Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. This will be study #19 of Revelation, chapter 1, and we are currently reading verse 6 of Revelation, chapter 1, and it says:

And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

In our last study, we were looking at the opening phrase of this verse, "and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father," and we saw how God is referring to spiritual truth, that His people have become a 'royal priesthood.' We are kings because the Lord Jesus Christ is King of kings, and we are of the family of Christ; and we are 'priests' because the Lord Jesus is the great High Priest for His people. He is an eternal Priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Actually, Melchizedek is a reference to Jesus Himself, and so we, likewise, are given a priesthood where we are to "offer up spiritual sacrifices." It could involve various things, but, primarily, it would involve the "sacrifice of ourselves." And, as God moves in us, by His Spirit, to take up our cross and to offer up ourselves, we would find ourselves doing the will of God in whatever area that He wanted us to do it.

During the day of salvation, we would be getting involved in ministering the Gospel, so that people might hear, and the lost Sheep of God's elect might hear the Gospel and become saved. But in these days after the tribulation - after the day of work, in ministering the Gospel and evangelizing the world, has come to an end - we are given another task.

Let us just talk about that for a second before we move on. In Luke 17, Christ gives a little parable that has application to these days since the great tribulation ended. In verses 7 through 10 (I am just going to read a couple of verses here), beginning in verse 7:

But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?

Now, here, God is talking about one of His servants (that is what in view) who had a task to perform of "plowing or feeding cattle," and he was busy doing it out in the field. But now he has come out of the field, just as in the parable of the vineyard where men are hired to go to work for the day, and we find that they work for a twelve hour day. And that is what Jesus said in the Gospel of John, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" Twelve hours in which we must work, and then in John 9, we read that "the night comes when no man can work." There is a spiritual work day in which God evangelized the world, and had His people heavily involved in getting the Gospel out, so that all could hear. And that is now finished; that work has been accomplished and, so, the day has ended.

And, likewise, with this servant, he was actively involved in plowing and feeding cattle, but now he has come from the field, that is, the sun has set; the work day is over, and it is time to go, and it says in verse 7:

But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?

Now the servant may be looking for a meal, and for comfort and relaxation, because the work day is over. Well, God is saying, "No, not yet. Not yet." The servant has another job to do. In verse 8:

And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?

We can relate this to what Jesus said in John 21, after the great catch of fish was brought in, and that great catch of fish (153) points to the great multitude that were brought in by the Gospel net, a net that did not break, because it was outside of the churches and congregations that God saved these people, and the great multitude was brought to Christ. But the fishermen had another job, as Jesus spoke to Peter and He told him, "Feed my sheep." Three times after the fish were brought in, "Now feed my sheep."

And that relates to this passage after the servant comes in from the field: "No, you cannot sit back yet. It is not quite time. There is one more thing to do, and that is to give me food and give me drink."

Remember in Matthew 25, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus pointed out that when someone had done this to one of His people, they had done it unto Him, that is, to feed them, or give them drink, or clothe them. And that is what this is saying here: as we share the truth of God's word at this time, we are continuing to do the will of God, and continuing to serve Him, whatever the Lord wants; He is God. He is far wiser than us. We do not know everything. We just submit to the will of the Father.

Okay, let us continue here in verse 6, "and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father." We mentioned last time how this is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father. Christ, the Son, is God, and in that sense: "God and his Father." There is no problem whatsoever. It is a very straight-forward statement.

Well, now to the last part of verse 6:

...to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

"To him be glory and dominion." We find the word 'dominion' translated as 'power' in a few places, including Colossians, in chapter 1, verse 11:

Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

So, there, (it is) referring to Eternal God - His glorious power, glorious dominion. And, also, in the book of Revelation, in chapter 5, verse 13, it says:

And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

That is very similar language to our verse in chapter 1, verse 6. It is just a statement of praise, of recognition, also, that God is glorious, and He is almighty, all powerful. He rules over the vast Kingdom of the Kingdom of Heaven. That is His dominion. His dominion is over all things and, so, He must be extremely powerful to be such a great King and great Ruler that rules over such a tremendous Kingdom.

