Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the book of Revelation. This will be study #10 of Revelation, chapter 1. We are going to begin by reading verse 3:

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.

We were looking at that last statement, "for the time is at hand," in our last Bible study and we saw how, oftentimes, it has to do with something that is very "near" in proximity, whether distance, or a season, such as when the Feast of Tabernacles is "close at hand," as it says in John 7, verse 2; or the things that will happen at the End of the world, as we read in Matthew 24 (when that point is reached).

So we wonder after looking at this word, how it is that God says the time, or the season, is "at hand?" What makes us wonder about it is that this is written in the first century A.D. towards the close of that century, but that is 1,900, or so, years ago. It is a very long time ago, and how could God say "the time is at hand?"

We have to remember that the book of Revelation covers a lot of ground. As a matter of fact, when we get to Revelation chapters 2 and 3, Lord willing, we will see that God discusses the church age as He addresses letters to seven churches, or to the "angel" of seven different churches in Asia.

The church age began at the cross and the period after when the Holy Spirit was poured out shortly after Jesus went to the cross, and God began to evangelize the world, the nations (the Gentiles of the world became fellowheirs), along with the Jews; that is, anyone from any nation, race or creed, or any individual in the world anywhere at all, could potentially have been a child of God and drawn into the churches and congregations, and more importantly, into the Kingdom of Heaven, if they were truly saved.

This was "close at hand;" the time was "at hand" for the things that we are reading, or that we shortly will be reading in Revelation, chapter 2, as it says in verses 1-5:

Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Here the Lord is giving warning, admonition, to the churches and congregations that they are obligated and responsible to obey God's commandments. They must adher to them. They must keep the word of God. They are in a 'works relationship' to the commandments of God. The corporate body, the institution of the New Testament church, just like national Israel, did not stand by grace, collectively. Each individual who God saved stands by grace, or is saved by grace and not by works, but, collectively, corporately, the entity of the churches and congregations was responsible to obey God. That is why Jesus says "if you do not return to the first works and repent," I will come and "remove the candlestick."

If they were in a 'grace relationship,' that would not be possible; the church and its sins would all be forgiven, time after time after time. "Oh, this church is falling away on this point, but that is okay, because they have that sin forgiven, too." That is the nature of grace. When God saves an individual all sin that that person has committed - past, present, or will commit in the future - is forgiven, paid for in full by Christ, and they can never lose that relationship; God has granted them His grace. That is grace.

Is that true of the churches? No. Time and again, throughout history, churches have fallen away, become other kinds of gospels, and God has removed the light from individual churches or denominations, but He did not remove it from the whole until we reached the point of Great Tribulation, until the end of the church age. Then He came to "visit" and He saw the transgressions, and since they do not have a grace relationship (but are bound by the law to keep it), they were found guilty and the wrath of God, the judgment of God, began on the churches and congregations and continues unto this day. The judgment of God is upon them and can never be removed from them.

Well, this was "at hand," and so we can understand that the things that the book of Revelation discusses had effect immediately, even in the first century and in all the centuries following, because God does get into the church age in the book of Revelation. Then following that, He discusses the end of the church age, the Great Tribulation; then He discusses the transition to Judgment Day itself and the judgment on the world and, finally, the final destruction of this world, and He even discusses the new Heaven and new Earth.

Well, let us move on into verse 4 of chapter 1:

John to the seven churches which are in Asia: 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;

Now here we see the previous verse close with the statement, "for the time is at hand," and then the next verse says, "John to the seven churches." God is immediately dealing with the institution of the church that He has established. So we want to look at this beginning statement of verse 4:

John to the seven churches which are in Asia...

