To show His servants the things that must soon take place. Now, I’m going to emphasize this later this morning. And by the way, we’re still in our preliminary stages, okay, of this series. But I want to emphasize this: To show His servants what must soon take place. Very important phrase. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that He saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

Now, let me just give you our brief overview again of our purpose. We want to journey through Revelation in what I’m calling three acts: Christ revealed, which means the book is about Him, not merely from Him. The Old Testament explored. Over two-thirds of the 400 verses in Revelation are allusions from the Old Testament. You want to understand Revelation, we have to understand the Old Testament. We have to explore it. And the third one, of course, is the truth applied. God blesses all who listen to its message and obey what it says. Revelation is supposed to be applied. We come to it and we look for things that we can apply in our lives.

Now, today’s focus will be mainly on this third idea of application, and as I hope I can bring this out going forward. The third point, specifically examining today, again, how Revelation, if we only look at it as a predictive book, as some kind of prediction, it undermines our calling and our calling to diligence.

Last week, I have to return to last week’s challenge. Last week, we noted that 2,000 years after the writing of this book, we asked what are we to make of that statement from chapter 1, the things that must soon take place. 2,000 years later, what are we to make of this phrase, the things that must soon take place? And I am arguing that misinterpreting the purpose of that statement leads to predictions which typically are always wrong.

Now, the challenge, of course, is not limited to the first part of the book because the book ends that way. And this is abbreviated, of course, but Revelation 22:16, 12, and 20. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent His angel to show His servants what must soon take place. Same phrase as at the beginning of the book: To show His servants what must soon take place. And then it says, “Behold, I am coming soon. Behold, surely I am coming soon.” So you have this constant reference. The book begins with this, “I’m coming soon,” and it ends with, “I’m coming soon.” And how do we credibly respond? Here’s the conundrum: We are promised a blessing if we hear and apply the truth of this book. In verse 3. And therefore, we use the book. We cite it. We quote from it. We talk about it. We teach from it. But yet, how are we, as 21st-century Christians, to credibly answer this question? 2,000 years later, what are we supposed to do with that?

Now, I told you there were various suggestions. The one that I find most biblically consistent and coherent is the one that sees *soon* as a reference, not to a chronological reference in the sense of time. And I use the illustration of a long parade. If a parade’s five miles long and it starts at one o’clock, and you’re at the end of the parade, you will not see the parade until it gets there. And it might be two or three hours before it does. You can say the parade has started even though you don’t see any floats or hear any music. The parade has started.

Now, this is an important consideration because this helps us to understand *soon* is an expression of certainty, not a chronological reference. Now, I said last week that there were many possible answers and I did not deal with one because of the complexity involved in that answer. But several people mentioned it, asked questions about it. And so I want to come back to that today and explain this. Because one suggestion that we did not deal with because of the complexities agrees with this idea. It’s not a chronological reference. And that is from 2 Peter 3:8. 2 Peter, I just have Peter there, but it’s 2 Peter. And Peter says, “Do not overlook this fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day.”

Now, I want to move forward this morning in two ways. One, to note the complexity of that passage. Because it sounds simple, but I hope you’ll see it’s not that simple. And then I want you to see how it applies to His coming and to these things that will soon come to pass. And I want you to see this today. So first, let us begin noting the complexity of that passage by first recognizing what we call the defining, the so-called delay in the *parousia*. *Parousia* is the Greek word for the return of Christ. The so-called delay in the return of Christ. And the reason we say the so-called delay is what I’ve often mentioned to you in the past, that we really can’t say He’s late because He didn’t give us a specific time when He was coming.