Well, now, let us just look at this wording 'for ever and ever.' Of course, this is very common in the Bible. This language I, actually, would not say is unique to the Bible, but, of course, it is the Bible that spends such a good deal of time focusing our attention on eternity.

The world does not do that all that often. It may make mention of eternity now and then, but the world's focus is on today, now, the things of this world, the things you can see, the things that are all around you, how you feel, and what is going on in your life right now. It is a very temporal focus that the world has. It is everything that is within eye sight, or in their view, whether that day or, perhaps, they are thinking a couple of days in advance, although some in the world do make plans for years in advance - for retirement and things like that. That is about the limitation of the person that dwells in this earth. They do not want to think about eternity future, because that would be thinking about their death, and they are very uncomfortable thinking about death, and about what comes after death.

But that is the nature of the Bible, and the people of God are not uncomfortable with death, or the things that come after death. Actually, the Bible says that "to die is gain," and that is the viewpoint and the perspective of the child of God. It is a blessing to enter into the presence of God, and that is what happens when we die, when we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord, and we begin that perfect existence.

Of course, it is not complete until we have our new resurrected bodies, but it is a far better state and condition to be in than living in this life. Let me just say, also, that we have to be careful that we do not allow those kinds of thoughts, (just) because we have such a beautiful and glorious future in front of us, where the Bible has nothing bad to say about it at all - it is all good, it is all wonderful, it is all blessing, rich abundant blessing of God for ever and ever.

And when we look at our present troubles and difficulties, and they can be many, and they can come in all different ways, like physical ailments as we age, and so on, and financial things, and problems in our family, problems with our neighbors, and problems here and problems there. It is a world full of trouble.

And even though, of course, we can have pleasant times and good times, they are always tempered by the things that happen every now and then, and we may have a loved one die, and so on, and there is always sorrow, always pain, mixed with the things of this life, and our rejoicing times are normally at a minimum, as we live in this world.

Well, the child of God can know these things and realize it is very tough here; it is very hard, and it is going to be so wonderful there, and, so, that is fine; that is healthy, and exactly what God would have us to do, to keep our thoughts on things above and look forward, with that great expectation, that we will one day enter into the joy of the LORD and have everlasting life in its fullness.

Yet, we have to be careful that we do not start thinking, "Well, I just want to die. I just want this life to be over." We cannot despise this life. We are here for a very definite reason and a distinct purpose. It is not an accident. It is not a coincidence. We are here because God wants us to be here, and, so, this is exactly where we should be, and we should never think of leaving this life, or, of ourselves, taking any kind of an action to leave this life.

The moment we start to maybe play around with that kind of thought in our mind - even for the littlest bit - we have stepped over the line, and turned something good and wholesome, that is, that expectation of things to come, into something sinful and ugly. We have taken to ourselves something that does not belong to us.

It is up to God. He is the Creator. He is the one who determines when we are born into this world. He is the one that determines the course of our lives in this world, and He is the one who determines when our lives come to an end. We have no right - it is not our business - to think about terminating our lives, in order to avoid suffering.

That is not the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not go to the cross and die, in order to avoid suffering. He went to suffer for His people, to sacrifice Himself, and to be afflicted, and to experience great trouble, for the sake of the elect. That is to be our desire, as He is our example.

We are to endure hardships, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and we are to thank the LORD when we are afflicted, because it is very possible He has brought that affliction our way in order that we might take heed to His word. We are not to go beyond what God allows, and God will take us, if it is His will, in His timing. We do not have to hurry it along at all; no matter how long we are here, so be it. That is the will of God.

So, for all of us, as we know, things are hard. Things are difficult and trying for every child of God. We are being severely tested, but may we all "gird up the loins of our mind," and, that is, "quit ourselves like men," and live like children of God; and if we are severely afflicted and severely tried, then let us not run to the escapism of wishing that our lives were over, but let us run to God and cast these things upon Him, and crying out to Him for His strength, that His perfect will would be done.