And we are going to take a little time to look at the number 'seven.' The number 'seven' is a very important number in the Bible, and it is an extremely important number in the book of Revelation. For instance, we just saw mentioned that there are seven churches that John is writing to in Asia, and chapters 2 and 3 mention these seven churches. We read in this book, for instance, in verse 20 of chapter 1:

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

Seven, seven, seven! It does not let up! As we move on, we find 'seven' seals around a mysterious book that are unsealed; all 'seven' seals come off. We read of 'seven' trumpets that must sound and of 'seven' vials full of the last plagues that are poured out. Seven, seven, seven, throughout the book.

According to my count, and I did this just by counting in Strong's concordance, there are 54 references in the book of Revelation alone, to the number 'seven.' It has an extra special emphasis upon that number, and we definitely want to take our time and look at this number to see if we can understand it from the Bible, as we know that the number 'seven' is a word. It is part of the word of God. It is not written in numerical form - it is written with letters in the Bible - and that means that, like every other word in the Bible, it has spiritual meaning.

We can see, for instance, with a number like 'ten,' how God uses that number. There are 'ten' virgins in Matthew 25. There are 'ten' coins in the Gospel of Luke. Or multiples of 'ten,' like one hundred sheep in the same Gospel and chapter of Luke, or one thousand years that Satan is bound, or ten thousand saints that come with the Lord Jesus, ten thousands of His saints that come in judgment with Him. This use of the number 'ten' can be understood once we realize that it means, spiritually, the "completeness" of whatever is in view.

This is why God says in the Psalms that He "owns the cattle upon a thousand hills." No, He does not own the cattle on ONLY a thousand hills, but that statement is an all-encompassing statement pointing to the "completeness" of all that God owns: He not only owns the cattle and all the hills of the Earth, but He owns the Earth itself and the universe. All things are created by Him, and that use of the term "a thousand hills" helps us to understand that. God is using a number to teach us a spiritual truth.

Now the with the number 'seven,' we may at times get it mixed up with the number 'ten,' as the number 'ten' points to "completeness" and the number 'seven,' points to "perfection," to that which is "perfect." Sometimes it may be difficult to distinquish between an aspect of something that is "perfect" or an aspect of something that is "complete." They could have some similarities, but we will see that there is a verse in the Bible that really helps us understand the number 'seven.' This verse is found in Psalm 12, and we will just read one verse, verse 6:

The words of JEHOVAH are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

The words of JEHOVAH are the Bible, the word of God, and this Scripture tells us they are "pure words" as, or likened to, "silver tried in a a furnace, purified seven times." So we see twice this idea of "purity," and we know what is in view - it is the word of JEHOVAH, the word of God. That helps us a great deal because we have a good understanding of the nature of the word of God.

The believer knows this absolutely. There is no question about it, as God has revealed His word to us. We have witnessed this and can testify to the truthfulness of it, that the word of God is "perfect." It is without error, without fault, and it is without sin of any kind. It is good. It is pure.

That is something, I think, that maybe we have not thought too much about in association with the number 'seven,' but the idea of "purity" is closely related to "perfection," if they are not actually the same thing. So the word of God is related to "silver tried in a furnace, purified seven times" to indicate the total "perfection" of the Bible, in the original language of Hebrew and Greek, in all the original languages of God, it is pure. No impurity. No spot or wrinkle of any kind. It is something holy and pure, and it is rightly called the Holy Bible.

Now we see how the number 'seven' is used there, to point to something that is so pure that it is "perfect." Well, let us also go to 2 Kings and look at chapter 5, beginning in verse 8. We are going to read the historical account of Naaman the Syrian, and I will read several verses beginning in verse 8 of 2Kings 5:8-14:

And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of JEHOVAH his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Well, we have two references to the number 'seven,' as Elisha the prophet told this Syrian general, Naaman, to go to Jordan and to dip himself into the Jordan, to dunk himself or go into the water, 'seven' times. And he did so. And Naaman, the Syrian general, was a leper. That means his flesh was diseased. It looked ugly. It looked terrible. Horrible! We do not know how bad his case was, but any kind of leprosy would have been awful.

