May 6, 2025 • 45 mins
- Steven’s article “In the End God Uncreated the World” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/646fb2e88345424bf4ed337b/t/64701b1ba4720b33e4857f81/1685068573539/Quadrum3.pdf
- NT Wright’s Revelation For Everyone
- Michael Gorman’s Reading Revelation Responsibly
- Richard Bauckham’s The Theology of the Book of Revelation
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Do you know what's wild to me?
(00:01):
What?
In five years, the 1980s will have been 50 years ago.
I know that's pretty foul honestly.
That's crazy.
So foul.
When I grew up 50 years ago, was the 40s.
Yeah, the 80s is crazy.
It's gonna be 50 years ago.
It's diabolical.
(00:21):
Welcome to TikTok Theology, a podcast that tackles the major trending topics on social
media that concern the Christian faith.
I'm Meagan.
I'm Steven.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less, but those videos can identify
current issues.
TikTok will give us the prompt and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
(00:43):
Hello friends.
Welcome back to our last episode of the season.
Last one.
And even as we were talking about this, this may be a two-parter depending on how much
we want to yelp about this topic because let's be so honest here.
There's a lot.
The signs of the end times is not a conversation that can be had in less than an hour.
Honestly, probably we're going to try.
(01:05):
We gonna try though.
I promise.
We'll give it a valiant effort.
We will give it a valiant effort.
Trust and believe.
So, but that's going to be like what we're unpacking today is the concept of reading
the signs of the end times.
And I mean, this has been a conversation honestly since Jesus ascended.
Jesus rose and everyone was like, we're in the end times.
Like it's time to move because he's coming back and that was with the disciples of the
(01:29):
apostles were like, oh my goodness.
And now here we are 2000 years later, still here, which is cool for us.
It's called the delayed eschaton by the way, for all you academic friends, theo-nerds, in
fact.
So, I mean, honestly, when it comes to Christian social media, I think you'd be hard pressed
to not find someone trying in some way, shape or form to give their perspective on the end
(01:54):
times.
I've seen so many people, if they call themselves any form of like a Christian influencer or
something like that, they have tried at one point to add to this topic of the end times,
especially I remember during political, I mean during almost political seasons, honestly,
but especially during like the 2020 election, there were people coming out of the woodwork
with these prophecies about presidencies and who would be the president and what would
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happen and who's the antichrist.
Who's the yeah.
So there's been so much all the time always, especially recently on social media, when
you can start to hear people calling themselves a prophet and then seeing the false prophecies
like in front of your eyes.
So it's a little different now than it was like, I'm sure there've been false prophecies
for like forever, right?
(02:38):
But now we're seeing them at very large, massive scales and it can be really dangerous to spread
that, especially when you have any kind of following and that's how we can create really
conspiratorial Christians and people who are really trying to read into scripture, into
apocalyptic literature that we see in Revelation or in Matthew or in Ezekiel, whatever.
(03:00):
And we're trying to read into it what we're experiencing now, which also makes you think,
is that itself a sign of the end times?
The fact that there's widespread deception misinformation, because Matthew seems to talk
about that, the book of Matthew.
So yeah, it's pertinent, but I mean, it literally five years ago now was COVID.
And then so many ways that had people immediately like the disease is spreading like the sign
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of the time is like, this is it.
I did a whole series of paintings about the apocalypse just because I was like, yo, this
is a popular.
This has been a really big conversation, especially for the last five years when we were like,
what is happening to the state of the world five years ago when we were shutting down
and things were locking up and we were like, what is going on?
Like this is more than like this is something that people hadn't seen in their lifetime
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yet of like this kind of like widespread worldwide lockdown.
And even like when we talk about the end times and stuff, we do have to take into consideration
what has been the theme of this season, which is impact globally.
It's very easy, especially for us in the American church to kind of base and times signs of
the time stuff based on what happens for us in the United States.
(04:08):
And I've heard a lot of people talk about that and say, well, America and trying to
insert actually America into revolution or finding places where we fit as if we are the
globe center of the globe and everything revolves around us.
And so I think that this is why it's really important to have these conversations of how
accurately and intentionally read the signs of the end times in a way that I think honors
(04:30):
the way it was written honors what the Lord was saying through John or through Matthew
that actually helps Christians out and doesn't just pay attention to the whole church.
And doesn't actually create a more isolated issue.
Yeah.
But just to piggyback on that point, when it's global, our issues we highlight and we
(04:51):
can only see it in tunnel vision.
Like, oh, what's happening for us is like definitely this DN because blah, blah, blah.
But like other cultures are having these detrimental things happening to them all throughout history.
Like there's been different times and Oh, absolutely.
You know what I mean?
It's going to be difficult to distinguish which is the one.
Yeah.
Or we're struggling, but other countries are thriving and are like doing really well or
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like the Christian communities are exploding and people are coming to the Lord in droves.
But because we're having a tough political season, we've decided that that means the
end is near.
Right.
Because we're not acknowledging what's happening in other countries around the world.
When things are good economically for us, we're just like, oh, yeah, it's all good.
You know, Jesus will come back at some point, blah, blah, blah.
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And then we don't pay attention to the, you know, Christians that are being persecuted
and maybe like underground churches in China, for example, where they're expecting Jesus
to return right away because they're suffering.
They're being persecuted and vice versa.
So I mean, that's crazy.
But you also brought up COVID.
Like man, like if we look back at 2020, five years ago, so it's about a five year anniversary,
(05:57):
which is so yeah.
The world shut down, we fought over toilet paper.
Remember that?
Yeah, I do.
We all had.
Could not be found.
I was like, oh, okay.
We had to wear masks to try to figure out this epidemic all over the place.
And we didn't know the extent of things.
People were dying, certain things.
We just didn't know what was happening.
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It definitely seemed apocalyptic.
Yeah.
Do you remember there was a lot of fires in California too at the same time in Australia
that year too.
Yeah.
But like, I remember one time.
There was so much going on.
Do you recall straight up going outside and the sky being straight up orange?
Yeah, I do.
Man, it looked like Blade Runner.
Oh, it looked real creepy a couple of times.
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It looked like Dune or something.
And I was like, man, you know, you can be like, oh yeah, I'm biblically mature and
I'm not going to read it too much into stuff and blah, blah, blah.
And then you walk out and you're like, oh my gosh, Jesus is returning right now.
I can't believe he's on the way.
Oh, everyone called their parents because we're going home.
Like that junk is orange is not supposed to be orange.
(06:59):
No quite literally.
That was man.
That was crazy.
There was a lot going on that year.
There was Race, Rhyans, Black Lives Matter.
There was, you know, with George Floyd.
That was a really tough year.
It was a tough year.
It was a bad year.
And we had a crazy political season.
Oh yeah.
In the US we did.
It was crazy.
In 2020, we just had another one.
So that's like kind of harkening back there.
(07:20):
And people actually even like prolonged their prophecies.
Remember some people were like, actually, yeah, they're prophesying 2020 that like,
Oh, well, Trump will be president at the end of this.
And then when it didn't happen, they were like, actually the election will be overturned
in March or something.
Yeah, they said that.
But then now they're like coming back, same people coming back and being like, oh, we'll
see that prophecy was true.
It was just meant for 2024.
(07:41):
So now he has house and he has the, this blah, blah, blah.
And it's just like, man, you guys are just, you know, guys, if we were in biblical times
and we were tossing false prophets out like that, you know what would happen?
They'd be stoned.
Some Pharisees would come up and say, you have abolished the law and the prophets.
You know what I mean?
Like they're just, they're reading things so crazy.
(08:02):
I think we've lost our respect for prophecy a little bit.
Yeah, because of that.
We use it as a way to advance what we want.
Yeah.
And or political stuff, agendas, you know.
So harkening back to what is real biblical prophecy and episode we did last season.
Go listen to that.
Yeah, go check that out.
That helps.
It might find it helpful or two seasons ago rather.
But I mean, there's other things that have been done that are egregious.
(08:24):
For example, people can look into the book of Revelation and see the locus and be like,
Oh, well, see, he's clearly reading that that's a helicopter.
Like that's what he's seeing.
John is having a vision of the future and he doesn't know how to describe a helicopter.
And so he describes it as the locus with all this kind of stuff and blah, blah, blah.
So I've heard that so many times and I just got to say, like that is for sure 100% wrong.
(08:47):
And so why do I, why can I say that so forcefully, right?
Because literally nothing in the Bible ever, they would not have jumped 2000 years in advanced
technology and he would have seen a helicopter.
There's nothing like that in the Bible.
They're acting like there weren't even machines in the same way.
Right.
But they're acting like he like was looking through a crystal ball and just saw the future
like on a screen or something like that and just describe what it was.
(09:09):
Like the, the imagery in the book of Revelation is so densely biblical.
And it actually like talks about so many other aspects of the Old Testament that are bringing
back and talking about certain things.
And apocalyptic literature being within the context of which it was written.
So instead of us trying to put our 2024 viewpoint on what John was seeing in Revelation, like
(09:29):
it does us better to go back and to look at what was happening at that time to see what
he would have been shown.
Yeah.
So I want to, I want to do that.
And so that's why I'm not sure we'll start and I'm not sure if this is going to go a
little long, we'll split it up into two because I think it's such an important conversation.
But I do this for a class I teach at LPU.
(09:50):
We go through the entire book of Revelation and outline and just like, like, what does
the, what does it actually even say?
Right.
Because so many Christians don't even like there's, there's like,
I mean, read it because it's a little scary because it's a little scary.
It's hard to understand to be fair.
There's a lot of biblical illiteracy, but even those ones that are biblically literate,
it's hard to even approach.
It's a lot when you start getting into all of the Leviathans and the things that are
(10:10):
coming out of the deep, the things that are burning and the things that have got a couple
heads on them.
He's like, he's got multiple wings.
You're like, oh, never mind.
Yeah.
I'm going to go ahead and put that away.
And then I think sometimes I would have liked to be John to see all that.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, that would have taken me out.
I'd been like, Lord, well, you could take me home.
I've seen enough.
Well, I think we should talk about them because the images definitely mean things.
(10:34):
Oh, for sure.
And they're not as crazy as people think.
No.
I want to go through it and talk through that with our audience, with our TikTok theologians.
And hopefully it will be seen as helpful.
But before we do that, I think we should talk about what are some of the signs that people
would look for?
What are the things that they actually look for?
What's like some groundwork here?