And it is according to His perfect will that you and I are living right now, in the condition, in the place, in the position, exactly where God wants us to be: in the home where God would have us, in the job, in the social status, in the country, in the city, in the town, and so on, exactly where God would have us to be.

So we must accept and humble ourselves under the mighty hand, or will, of God, and submit ourselves to Him, and wait on the LORD, in a good way, waiting on Him to complete what He has begun in us, and waiting on Him to complete His judgment process upon the unsaved people of the world. And, so, we have a need of patience, until He brings these things to pass.

The Bible tells us that it is the trying of our faith that develops patience, and, so, we have had our faith tried for a period of time and, hopefully, we have had patience working in us, developing and maturing. And, of course, ultimately, patience is the Lord Jesus Christ, because the Bible says, "In your patience, possess ye your souls," and that can only refer to Christ. In Christ possess we our souls and, as a result, we are all being tried and tested to see if we have patience, that is, Christ within us. And the test will prove and demonstrate whether we do have the patience, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, if we have His spirit. Or, if we lack patience, we will fail the test and, finally, at some point, we will be burned up in this intense spiritual flame that God has kindled in the Earth at this time.

Well, the words here, 'for ever and ever," I would just like to mention them before we conclude our study today. The word 'ever and ever' is a translation of the Greek word 'aion'(G165) (and, again, this is my attempt to pronounce it); it is plural, in this verse, and this word is translated a few different ways.

Of course, as we search the Bible, we allow God to define His own terms, and as we find a Greek word translated in a few different ways in our English language, this gives us various possibilities for the correct translation. So we would try to plug them into the verse and see how it fits, and it could turn out that this is the proper translation for this verse.

But this word is translated as 'world' in a few verses in Matthew 13, and it is not just here, but this is just an example of one way, or a different way, a word like 'aion' is translated. In Matthew 13, verse 22:

He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.

That is the same Greek word 'aion,' translated as 'world.' Likewise, in verse 39:

The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world;

Verse 40:

As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.

And verse 49:

So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,

So, 'aion,' four times in this one chapter, is translated as 'world.' It is also translated as 'world' in Matthew 24, in verse 3, and this phrase 'for ever and ever' will come up a few times in the Book of Revelation, so I will have more opportunity to go over this, and it is fairly complicated, so I do not think we will have a full understanding of it at this time. But the more we read and consider things like this, and become familar with it, the more comfortable we become with what God is doing, and that helps us understand things better in the long run. It says in Matthew 24, verse 3:

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

'Aion,' again. Now, just think, there is another Greek word that certainly God could have used, 'cosmos,' and that is a typical Greek word to describe the end of this world, and if God was were saying the word 'world' He could have used that, but He decided in these places to use this particular word, and that is what is very interesting about it, and I do not think, again, at this point, we are going to know exactly why.

But let us turn to Ephesians 2, and we will find the Greek word 'aion' translated two different ways. One is in verse 2, where it says:

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world...

And the word 'course' is 'aion.'

"...according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

And we wonder, "Well, that is an usual use of that word." And a little further down, in verse 7:

That in the ages to come...

That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

This is speaking of eternity future, and eternity future is referred to as 'ages to come.' Now, we see these various uses or translations of the Greek word 'aion,' 'world,' 'course,' 'ages,' and when we come back to our verse in Revelation 1, verse 6, "...to him *be* glory and dominion for ever and ever," well, we could read that 'for ages and ages,' and that would carry the same sense.

But, what is interesting is, God is referring to that which is to come, we saw in Ephesians 2:7 and also here, it is looking to the future, 'ages and ages,' but there also is an 'age' of this world, the references in Matthew 13 and Matthew 24, verse 3, "what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age?" So God refers to this present world as an 'age,' and we are familiar with that term, because we speak of the 'church age' coming to an end, while God speaks of the 'age' of the world, of the generation of man, a generation of evil, that lives in this world, coming to a close.

Well, we will think about it a little bit more when we get together in our next Bible study.