Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. This is study #47 of Revelation, chapter 1, and we going to begin by reading from Revelation 1:19:

Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;

The Lord is giving the Apostle John instructions: here is what you are to do: "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter." This is actually further instruction, because God had already told John (back in verse 11), "Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches." So God had already given John the command to write down these things, and to record them in a Book, and that book, of course, would be the Bible.

Now God is, once again, confirming this and re-emphasizing this important thing, that John is to write the things "which thou hast seen," "which are" and "which shall be hereafter." Now this lets us know that the Book of Revelation will discuss past events, present events, and future events. We do find, as we go through this Book, that the Lord speaks of the church age, and He speaks of the end of the church age, and of the great tribulation, and of the end of the world, of things that occurred over the space of about 2,000 years, and the Apostle John was given all of this information.

In telling John to write these things down and to record them in a Book, the Bible, the Lord is demonstrating a great truth. We find help in understanding what God is saying to John when we turn to the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, in Isaiah 41:21-23:

Produce your cause, saith JEHOVAH, bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.

This chapter in the Book of Isaiah is discussing idols, and the making of them. So, when the Lord says, "Produce your cause...and let them bring them forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods," He is saying that if these idols were actually gods, or God, they would know the former things and things to come. And, of course, they are not (gods) because they are just idols of wood, decked with gold and silver, or idols of stone, and they have no life: they do not know anything.

And that is God's point, that an idol is not God because it lacks not only present knowledge, but past knowledge and future knowledge. The important truth, God is saying, is that if those idols were God, they would know things that have occurred, and they would know things that will occur in the future. That means when God is saying to John, "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter," He is really declaring that He is God, that He knows all things, and He possesses all knowledge, and He will give John these visions and revelations---the communication from God Himself---to mankind, and they will be a testimony of the fact that God is God, because God does know the future, and He does know the end.

You know, true believers realize that. We recognize God as God. We understand that it is nothing for God, who knows the end from the beginning, and who knows all things, for Him to have given divine revelation to prophets of old---to Ezekiel, or Daniel, or Jeremiah, or David, or to any of the men that He used to record the Bible, including the Apostle John, Peter or Paul. It is nothing for God to have given information 3,400 years ago to Moses, or 2,000 years ago to John, and to have given within that divine revelation information about the end of the world.

For example, God knew from the beginning of the church age that there would be an end of the church age, but He just simply hid, as a mystery in His word, information concerning the end of the church age---that judgment would begin at the house of God. God hid the Biblical calendar of history in the genealogies in the Book of Genesis. God hid information about the day of judgment in

2Peter 3, where He said, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." He also hid the declaration to Noah, "Yet seven days, and I will bring the flood." God knew what He had in mind in hiding these things, sealing them up until the time of the end, as He said to Daniel. Let us take a look at that statement to Daniel, and see what God is really saying here, when He says to Daniel in Daniel 12:4:

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

What is God saying with this language? What is He saying when He says, "Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end," and then "knowledge shall be increased?" Well, He is telling us very directly, actually, that it is His plan to give information to Daniel (and the Lord did give Daniel visions concerning the end of the world) and to other prophets, and this information

would be exact, and true, and faithful. It would reveal information about the nature of the end, and the outworking of God's plan for judgment day, and so on. And God hid them, He sealed them, and He shut them up, so that no one could know them until the time of the end.

There is no other conclusion we could come to, if we are honest and rightly reading these things---than that it has been God's plan all along to hide truths in the Bible. Of course, it is in "plain sight," but it is just in parabolic and hidden language that man, in his own ability, has no way of uncovering and learning. It takes the Spirit of God to enlighten us and open up our minds in order to understand these things, so God just held that back and did not do that until we got to that point.

And that is exactly what God did at the time of the great tribulation. Then He opened these words that had been sealed up all over the Bible, and God now is showing that He is God; that, yes, indeed, He does know "the day and the hour." And the Lord Jesus Christ is God, and He knows "the day and the hour" concerning time and judgment. God knows everything about time and judgment, and it is nothing for Him to reveal these things to His people so that they can learn and understand the end of the church age, and the correct dates for that, and the time period of the great tribulation (the twenty three full and complete years), and the beginning day of judgment; and then it is God's plan to reveal "the righteous judgment of God," and to bring further revelation once we have entered into the day of judgment.

