 It is such a blessing to be here, to return to Steubenville. I spent a number of years here as a student, and then I remained here for a year working with this new startup organization. It was just getting off the ground called the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. And it's such a delight to come back each year and see how the St. Paul Center has grown and to speak at this conference. Thank you so much for coming and thank you so much for having me. Why don't we begin with a word of prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we know that you speak to us in sacred scripture, and yet so often we fail to have ears to hear what it is that you want to communicate to us because we don't properly understand how to make sense of the words that we find in these sacred books. We ask you, Lord, to send your Holy Spirit upon us, the same Spirit who inspired the authors of these Biblical books, to open up our hearts, to hear what it is you wish to tell us, to understand the message you wish us to take away from these books and to put into practice in our lives. In particular, we ask you to give us the spirit of wisdom to understand the words of the prophecies that we find in the Book of Revelation. We ask you to help us remain close to you so we can be there at your Son's coming and so greet him and be with him and conquer with him as he promises we will in the Book of Revelation. And we say, glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Saint John, pray for us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When you hear the name, the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse, I think there's a certain amount of trepidation that begins to well up in many people. When you hear the word Apocalypse, what is it associated with? But cataclysmic destruction, annihilation. And by the way, they're handing out copies of my little overview here that has all the texts we're going to be looking at and some footnotes and other things. So if you don't have a copy, please raise your hand and that way they can find you and bring them out to you. Thank you very much to the staff for passing those out. When we hear the word Apocalypse, we think of dark things. We think of devastation. We think of plagues. We immediately have in our mind all sorts of negative associations. In our own day, if you go to the movies, if you go to the local theater, you'll find all sorts of films that are speaking about post-apocalyptic realities. It's a whole genre now, post-apocalyptic. After Apocalypse is really just devastation. And yet we know that revelation means something other than just annihilation. It actually means unveiling. The book of Revelation is meant to lift the veil. It's supposed to be revealing. The Greek word for revelation is apocalypse. And so it doesn't necessarily mean something negative, although that's the way our society has come to understand it. Really what the book of Revelation is is a prophecy. And in our own day, there are many people who really play this up for a sensational effect. What is the book of Revelation about? Well, it's about the war in the Middle East. Which war? I don't know. There's always one going on, right? So yeah. The book of Revelation is about the Antichrist. The book of Revelation is about something in the media. You can read about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right? The red one and the black one. And these days, I think some people think there's an orange one, and you can correlate... You can correlate these to different events in our own times. I want to look at the book of Revelation a little bit more carefully here, because I think that misses much of what the book is telling us. In Revelation 22, we read, blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. So the book is telling us that we have to keep the prophecy. Now, what does that mean? Normally, you don't think of keeping a prophecy, right? You read a prophecy and you try to unpack its secret meaning. But what does it mean to live by, to keep, to uphold the prophecy of a book? Well, in one way, the book is telling us about future events. In Revelation 10, we read, you must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. And so, the book of Revelation is speaking about a future event. Yes, the coming of Christ. Everybody knows that. But what a lot of people don't realize is that the book is actually written to seven specific churches in the ancient world, and what was known as Asia Minor. And there on your handout, I have a little handy-dandy map for you. You can see how these seven churches were very closely situated near one another. In fact, in Revelation 1.4, John is writing the book. He says, John to the seven churches that are in Asia. The book is specifically written to seven different individual communities. And as I mentioned, they were all very closely associated in the ancient world. They were in the same region. And you can see John famously writes from Patmos. And there on my map, you can see how you can go from Patmos. And then you can visit these seven churches almost in a circuit, right? You go from Ephesus up north to Smyrna, then to Pergamum, and so on and so forth. And actually, in the book, these are the seven churches that are mentioned. Now, why does John write to these seven churches? Well, an ancient collection of New Testament