This is the first thing that comes to mind here with these people who seem to be concerned about why the Lord hasn’t come. If you know the bigger context of 2 Peter, it says there are scoffers who will say, “Where is the promise of His coming?” And Peter says that the day of the Lord is like a thousand years. And it seems to be an answer, but it’s much more complex because Christ did not give us a time for when He would return. If He had said, “I’ll be back in 10 years, I’ll be back in 100 years, I’ll be back in 1,000 years,” and He wasn’t here, then we could say, “His coming is delayed.” And this is a very prominent phrase that I, and one of the reasons why I want to say this is a personal conundrum, because a lot of people use that language, and I’ve never understood why you use that language. He did not say when He was coming back, therefore you cannot say He’s late.

And this is a problem that we have with this. The *New American Commentary* says it like this: “If the passing of time does not diminish God in any way, and if He transcends time so that its passing does not affect His being, then believers should not be concerned about the so-called delay of His coming. We cannot say He’s late, first because He never gave us the time when He was coming, and secondly because it is true that His concept of time is not like our own.”

Now, this principle, though true in principle, it is true, God’s time is not our time. By the way, Peter is quoting from an Old Testament passage in Psalms, so this is not even a new idea to Peter. It’s been known among God’s people, His time is not like ours, and we can’t measure it in the same way. And again, I am trying to unpack the idea of His *thousand years later*, He still has not come.

Now, though true in principle, God’s perception of time is not ours, absolutely true, nobody’s arguing that point, it is only partially applicable to this situation. And I’ll give you three reasons for that. First is, and I think I have it on here, the principle is still in effect. In other words, if God’s time is not like our time, then we cannot say that His coming is now because it might not be for another thousand years. I’m trying to argue from here backwards, but it applies from here forward. It doesn’t solve the predicament of why He hasn’t come in two thousand years. It just does that.

By the way, the second consideration under that principle is still in effect. It doesn’t really help the people. If the people are concerned, if they’re distressed because He hasn’t come, Peter says, “Well, there’s no reason to be surprised about that because God’s time is not our time.” It’s a totally different issue. It doesn’t answer the problem.

Secondly, as you can see in your outline, this apparently simple language ignores the tension that has always existed in this talking about the coming of the Lord, the nearness of the day of the Lord. Again, that’s not a New Testament phrase. Look at these passages from the Old Testament: Isaiah 13:6, “Wail, for the day of the Lord is near. As destruction from the Almighty it will come.” Joel 1:15 says almost the identical same thing. Joel 2:1, “Blow a trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord is coming. It is near.” Zephaniah 1:14, “The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast.” Ezekiel 30:1–3, “Son of Man, prophesy. Thus says the Lord God, Wail, alas for the day, for the day is near. The day of the Lord is near.” Obadiah 1:15, “For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds shall return on your head.”

There’s a very important point here that there’s always been this sense of urgency. Now that’s an important phrase. There’s always been this sense of urgency when we talk about the coming of the Lord. We are to expect it at any time. And yet, it is complex. This is the consideration.

Now, there is supposed to be a sense of urgency in the coming of Christ. And you’ll see why I stress that in a moment. The third thing we need to understand is that there are difficulties in dating the book of Peter and Revelation that complicate rather than solve the problem. And let me give you this consideration. Now, first, Revelation has two possibilities. Most scholars believe that Revelation was either written around 70 A.D. or 90 A.D. And the reasons for believing that are that in Revelation 11, the angel is measuring the temple. And so the argument is the temple still exists, and the temple of Herod’s temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. So it had to be written before 70 A.D. because the temple was still standing. And that’s just one of the arguments about 70 A.D.

Then you come to 90 A.D. and why would anyone date it for 90 A.D.? You know, the writer of Revelation didn’t sit down and say, “In the year of our Lord 90, I wrote the book of Revelation.” We don’t know that. We have to look at internal references or historic references to date these books. In the book of Revelation, there’s this repeated mention of Christians being required to engage in emperor worship. All the references about the beast and what we call the Antichrist, these were things that were happening to those people. It’s so very important. We have to come back to this again and again and again. It is a blessing to those people to apply these things. These things had to apply to them. And so there’s evidence. It’s not definitive, if you will, but there’s evidence that this kind of emperor worship began in the reign of Domitian, who was the emperor from 81 A.D. to 96 A.D. And so the argument is it was written to encourage the Christians who were being confronted with emperor worship so that they would not fall victim to that and this would put the writing around 90 A.D.