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What's like some groundwork?
We're going to start jumping in.
So first you got to ask, what is apocalyptic literature?
Because the book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature.
Now, like apocalypses are brand new to the Bible.
The Bible invented them, essentially.
The first apocalypses were Jewish apocalyptics.
You could say it's like in Daniel and then also in the Apocrypha.
Yeah.
It's Jewish apocalyptics.
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So Revelation is kind of like this big, huge, full-blown Christian apocalypses.
But there's little, many Christian apocalypses written in other places too.
Yeah.
Revelation is not the only place that has apocalyptic literature.
Right.
But it's the full-blown Christian apocalypses that we use in the Bible.
It's really, I actually love the book.
I think it's one of the absolute favorite books to teach out of.
(11:36):
I think it's so powerful in so many ways.
But I do think it's difficult to understand, so you need some guidance for it.
Yeah, for sure.
So, one thing about the genre of apocalypses, it is a genre of divine revelation usually
given through some sort of heavenly intermediary, like an angel or something.
Like the angel of God comes to you and tells you stuff, this is from Jesus, like that kind
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of a deal.
And God promises to intervene in human history.
Why?
The reason why apocalypses were written was because some kind of persecution was going
on in the world.
And so apocalypses were written to offer hope to people who were being persecuted.
The book of Revelation was written during a time after the temple was destroyed and
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the Christians were being persecuted by Rome.
God promises to overthrow an evil empire and God also promises to establish his kingdom.
So in the Old Testament, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah and Revelation in the New Testament,
like 1st Enoch's, 4th Ezra are some apocryphal with.
So it uses this like crazy amount of imagery.
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It's usually fantastic, you know what I'm saying?
Like crazy fantastical imagery.
There's a ton of symbolism.
And so this is the big problem is like the symbolism, what I'm going to say, and I want
to reiterate over and over and over again, is that it is very richly interbiblical.
Like there's like it is referencing other parts of the Bible, like all throughout the
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whole book of Revelation and these other apocalypses.
It is not random.
Oh, this symbol means a helicopter.
This symbol means this like the computer chip that you put in your forehead.
Like that kind of stuff.
Like that junk is the monster energy drinker.
That junk is crazy.
That's what that's where it gets conspiratorial.
Like the Bible just never, ever, ever was written like that.
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It never means any of that stuff.
You can't like from Genesis to Revelation, nothing is like that in the Bible.
You can't just start all of a sudden in the last book and start reading it like that.
That's crazy.
It just doesn't work like that.
And when you, when you read, when you see the symbols and you see like, oh, that makes
a ton of sense.
Like, oh, it's this, it's this.
And then you start seeing.
So we're going to talk about that.
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Right.
And also it has a use of history.
So the when of history is very difficult to determine.
So some people are like, oh, did this all happen in the first century?
Or is this all going to happen?
The truth of the matter is, I would say what I definitely say.
And I think a lot of scholars agree it's a little bit of both.
Some of this did happen in the first century and some of it will happen later.
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And then, and when we go through the book of Revelation, we can determine that towards
the end that talks about the future things that were still going to occur.
But then it also sets up a concept of the kingdom of God being already present.
Jesus established it.
The church is supposed to keep it, keep it going and show everybody the good news of
the gospel, but it's not consummated.
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It's not fully blown.
Like it's not completed.
One of the images that they use throughout the whole Bible is this image of marriage.
And so, you know, when you're married in a ceremony, you're married, like you're legally
married, but you're not consummating the wedding until the marriage night.
Okay.
So that's obviously sexual imagery, but that's, that is what it is.
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That's when you become one flesh.
But that time between when you're married and your consummation, you're already in the
promise, you're married.
That's the same kind of imagery that's being used literally for the Bible.
Like you have the marriage supper, the lamb, you have the return for Christ, the church
is the bride waiting for the bridegroom.
That's the same imagery.
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So it's like we're married to Jesus, the church is, you can think of it that way, but the
consummation hasn't happened.
Again, we have to like not get our mind in the gutter and see like, oh, it's sexual
imagery, blah, blah, blah.
Like understand what this image is saying that there is this, this fruition to come
of the kingdom of God that happens when Christ returns the second time.
If y'all are uncomfortable with that kind of concept or that kind of thinking, you're
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uncomfortable with the Bible, y'all.
That's what the Bible says.
One of the main chapters that talks about in the Bible, that talks about the signs is
Matthew 24.
And Matthew 24, it begins when he foretells the destruction of the temple.
And so, you know, it starts like this.
Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him that
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the buildings of the temple, but he answered them, you see all these, do you not?
Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not
be thrown down.
And so he is predicting the temple being overthrown, which did get overthrown.
Then you have the signs of the end of the age.
And he says, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying,
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telling us, by the way, so if you're like at Gephsemane and Mount of Olives, like you
can see the temple.
Like if you've ever been to Israel, like it's like super small, which is crazy.
I totally recommend anybody go into Israel.
Like everything is so close to each other.
The Sea of Galilee is a lake.
It's a big lake.
A lake of Galilee.
Like it's legitimately a lake.
Like from one side, you can like see these major cities, but you can point and be like,
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oh, look, there's Tiberius.
And they're not, they're not like major state.
I mean, but like these historical sites, you know?
And so like it was, it's just crazy how close everything is.
So like Jesus literally-
Cause if you're thinking about it in the concept of like big city in the U.S.
Yeah, it's not like that.
No.
Oh my gosh.
No.
So much smaller.
And so, but like straight up, like Jesus is sweating blood in the garden in Gephsemane.
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He could literally look over and peer and see the temple, like visually see the temple.
Like it's like a football field away.
Like it's not far.
Like it's crazy.
A little sidebar.
Some side note.
Yeah.
And he says, and Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray for many will
come in my name saying, I am the Christ and they will lead many astray.
And you will hear the wars and rumors of wars.
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See that you are not alarmed for this must take place, but the end is not yet.
So like it keeps going and it talks about this abomination of desolation is verse 15.
And it also says spoken of by the prophet Daniel.
Like he's literally making those inter biblical connections.
And then, and he says the coming of the Son of Man, like there's a really, really important
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point here that says, but concerning the day and the hour, no one knows not even the angels
of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only for as were the days of Noah, so will the
coming of the Son of Man.
For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
to marriage until the day when Noah entered the Ark and they were unaware until the flood
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came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.
Two women will be gardening at the mill.
One will be taken and one left.
Therefore stay awake for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
But know this that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief
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was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.
Therefore you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
There's a few things that are talking about like throughout this whole passage.
And if I read the whole thing, it would take a little while, but there's widespread deception.
You know, people claiming to be Christ and like in just falsities.
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So we think about today like, oh, that's like our misinformation age.
Yeah.
I mean, it could, I mean, it's not like that's wrong.
Like that's definitely a thing.
Like, well, people have been counterfeiting Christ from the moment Christ was totally
like it.
This is kind of like the first century-ness of the passage.
But then also it's like, you think turn, turn back and think, but like, but yeah, now we
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have the internet and like this widespread misinformation is like global misinformation
has been spread always, but now it's just easier to do it.
Yeah.
Really easy to do with AI, the internet like stuff.
It's just like, oh my goodness, like that's crazy.
And so there is this widespread deception wars and rumors of wars.
Like we're in some wars now and like, like we see them all over the world.
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There's always a threat of World War three ever since World War one and two, you know,
like now we always have this threat of like, this is going to come.
So that's what brings anxiety to people too.
Always.
Yeah.
There's natural disasters that talks about and we had, you know, like the tsunami earthquakes,
major fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, tornadoes, all these, right?
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And so, and so anytime any that happens that always brings anxiety to people like, oh, is
this a sign?
Yeah.
There's lawlessness.
People get really worried to think of like, oh, this is the most lawless time in history
and this and that.
But I want us to just like take a moment and think like, is our era lawless?
Yes.
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But do realize that in the first century, people were regularly strung up and killed
for all people, women and children to see them die slowly, beaten and dying slowly in
the public.
And so actually look at like some Roman lore and stuff like that and their cults that they
would do, they're kind of like dying easy in cults and stuff like that.
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They would do things that were like, oh, Jesus, like spiritual things and there was sexual
deviances that were like way beyond what you even see today in certain things.
And that's in first, that's in Jesus's day.
Yes.
And I don't think people realize that that was 2000 years ago.
Like we're not progressing to be so much worse.
We've always been bad.
We've always been bad.
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Hello.
We're way worse at now.
And there's things that we're better at, but like every era on this side of the eschaton
has had that is had that they're always bad.
And so like, don't forget that.
Like we talked about this before, but like when we talk about the good old days in America
and stuff like that, it literally doesn't even make sense.
No, because they suck.
Yeah.
Like not too long ago in our grandparents' lifetime, black men and women and white men
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and women couldn't drink from the same water fountain.
Like what the heck?
Like what are the good old days here?
You know what I'm saying?
Like it all is very, very, very perspectival.
Maybe good for you, but not good for other people.
And then also like, are the good old days happening currently all over the world?
I don't think so.
There's a whole bunch of Christians being persecuted right now.
There's a refugees that see no way to have life, to have anything positive.
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There's people fleeing corrupt governments, people who are getting killed, family members
getting killed, raped and all sorts of stuff happening today, right now.
So when was this lawlessness less lawless and more lawless?
Correct.
Like this is something that, that's a very difficult one for me because I think whenever
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people try to talk about like, oh, let's go retreat back to this era or we're going
to progress and or like it's getting so bad and stuff like that.
It's like, yo, I think you need to be a student of history.
Agreed.
You know what I mean?
We're not seeing, right now we're not seeing anything like the Nazi Holocaust.
Correct.
We're not seeing anything like that.
There's tons of persecution, but that was a systematic genocide with concentration
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camps.
Some people might say there's genocides happening in our war right now.
It's not the same.
There's, those are different.
Yeah.
Not to the same extent.
Not, but it's also not the same.
There's not concentration camps going on.
Like, I mean, there's atrocities always.
So we don't want to compare people's problems and the issues that are there, but the point
that I am making is that it's always been bad.
(22:52):
Yeah.
Correct.
You know, and so that we've fallen.
So anyways, I want to make that point, but there's persecution of Christians.
This is happening today all over the world, not in the U S. We're not persecuting.
Y'all don't even act like y'all persecuted.
Oh my gosh.
And so the gospel is preached worldwide.