books, the moratorium canon, which is written sometime between the second and fourth century. It's a collection of biblical books. And it's really fascinating because it has an introduction to these books and a little description of them. We read, John to indeed any apocalypse, although he writes only to seven churches, yet addresses all. So John is doing two things here. He's writing the seven specific communities. But in addition to that, in writing to these seven churches, he's writing to the whole church. So the lessons, the message that he has for these seven communities are actually applicable to the entire church. So there are two elements to the book of Revelation I want to focus on in this talk. On the one hand, I want to see how the book is a prophecy, but not necessarily a prophecy that is only about distant future realities. In other words, the second coming of Christ. It's also being written to address specific problems, specific issues in these individual churches. And I want to go through what some of those problems were. And I think as we read it, we'll begin to see what John means when he talks about keeping the prophecy. What does it mean to keep the prophecy? Does it mean to look at the different images in the book and say, obviously we can figure out the coded meaning here and apply it to our own times? People have been doing this since the book was written. There has never been a time since the book of Revelation was written where there weren't Christians saying, yep, this is it. This is the end of time because we can correlate the events in our day to the book of Revelation. For example, in the Middle Ages, there was a plague. You may have heard of it before. The black plague that wiped out about a third of the population in Europe. And in the book of Revelation, there's a description of a plague that wipes out about a third of the population. People back then said, well, this is it. This is it. We're living right here in the end times. And more recently in the 1980s, for example, there's a famous book, The Late Great Planet Earth. And it would attempt to correlate the events of the day with our own day. What is 666 all about? People were all about this back then. You know what 666 is? Ronald, Wilson, Reagan, three names, six letters each. 666. In the book of Revelation, we read about a red dragon. What could that be? Obviously, it's China. They have dragons and stuff, right? Red flag. And so people have been doing this, and they will continue to do this. And yet in trying to decode the book in this way, we miss some of the very obvious meanings of the prophecies themselves. Now, what does it mean to say that the book is a prophecy? That's a really important question. And actually in Revelation 1910, we've been talking a lot about prophecy here at this conference. I thought it'd be really appropriate to highlight a passage that tells us exactly what prophecy involves. Revelation 1910. The testimony, and the Greek word here for testimony, is marterion. It's the word where you get the word martyr from. So a martyr is a witness, right? The testimony, martyrion, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. What is the spirit of prophecy? It is the testimony of Jesus. What does that mean, the testimony of Jesus? Well, scholars have pointed out that the Greek here is ambiguous. David Auni, for example, in his massive three-volume, very technical commentary on the book of Revelation, gets into the Greek text and he points out that the Greek form of the word, the testimony of Jesus, that phrase, is ambiguous, he says. Since it can either be an objective, right? It can be the testimony that is a witness to Jesus, so the testimony of Jesus is, I'm testifying to Jesus. Or it can be a subjective genitive, that is, the testimony of Jesus is Jesus's own testimony. So it can be two things, right? Is it, when John says the prophecy, the spirit of prophecy, is the testimony of Jesus? Does he mean that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony that Jesus gives us from himself, Jesus's own witness, or is it the testimony that Christians give or that other people give about Jesus? And Thomas Aquinas, I believe, would say, and the answer to the question is yes. Is it this or that? Thomas famously would say, well, we don't have to feel forced into one of the two options. And actually, the book of Revelation would seem to suggest that both are in view. On the one hand, Jesus himself is described as the faithful witness. Jesus gives us trustworthy testimony. We read about this in Revelation 1. Grace to you in peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. He is the faithful martyr. The martyr of all martyrs is Jesus Christ. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us a kingdom, priest to his god and father, to him be glory. Very interesting. Jesus is the witness. How is he the witness? Well, he gave his blood. Jesus is the one who gives his testimony, and his testimony is his own life. Right? When Jesus is on trial at the end of the Gospel story, they put him on trial, and they say, what do you have to say for yourself? And Jesus doesn't say, well, now let me give you my closing argument. No, he says, ask other people. Because what is Jesus's testimony? It's his whole life. His whole life is his testimony. And most importantly, it's in his death and giving himself that we have the full embodiment of his witness. But Jesus, who offers himself as a sacrifice, that makes him a priest. Jesus is a priest. He offers his witness by giving his life as a sacrifice. Does that to make us a kingdom of priests? All right, we get to be priests. What does that mean? What do priests do? They offer sacrifice. All right, what's the sacrifice? What is Jesus's sacrifice himself? Oh, what does that mean we are going to have to do? Jesus is the faithful witness. He's the faithful witness because he gives his testimony faithfully by laying down his life. And so we can always trust him. And so at the beginning of the book of Revelation, Jesus in these two chapters, in Revelation two and three, in the first part of the apocalypse, speaks to the seven churches. And he makes all kinds of promises. He makes all kinds of predictions. And it's fascinating when you read the book of Revelation, the promises that Jesus makes at the beginning of the book are verified in the last two chapters of the book. So what Jesus says at the beginning, he promises a number of things in the seven letters to the seven churches. And at the end of the apocalypse, John has a vision of the new Jerusalem. And in the vision, he sees all of the things that Jesus promises at the beginning of the book. In other words, Jesus is good to his word. Jesus is faithful to his word. Jesus is the faithful witness. Let me give you a few of these. In Revelation two, Jesus says, if you're faithful, I will grant you to eat of the tree of life. You know, it's interesting. At the end of the book, John has a vision of the new Jerusalem. And what does he see? The tree of life. Jesus is faithful to the promise. There will be a tree of life. And John sees it, doesn't just hear about it. In Revelation three, Jesus says about the righteous one, about the saints, I will write on him the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven. And so at the end of the book, we hear that image of the new Jerusalem again. But now this time John sees it. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven. In Revelation two, Jesus says of the righteous one, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. At the end of the book, we read, I saw no temple in the new Jerusalem. Uh-oh. Wait, there's no temple? John, you said, Jesus promised we would be a pillar in the temple of God. But then at the end of the book, John says, oh, there's no temple. Wait a minute, was Jesus not telling us the truth? No. He goes on, for its temple is the Lord, God, the Almighty, and the Lamb. John goes up and he sees the true temple is God himself. In Revelation three, Jesus says, I will write on him the name of my God. God's going to write his name on us. He's going to tattoo us. On the last day, what happens? Revelation 22, his name shall be on their foreheads. That's an image, by the way, of the high priest. The high priest is the image of God on the seal. And we are all going to be priests to our God. In Revelation three, Jesus promises, I will not blot out the saints name out of the book of life. In Revelation 21, Jesus says, or John sees that nothing unclean enters into it. The heavenly Jerusalem, only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life, just as Jesus promised. In Revelation two, Jesus says about the saints, I will give him the morning star. And in Revelation 22, we find out something amazing. Jesus reveals, I am the morning star. What is Jesus going to give us? Himself. Jesus in Revelation three says, I will grant the martyr, the saints, the righteous one. I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I myself conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. In Revelation 22, John sees the saints will reign forever and ever. And in Revelation two, Jesus says, he who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death. In Revelation 21, we read, those whose names are not written in the book of life, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. So whatever Jesus promises at the beginning of the book, John finds out at the end of the book, Jesus delivers. Jesus is good to his word. So Jesus is the faithful witness. And his announcements, his pronouncements, his promises can be counted on. John sees the end of the story. But Jesus is himself the faithful witness so that we can become a kingdom of priests, so that we can ourselves be witnesses. What does it mean to be a witness? Well, in Greek, the word is martyr, and it's interesting in the beginning of the book, John says, I, John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the tribulation, we all share in the suffering. We share in Jesus, Jesus entered into that suffering. And John says, and I share in that with you, I was on the island called Patmos, on account of the word of God and the testimony, the Greek word there is Martyrion, of Jesus. So John himself is suffering because of the testimony of Jesus, because he shares in that persecution, because he himself is a witness. And all of us who are children of God, who are united to Christ, who have Christ as our brother, share in that. In the book of Revelation chapter 12, we have the famous image of the woman clothed with the Son, the image of the mother of the Messiah. And of course we know who the mother of the Messiah is, Mary is the mother of the Messiah. And in Revelation 12, reread