And we have every right to expect that God will reveal the duration of judgment day, and we feel it is a good possibility that it will last for 1,600 days, bringing the total time of judgment to 10,000 days. Or, to say it another way, the spiritual meaning of that is that the complete judgment of God consists of the judgment on the churches and the judgment on the world; the cup (of God's wrath) has been given to both the city called by God's name, and to the inhabitants of the earth. This is what we believers believe, and we do not think it is too hard for God to have done this.

You know, do those in the churches think this is too difficult for God? Is that why they believe that we cannot know these things, that God cannot reveal these things to us? Do individuals that think you cannot understand these things feel that God has some kind of limitation, or that God cannot see the future, that He does not know precisely the dates on which He will bring certain things to pass, like the end of the church age and judgment day on the world?

Of course, maybe they would not say that, but they are just not thinking it through, and they are not allowing the Bible to define this particular doctrine---this eschatology of the Scriptures themselves---where God indicates that His people will know. The wise will understand, but it is the wicked, the unsaved, that will not know. "None of the wicked will understand," God says.

So to say that we need to "plead ignorance," and just keep out of the whole discussion, saying, "Oh, we are not going to look into anything that deals with time and judgment. We are not going to delve into that area. Oh, no!" Well, you are saying you want to be ignorant, and it is the wicked, God says, that do not understand; ignorance is simply a lack of understanding; they do not want to understand, and they cannot understand in their natural minds, because these things (considering that God has hidden them), must be discerned spiritually, and we must allow the Spirit of God to guide us into truth.

The Lord is saying to John in Revelation 1:19, when He tells him "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter," and He is really declaring, "Look, I am God. I know the past, because I was always alive." Remember, God has told us several times back in Revelation 1:4, "which is, which was, and which is to come," so He is a God of the past, a God of the present, and a God of the future. He knows all things that have ever taken place or transpired. He knows all things that are presently happening, and He knows everything that will come to pass. God has a complete knowledge of everything.

This is what makes the Bible, the word of God, so glorious and wonderful, that God knows all, and He has an infinite and eternal perspective. He does not have the perspective of a man, like you or me, where we know some things about the past, and some things about the present, and we know very little about the future. That is not how God wrote the Bible. He wrote the Bible from the perspective of "One that inhabits eternity," from One that is from everlasting, and extends to everlasting future, and who is, the great I AM.

This is the infinite, brilliant mind of God who moved prophets of old to record words in languages of the earth---Hebrew, Greek and some Arabic---that men could understand, and, yet, within these words, God has hidden enormous and wonderful truths that are beyond us; they are deep, and we cannot plumb their depths.

If it were left to man---in our finite minds and limited capabilities---we would only understand the basics of the Bible. We would understand its grammar, its history and some of its moral teachings, but we would not understand the deeper, spiritual things of God. That takes the Lord's doing, the Spirit's guidance, and that is what God does for His people. Unfortunately, He has left the churches, so that they do not understand these things, but the people of God know them, by God's grace.

Let us continue into Revelation 1:20:

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.

Now, once again, let us look at this word *mystery* that verse 20 begins with: "The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks." Why does the Lord say it is a *mystery*? He is helping us to understand how the Book of Revelation was written. Let us turn to Matthew 13:9-11:

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

Christ spoke in parables in order to hide truth. I know some people do not like to hear that. They think the Bible is a simple Book, and Christ is just helping people to understand, but the fact is what the Bible teaches is that Christ spoke in parables in order that the natural mind of unsaved man would not understand the word of God, "lest," it says in another place, "they understand and be converted." And that cannot be if they are not elected to salvation, so it is God's plan to give a revelation (His communication to mankind), and as people read that revelation, individuals that are not chosen or predestinated to salvation before this world began would not understand it. That is the plan of God. Due to their lack of understanding, many simply give up on it; they do not like to read it; they sense, somehow, that the Bible is judging them, but they cannot grab hold of things. It makes them uncomfortable, so must of the unsaved people of the world go away from the Light of the word of God.