And I think when we start thinking about the internet age and stuff like that, this is
looking more advanced.
May have something that's there.
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And then the rebuilding temple in Jerusalem.
So this is part of the reason why Israel becoming a state again, like its own sovereign state
again was a big deal in 1949 because they saw this as a fulfillment or like the beginning
stages of this prophecy being fulfilled and this temple being rebuilt right now.
Currently, there's a mosses upon the temple.
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So like start talking about Israeli and Muslim, you know, conflict.
This is a major thing.
And then Christians are involved because we see our own prophecy as being like, well,
the temple must be restored for this to come back.
That's the kind of complexity there.
Like we even mentioned, you know, the sun, Jesus himself doesn't even know the day of
the hour.
So what about Jesus's reference that the generation would not pass away before these events even
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take place?
So that's kind of wild, right?
Because we're 2000 years later.
The generation is very much passed away.
So that given 24 36, a lot of theologians read this in relation to the full coming of
the Son of Man.
And so they see this as a fulfillment without the consummation elements in Jesus's prophecy.
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So like the generation did not pass away without having a connection to the kingdom.
Exactly.
They established the kingdom and they began it.
But like, is it consummated?
No, that's how most theologians actually, I think read that.
So the generation alive at this time saw these things of the temple's destruction come true.
I mean, they literally watched it, right?
In the first century.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
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But this wasn't meant to refer to the coming of the Son of Man, which they thought it was,
Paul did.
And like everybody thought it was Paul in his letters seem to have thought that.
But then the destruction of temple came after that.
But either way, we need to look at it already, not yet in both hand.
So first off, when we look at that and the signs and stuff, do you see like, okay, I
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see why you guys are having these anxieties?
Yeah, for sure.
But I think like, yeah, I think everything in perspective, but it's like, if you're looking
at all these things and being like, oh no, if you're looking at these things as a checklist,
more so than anything else.
And you're like, oh no, check, check, check, check, check, like here are all the things
that are happening in this world.
(25:23):
Does that now mean that the countdown's on and that something's gonna happen, like whatever,
whatever.
And so I think that if you are kind of viewing Revelation as a checklist or you're looking
at Matthew as a checklist to what will come in Revelation, I think you're gonna get anxious.
And it's also like, like, are you, are you outsmarting Jesus there?
Because he doesn't know when he's coming back.
(25:45):
Right.
And I think that does bring about the, when we don't fully have control over something
or if we can't fully understand something or we can't fully know when something's happening,
the part of us that eases anxiety is trying to take back control.
And so it feels like better to try and guesstimate when Jesus might come back based on these
things because that feels like it gives us a false sense of control over knowing when
(26:09):
he's gonna come back so that we can prepare or we can settle all that we need to settle.
Is during our anxieties.
Correct.
And I think that, I mean, so much even when I was a student at LPU, like things that
I learned in like the first, my freshman year in like classes like ancient SIV and stuff,
like ancient civilization is like being content with an element of mystery and of not knowing
that is really, really not what the West is about.
(26:32):
For sure.
Like us in the West, we love to have answers to things.
We love exacts.
Like we love to, like it's really hard for us to sit in the dissonance of, yeah, and
like unanswerables or not sure's or stuff like that.
But Jews, that's part of that was part of the thing.
It still is.
It still is like a lot of that culture and a lot of, and I think it's why a lot of scriptures
(26:52):
like that and it's hard for us, but for them, that's very normal.
Like, so I think this kind of space is like when we have to challenge ourselves to sit
in the mystery that was left for us and just like genuinely take a breath and rest in the
knowledge that like when Jesus returns, it's when it's supposed to happen.
(27:12):
And we have a very clear call.
Be ready.
Be ready.
And so it's our job to make, be ready ourselves to do the work to bring people to the kingdom
now.
It's not our job to sit there and try and do a countdown and figure out and guess when
he's going to come back so that we can all feel better about it.
This is just essentially a cosmic call to go and spread the gospel to all nations.
(27:37):
Because I mean, like not just like, yeah, like you're probably wrong.
Like the Bible says you're definitely wrong.
If you think you know when Jesus is going to return, you're 100% wrong.
Like it says, it says you are wrong.
Like it says Jesus doesn't know himself.
Like you're not outsmarting Jesus here.
No.
So like, yeah.
You haven't picked up on something that the Son of God didn't.
Yeah.
(27:58):
I promise.
I promise.
So the YouTube podcaster, Chilling in his parents basement, making these end time prophecies
and being like, I figured out one like, nope, he's wrong.
He is 100% you can feel confident about that.
We can know that if the Son of Man doesn't know, then I promise that God is not going
to reveal to you the time that it's going to come.
That is for show.
Well, I think that sets up it pretty well.
(28:21):
And I think let's talk about some of these ideas, these images in the book of Revelation.
Okay.
This is going to be interesting.
This is always like a favorite part in people's class and when I teach in Theo 3.
There you go.
So, but I am feeling that this is going to be a two-parter.
There you go.
This thing.
So let's go ahead and start.
Okay.
All right.
(28:41):
So when you open the book of Revelation, you crack it open.
You notice that it's actually also a letter.
As everything is, I feel.
And so, but it's a little different.
So the book, it starts with this prologue.
And in chapter one, you have the book's own introduction of itself and you have this
vision.
It's a vision of Christ.
And so you have this epic Christ with white hair, eyes of fire, feet like bronze, voice
(29:07):
was a roar.
The feet like bronze makes me think that he like, you know, is tan and looks Puerto
Rican.
Yeah.
That's just my little, my little ice.
It's a throw in there.
You know what I'm saying?
There you go.
Just kidding.
That was a joke.
Do not come for me.
I'm just coming back to our profiling Christ episode that we do with Chris and you'll see
(29:28):
how round that was.
Anyways, so he summons John to write down the visions that he saw.
And so you then have starting from chapter two through three, you have all these little
greetings to the seven various churches.
Now these are seven literal churches in Asia Minor that this letter was traveling to.
(29:51):
The book of Revelation was like going in a scroll to all of these churches.
So it would start in Ephesus, then Samirna, then Pergamon, the Theatira, and it would
be read there.
And what was so interesting is like when it's being read, like John is talking some mad
smack to Rome, like big time in this letter, but he's using the symbolism that like if
(30:11):
a Roman read it, he wouldn't know that the smack.
They wouldn't even know how bad are being slapped around, which is dope.
I love that.
That's funny.
Anyway, so it's going there.
And so right off the bat, there is a weird interpretation where some people are like,
well, see each of these churches represents, you know, a country or a country or an era.
Yeah.
(30:31):
There was this and we're in the area of Philadelphia, blah, blah, blah, like, okay.
So this is like when people are like, do you read the Bible literally?
Like this is something where you're like reading it literally and they're making it
unliteral.
Yeah.
This letter was written to these actual genuine churches and then they were sent to these
churches.
Each one of them.
And each of them has a greeting.
The greeting interpretation completely.
(30:52):
Exactly.
And the greeting is either like commending them or slapping them around, but it wasn't
condemning them to hell.
Because these were churches.
So they were like, Hey, get your act together.
Like some of them got that.
You know what I'm saying?
But which we know over the New Testament and the letters sent several churches got.
They got slapped around.
Pull it around.
(31:12):
Pull it back girl.
But it doesn't mean they weren't like part of the church anymore.
It was pastoral.
You know, like, right?
I was not writing letters to be like, you're no longer a part of the search because you
suck.
Get it together.
Corinth.
Church of Corinth.
Lock in.
But this is the same thing that's happening here.
And so the letters are going to first Ephesus, then Smyrna, then Pergamon, and the Theotera,
Sardis, and then Philadelphia and Laodicea.
(31:35):
So I want to make a mention about Philadelphia, the sixth one.
And in verse chapter three, verse 10, it says this, because you have kept my word about
patient endurance.
I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those
that dwell on earth.
I'm coming soon.
Hold fast that you have so that no one may seize your crown.
Some people interpret that as like a rapture.
(31:57):
Like, so because like I'm going to hold you from the trials that are coming.
But if you look at it contextually, like they're literally being persecuted like by Rome in
that moment.
And so it could have been just as simple as Philadelphia is a city that wasn't very persecuted
in the empire at that time.
And then finally Laodicea.
So this is an interesting one.
This is Revelation three, verse 15.
(32:19):
You probably heard this.
I know your works.
You're neither cold nor hot.
Would that you were either cold or hot?
So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Some of them you say like vomit you out of my mouth.
So some people like we've preached like a million times.
I've heard people preaching that like lukewarm Christians discuss Jesus like you have to
be on fire or not.
(32:40):
Right.
Like that kind of a deal.
That's not a bad message that being lukewarm is bad, but that's also not what this passage
is saying.
Have you heard this before?
Okay.
Oh, for sure.
So like, so basically he wants you to be either cold or hot.
Like when we talk about lukewarmness, it's like cold is bad being hot and on fire for
(33:01):
Christ is good.
Lukewarm is backsliding.
That's not actually what's saying.
Cold is good.
Hot is good.
Lukewarm is bad.
Yeah.
In the middle is bad.
Lukewarm water is bad.
It is.
It's awful.
Yeah.
One time I had did drink lukewarm water and I spit it out and I was like, huh, this is
so meta.
This is such a biblical moment.
(33:23):
How are you in England?
Like everything?
Wow.
It's like tepid.
In Europe, they'd be drinking lukewarm.
Rank.
Everything.
Room temp.
You don't like it?
No.
We like things icy and a mark.
I like my ice.
Or hot.
Yeah.
You can think about it as like that's a great thing is like lukewarm coffee.
It's like it's awful.
But make it iced.
That great or make it hot.
(33:44):
Hot.
Yeah.
Hot water with like tea or like hot chocolate or something.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Ice coffee.
Awesome.
But the ticket even further.
Yeah.
I know it's gross, but the ticket even further.
So when the water would come up from the springs, it was hot and people thought that
this water was medicinal.
Like it would heal you.
So people would go to it in this hot water and they would like go and like bathe in it
(34:08):
and stuff, sit in it so that way they could be healed from whatever it is.
Yeah.
Like a coups nizzle.
There you go.
That's what I call it.
But anyways, my friend called it that when I was like 14 and I've called it ever since.
Wow.
I hope he knows the impact he had on you.
I don't know.
Anyways, then like let's say it's traveling from the spring down the stream.
And so as it's going, it cools down.