There are other internal reasons, but that was the one that I want to call your attention. It is important to notice with respect to 2 Peter 3:8, the day of the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years has one day with God. His perspective of time is different. You have to remember that Peter is addressing people who are being misled by scoffers and false teachers. The book begins by saying there would be false teachers among you. That passage begins by saying there will be scoffers who say. So Peter is not trying to specifically answer the question of why the Lord’s delay. I’ve got to keep my focus here because it’s a little tricky and I hope it is tricky so that you can see why some of these things are more complex than they sound.

But Peter is addressing people who are being misled. Now, if 2 Peter was written by Peter, I believe it was, but there are a lot of scholars who say 2 Peter was not written by Peter, it was written by somebody later than Peter and just used Peter’s name. But if we say, and I believe that it was written by Peter, Peter died in the early 60s of the first century. That’s an important point. He died in the early 60s. He was, church history and tradition tells us, that Paul and Peter were put to death by Nero in the early part of the 60s of the first century. Now, that means that it’s only been 30 years since Christ left. How are these people, by the way, much of what Jesus predicted in the Gospels to come to pass hasn’t come to pass yet? So why are these people already stressed about the delay of the Lord’s coming?

And we have to ask that question. There’s many considerations there, but the point I want you to see is that if Peter wrote this thing about the day of the Lord is like a thousand years, he’s trying to address the coming of Christ and why it hasn’t happened, it’s only been 30 years for those people. How could they already be distressed about the fact that Christ has not yet come? So there’s already something else going on, but here’s the other thing. 30 years later, if Revelation was written in 90 A.D., you have another 30 years. So Peter says, “Oh, don’t worry about it. The Lord’s time is not our time.” And then 30 years later, John comes on the scene and says again, “It’s going to happen soon.” And you can see if we’re not careful, we misinterpret those things.

Now, this is why I come back to saying to you that it is true in perspective, but varied in its application. Again, there’s no question God’s time is not like our time. A thousand years, and it’s a metaphor. It doesn’t mean that it’s exactly a thousand years. This is what a lot of the church history involves as they looked at it literally as a thousand years. A day is a thousand years. For example, six creation days, each day represented a thousand years. God’s dealings with people would last six thousand years. And then there will be the seventh day, which is the day when everything’s made right. And that was the attitude they took.

But when you go to that passage in Psalms, it says it’s like a thousand years or like a watch in the night. And a watch in the night is much different than a thousand years. The point is simply, God’s time is not our time. It is true. No one is questioning whether it’s true. But its application is different. And here’s what I mean. We, in the 21st century, are looking backwards. And we’re trying to explain why it hasn’t happened. And the answer that appeals to us the most is, “God’s time’s not like our time.” Absolutely true. But what you have to do is you have to go back in time to those people.

Now here’s how we would render it, could render it, in the idea, God’s time’s not like our time. Here’s how, here’s what it sounds like: “I’m coming soon, but my soon isn’t your soon, so it might not be soon after all.” If you apply that, in any case, even to ourselves, but if you apply it to these people, all urgency is taken out of it. He says these things, “to show His servants things that must soon come to pass,” but if you say, “Well, soon really isn’t soon, because God’s time’s not our time,” then all the urgency is taken out of that command, and therefore you lose the blessing.

Now again, some of you might scratch your heads and say, “Boy, I can’t follow this.” Thank you. That’s really a compliment, because the whole point I’m trying to make is our tendency as American Christians, slow out a verse, here’s the answer, and it’s not the answer when you look a lot closer. It has to be for these people, for the first readers of Revelation. They read it. It means something to them. They are promised a blessing if they obey. They are promised a blessing if they do these things. It isn’t just people in the future who are going to be blessed. The people reading the book, whether it be the 1st century or the 10th century or the 21st century, are promised a blessing, and therefore we just can’t say, “Well, God’s time’s not like our time,” because that strips the urgency out of the first readers. They’re saying, “Well, He said He was coming soon, but that doesn’t really mean soon. Because His time’s not like our time before, we don’t know when it’s going to be.” And this is the conundrum. This is the challenge that we have.