Others may try to approach the Bible as they would any other book. After all, they are intelligent men and women, so they have learned science, law, medicine, and philosophy and all these other subjects (they know how to learn things: you just apply yourself and study, and you just carefully read what is being said, and you take notes; then when you are given a quiz, you can pass, and you can become qualified to be experts in those fields). The natural mind of man, the man in his unregenerate state, can learn many things about the Bible: we can learn its history, its grammar, its laws, and we can learn about the people in their time in certain periods of history, and so on. Yet God withholds the most important things---the Gospel truth, the Spiritual truth---that lie within, and parables are an example of that. Christ would speak a parable and in that parable, He would speak spiritual truths. Men would hear the parables, like the Pharisees, and they would perceive He was speaking of them, for instance, but they would not be able to grab hold of it.

This is said to be the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." The whole Bible has hidden truths, whether it is identified as an actual parable such as Christ spoke, or whether it is a statement like in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish..." That is hidden truth because people read that and they think, "Oh, I know what it means: just believe and you will not perish." And, yet, that is not correct. It is only when we search the Bible that we understand that no man, of himself, can believe unto salvation and, therefore, that statement (although many think it is simple) is a very complex statement of God that has hidden truth, and it can only be understood when compared to the rest of the Bible. That is the nature of the Bible. It is a *mystery*.

In detective stories, they are always trying to discover who committed the crime. Who did it? What are the clues? Well, that is similar to the Bible in the sense that the Bible gives us the historical account, and we have the words, and now it is up to the reader---to the child of God---to search the Bible itself in order to solve the *mystery*. This is one of the great joys that God has given to His people.

You know, it says in Proverbs 25:2:

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing...

Now the English word *thing* is a translation of the Hebrew word *dabar* which is often translated as *word*. "It is the glory of God to conceal a word: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter." The English word *matter* is also a translation of the Hebrew word *dabar*, which is better translated as *word*.

So it is "the honor of kings to search out a word" that God has hidden, and even in this statement, we would have to search to see who the *kings* are. Is it the king of England, the king of France, or the king of Israel? And the answer would be, no; when we search the Bible, we discover that *kings* are a reference to true believers. The Lord has made His people "prophets, priests and kings," spiritually. So God hides a word. It is His glory to do so, and the "honor of kings is to search out a word." That is our task. We are basically spiritual detectives, to put it one way. God has given each one of us the job of studying "in order to show ourselves approved, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." We are to look at a passage, a verse, or a word, and we are to check it out, and to make sure that this is what God is saying, or to discover what God is saying.

So we search the Bible, and the Lord gives us the proper methodology to solve the *mystery*. Here is how you go about it: "Compare spiritual things with spiritual," He says in 1Corinthians 2, and the Holy Ghost teacheth, or as God says it in another way in Isaiah (and here He is laying down that formula or methodology), and He says in Isaiah 28:9:

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine?

In other words, how are we to understand the *mystery* of the Bible? How are we to learn anything when Christ spoke in parables, and He is the word Himself, and in doing so, He is teaching us the whole Bible is full of hidden truths---the whole Bible is nothing but a *mystery*.

"Whom shall he teach knowledge?" It goes on to say in Isaiah 28:9:

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

In other words, it is a very careful, studious process, and a very deliberate process, that God has set up in order to understand right doctrine, or the right teaching of the word of God. It takes diligence. It takes effort. It takes God to open our understanding, even after we do these things, and so the child of God is often praying, "Oh, Lord, help me to understand. Guide me into truth."

So the Lord, in saying to John, in Revelation 1:20, "The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks," He is letting us know that the Book of Revelation is no different than the rest of the Bible; the Book of Revelation is full of hidden truth. The Book of Revelation is a parable, and you will need to "dig in," and you will need to solve the mysterious statements and mysterious language that normally confounds the natural mind of man.