(34:29):
Well, once it leads somewhere and it's cold water, it becomes drinkable, potable.
You can drink it.
Yep.
So if it is lukewarm, if it's on its way from the spring and it is still not hot or cold,
it literally makes you sick if you drink it and you vomit.
So that's actually a literal image of what would happen if somebody drank lukewarm water
(34:54):
is they would spit out their mouth or they would vomit.
Yeah.
It is interesting because if you think about it, like when you're hurt, you have like,
you get like recommended like, Oh, put a hot compress or like a cold compress.
Yeah.
Like both are good.
Like you can get a nice pack and some things need like a heating pad or whatever, but no
one's ever going to tell you to put like room temperature towels on your injury.
Nope.
(35:14):
Just put this cloth on you.
Put this cloth on you and walk away.
And so, but the point is here, Laodicea is not condemned to be evil.
Like just to hell.
Like, like this is terrible or this is an era that's condemned or whatever.
It's a church that was neither hot nor cold, stuck in the middle and they were not like
making their decision what they wanted to do and God wanted them to be, you know, fervently
(35:36):
on fire.
This is what John wanted them to do.
Right.
So, so that's just a little sidebar.
That's where it goes there.
Then starting in Revelation four, we start seeing scenes in heavens.
It describes division and division in heaven.
And so the first thing is there's 24 elders and 24 thrones.
Do you know what that stands for?
(35:57):
24, just 24.
Yeah.
The 24 elders.
No.
Some people have guessed lots of wild things.
I'm sure.
But there's a very obvious thing that this could mean.
It probably represents.
This is what most scholars believe.
And by the way, I'm referencing a lot of the symbols of what I'm taking from it's N.T.
writes, Revelation for everyone.
We'll put it in our show notes.
It's awesome.
(36:17):
I highly recommend it.
It's very, very readable.
You can use it for churches and stuff like that.
It's super good.
But it probably represents the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples.
That's a 24 elders.
Yeah, I know it's like it becomes so obvious when you actually read it.
Yes.
When you actually hear it.
But that tends to represent both the old covenant, the 12 tribes and the new covenant,
(36:40):
12 disciples.
So you see so much old and new covenant stuff happening in the book of Revelation.
Which that makes so much sense.
Yeah.
You're talking about the end.
Everything being consummated.
Everything's fulfilled.
All of it's coming back.
All of it's coming back.
There you go.
Then you have the four living creatures that are there worshiping God.
You have the lion, the ox, the creature with the face of a man and the eagle.
Now this one's a little harder to do and I could like poke and prod.
(37:02):
But a lot of people would think that these are all like lords of something.
Like the lion is the Lord of the animal.
The ox is the Lord of work.
The man has dominion over nature.
So he's the Lord over nature.
And then the eagle has dominion over the sky.
It's Lord of the sky.
So it basically represents all of creation.
All aspects of creation.
Bowling down to worship Christ.
Is this the same look, the same like four face creatures that Ezekiel sees?
(37:25):
Yes.
Those are the same ones that Ezekiel sees.
Look at that biblical consistency.
And you're going to see this the entire time.
Right?
Like the entire time.
They all echo each other because it's all what?
Intra biblical.
That's right.
That's right.
And so, so you see right now you're seeing the old and the new covenant bowing down to
Christ and you see all of creation bound down to Christ.
(37:46):
And then you see this sealed little scroll and you know what it is?
It's like a scroll.
So think about like, like the, you know, back in the day when a king would have something
and you would like to seal and it would be like this little like red seal thingy that's
stamped with their like crescent thingy or whatever.
Yeah.
So you know it's from them.
It's from them.
And then it would go like, here, you hear you, here's a letter and it will pop the seal
open and then they'll open the scroll and they read.
(38:08):
You know what I mean?
That's, that's the image.
Okay.
That's what's going on.
And so you got this scroll and the thing is it has seven little seals on it and no one
in heaven could open it.
And then they were like crying and they're like, oh my gosh, no one can open this.
This is sealed scroll and the scroll like tells us the content of like how everything's
going to end.
They could open it.
(38:28):
We're freaking out.
Oh my gosh.
But then there was one that could open it and then they saw and they heard a lion.
I love this passage so much.
Oh my gosh.
This is Revelation 5, 5 through 7.
Excuse me.
I'm going to cry.
It's one of the most powerful things in the whole Bible.
I think they heard the lion and then they turned and they saw a slaughtered lamb.
That is a subversion of power.
(38:51):
Right.
Jesus, the lion came in the form of a slaughtered lamb.
Salvation came through his soul.
He sacrificed and not through his dominion and power.
Right.
Oh, it's so good.
He said, oh, so good.
But then you have, so the way the lamb is Jesus here, who everybody's worshiping.
Praise God.
He's the one who can open the scroll.
He's the only one who's worthy.
(39:12):
That's the thing.
Right.
And it also, it says he's slain.
So like he's saying his throat being slain and he has seven horns and he has seven eyes.
What does that mean?
The seven horns and seven eyes.
So seven is a number of perfection.
Those mean different things symbolically and everybody knows like seven is perfection or
completion.
So when he has seven horns and seven eyes, horns typically refer to power.
(39:36):
So even think about like the dodge ram, like the horns and be like, Ram tough.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, like power.
Yes.
And then eyes usually talk about knowledge seeing, right?
So if he has seven horns, seven eyes, that means he's all powerful.
All knowing and all.
All knowing.
Yeah.
Omniscient and omnipotent.
Come on.
It's not that.
It's like, you can't read into stuff because it's like, you have to know numerology the
(39:58):
way they would have understood.
Exactly.
And we, and some of it is still consistent today.
Oh, for sure.
But that's not how you think.
Then you're going to be like, Oh, what does the seven mean?
Does it represent the seven other than?
Yep.
No, it's okay.
Just look back at what symbolism means that numerology means when it was written.
That's right.
Perhaps you have a series of songs that happen and this is like everybody's worshiping.
(40:23):
So first all the creatures and elders worship is revelation five eight through 10.
Then the song of the angels and revelation five 11 through 12 led by Kerry Job.
She goes up there and leads.
This is where we get revelation song.
It's those lyrics.
Those are the lyrics for revelation song, by the way, Kerry Job's up there and on a
main.
She's like, all right, y'all ready?
And then she just does it.
(40:44):
So anyways, then you have the song of the universe.
So the creatures, the angels and the universe, everybody is worshiping and singing songs
to Jesus.
Okay.
So you're opening it and then guess what happens?
The next thing it shifts in revelation and says, now we're going to open the seals and
then each seal that opens, something prep-ish happens.
So you open one seal open and something crazy happens.
(41:06):
Another seal open, pop it open and just keep going.
And then so you have an open to scroll yet.
You're opening each seal and each seal that opens, there are seven of them.
It something crazy happens.
And this is when everything is like starts beginning to usher in the end, but it's all
prep work.
So the first seal, the white horse of earthly conquest and dominion is released.
(41:27):
And so this is like the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Then the second seal, the red horse of war, slaughter and bloodshed.
And then the third, the black horse of famine, commerce and economic crisis.
And then the fourth pale horse, the four seals, the pale horse of death.
And so then you wait a little while and then the day of wrath comes and then the multitudes
are saved.
Now this is interesting.
The multitudes is the 144,000 sealed people.
(41:52):
Now some people are wondering, what is this?
What is that?
Okay.
Because this 144,000 comes and then you have the multitude that's like without end that
comes too.
So first 144,000, some people have said like, Oh, well, like for example, yeah, like Jehovah's
(42:14):
witnesses think that's them.
Like the first Jehovah's witnesses, right?
Like there's like, and so like some people will say this, they're people that have been
marked by God to represent God and stuff like that.
But the Bible even says in Revelation seven, just read it.
It counts them from Israel.
There's 12,000 from each tribe of Israel.
(42:35):
It says 12,000 from the tribe of Dan, 12,000 from the tribe of Judah and like 12,000 from
the time of Benjamin.
Like it just goes on like that, right?
And so that equals 144,000.
And so who are the tribes of Israel?
What covenant is that?
The old covenant.
That's the old covenant, right?
And so then they were followed by what?
A great, numberless multitude of new covenant of all who come to know Jesus.
(42:59):
Boom.
After his relationship.
Us.
The Gentiles.
Baby, let's go.
Gentile nation rise up.
That's right.
So 144,000 is the Jews in the old covenant.
The multitude, the great multitude is us.
It's the new covenant.
It's the church.
Yeah.
The Savior who choose to accept Jesus, their Savior after his death and resurrection.
Then finally the seventh seal breaks and there's 30 minutes of silence in heaven.
(43:21):
And then you have all hell breaks loose when you have the judgments.
And so with the trumpets that are next.
And so that actually like when I was an undergrad, it made me question be like 30 minutes of
silence in heaven.
That's crazy.
And then I was like, what does that mean?
And this is on the seventh seal.
And then I was like, wait a minute, does that reflect the days of creation?
(43:41):
Cause I'm a seventh.
They got rested.
That's interesting.
And so I looked at it and I saw that it does not.
However, the seven trumpets totally do.
And actually published a paper on this and it's called in the end, God uncreated the
world.
And so the seven trumpets, my argument is, is a systematic undoing of the days of creation.
(44:06):
Everything is falling back and mixing together.
Pretty interesting.
And so the days like the trumpets also feels like very reminiscent of like Jericho.
Yeah.
There, all that stuff is going in there.
And there's also like even a reference to Moses and the plagues that are happening.
Cause it's all what?
Interboot.
It is.
It is.
So I want to, I think if we split this up, let's end it here and then we'll pick it
(44:27):
up as a part two.
Cause the next part is wild too.
Like so, this is basically, this is going to end the first half of the book of revelation.
So it's a natural good place to end.
That's where we'll pick up next.
We're going to talk about the second half of the book of revelation and which really
talks about the end of everything, the new Jerusalem and the whole nine yards.
And then hopefully that brings you hope and not anxieties.
(44:51):
It might give you more questions, but at least now you have a guided way to think through
these passages, which I think will be helpful.
You think that's a good ending spot?
I like it.
We'll pick it back up when it gets chaotic.
We'll pick it back up when it gets chaotic.
That's it for this episode that we are going to pick up right back as part two next week.
Indeed.
And until then, this episode is always sponsored by the school of theology and ministry at
(45:14):
life Pacific university.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
Do you know what's wild to me?
(00:01):
What?
In five years, the 1980s will have been 50 years ago.