And this is why that viewpoint, and again, it’s absolutely true, but it tends to create the perspective that this book is a far-off prediction and that it, that it’s, whose fulfillment, just read your outline, Pastor, this tends to create the perspective that the book is a far-off prediction from their perspective, whose fulfillment lies predominantly in our time. Almost everybody, because of the popularity of dispensationalism in the 20th century, almost everybody believes this stuff is happening to us now. But if it is true that God’s time is not our time, then this, we might not see Him come for another thousand years. In other words, we’re interpreting everything by signs outside the Bible rather than what the book actually says. And I know it’s complex, and I know it’s a difficult thing.

By the way, Peter goes on in his letter to say, “The day of the Lord will come. It will happen, but then he says what? Like a thief in the night.” And so what you see is the tension remains. The tension, He’s coming soon, but yet, not when you expect it. And this is the tension that’s always been in this. And we accept the tension. So how are we going to do this? So we see then that this answer, God’s time is not like our time, true, but it doesn’t answer the problem. It doesn’t solve the issue at all. It tells us something about God, yes, but it does not solve the problem of what are we supposed to say 21 centuries later about the soon coming.

And here’s how we do that. I suggest that we separate the *soon things* from the *soon coming*. Now, back to that passage in Revelation, and I apologize, I meant to make a duplicate side here, and I didn’t, and I don’t want to go all the way back to the beginning. But He says, in Revelation 22, the things that must soon take place, and then He says, “I’m coming soon.” And I want to tell you what we need to do, and I think it’s scriptural, and I’ll show you that. Separate the *soon things* from the *soon coming*. Separate those two. And Jesus does that Himself. In other words, those passages, and by the way, next week, we will deal with that. Because it says, “He must show His servants what must soon, show soon.” They should be able to see things that are coming to pass in the first century. Well, what kind of things could they have seen that happened in the first century? In the early parts of the second century, one of those, the persecution of the church. He says, “I will show you things that must soon come to pass.” And then He launches into this description of how the church is going to be persecuted throughout the centuries. These are some of the *soon things* that we’ll look at next week, and we’ll unpack it better.

I’m suggesting that though the Revelation passages are together, I submit they should not be conflated. These things must happen soon doesn’t mean His coming is at the same moment. This is our problem. I’m suggesting that the *soon event*, the persecution, the *soon event* is misinterpreted as proof of a soon return. We see an event that is certainly within keeping of scriptural predictions, but then we jump to the return of Christ from that. And this is something.

Now what we do here, we have to put the *soon things*, we have to put this, what must happen soon, we have to put this in the category of the various signs Jesus predicts will precede His coming. He says, “Here’s all these signs, and then He says, ‘but you won’t know when I’m coming. Be on your guard, be ready always, because you don’t know when we’re coming, because we have conflated these.”

Now, I’m going to read Matthew 24, and I have a slide for the second half of this section, big section. But Matthew 24, as most of you know, Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, are basically the same discourse, predictions about the coming and the end of time. Okay? So here’s how it begins, Matthew 24, verse 3 through 8: “As He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us when these things, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ 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 then He says, ‘And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. The end is not yet. The wars and rumors of wars happen, but the end is not yet. Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.'”

How long has it been since Russia invaded Ukraine? Does anybody know? Four years. Four years ago on Facebook, there was a girl who said, posting all this stuff about Russia invading Ukraine. It’s the end of time. The Lord’s coming soon. Soon there will be paratroopers, Russian paratroopers landing in America, and they’re going to invade us. That’s what I’m talking about. They’re taking an event happening now that is consistent with Scripture, and they’re jumping to the return. And this is what we must not do, and it’s why we have all these kinds of crazy predictions.

