell you that something evil is underway?
The Book of Revelation is not to tell you that's evil. It's to tell you that's temporary.
It's not to tell you that the Antichrist is powerful.
It's to tell you that compared to the power of Jesus, he's not powerful.
The Book of Revelation is not to make us afraid in history. We're already afraid.
We're already afraid.
The Book of Revelation is to say, I'm here.
I was here before you got here, before the whole Alphabet of human life began.
I was the letter A before it will finally ooze out into the delta of human failure.
I'm going to be the letter Z.
From A to Z. I'm the beginning and the end. I'm everything.
And all the letters in between will bow before me.
Well, let me close with this.
It is important, and it's important for us to notice in the hugeness and grandeur and mystery of the Book of Revelation, the first place Jesus appears is in the church.
He stands in the midst of the seven gold lampstands. Where Jesus appears first is in the church.
Do you see how important that is?
That means that he's here.
He's here.
Not. Not in the church. Like some catechetical answer. The church is the body of Christ. These are specific churches. The church in Laodicea, the church in Smyrna, the church in Thiash, or the church in. In Ephesus, the church in Beaufort.
He says, I'm here in the midst of you.
And I know the truth about you.
The people that think you're the worst person in the world, I don't listen to them.
I know you. The people that think you're the best guy that ever lived, I don't listen to them either.
I know the truth.
I know the truth.
But if you listen to me, if you'll open your heart and listen to me and overcome.
My promises are beyond anything that I can describe to you.
In the Book of Revelation, I'm going to use words, but you're not going to get it.
When I say, I'm going to invite you to sit with me, we say, lord, do you mean I'm going to climb up and sit beside you right on the chair? And he says, no.
Yes.
No.
Right.
Wrong.
But sitting with me on the chair is a way I can describe something that's so indescribably wonderful that I just have to use words you can hear.
And John said, and I heard the voice behind me, and I turned and I saw him, and he was in the church.
And he said it was the greatest revelation ever.
He hasn't abandoned us. He isn't going to leave us, no matter what we go through.
If we wake up in the morning with Chinese tanks in our driveways, Jesus is still with us. He's still here. He's still calling. He's still winning. When it looks like he's losing. And when it looks like they're winning, we know the game has already been played. Amen.
Hallelujah to the Lamb.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on
[email protected], or visit his website, Dr.markrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