I know that's pretty foul honestly.
That's crazy.
So foul.
When I grew up 50 years ago, was the 40s.
Yeah, the 80s is crazy.
It's gonna be 50 years ago.
It's diabolical.
(00:21):
Welcome to TikTok Theology, a podcast that tackles the major trending topics on social
media that concern the Christian faith.
I'm Meagan.
I'm Steven.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less, but those videos can identify
current issues.
TikTok will give us the prompt and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
(00:43):
Hello friends.
Welcome back to our last episode of the season.
Last one.
And even as we were talking about this, this may be a two-parter depending on how much
we want to yelp about this topic because let's be so honest here.
There's a lot.
The signs of the end times is not a conversation that can be had in less than an hour.
Honestly, probably we're going to try.
(01:05):
We gonna try though.
I promise.
We'll give it a valiant effort.
We will give it a valiant effort.
Trust and believe.
So, but that's going to be like what we're unpacking today is the concept of reading
the signs of the end times.
And I mean, this has been a conversation honestly since Jesus ascended.
Jesus rose and everyone was like, we're in the end times.
Like it's time to move because he's coming back and that was with the disciples of the
(01:29):
apostles were like, oh my goodness.
And now here we are 2000 years later, still here, which is cool for us.
It's called the delayed eschaton by the way, for all you academic friends, theo-nerds, in
fact.
So, I mean, honestly, when it comes to Christian social media, I think you'd be hard pressed
to not find someone trying in some way, shape or form to give their perspective on the end
(01:54):
times.
I've seen so many people, if they call themselves any form of like a Christian influencer or
something like that, they have tried at one point to add to this topic of the end times,
especially I remember during political, I mean during almost political seasons, honestly,
but especially during like the 2020 election, there were people coming out of the woodwork
with these prophecies about presidencies and who would be the president and what would
(02:18):
happen and who's the antichrist.
Who's the yeah.
So there's been so much all the time always, especially recently on social media, when
you can start to hear people calling themselves a prophet and then seeing the false prophecies
like in front of your eyes.
So it's a little different now than it was like, I'm sure there've been false prophecies
for like forever, right?
(02:38):
But now we're seeing them at very large, massive scales and it can be really dangerous to spread
that, especially when you have any kind of following and that's how we can create really
conspiratorial Christians and people who are really trying to read into scripture, into
apocalyptic literature that we see in Revelation or in Matthew or in Ezekiel, whatever.
(03:00):
And we're trying to read into it what we're experiencing now, which also makes you think,
is that itself a sign of the end times?
The fact that there's widespread deception misinformation, because Matthew seems to talk
about that, the book of Matthew.
So yeah, it's pertinent, but I mean, it literally five years ago now was COVID.
And then so many ways that had people immediately like the disease is spreading like the sign
(03:25):
of the time is like, this is it.
I did a whole series of paintings about the apocalypse just because I was like, yo, this
is a popular.
This has been a really big conversation, especially for the last five years when we were like,
what is happening to the state of the world five years ago when we were shutting down
and things were locking up and we were like, what is going on?
Like this is more than like this is something that people hadn't seen in their lifetime
(03:46):
yet of like this kind of like widespread worldwide lockdown.
And even like when we talk about the end times and stuff, we do have to take into consideration
what has been the theme of this season, which is impact globally.
It's very easy, especially for us in the American church to kind of base and times signs of
the time stuff based on what happens for us in the United States.
(04:08):
And I've heard a lot of people talk about that and say, well, America and trying to
insert actually America into revolution or finding places where we fit as if we are the
globe center of the globe and everything revolves around us.
And so I think that this is why it's really important to have these conversations of how
accurately and intentionally read the signs of the end times in a way that I think honors
(04:30):
the way it was written honors what the Lord was saying through John or through Matthew
that actually helps Christians out and doesn't just pay attention to the whole church.
And doesn't actually create a more isolated issue.
Yeah.
But just to piggyback on that point, when it's global, our issues we highlight and we
(04:51):
can only see it in tunnel vision.
Like, oh, what's happening for us is like definitely this DN because blah, blah, blah.
But like other cultures are having these detrimental things happening to them all throughout history.
Like there's been different times and Oh, absolutely.
You know what I mean?
It's going to be difficult to distinguish which is the one.
Yeah.
Or we're struggling, but other countries are thriving and are like doing really well or
(05:13):
like the Christian communities are exploding and people are coming to the Lord in droves.
But because we're having a tough political season, we've decided that that means the
end is near.
Right.
Because we're not acknowledging what's happening in other countries around the world.
When things are good economically for us, we're just like, oh, yeah, it's all good.
You know, Jesus will come back at some point, blah, blah, blah.
(05:35):
And then we don't pay attention to the, you know, Christians that are being persecuted
and maybe like underground churches in China, for example, where they're expecting Jesus
to return right away because they're suffering.
They're being persecuted and vice versa.
So I mean, that's crazy.
But you also brought up COVID.
Like man, like if we look back at 2020, five years ago, so it's about a five year anniversary,
(05:57):
which is so yeah.
The world shut down, we fought over toilet paper.
Remember that?
Yeah, I do.
We all had.
Could not be found.
I was like, oh, okay.
We had to wear masks to try to figure out this epidemic all over the place.
And we didn't know the extent of things.
People were dying, certain things.
We just didn't know what was happening.
(06:17):
It definitely seemed apocalyptic.
Yeah.
Do you remember there was a lot of fires in California too at the same time in Australia
that year too.
Yeah.
But like, I remember one time.
There was so much going on.
Do you recall straight up going outside and the sky being straight up orange?
Yeah, I do.
Man, it looked like Blade Runner.
Oh, it looked real creepy a couple of times.
(06:37):
It looked like Dune or something.
And I was like, man, you know, you can be like, oh yeah, I'm biblically mature and
I'm not going to read it too much into stuff and blah, blah, blah.
And then you walk out and you're like, oh my gosh, Jesus is returning right now.
I can't believe he's on the way.
Oh, everyone called their parents because we're going home.
Like that junk is orange is not supposed to be orange.
(06:59):
No quite literally.
That was man.
That was crazy.
There was a lot going on that year.
There was Race, Rhyans, Black Lives Matter.
There was, you know, with George Floyd.
That was a really tough year.
It was a tough year.
It was a bad year.
And we had a crazy political season.
Oh yeah.
In the US we did.
It was crazy.
In 2020, we just had another one.
So that's like kind of harkening back there.
(07:20):
And people actually even like prolonged their prophecies.
Remember some people were like, actually, yeah, they're prophesying 2020 that like,
Oh, well, Trump will be president at the end of this.
And then when it didn't happen, they were like, actually the election will be overturned
in March or something.
Yeah, they said that.
But then now they're like coming back, same people coming back and being like, oh, we'll
see that prophecy was true.
It was just meant for 2024.
(07:41):
So now he has house and he has the, this blah, blah, blah.
And it's just like, man, you guys are just, you know, guys, if we were in biblical times
and we were tossing false prophets out like that, you know what would happen?
They'd be stoned.
Some Pharisees would come up and say, you have abolished the law and the prophets.
You know what I mean?
Like they're just, they're reading things so crazy.
(08:02):
I think we've lost our respect for prophecy a little bit.
Yeah, because of that.
We use it as a way to advance what we want.
Yeah.
And or political stuff, agendas, you know.
So harkening back to what is real biblical prophecy and episode we did last season.
Go listen to that.
Yeah, go check that out.
That helps.
It might find it helpful or two seasons ago rather.
But I mean, there's other things that have been done that are egregious.
(08:24):
For example, people can look into the book of Revelation and see the locus and be like,
Oh, well, see, he's clearly reading that that's a helicopter.
Like that's what he's seeing.
John is having a vision of the future and he doesn't know how to describe a helicopter.
And so he describes it as the locus with all this kind of stuff and blah, blah, blah.
So I've heard that so many times and I just got to say, like that is for sure 100% wrong.
(08:47):
And so why do I, why can I say that so forcefully, right?
Because literally nothing in the Bible ever, they would not have jumped 2000 years in advanced
technology and he would have seen a helicopter.
There's nothing like that in the Bible.
They're acting like there weren't even machines in the same way.
Right.
But they're acting like he like was looking through a crystal ball and just saw the future
like on a screen or something like that and just describe what it was.
(09:09):
Like the, the imagery in the book of Revelation is so densely biblical.
And it actually like talks about so many other aspects of the Old Testament that are bringing
back and talking about certain things.
And apocalyptic literature being within the context of which it was written.
So instead of us trying to put our 2024 viewpoint on what John was seeing in Revelation, like
(09:29):
it does us better to go back and to look at what was happening at that time to see what
he would have been shown.
Yeah.
So I want to, I want to do that.
And so that's why I'm not sure we'll start and I'm not sure if this is going to go a
little long, we'll split it up into two because I think it's such an important conversation.
But I do this for a class I teach at LPU.
(09:50):
We go through the entire book of Revelation and outline and just like, like, what does
the, what does it actually even say?
Right.
Because so many Christians don't even like there's, there's like,
I mean, read it because it's a little scary because it's a little scary.
It's hard to understand to be fair.
There's a lot of biblical illiteracy, but even those ones that are biblically literate,
it's hard to even approach.
It's a lot when you start getting into all of the Leviathans and the things that are
(10:10):
coming out of the deep, the things that are burning and the things that have got a couple
heads on them.
He's like, he's got multiple wings.
You're like, oh, never mind.
Yeah.
I'm going to go ahead and put that away.
And then I think sometimes I would have liked to be John to see all that.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, that would have taken me out.
I'd been like, Lord, well, you could take me home.
I've seen enough.
Well, I think we should talk about them because the images definitely mean things.
(10:34):
Oh, for sure.
And they're not as crazy as people think.
No.
I want to go through it and talk through that with our audience, with our TikTok theologians.
And hopefully it will be seen as helpful.
But before we do that, I think we should talk about what are some of the signs that people
would look for?
What are the things that they actually look for?
What's like some groundwork here?
(10:54):
What's like some groundwork?
We're going to start jumping in.
So first you got to ask, what is apocalyptic literature?
Because the book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature.
Now, like apocalypses are brand new to the Bible.
The Bible invented them, essentially.
The first apocalypses were Jewish apocalyptics.
You could say it's like in Daniel and then also in the Apocrypha.
Yeah.
It's Jewish apocalyptics.