He, notice twice here, twice Jesus says that the things people take to be proof of the very end are mere descriptions of the end time. We jump to it. Look, there’s earthquakes. Earthquakes, one of the things, and I’m sorry if anybody here has been affected by this, that verse does not say there will be more earthquakes. It says there will be earthquakes. Many people say, “Well, there’s all kinds of earthquakes happening, and that proved, no, Jesus said there would be earthquakes.” And there’s a sense in which this is about, things are continuing just as they always have. This is where we make our mistake.

But notice twice, he says, people are taking things that are indicative of the end times, and they’re jumping to the end and saying, “This proves that.” And that is what we must not do.

Now, here’s a passage of Scripture many people do this with. And they say, “Well, this proves we’re in the last days, the last of the last days.” And I want you to see this from 2 Timothy. Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self, of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than of God having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

Now, what does that tell us? They were around then. We look at the last days in the first verse and we say, “This is going to happen in the last days.” And Paul says to Timothy, “Avoid these people,” which means they were there then. We jump to the end of it. We read it and we jump right to the end.

By the way, the word *times*. Understand this, that in the last days there will come *times* of difficulty. The Greek word there means seasons. Comes and goes. It gets good and it goes bad. It gets better and it gets worse. And this has happened throughout history and throughout time.

I didn’t bring up my note, but I have a little list of the bad things that happened in the 60s. You hear people today talk about how bad things are in America. But if you go back to the 60s, and I have a whole list of it, the 60s were the strongest hurricanes on record were in the 60s. They do more damage now because things cost more and more people are living where the hurricanes strike. But as far as intensity, the worst ones were in the 60s. The worst earthquakes in history were during the 1960s. In the 1960s, America had three political assassinations. Three in one decade. John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. When Martin Luther King was killed, there were 167 race riots in the summer of 1968 because of, or 67, whichever year it was that he was killed. 167, those people that were around back then, remember, L.A. was on fire. Detroit was on fire. The country was burning up, so to speak. In 1968, at the National Democratic Committee, there were protests in the street of Chicago. And do you know what started them all? A white policeman shot a black teenager. That’s what started them. You think you’re reading the newspaper today, don’t you? It was that bad in the 60s.

And by the way, if you remember, there were all kinds of anti-war, well, I can’t say if you remember because many of you weren’t there in the 1960s, but there were all kinds of anti-war protests culminating in the shooting by National Guard troops of protesters at Kent State University in Ohio. Oh, it’s never been this bad, Pastor, I beg your pardon. It has been this bad in our social context before. It has been before. But people say, “It’s never been this bad.” And Pastor, look, the Scripture says, “In the last days.” But these things were already happening. And they’re meant not to be a prediction of the end, but a prediction of how things will be throughout the end time.

Listen to this from Homer Kent. Homer Kent says, “The last days is an expression in his commentary on Timothy. The last days is an expression often used in Scripture to refer to Messianic times. This began with the first coming of Christ. It includes the time now present. Within this time of the last days, which has already extended more than 20 centuries, there will set in shorter seasons which will be difficult to endure. These will occur from time to time even during Timothy’s lifetime.”

We take this verse, I can show you 10,000 pastors who read that verse and say, “We’re living in it,” and Paul says, “This is the way it’s going to be throughout your life.” It is indicative of the brokenness of humanity and not an end time prediction. Paul indicates that the apostasy of this chapter is to be guarded against in Timothy’s day. It isn’t just we’re living in the last days, because look at how bad everything is. But it’s always been this way. It’s been like this throughout history.

Now, I want you to notice this. Where is that? Is that here? Note that Jesus’ description in Matthew 24 perfectly mirrors Paul’s words here. Jesus says, “These are the beginning of the birth pangs,” and Paul says, “In the last days there will be difficult times.” They’re not to be interpreted in a sense of predictions. Jesus mentions in Matthew 24 treachery. People will betray each other. He mentions false teachings. He mentions lawlessness. And He mentions cold emotions.

