Revelation: The Seven Churches.

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Did you ever have a best friend?  Someone with whom you had a lot in common; someone you hung out with constantly; someone you would trust with your most important secrets and possessions?  John, the guy who wrote down what became the book of Revelation in the Bible was, and had, a best friend – Jesus.  When Jesus was on this earth John was his closest buddy and as Jesus was dying on the cross he trusted John enough to ask him to take care of his mother Mary as if she were his own mother. (John 19: 26, 27)  And when it came time to reveal (the definition of Revelation) the end time prophecies, Jesus once again turned to John, someone he could trust.

          In the first chapter of Revelation we learn that John was in exile on a little island called Patmos because he refused to stop preaching the Gospel of Jesus to anyone who would listen.  By this time John was an old man and one Sabbath morning, while he was praying, a loud voice behind him made him turn around and there was Jesus, his old friend.  Jesus was clothed with the glory of heaven and was standing amid seven lamp stands while holding seven stars in his right hand.  Jesus explained to John that the seven lamp stands were the seven churches in Asia and that the seven stars were the angels of the seven churches.

Who are the seven stars, or angels, of the seven churches?  Some say they are literal angels assigned to guide and watch over the churches, but because the messages sent to the churches contain reprimands, we have to conclude that the seven angels/stars cannot be perfect heavenly beings.  The stars must represent flawed humans, so the logical conclusion is that they represent church leaders such as priests, pastors, elders, etc.  And what are the seven churches?  Jesus himself lists them in Revelation 1: 11:  Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. 

          Middle East                            Turkey and the location of the seven churches              

            As we have seen in previous studies,  prophecies often have a dual application.  The characteristics of the literal seven churches in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) parallel the spiritual characteristics of the Christian church as a whole throughout its history.  So as we study what Jesus says about the seven churches we will be applying it to the history of Jesus’ true followers for the past 2000 years. 

But that is only half the story.  Along with the spiritual characteristics of the church at different times, we will also learn what worldly experiences the church went through.  In Revelation Chapters four and five we are shown something that occurs in heaven.  God, on his throne, is holding a book with seven seals securely closing it.  The Lamb of God – Jesus – takes the book from God.  The Lamb has “…seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.”  Rev. 5: 6   Jesus is the leader, the horn, of all seven churches, and the Holy Spirit (the eye) watches over and guides the seven churches through their experiences. (see Appendix 2) 

Part 13: A Double Meaning.

Okay, this is Belle writing right now. If any of you are upset by math and numbers, you may be getting either bored or upset by now. Just stick with us. We move into Revelation in the next post.

I know these dates and numbers are very important or else God wouldn't have given them to us so we could know what would happen in the last days. God is a God of great detail. Just read about the instructions of how to build the Sanctuary in Exodus and how to sew the priests clothing!  Details are important to God because each detail has a meaning.

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So does this mean Octavian is the horn of Daniel Chapter 8?  Yes, and no.

The angel Gabriel told Daniel that this particular vision “…pertains to the time of the end.” (Daniel 8: 17)  How can it pertain to the end of time when we know Egypt became a province of Rome over 2000 years ago?  That is because this vision has a dual application.

  

We saw in chapter one of this book that Jesus’ prophecy in Matt. 24: 6-8 applied to both the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and to the end of the world at the end time.  So, too, does the vision of the horn in Daniel Chapter 8 apply to two time periods; the emperors of Rome in ancient times and the power that grows from Rome in the end times.  One produces the other and, just like from parents to children, similar traits are passed down.

      

So if we look at the power that followed Greece in Daniel Chapter 8 as being a twofold prophecy, we can break it down like this.

Ancient Times                                                          End Times

Rome                                                                      Offspring of Rome

Emperor                                                                  Blasphemous Horn

Destroyed Temple                                                    Trample the Holy Place

 at Jerusalem

 Demanded the Emperor                                           Calls itself equal to God

 be worshipped                                                        and removes Jesus’ sacrifice

Daniel 8: 11 and 14 say that the horn “…removed the regular sacrifice from Him (meaning God), and the place of His sanctuary was thrown down…For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the holy place will be properly restored.”  In Gen. 1: 5 we see that an evening and a morning is another way of saying ‘one day’, and we have proven that a day in prophecy is actually one year, so here we have a timeline of 2300 years.  The first thing we must determine is where this timeline starts.  