(11:15):
So Revelation is kind of like this big, huge, full-blown Christian apocalypses.
But there's little, many Christian apocalypses written in other places too.
Yeah.
Revelation is not the only place that has apocalyptic literature.
Right.
But it's the full-blown Christian apocalypses that we use in the Bible.
It's really, I actually love the book.
I think it's one of the absolute favorite books to teach out of.
(11:36):
I think it's so powerful in so many ways.
But I do think it's difficult to understand, so you need some guidance for it.
Yeah, for sure.
So, one thing about the genre of apocalypses, it is a genre of divine revelation usually
given through some sort of heavenly intermediary, like an angel or something.
Like the angel of God comes to you and tells you stuff, this is from Jesus, like that kind
(11:57):
of a deal.
And God promises to intervene in human history.
Why?
The reason why apocalypses were written was because some kind of persecution was going
on in the world.
And so apocalypses were written to offer hope to people who were being persecuted.
The book of Revelation was written during a time after the temple was destroyed and
(12:17):
the Christians were being persecuted by Rome.
God promises to overthrow an evil empire and God also promises to establish his kingdom.
So in the Old Testament, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah and Revelation in the New Testament,
like 1st Enoch's, 4th Ezra are some apocryphal with.
So it uses this like crazy amount of imagery.
(12:39):
It's usually fantastic, you know what I'm saying?
Like crazy fantastical imagery.
There's a ton of symbolism.
And so this is the big problem is like the symbolism, what I'm going to say, and I want
to reiterate over and over and over again, is that it is very richly interbiblical.
Like there's like it is referencing other parts of the Bible, like all throughout the
(13:00):
whole book of Revelation and these other apocalypses.
It is not random.
Oh, this symbol means a helicopter.
This symbol means this like the computer chip that you put in your forehead.
Like that kind of stuff.
Like that junk is the monster energy drinker.
That junk is crazy.
That's what that's where it gets conspiratorial.
Like the Bible just never, ever, ever was written like that.
(13:20):
It never means any of that stuff.
You can't like from Genesis to Revelation, nothing is like that in the Bible.
You can't just start all of a sudden in the last book and start reading it like that.
That's crazy.
It just doesn't work like that.
And when you, when you read, when you see the symbols and you see like, oh, that makes
a ton of sense.
Like, oh, it's this, it's this.
And then you start seeing.
So we're going to talk about that.
(13:40):
Right.
And also it has a use of history.
So the when of history is very difficult to determine.
So some people are like, oh, did this all happen in the first century?
Or is this all going to happen?
The truth of the matter is, I would say what I definitely say.
And I think a lot of scholars agree it's a little bit of both.
Some of this did happen in the first century and some of it will happen later.
(14:04):
And then, and when we go through the book of Revelation, we can determine that towards
the end that talks about the future things that were still going to occur.
But then it also sets up a concept of the kingdom of God being already present.
Jesus established it.
The church is supposed to keep it, keep it going and show everybody the good news of
the gospel, but it's not consummated.
(14:25):
It's not fully blown.
Like it's not completed.
One of the images that they use throughout the whole Bible is this image of marriage.
And so, you know, when you're married in a ceremony, you're married, like you're legally
married, but you're not consummating the wedding until the marriage night.
Okay.
So that's obviously sexual imagery, but that's, that is what it is.
(14:48):
That's when you become one flesh.
But that time between when you're married and your consummation, you're already in the
promise, you're married.
That's the same kind of imagery that's being used literally for the Bible.
Like you have the marriage supper, the lamb, you have the return for Christ, the church
is the bride waiting for the bridegroom.
That's the same imagery.
(15:09):
So it's like we're married to Jesus, the church is, you can think of it that way, but the
consummation hasn't happened.
Again, we have to like not get our mind in the gutter and see like, oh, it's sexual
imagery, blah, blah, blah.
Like understand what this image is saying that there is this, this fruition to come
of the kingdom of God that happens when Christ returns the second time.
If y'all are uncomfortable with that kind of concept or that kind of thinking, you're
(15:32):
uncomfortable with the Bible, y'all.
That's what the Bible says.
One of the main chapters that talks about in the Bible, that talks about the signs is
Matthew 24.
And Matthew 24, it begins when he foretells the destruction of the temple.
And so, you know, it starts like this.
Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him that
(15:56):
the buildings of the temple, but he answered them, you see all these, do you not?
Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not
be thrown down.
And so he is predicting the temple being overthrown, which did get overthrown.
Then you have the signs of the end of the age.
And he says, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying,
(16:18):
telling us, by the way, so if you're like at Gephsemane and Mount of Olives, like you
can see the temple.
Like if you've ever been to Israel, like it's like super small, which is crazy.
I totally recommend anybody go into Israel.
Like everything is so close to each other.
The Sea of Galilee is a lake.
It's a big lake.
A lake of Galilee.
Like it's legitimately a lake.
Like from one side, you can like see these major cities, but you can point and be like,
(16:41):
oh, look, there's Tiberius.
And they're not, they're not like major state.
I mean, but like these historical sites, you know?
And so like it was, it's just crazy how close everything is.
So like Jesus literally-
Cause if you're thinking about it in the concept of like big city in the U.S.
Yeah, it's not like that.
No.
Oh my gosh.
No.
So much smaller.
And so, but like straight up, like Jesus is sweating blood in the garden in Gephsemane.
(17:01):
He could literally look over and peer and see the temple, like visually see the temple.
Like it's like a football field away.
Like it's not far.
Like it's crazy.
A little sidebar.
Some side note.
Yeah.
And he says, and Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray for many will
come in my name saying, I am the Christ and they will lead many astray.
And you will hear the wars and rumors of wars.
(17:22):
See that you are not alarmed for this must take place, but the end is not yet.
So like it keeps going and it talks about this abomination of desolation is verse 15.
And it also says spoken of by the prophet Daniel.
Like he's literally making those inter biblical connections.
And then, and he says the coming of the Son of Man, like there's a really, really important
(17:44):
point here that says, but concerning the day and the hour, no one knows not even the angels
of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only for as were the days of Noah, so will the
coming of the Son of Man.
For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
to marriage until the day when Noah entered the Ark and they were unaware until the flood
(18:06):
came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.
Two women will be gardening at the mill.
One will be taken and one left.
Therefore stay awake for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
But know this that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief
(18:27):
was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.
Therefore you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
There's a few things that are talking about like throughout this whole passage.
And if I read the whole thing, it would take a little while, but there's widespread deception.
You know, people claiming to be Christ and like in just falsities.
(18:48):
So we think about today like, oh, that's like our misinformation age.
Yeah.
I mean, it could, I mean, it's not like that's wrong.
Like that's definitely a thing.
Like, well, people have been counterfeiting Christ from the moment Christ was totally
like it.
This is kind of like the first century-ness of the passage.
But then also it's like, you think turn, turn back and think, but like, but yeah, now we
(19:08):
have the internet and like this widespread misinformation is like global misinformation
has been spread always, but now it's just easier to do it.
Yeah.
Really easy to do with AI, the internet like stuff.
It's just like, oh my goodness, like that's crazy.
And so there is this widespread deception wars and rumors of wars.
Like we're in some wars now and like, like we see them all over the world.
(19:28):
There's always a threat of World War three ever since World War one and two, you know,
like now we always have this threat of like, this is going to come.
So that's what brings anxiety to people too.
Always.
Yeah.
There's natural disasters that talks about and we had, you know, like the tsunami earthquakes,
major fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, tornadoes, all these, right?
(19:50):
And so, and so anytime any that happens that always brings anxiety to people like, oh, is
this a sign?
Yeah.
There's lawlessness.
People get really worried to think of like, oh, this is the most lawless time in history
and this and that.
But I want us to just like take a moment and think like, is our era lawless?
Yes.
(20:10):
But do realize that in the first century, people were regularly strung up and killed
for all people, women and children to see them die slowly, beaten and dying slowly in
the public.
And so actually look at like some Roman lore and stuff like that and their cults that they
would do, they're kind of like dying easy in cults and stuff like that.
(20:32):
They would do things that were like, oh, Jesus, like spiritual things and there was sexual
deviances that were like way beyond what you even see today in certain things.
And that's in first, that's in Jesus's day.
Yes.
And I don't think people realize that that was 2000 years ago.
Like we're not progressing to be so much worse.
We've always been bad.
We've always been bad.
(20:52):
Hello.
We're way worse at now.
And there's things that we're better at, but like every era on this side of the eschaton
has had that is had that they're always bad.
And so like, don't forget that.
Like we talked about this before, but like when we talk about the good old days in America
and stuff like that, it literally doesn't even make sense.
No, because they suck.
Yeah.
Like not too long ago in our grandparents' lifetime, black men and women and white men
(21:17):
and women couldn't drink from the same water fountain.
Like what the heck?
Like what are the good old days here?
You know what I'm saying?
Like it all is very, very, very perspectival.
Maybe good for you, but not good for other people.
And then also like, are the good old days happening currently all over the world?
I don't think so.
There's a whole bunch of Christians being persecuted right now.
There's a refugees that see no way to have life, to have anything positive.
(21:43):
There's people fleeing corrupt governments, people who are getting killed, family members
getting killed, raped and all sorts of stuff happening today, right now.
So when was this lawlessness less lawless and more lawless?
Correct.
Like this is something that, that's a very difficult one for me because I think whenever
(22:06):
people try to talk about like, oh, let's go retreat back to this era or we're going
to progress and or like it's getting so bad and stuff like that.
It's like, yo, I think you need to be a student of history.
Agreed.
You know what I mean?
We're not seeing, right now we're not seeing anything like the Nazi Holocaust.
Correct.
We're not seeing anything like that.
There's tons of persecution, but that was a systematic genocide with concentration
(22:31):
camps.
Some people might say there's genocides happening in our war right now.
It's not the same.
There's, those are different.
Yeah.
Not to the same extent.
Not, but it's also not the same.
There's not concentration camps going on.
Like, I mean, there's atrocities always.
So we don't want to compare people's problems and the issues that are there, but the point
that I am making is that it's always been bad.
(22:52):
Yeah.
Correct.
You know, and so that we've fallen.
So anyways, I want to make that point, but there's persecution of Christians.
This is happening today all over the world, not in the U S. We're not persecuting.
Y'all don't even act like y'all persecuted.
Oh my gosh.
And so the gospel is preached worldwide.