This is the place for you to know something about your pastor. I’m deeply concerned. I can’t do anything about it. But I’m deeply concerned about the advent of artificial intelligence because it’s doing everything and it’s separating us from other human beings. We do not have to go out the door of our houses. We can order online groceries and have them delivered. We can have everything brought to us. We don’t have to go to anybody. And in the consequence of it, we’re being alienated from people. And what does that come down to? A disregard for other human beings. I don’t know them. I don’t want to know them. I have my life. This is all I care about. That is not their servanthood or attitude of Christ.

Now, thank God we have the technology and where it’s good, use it. But do not let it separate you from other human beings. Am I the only one who’s tired of calling up to get something done somewhere and you can’t talk to a real person? You push 53 buttons? And I just keep saying, when they ask me, I just say, “I want to talk to a human. I want to talk to you. I didn’t understand it. I want to talk to a human.” And about 15 times later, a human will come on the phone. And we have another challenge because sometimes they can’t speak English, so we’re right back where we were before.

But you understand what I’m trying to say. There’s a coldness of our culture. And we have to get across that coldness. It is part of the problem, but it is not necessarily an indication that we’re right off the brink of Christ coming again.

Now notice this. The things that just to illustrate again, and we’re almost done, to illustrate that what Paul says, what Jesus says, these are the things coming to pass. And they’ve been coming to pass. We shouldn’t look at them as proof that we’re at the end. We should see that they’ve always been true because the culture is broken and until Jesus comes, it will remain broken.

I’m a firm believer in participating in the political process, and I do believe you should be informed. I do think Christians are failing in that regard because I can tell you there were tens of thousands of Christians who went out this year because they have resentment towards Donald Trump and voted for a woman who said she was going to kill babies up to the day of their birth. They voted for her because of their hatred for Donald Trump. So I understand we should be informed and active, but politicians cannot solve the problem of the human heart. Only God can change people’s hearts.

Listen, however, to what happens in Romans. And I try to take these two lists and draw the same things. Romans 1:29 says people are covetous, haughty, boastful, haters of God, gossips, slanderers, heartless, disobedient to parents, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, inventors of evil, faithless, ruthless. And 2 Timothy, Paul says they are lovers of money, that’s covetousness. They are proud, haughty, arrogant, boastful, unholy, not lovers of God, haters of God, not lovers of God, heartless, disobedient to parents. I owe this one to Jason. He sent this to me a while back, this statement: “The earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents. The end of the world is fast approaching.” I asked the Wednesday night crowd when they thought that was written. “Children no longer obey their parents.” 18 something. That particular statement came from an Assyrian tablet dated to 2800 B.C. This is not a new problem. It’s a problem of the human heart.

And what we are prone to do is we come to Revelation as a predictive book and then we start looking for the predictions. And in fact, it has always been like this. And this is some of the things that he says we must see coming to pass so that we can be on guard.

Now, one commentator asked a question in connection to what Jesus says in Matthew 24. How can violence and war be seen as signs of the final days? And the *New American Commentary* renders it this way: “The answer is that in any period of history they may not be the signs but just signs. In other words, the spirit of the age may have an Eflavor without necessarily being the herald of the actual end.”

The first readers of Revelation have to be shown things that can then shape their lives as Christians so that they can benefit from the teachings of Revelation by applying them. And because we do not know when the Lord is coming, we don’t know how long more it will be. We must live our lives, and we cannot live fruitfully and effectively if we keep jumping around to the predictions that are drawn from passages that have always been applicable to the human race.

This is one of the problems of seeing Revelation only as a predictive book because we tend to see it as predictive of our time. This is happening now and some of it may well be. It could happen today that Jesus could come. Your pastor is not denying that. Your pastor is saying Revelation isn’t supposed to be used as a horoscope or a crystal ball. That’s not what it’s for. And the Christian church should turn its eyes away from that.