that the dragon, Satan, was angry with the woman. But he couldn't get at her, and he couldn't get at the Son, who was ascended into heaven. And so in Revelation 12, we read that he went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, those who keep the commandments of God. So the children of the mother of the Messiah, Mary's other children, are those who keep the commandments of God. And what else? They bear testimony to Jesus. So to be a child of God, to be a brother of Christ, to be a son of Mary, is to be someone who bears testimony to Jesus. And that is the spirit of prophecy. The spirit of prophecy is not just announcing some distant reality in coded language. The spirit of prophecy is being a witness to Christ in our own lives. Laying down our lives, yes, as martyrs, but also every day through suffering, through persecution, and through speaking the truth in love, which often leads to persecution. That is prophecy. Brothers and sisters, we are all called to be prophets. We are all called to prophesy about Christ by our lives. And we can do that in dramatic ways, but we can also do that in the ordinary way of living our lives. Being faithful to the gospel, being witnesses to Christ in the world, that can take place in all kinds of different ways. Not long ago, my family knew how to friend, we have a friend who's not a Christian in any way, shape, or form. And that's very good person, a noble pagan, so to speak. And this person got married, and they were going to just get married at the justice of the peace. And they invited us to come to the wedding. And it's not a Catholic wedding, we wanted to be there to support them, they know our family. And so we went with our kids. And we explained, you know, it's not in a church, they're not Catholic, you know, it's gonna be a little different than other weddings you've gone to. And I was a little worried about how this would, you know, sit with our kids. And I just thought, well, we're gonna be there as, you know, friends and just, we'll be witnesses of Christ. And hopefully, you know, in our Christian marriage, we can be a witness of what marriage is really meant to be. And we're there at the wedding. And it was very simple and very pro forma. And they announced, now, you know, say this, say that, all right, now you're married. And that was the end of my little seven-year-old. So he goes, that's it? Aren't we gonna sing at least a song or something? And it was so beautiful because he was exhibiting the sense, like, there should be more to this than just a signature, right? I mean, this is the big deal what you're entering into. Shouldn't there be some sense of solemnity? And, you know, I told him, but inside, I was so grateful that he said it. Because it was so earnest. He was so genuine. And it was such a witness to the profundity that marriage should have. We are all called to be witnesses of Christ. And this can mean persecution, and in fact, often does. In Revelation 12, how does the dragon make war with the children of the mother of the Messiah? Well, we go on to read in Revelation 12, 11, that the righteous have conquered the dragon. They have defeated the dragon by the blood of the lamb. And so it's not just Christ who is the victor. He is the primary means of victory, but he's not the only means of victory. He incorporates us into his redemptive work because they conquered the dragon by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. What was their testimony? They love not their lives even unto death. That is the most profound witness to Christ. Laying down our lives for him. And it's something we always need to keep in mind in our culture, in our culture that's all about winning. We're going to be winning so much, we're going to be tired of it. The promise says, Christ never makes that promise to us. He promises that we will win by losing. We defeat Satan by losing our lives. And if for any moment we're ever seduced into the idea that somehow we're going to have earthly victories, that redemption will come through political victories. Remind yourself of the way Christ wins. Christ lost the only election He was ever in. There is a vote, remember? He was running against Barabbas. Jesus lost the vote and won salvation for all of us. And so when we're in dark times, when the world wants to tell us that we're losing, we know we're winning, amen? And so the seven letters are now written to these seven churches to remind them of this, to remind them of what is really at stake and what we are called to enter into. So let me briefly go through these seven letters. The first letter is written to the church at Ephesus. And we read, to the angel of the church in Ephesus, and by the way that angel is most likely a reference to like the guardian angel of the church. There's a heavenly nature to the church. We're not just earthly organizations. It's not just a club, right? There's a heavenly dimension to the church. Jesus says, I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men. But I've tested those who call themselves apostles but are not and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up my namesake, and you have not grown weary. So Jesus commends to church for what? For not falling prey to false teachers. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place unless you repent. Yet this you have. You hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who conquers, I will grant to eat the tree of life. All right, so Ephesus was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire. It was a key port. After Rome and Antioch and Syria and Alexandria, it was the largest city in the Roman Empire. And it was most famous for all of its pagan temples, especially its temple to Artemis. It seems the early Christians weren't falling prey to the pagan temples. In fact, Ephesus is associated with some of the biggest names in early Christianity, right? We know Paul spent more time there than any other place. In the book of Acts, he was there for years as opposed to in some places just being there for months. But Ephesus is also associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary. It said that she spent time there. John the Apostle, Apollos, Philip's daughters, Philip the Deacon in the book of Acts, and Timothy, all of these in Eusebius's history of the church, are said to have been in Ephesus. And in the letter we read about how the Christians there, if they're faithful, will eat of the tree of life. And we see that tree as I mentioned at the end of the book. What is this eating imagery while according to Aphrahat, one of the great Syriac fathers, this is an image of the Eucharist. But Jesus warns, he doesn't just make promises, he warns that their lamp stand could be removed. What does this mean? They're a lamp stand. We read about the lamp stand imagery in the first chapter. John says, I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lamp stands. And in the midst of the lamp stands one like a son of man. And he's clothed in a long robe and a golden girdle around his breath. Jesus is dressed like a priest. And he's walking among the lamp stands. And where is the lamp stands? It's in the temple. John has a vision of the heavenly temple. And Christ is walking among the lamp stands. Think of the menorah in the Jewish temple, the seven lamp stands. He sees Jesus in the heavenly temple. But then we go on to read. Jesus says, now write what you see, what is, and what is to take place hereafter. As for the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lamp stands, the seven stars that were in my hand, those symbolize the angels of the seven churches. And the seven lamp stands are the seven churches. Now this is really huge. Because what Jesus is saying is, you know that vision you saw, where I was walking in the heavenly temple, and there are seven lamp stands? Each one of those lamp stands are a symbol of the earthly church. In other words, the earthly church is already in heaven. The seven churches are already in heaven, not just in the future, but now. But Jesus warns, if you don't hear my words, that heavenly presence will be removed. You'll lose your presence in that heavenly temple. And so what we see in the book of Revelation is this image of liturgy, the candelabra, the candlesticks. This image connects us to heaven. The church is in heaven, how? By liturgy. Through our worship, we're already in heaven. But Jesus warns that can be taken away. We can lose that if we fail. Jesus commends the Ephesians for their orthodoxy. They hate the heretics, the Nicolaitans, for example. They test the other heretics. I'll talk about the Nicolaitans in a moment. They test the heretics. They remain faithful to the gospel. They're great at apologetics. The Ephesians were trained by Paul. The Ephesians knew theology, but you know what they didn't have anymore? The love they had at first. They were all about keeping faithful to the doctrine, but they didn't have charity in their heart. They weren't loving the Lord with all of their heart. Orthodoxy, my friends, is not enough. It's not enough to just be faithful to the teaching, to the doctrine. We can't lose the love of Christ. The second church is Smyrna. Smyrna was a city that was fiercely loyal to the Romans. Cicero said that it was the city of our most faithful and our most ancient allies. It was very closely aligned with Rome. And so John writes, or John hears, and to the angel of the church at Smyrna, write the words of the first and the last, who died and came to life. I know your tribulation. Jesus, I know what you're suffering and your poverty. It looks like you have nothing, but Jesus adds, you are rich. They're rich because of God's grace. And he knows the slander of those who say that they are Jews, but are not. They are a synagogue of Satan. Wow. You can't be a real Jew and persecute the Christians unto death. True Judaism recognizes the truth of the New Covenant and our need for it. And it's a rival in Christ. So John says, do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested for 10 days. You will have tribulation. Jesus is good to his word. When he says you're going to have tribulation, guess what? You're going to have tribulation. Be faithful, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who conquers. In the Greek word, there is Nikao. It's where we get the word Nike. You know the Nike Shoemaker? It comes from the ancient Greek slogan, conquer. Be victorious. How do you conquer according to Jesus by losing your life? You conquer the devil. We win the battle against him by loving not our lives unto death. He who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death. So in Smyrna, we have a community of people who are very faithful to Rome, including Jews. A huge Jewish community was in Rome. We know we found an ancient synagogue in Smyrna. And so we know that there was a large Jewish population. And it seemed that they were very grateful for the privileges that the Roman government had given them. And scholars suggest that what's going on as Christians are now making it rather uncomfortable for Jews. Because they're going around saying things that the Romans don't like. You know, like we have a Messiah, a different king. This is going to upset the apple cart. And so the warning here is to the Christians who might otherwise be afraid of what will come. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of persecution? Are you afraid of being maligned? Are you afraid of being passed over for that promotion? Are you afraid of losing your friends because you go to a wedding and your son says, are we going to at least sing a song or something? We conquer through death. So you know what? Just do it. Suffer. And you will conquer. The next church is the church of Pergamum. And to the angel of the church in Pergamum, right? The words of Emmaus the sharp two-edged sword. This is the sword that comes out of Jesus's mouth in Revelation 1. You think you've heard of bad breath before? This is the sword that comes out of Jesus's mouth because his word pierces like a two-edged sword. The words of Emmaus the sharp two-edged sword. I know where you dwell where Satan's throne is. How about that? Your city is where Satan's throne is. Oh, lovely. You hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my witness. There was a great witness, a Christian named Antipas. My faithful one who was killed among you were Satan dwells. Jesus emphasizes it again. Pergamum is where Satan dwells. You have some there. Jesus, I have this. I have some things against you. You do have some who hold the teaching of Balaam. Now, it's funny because Pergamum was known for being a city of great learning. It had a great library, second only to the library of Alexandria. And Jesus warns you're great at learning. You have some teaching, but the teaching isn't good one. The teaching he goes on to describe is the teaching of the Nicolaeatons. Who are they? The early church fathers like Irenaeus and Hippolytus tell us that the Nicolaeatons were early Christians who traced their origin back to the deacon Nicholas in the book of Acts. And apparently this group was going around saying, I know it's uncomfortable to shun immorality and to shun idolatry in your culture. It's okay. Jesus understands. It's okay. Just do what you got to do to get by. And Jesus is warning you will be like the Israelites in the Old Testament under Balaam. Who was Balaam? He was the one who counseled the king Balaak to send in idolatrous women from the Canaanites, to seduce the Israelites by fornication into idolatry. Jesus is warning, you have some false teachers there. And he warns them to overcome them. Why does he say that Satan dwells in Pergamum? It might be because it was a center of emperor worship. It might also be because it was the center of worship to Aslepius who was the snake god. That would be a little unsettling, right? You're walking around the city and you see all these signs of the snake god that everybody's worshiping. Antipas suffered. Why? Because he wouldn't give in. He wouldn't surrender to the culture. And I could go on to these other churches, but I'm going to run out of time appropriately given the book of Revelation. I see I have seven minutes left. And I can't go through all of the seven churches carefully. So let me just go to the last one, the church in Laodicea. And to the angel of the church in Laodicea, right? The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness. Jesus is that. Jesus is the faithful and true witness. The beginning of God's creation. Jesus says, I know your works. You're neither cold nor hot. Wood that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. How would you like to be Jesus vomit? You know how you become Jesus vomit? By being lukewarm. You're not on fire for Jesus, but you know you're not the worst center in the world. You just sort of am apathetic. I'm good enough. Luke warmness. Jesus warns, I will vomit you out of my mouth. And then he uses his image because it's rather interesting. Laodicea was between two famous cities, Colossae and Hierapolis. Colossae was famous. It was at the bottom of this mountain and it had cold, refreshing mountain water. And on the other side of Laodicea was Hierapolis, which was known for its hot springs, its mineral baths. Laodicea is right in the middle. It's not hot. It's not mineral baths. It's not refreshing. It's not cold water. It's not gonna help you that way either. You're just lukewarm. And Jesus warns the Laodiceans that the water that they have is much like them. You say, I'm rich. I prospered. I need nothing. Not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Jesus, tell us what you really think. Therefore, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire that you may be rich. Write garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen and salve to anoint your eyes that you may see. Famously, Laodicea had Isav. They had this key Phrygian Isav that people traveled from afar to get so that they could be healed of ailments. And Jesus says, you think you have good Isav? I have the only one that you really