And I think when we start thinking about the internet age and stuff like that, this is
looking more advanced.
May have something that's there.
(23:12):
And then the rebuilding temple in Jerusalem.
So this is part of the reason why Israel becoming a state again, like its own sovereign state
again was a big deal in 1949 because they saw this as a fulfillment or like the beginning
stages of this prophecy being fulfilled and this temple being rebuilt right now.
Currently, there's a mosses upon the temple.
(23:32):
So like start talking about Israeli and Muslim, you know, conflict.
This is a major thing.
And then Christians are involved because we see our own prophecy as being like, well,
the temple must be restored for this to come back.
That's the kind of complexity there.
Like we even mentioned, you know, the sun, Jesus himself doesn't even know the day of
the hour.
So what about Jesus's reference that the generation would not pass away before these events even
(23:58):
take place?
So that's kind of wild, right?
Because we're 2000 years later.
The generation is very much passed away.
So that given 24 36, a lot of theologians read this in relation to the full coming of
the Son of Man.
And so they see this as a fulfillment without the consummation elements in Jesus's prophecy.
(24:20):
So like the generation did not pass away without having a connection to the kingdom.
Exactly.
They established the kingdom and they began it.
But like, is it consummated?
No, that's how most theologians actually, I think read that.
So the generation alive at this time saw these things of the temple's destruction come true.
I mean, they literally watched it, right?
In the first century.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
(24:41):
But this wasn't meant to refer to the coming of the Son of Man, which they thought it was,
Paul did.
And like everybody thought it was Paul in his letters seem to have thought that.
But then the destruction of temple came after that.
But either way, we need to look at it already, not yet in both hand.
So first off, when we look at that and the signs and stuff, do you see like, okay, I
(25:01):
see why you guys are having these anxieties?
Yeah, for sure.
But I think like, yeah, I think everything in perspective, but it's like, if you're looking
at all these things and being like, oh no, if you're looking at these things as a checklist,
more so than anything else.
And you're like, oh no, check, check, check, check, check, like here are all the things
that are happening in this world.
(25:23):
Does that now mean that the countdown's on and that something's gonna happen, like whatever,
whatever.
And so I think that if you are kind of viewing Revelation as a checklist or you're looking
at Matthew as a checklist to what will come in Revelation, I think you're gonna get anxious.
And it's also like, like, are you, are you outsmarting Jesus there?
Because he doesn't know when he's coming back.
(25:45):
Right.
And I think that does bring about the, when we don't fully have control over something
or if we can't fully understand something or we can't fully know when something's happening,
the part of us that eases anxiety is trying to take back control.
And so it feels like better to try and guesstimate when Jesus might come back based on these
things because that feels like it gives us a false sense of control over knowing when
(26:09):
he's gonna come back so that we can prepare or we can settle all that we need to settle.
Is during our anxieties.
Correct.
And I think that, I mean, so much even when I was a student at LPU, like things that
I learned in like the first, my freshman year in like classes like ancient SIV and stuff,
like ancient civilization is like being content with an element of mystery and of not knowing
that is really, really not what the West is about.
(26:32):
For sure.
Like us in the West, we love to have answers to things.
We love exacts.
Like we love to, like it's really hard for us to sit in the dissonance of, yeah, and
like unanswerables or not sure's or stuff like that.
But Jews, that's part of that was part of the thing.
It still is.
It still is like a lot of that culture and a lot of, and I think it's why a lot of scriptures
(26:52):
like that and it's hard for us, but for them, that's very normal.
Like, so I think this kind of space is like when we have to challenge ourselves to sit
in the mystery that was left for us and just like genuinely take a breath and rest in the
knowledge that like when Jesus returns, it's when it's supposed to happen.
(27:12):
And we have a very clear call.
Be ready.
Be ready.
And so it's our job to make, be ready ourselves to do the work to bring people to the kingdom
now.
It's not our job to sit there and try and do a countdown and figure out and guess when
he's going to come back so that we can all feel better about it.
This is just essentially a cosmic call to go and spread the gospel to all nations.
(27:37):
Because I mean, like not just like, yeah, like you're probably wrong.
Like the Bible says you're definitely wrong.
If you think you know when Jesus is going to return, you're 100% wrong.
Like it says, it says you are wrong.
Like it says Jesus doesn't know himself.
Like you're not outsmarting Jesus here.
No.
So like, yeah.
You haven't picked up on something that the Son of God didn't.
Yeah.
(27:58):
I promise.
I promise.
So the YouTube podcaster, Chilling in his parents basement, making these end time prophecies
and being like, I figured out one like, nope, he's wrong.
He is 100% you can feel confident about that.
We can know that if the Son of Man doesn't know, then I promise that God is not going
to reveal to you the time that it's going to come.
That is for show.
Well, I think that sets up it pretty well.
(28:21):
And I think let's talk about some of these ideas, these images in the book of Revelation.
Okay.
This is going to be interesting.
This is always like a favorite part in people's class and when I teach in Theo 3.
There you go.
So, but I am feeling that this is going to be a two-parter.
There you go.
This thing.
So let's go ahead and start.
Okay.
All right.
(28:41):
So when you open the book of Revelation, you crack it open.
You notice that it's actually also a letter.
As everything is, I feel.
And so, but it's a little different.
So the book, it starts with this prologue.
And in chapter one, you have the book's own introduction of itself and you have this
vision.
It's a vision of Christ.
And so you have this epic Christ with white hair, eyes of fire, feet like bronze, voice
(29:07):
was a roar.
The feet like bronze makes me think that he like, you know, is tan and looks Puerto
Rican.
Yeah.
That's just my little, my little ice.
It's a throw in there.
You know what I'm saying?
There you go.
Just kidding.
That was a joke.
Do not come for me.
I'm just coming back to our profiling Christ episode that we do with Chris and you'll see
(29:28):
how round that was.
Anyways, so he summons John to write down the visions that he saw.
And so you then have starting from chapter two through three, you have all these little
greetings to the seven various churches.
Now these are seven literal churches in Asia Minor that this letter was traveling to.
(29:51):
The book of Revelation was like going in a scroll to all of these churches.
So it would start in Ephesus, then Samirna, then Pergamon, the Theatira, and it would
be read there.
And what was so interesting is like when it's being read, like John is talking some mad
smack to Rome, like big time in this letter, but he's using the symbolism that like if
(30:11):
a Roman read it, he wouldn't know that the smack.
They wouldn't even know how bad are being slapped around, which is dope.
I love that.
That's funny.
Anyway, so it's going there.
And so right off the bat, there is a weird interpretation where some people are like,
well, see each of these churches represents, you know, a country or a country or an era.
Yeah.
(30:31):
There was this and we're in the area of Philadelphia, blah, blah, blah, like, okay.
So this is like when people are like, do you read the Bible literally?
Like this is something where you're like reading it literally and they're making it
unliteral.
Yeah.
This letter was written to these actual genuine churches and then they were sent to these
churches.
Each one of them.
And each of them has a greeting.
The greeting interpretation completely.
(30:52):
Exactly.
And the greeting is either like commending them or slapping them around, but it wasn't
condemning them to hell.
Because these were churches.
So they were like, Hey, get your act together.
Like some of them got that.
You know what I'm saying?
But which we know over the New Testament and the letters sent several churches got.
They got slapped around.
Pull it around.
(31:12):
Pull it back girl.
But it doesn't mean they weren't like part of the church anymore.
It was pastoral.
You know, like, right?
I was not writing letters to be like, you're no longer a part of the search because you
suck.
Get it together.
Corinth.
Church of Corinth.
Lock in.
But this is the same thing that's happening here.
And so the letters are going to first Ephesus, then Smyrna, then Pergamon, and the Theotera,
Sardis, and then Philadelphia and Laodicea.
(31:35):
So I want to make a mention about Philadelphia, the sixth one.
And in verse chapter three, verse 10, it says this, because you have kept my word about
patient endurance.
I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those
that dwell on earth.
I'm coming soon.
Hold fast that you have so that no one may seize your crown.
Some people interpret that as like a rapture.
(31:57):
Like, so because like I'm going to hold you from the trials that are coming.
But if you look at it contextually, like they're literally being persecuted like by Rome in
that moment.
And so it could have been just as simple as Philadelphia is a city that wasn't very persecuted
in the empire at that time.
And then finally Laodicea.
So this is an interesting one.
This is Revelation three, verse 15.
(32:19):
You probably heard this.
I know your works.
You're neither cold nor hot.
Would that you were either cold or hot?
So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Some of them you say like vomit you out of my mouth.
So some people like we've preached like a million times.
I've heard people preaching that like lukewarm Christians discuss Jesus like you have to
be on fire or not.
(32:40):
Right.
Like that kind of a deal.
That's not a bad message that being lukewarm is bad, but that's also not what this passage
is saying.
Have you heard this before?
Okay.
Oh, for sure.
So like, so basically he wants you to be either cold or hot.
Like when we talk about lukewarmness, it's like cold is bad being hot and on fire for
(33:01):
Christ is good.
Lukewarm is backsliding.
That's not actually what's saying.
Cold is good.
Hot is good.
Lukewarm is bad.
Yeah.
In the middle is bad.
Lukewarm water is bad.
It is.
It's awful.
Yeah.
One time I had did drink lukewarm water and I spit it out and I was like, huh, this is
so meta.
This is such a biblical moment.
(33:23):
How are you in England?
Like everything?
Wow.
It's like tepid.
In Europe, they'd be drinking lukewarm.
Rank.
Everything.
Room temp.
You don't like it?
No.
We like things icy and a mark.
I like my ice.
Or hot.
Yeah.
You can think about it as like that's a great thing is like lukewarm coffee.
It's like it's awful.
But make it iced.
That great or make it hot.
(33:44):
Hot.
Yeah.
Hot water with like tea or like hot chocolate or something.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Ice coffee.
Awesome.
But the ticket even further.
Yeah.
I know it's gross, but the ticket even further.
So when the water would come up from the springs, it was hot and people thought that
this water was medicinal.
Like it would heal you.
So people would go to it in this hot water and they would like go and like bathe in it
(34:08):
and stuff, sit in it so that way they could be healed from whatever it is.
Yeah.
Like a coups nizzle.
There you go.
That's what I call it.
But anyways, my friend called it that when I was like 14 and I've called it ever since.
Wow.
I hope he knows the impact he had on you.
I don't know.
Anyways, then like let's say it's traveling from the spring down the stream.