We understand that this vision applies to events in both ancient times and the end times.  It also applies to the old system of religion practiced by the Jews (the “…small horn which grew…toward the Beautiful Land” where the temple in Jerusalem was) and to the new system set up by the sacrifice Jesus made for us and that he is offering in our place in heaven (the horn “…grew up to the host of heaven…and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him…”), so the 2300 years must cover Rome and its offspring, and time periods before and after Jesus was crucified.

We saw that the 70-week probation period given in Daniel Chapter 9 was the last chance for the Jewish nation to get with the program.  They failed and the spread of the gospel to all people began with the scattering of Christians.  After the vision containing the 2300 days, but before giving Daniel the 70-week prophetic warning for the Hebrews, the angel Gabriel told Daniel that he had come to give him ”…insight with understanding.” (Dan. 9: 22) 

How does the 70-week prophecy of Daniel 9 give help in understanding anything else?  Part of what it gives us is a starting point for the previous vision’s timeline…457 BCE.  So if the 2300 years also begins in 457 BCE, then its end would be 1844 CE.  Did anything important happen in the year 1844?  Not that we can see with our mortal eyes because Daniel 8: 14 says that at the end of the 2300 years the “…holy place will be properly restored” and, as we have seen, this applies to what Jesus does for us in heaven.  We will go into more detail about this in later chapters.

Part 12: The Seventy Weeks Prophecy.

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Once God removed his protection from the Jews, they were in big trouble.  In 70 CE the Roman general Titus and his army destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.  Jesus had told his disciples that the temple would be destroyed to such an extant that “…not one stone here would be left upon another…” (Matt. 24:2) and that is exactly what happened.  When Titus’ army set fire to the city, the gold in the temple melted along the walls and the soldiers tore the building apart stone by stone in order to scrape up the gold.  Thus Titus “destroy(ed) the city and the sanctuary.”

We have just looked at an extremely important timeline, and we have proven that our interpretation of timelines is accurate from the start, to the end, and all points in between. 

The 70 Weeks Prophecy

Artaxerxes'		Jerusalem				Jesus	Jesus		Stephan
Decree		Rebuilt				Baptized	Crucified		Stoned
457	BCE   408					CE   27	30	34
	7 wks			62 wks			1	wk
	49 yrs			434 yrs			7	yrs

Now we are going to look at the longest timeline in Bible prophecy; the timeline that all other timelines fall into.  Do you remember the ram and the goat, Medo-Persia and Greece, from Daniel Chapter 8? 

The goat’s horn was broken and was followed by four other horns, representing Alexander’s death and the division of his kingdom among his generals.  In the strife and confusion after Alexander’s death, the generals split the kingdom “…toward the four winds of heaven.” (Daniel 8: 8) North, East, South and West.  Daniel 8: 9-12 and 23-25 says that out of one of them, in the latter period of their rule, came a small horn that became mighty and powerful, destroying holy people, opposing God, and calling himself equal to God.  

After our study in the last chapter we know without a doubt that the Roman Empire followed the Greek Empire, both in prophecy and in fact, and we know that a horn stands for a person.  So what are these verses in Daniel Chapter 8 talking about?

 Rome came from the West and first conquered Macedonia, the Western portion of Alexander’s divided empire in the mid second century BCE.  But Daniel 8: 23 says the horn would arise “In the latter period of their rule…” so when did the fourth and final division of the Greek Empire fall to Rome?  In 30 BCE when Cleopatra, Pharaoh of Egypt and descendant of the Greek general Ptolemy, killed herself and Octavian (later the Roman Emperor Augustus) claimed Egypt as a province of Rome. 

           

Part 11: Prophecy of Jesus' Crucifixion.

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Tiberius became co-emperor of Rome with Augustus in 13 CE, so his 15^th year would bring us to 27 CE.

The angel Gabriel said that the Messiah would make a “covenant with the many for one week” (7 years).  If Jesus began his ministry in 27 CE, then the covenant week ends in 34 CE.  What is this covenant week?  This is the last 7 years of the 70-week or 490-year,  probationary period for the Hebrews.  The Messiah was here on earth in person, ready and willing to make a permanent covenant with the Hebrews if  they would accept him. 