need. Do you know what your condition is? You're wretched, pitiable, and poor. So let me give you gold refined by fire. The Divine Physician knows our sickness and understands the prescription that we need. You need gold refined by fire, which is an image of suffering in the New Testament. You think you're well off. You're doing just fine. No, you're not. You're naked. Jesus warned. So you know what you need from me? White garments. In Revelation 19, white garments are the righteous deeds of the saints. You need righteous needs, which you can only get by the help of my grace. And you're blind, but I can help you. I can give you Isav. Those whom I love, I reprove and chase, and so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. The book of Revelation isn't just a prophecy about future events. The book of Revelation is speaking to the seven churches, and it's talking about the specific problems that they have. And the visions of the future are meant to assure them that Jesus is good to his word. Jesus is good to his, he's faithful to his promises. Jesus will deliver. And the book of Revelation is talking about the particular problems that we're struggling with today. It's not just a distant vision, it's about now. Not long ago, I was at a conference, and I was speaking at some conference, and I got a phone call from the New York City area code, and it's unusual. I don't get a lot of phone calls from New York, and I looked at my phone and I was like, who could be calling me? I picked up, yes, this is a Fox News. Is this Michael Barber? You have written a book on the apocalypse? Yes, that's me. I've written a book on the apocalypse. Right now, many people are very concerned about this struggle that's happening in the Middle East, and there are many people who think the book of Revelation is being fulfilled. And we would like to have a scholar come on our show and tell us how to interpret the book of Revelation and how we can, you know, understand its message. And I said, okay, and he said, do you think you could do that? I said, sure, I could do that. I can explain to you what the book of Revelation is about. He said, yeah, because a lot of people think Jesus is coming soon. I said, oh, I know exactly when Jesus is coming. I think I can help you. He said, you know, when Jesus is coming? I said, yeah. Then there's like some talk-off line. We got a real crack. This will be great for ratings, you know. Well, we love to have you on our show. So they sent a limousine, and like this wet bar in the back, you know, theologians, we don't go into this because it's, you know, really lucrative, right? So we don't get picked up in limousines very often, right? They came, they picked me up, they took me to the studio, and they put me on the air and, okay, what is the book of Revelation really about? It's about Jesus is coming, and Dr. Michael Barber knows exactly when that will be. I said, yes, I know when Jesus is coming. They're talking to me of it. And when is that? I said, well, in Revelation 3.20, Jesus says, behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me. I know when Jesus is coming. The next time we celebrate the meal where he's present, that's called the Eucharist, he's coming every Sunday. And the producer looked at me and he was like, ah, he cheated, you know. He was so disappointed. I was like, it's right there. What do you want me to say? Jesus is coming in the future, but he's coming the next time we celebrate the Eucharist, which is just a few moments. And the book of Revelation is calling us to be united to him and to do what he does. This is my body. This is my blood, which is given for you. Let's receive that Eucharist so that we can be like him. We can be faithful witnesses, and we can lay down our lives for him, prophesying for his coming. And if we prepare to receive him when he comes in the Eucharist, we have nothing to fear when he comes on the last day, because we'll be ready for him. Amen? The best way to prepare for him is to prepare to receive him in the Eucharist. And when we do that, we can say what John says at the end of the book of Revelation, Miranatha, come Lord Jesus, because we're ready for you, and we're waiting for you, and we long to receive you. Why don't we end with a prayer? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, you are the faithful witness, and you are faithful to your promises. We ask you to pour out your spirit upon us, the spirit of prophecy, which is nothing less than the testimony of Jesus. Empower us to give testimony to him and our lives through our righteous deeds, which we only receive from you by your grace. Make us humble. Help us to recognize that we need to reject the world's call to win and embrace losing our lives for you, not counting the cost, because we know that you give us gold refined by fire that the world cannot give. And you enable us to conquer, to be victorious, and sit with you as you say. I will come into him, and I will eat with him, and he with me. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I myself conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Give us ears to hear so that we can sit down with you and your Father and be with you for all eternity. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen. In the name of the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you so much for having me.