And so as it's going, it cools down.
(34:29):
Well, once it leads somewhere and it's cold water, it becomes drinkable, potable.
You can drink it.
Yep.
So if it is lukewarm, if it's on its way from the spring and it is still not hot or cold,
it literally makes you sick if you drink it and you vomit.
So that's actually a literal image of what would happen if somebody drank lukewarm water
(34:54):
is they would spit out their mouth or they would vomit.
Yeah.
It is interesting because if you think about it, like when you're hurt, you have like,
you get like recommended like, Oh, put a hot compress or like a cold compress.
Yeah.
Like both are good.
Like you can get a nice pack and some things need like a heating pad or whatever, but no
one's ever going to tell you to put like room temperature towels on your injury.
Nope.
(35:14):
Just put this cloth on you.
Put this cloth on you and walk away.
And so, but the point is here, Laodicea is not condemned to be evil.
Like just to hell.
Like, like this is terrible or this is an era that's condemned or whatever.
It's a church that was neither hot nor cold, stuck in the middle and they were not like
making their decision what they wanted to do and God wanted them to be, you know, fervently
(35:36):
on fire.
This is what John wanted them to do.
Right.
So, so that's just a little sidebar.
That's where it goes there.
Then starting in Revelation four, we start seeing scenes in heavens.
It describes division and division in heaven.
And so the first thing is there's 24 elders and 24 thrones.
Do you know what that stands for?
(35:57):
24, just 24.
Yeah.
The 24 elders.
No.
Some people have guessed lots of wild things.
I'm sure.
But there's a very obvious thing that this could mean.
It probably represents.
This is what most scholars believe.
And by the way, I'm referencing a lot of the symbols of what I'm taking from it's N.T.
writes, Revelation for everyone.
We'll put it in our show notes.
It's awesome.
(36:17):
I highly recommend it.
It's very, very readable.
You can use it for churches and stuff like that.
It's super good.
But it probably represents the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples.
That's a 24 elders.
Yeah, I know it's like it becomes so obvious when you actually read it.
Yes.
When you actually hear it.
But that tends to represent both the old covenant, the 12 tribes and the new covenant,
(36:40):
12 disciples.
So you see so much old and new covenant stuff happening in the book of Revelation.
Which that makes so much sense.
Yeah.
You're talking about the end.
Everything being consummated.
Everything's fulfilled.
All of it's coming back.
All of it's coming back.
There you go.
Then you have the four living creatures that are there worshiping God.
You have the lion, the ox, the creature with the face of a man and the eagle.
Now this one's a little harder to do and I could like poke and prod.
(37:02):
But a lot of people would think that these are all like lords of something.
Like the lion is the Lord of the animal.
The ox is the Lord of work.
The man has dominion over nature.
So he's the Lord over nature.
And then the eagle has dominion over the sky.
It's Lord of the sky.
So it basically represents all of creation.
All aspects of creation.
Bowling down to worship Christ.
Is this the same look, the same like four face creatures that Ezekiel sees?
(37:25):
Yes.
Those are the same ones that Ezekiel sees.
Look at that biblical consistency.
And you're going to see this the entire time.
Right?
Like the entire time.
They all echo each other because it's all what?
Intra biblical.
That's right.
That's right.
And so, so you see right now you're seeing the old and the new covenant bowing down to
Christ and you see all of creation bound down to Christ.
(37:46):
And then you see this sealed little scroll and you know what it is?
It's like a scroll.
So think about like, like the, you know, back in the day when a king would have something
and you would like to seal and it would be like this little like red seal thingy that's
stamped with their like crescent thingy or whatever.
Yeah.
So you know it's from them.
It's from them.
And then it would go like, here, you hear you, here's a letter and it will pop the seal
open and then they'll open the scroll and they read.
(38:08):
You know what I mean?
That's, that's the image.
Okay.
That's what's going on.
And so you got this scroll and the thing is it has seven little seals on it and no one
in heaven could open it.
And then they were like crying and they're like, oh my gosh, no one can open this.
This is sealed scroll and the scroll like tells us the content of like how everything's
going to end.
They could open it.
(38:28):
We're freaking out.
Oh my gosh.
But then there was one that could open it and then they saw and they heard a lion.
I love this passage so much.
Oh my gosh.
This is Revelation 5, 5 through 7.
Excuse me.
I'm going to cry.
It's one of the most powerful things in the whole Bible.
I think they heard the lion and then they turned and they saw a slaughtered lamb.
That is a subversion of power.
(38:51):
Right.
Jesus, the lion came in the form of a slaughtered lamb.
Salvation came through his soul.
He sacrificed and not through his dominion and power.
Right.
Oh, it's so good.
He said, oh, so good.
But then you have, so the way the lamb is Jesus here, who everybody's worshiping.
Praise God.
He's the one who can open the scroll.
He's the only one who's worthy.
(39:12):
That's the thing.
Right.
And it also, it says he's slain.
So like he's saying his throat being slain and he has seven horns and he has seven eyes.
What does that mean?
The seven horns and seven eyes.
So seven is a number of perfection.
Those mean different things symbolically and everybody knows like seven is perfection or
completion.
So when he has seven horns and seven eyes, horns typically refer to power.
(39:36):
So even think about like the dodge ram, like the horns and be like, Ram tough.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, like power.
Yes.
And then eyes usually talk about knowledge seeing, right?
So if he has seven horns, seven eyes, that means he's all powerful.
All knowing and all.
All knowing.
Yeah.
Omniscient and omnipotent.
Come on.
It's not that.
It's like, you can't read into stuff because it's like, you have to know numerology the
(39:58):
way they would have understood.
Exactly.
And we, and some of it is still consistent today.
Oh, for sure.
But that's not how you think.
Then you're going to be like, Oh, what does the seven mean?
Does it represent the seven other than?
Yep.
No, it's okay.
Just look back at what symbolism means that numerology means when it was written.
That's right.
Perhaps you have a series of songs that happen and this is like everybody's worshiping.
(40:23):
So first all the creatures and elders worship is revelation five eight through 10.
Then the song of the angels and revelation five 11 through 12 led by Kerry Job.
She goes up there and leads.
This is where we get revelation song.
It's those lyrics.
Those are the lyrics for revelation song, by the way, Kerry Job's up there and on a
main.
She's like, all right, y'all ready?
And then she just does it.
(40:44):
So anyways, then you have the song of the universe.
So the creatures, the angels and the universe, everybody is worshiping and singing songs
to Jesus.
Okay.
So you're opening it and then guess what happens?
The next thing it shifts in revelation and says, now we're going to open the seals and
then each seal that opens, something prep-ish happens.
So you open one seal open and something crazy happens.
(41:06):
Another seal open, pop it open and just keep going.
And then so you have an open to scroll yet.
You're opening each seal and each seal that opens, there are seven of them.
It something crazy happens.
And this is when everything is like starts beginning to usher in the end, but it's all
prep work.
So the first seal, the white horse of earthly conquest and dominion is released.
(41:27):
And so this is like the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Then the second seal, the red horse of war, slaughter and bloodshed.
And then the third, the black horse of famine, commerce and economic crisis.
And then the fourth pale horse, the four seals, the pale horse of death.
And so then you wait a little while and then the day of wrath comes and then the multitudes
are saved.
Now this is interesting.
The multitudes is the 144,000 sealed people.
(41:52):
Now some people are wondering, what is this?
What is that?
Okay.
Because this 144,000 comes and then you have the multitude that's like without end that
comes too.
So first 144,000, some people have said like, Oh, well, like for example, yeah, like Jehovah's
(42:14):
witnesses think that's them.
Like the first Jehovah's witnesses, right?
Like there's like, and so like some people will say this, they're people that have been
marked by God to represent God and stuff like that.
But the Bible even says in Revelation seven, just read it.
It counts them from Israel.
There's 12,000 from each tribe of Israel.
(42:35):
It says 12,000 from the tribe of Dan, 12,000 from the tribe of Judah and like 12,000 from
the time of Benjamin.
Like it just goes on like that, right?
And so that equals 144,000.
And so who are the tribes of Israel?
What covenant is that?
The old covenant.
That's the old covenant, right?
And so then they were followed by what?
A great, numberless multitude of new covenant of all who come to know Jesus.
(42:59):
Boom.
After his relationship.
Us.
The Gentiles.
Baby, let's go.
Gentile nation rise up.
That's right.
So 144,000 is the Jews in the old covenant.
The multitude, the great multitude is us.
It's the new covenant.
It's the church.
Yeah.
The Savior who choose to accept Jesus, their Savior after his death and resurrection.
Then finally the seventh seal breaks and there's 30 minutes of silence in heaven.
(43:21):
And then you have all hell breaks loose when you have the judgments.
And so with the trumpets that are next.
And so that actually like when I was an undergrad, it made me question be like 30 minutes of
silence in heaven.
That's crazy.
And then I was like, what does that mean?
And this is on the seventh seal.
And then I was like, wait a minute, does that reflect the days of creation?
(43:41):
Cause I'm a seventh.
They got rested.
That's interesting.
And so I looked at it and I saw that it does not.
However, the seven trumpets totally do.
And actually published a paper on this and it's called in the end, God uncreated the
world.
And so the seven trumpets, my argument is, is a systematic undoing of the days of creation.
(44:06):
Everything is falling back and mixing together.
Pretty interesting.
And so the days like the trumpets also feels like very reminiscent of like Jericho.
Yeah.
There, all that stuff is going in there.
And there's also like even a reference to Moses and the plagues that are happening.
Cause it's all what?
Interboot.
It is.
It is.
So I want to, I think if we split this up, let's end it here and then we'll pick it
(44:27):
up as a part two.
Cause the next part is wild too.
Like so, this is basically, this is going to end the first half of the book of revelation.
So it's a natural good place to end.
That's where we'll pick up next.
We're going to talk about the second half of the book of revelation and which really
talks about the end of everything, the new Jerusalem and the whole nine yards.
And then hopefully that brings you hope and not anxieties.
(44:51):
It might give you more questions, but at least now you have a guided way to think through
these passages, which I think will be helpful.
You think that's a good ending spot?
I like it.
We'll pick it back up when it gets chaotic.
We'll pick it back up when it gets chaotic.
That's it for this episode that we are going to pick up right back as part two next week.
Indeed.
And until then, this episode is always sponsored by the school of theology and ministry at
(45:14):
life Pacific university.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
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