He went and when he dipped himself 'seven' times - not the first time, not the third time, and not the fifth time - but the seventh time, after he performed the word of the Lord spoken by Elisha, his skin came again as "the flesh of a little child." It became clean. Pure, in a sense, like a baby, like a little boy, and the ugly disease of leprosy was removed from him.

Now we know that in the Bible leprosy is used by God to typify sin, the awful ugliness of our sin. So, too, is the river Jordan, and the dipping in it is a picture of the cleansing of our sin, and it is the washing away of sin, in this case. And we realize that only the Lord Jesus Christ, through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, when He takes upon Himself the sins of one of the Elect that He has chosen to redeem them, that that individual's sins are cleansed and all those sins are laid upon Christ, which He did in paying for them before the foundation of the world, and that person now has no sinful stain upon him any longer. Of course, the application of redemption has to be made at some point in the individual's life, but the picture is a complete and utter "purification" of the sinner!

So, now again, we see the number 'seven' in an historical setting in which "purification" is in view, just as we saw in Psalm 12. Let us also turn to Leviticus 16, and in this chapter God is laying down some laws concerning the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was that one day in the year in which the High Priest of Israel (in the case we will read, it will be Aaron), was to enter inside the veil, into the Holy of Holies, and offer up the sacrifice for the sake of the Israelites. That was a great figure and type of the Lord Jesus Christ who offered up Himself for the sins of His people Israel, the spiritual Israel of God. Let us read in Leviticus 16, beginning in verse 10-14:

But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before JEHOVAH, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself: And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before JEHOVAH, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before JEHOVAH, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not: And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.

Once again, we find this reference to the number 'seven.' Aaron was to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificial animal 'seven' times upon the mercy seat. Now what was the mercy seat covering? The ark of the covenant! And what was within the ark? The ten commandments, the law of God, and it was that law, the ten commandments as it represented the entire law of God, all Scripture, all of God's commandments throughout the Bible, that law was pronouncing a condemnation upon all unsaved mankind, or upon all people. But when the High Priest entered into the "Holy of Holies" within the veil, and sprinkled the blood of the sacrificial animal on the Day of Atonement, he was picturing what the Lord Jesus Christ did once, before the foundation of the world, according to Hebrews 9, when He offered up Himself for the sins of His Elect people. And that offering of Himself "purified," once for all, all of those whose names were recorded in God's Book of Life.

So, again, this use of the number 'seven' is pointing to "purification," the "perfecting" of these sinners by cleansing away their sin - that is the spiritual picture that God is using. So we see it with Naaman the Syrian: 'seven' times he was to dip himself in Jordan. We see it with the word of God in Psalm 12: that God's word is pure "as silver is purified seven times in a furnace. We see it with the High Priest Aaron entering into the "Holy of holies" and sprinkling the blood 'seven' times. Seven, seven seven! It points to "perfection," but I think we should keep in mind "purification," the purifying that comes when God applies His salvation.

Now before we close our study today, let us think of another number 'seven,' and that is the statement of God to Noah in the book of Genesis, where it says in verse 4 of Genesis 7:

For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

"Seven days," the Lord is saying to Noah, "you have seven days to get into the ark and find safety." That, of course, pictures salvation in Christ. Any who did not get into the ark by that seventh day, or prior to it, would be left out when God shut the door to the ark, and they would perish in the worldwide deluge. They would drown in the flood.

We also know that God speaks of the flood in 2 Peter, chapter 3, and He links the flood and Judgment Day to a verse where He identifies "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." And we have understood this relationship, as God has shown it to us, and we have realized that from the flood, which historically occurred in 4,990 B.C., until the year 2,011 A.D. was exactly 7,000 years of history.

Now what could this 7,000 years point to, as we are now understanding what the Bible means by the use of the number 'seven?' And we have previously looked at the use of the number 'ten' or 'thousand' indicating "completeness," and if we put that together, what do we find?

Well, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will discuss this a little further, before continuing on in our study of the book of Revelation.