But in 30 CE, in the middle of the last seven years, the Jewish (Hebrew) religious and political leaders successfully schemed to have Jesus killed.  Jesus was “cut off and had nothing”, separated and rejected by the chosen people, the people blessed with God’s personal attention for centuries.

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 What does it mean that Jesus’ death “put an end to the sacrifice and grain offering?”  Why did Jesus have to die?  All of our decisions and actions have consequences and when we sin it separates us from God - erecting a wall in our relationship with him.  God set up a substitutional system that would restore our relationship with him and transfer the punishment (eternal consequences) we would otherwise receive for our bad choices onto something else.  Those people living before Jesus was on earth would go to the temple, symbolically transfer their sin onto an innocent animal (usually a lamb) and kill it as a sacrificial substitute.  God would accept the substitute, they would be absolved, and their relationship with him would be restored.  

 Jesus came to this world to be the ultimate sacrifice.  He was offering himself as our permanent substitute; taking our punishment, absolving us of sin, and becoming a permanent bridge connecting heaven and earth – God and man.  Once he did that, the sacrificial system was “put to an end” because the ultimate sacrificial substitute had died for us (Heb. 10: 11, 12).  When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to be baptized, he appropriately declared, “…Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1: 29)

In 34 CE, the time of God’s favoritism towards the Hebrew nation ended because they stubbornly rejected Jesus and his sacrifice for them.  God had to start all over from scratch because, although he had a few followers, he “had nothing” in the form of a nation of followers any more.  In that same year the Jews killed a Christian named Stephen and began persecuting all the Christians in the area, so many of them scattered and began preaching wherever they found refuge.  God was building a new “nation” of followers, gathering anyone who wanted to belong to him.

Part 10: A Prophecy of Jesus.

We now have the starting point for our 490-year timeline.

The seven weeks, or 49 years (7 x 7 = 49), of the 70-week prophecy refers to the time it took to finish rebuilding Jerusalem, complete with “plaza and moat”.  This takes us to the year 408 BCE.

The 62 weeks, or 434 years (7 x 62 = 434), of the 70-week prophecy follow the seven weeks so it obviously begins in 407 BCE and goes through to 27 CE.  Did anything special happen in the year 27 CE?  Yes.  Luke Chapter 3 and Verse 1 says that it was the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and “Messiah the Prince”, Jesus, began his ministry here on earth. 

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 Tiberius became co-emperor of Rome with Augustus in 13 CE, so his 15^th year would bring us to 27 CE.

The angel Gabriel said that the Messiah would make a “covenant with the many for one week” (7 years).  If Jesus began his ministry in 27 CE, then the covenant week ends in 34 CE.  What is this covenant week?  This is the last 7 years of the 70-week or 490-year,  probationary period for the Hebrews.  The Messiah was here on earth in person, ready and willing to make a permanent covenant with the Hebrews if  they would accept him. 

 But in 30 CE, in the middle of the last seven years, the Jewish (Hebrew) religious and political leaders successfully schemed to have Jesus killed.  Jesus was “cut off and had nothing”, separated and rejected by the chosen people, the people blessed with God’s personal attention for centuries.  

Part 9: Timelines of Prophecy.

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Many of you reading may be wondering when we are going to be getting into the book of Revelation.  That is where all the prophecy about the end of time is located, right?  Well, no.  In the first chapter we looked at prophecies from the books of Matthew and 1 Peter, for instance, to prove we are indeed in the end times.  In the second chapter we looked in the book of Daniel to prove that Bible prophecy is true and reliable.  Now, in the third chapter, we are going to look in Daniel further but for different reasons.  Before we can get into the specifics of Revelation we must start with the bigger picture because we not only want to understand what everything in Revelation means, we want to know why each thing means what it does and how it fits in with the others.  So one more chapter in Daniel and we will move on to Revelation.

The book of Daniel gives us very useful timelines that we can follow like maps, where we can mark on them different events prophesied in the Bible.  These timelines are described as days, weeks, and months, but a day in prophetic language is actually a year.  (see Appendix 2).

 

	If one day equals one year (Ez. 4: 4-6 and Num. 14: 34), then…
	One Week		7 Days		7 Years
	One Month		30 Days		30 Years
	One Year		360 Days		360 Years (see Appx. 2)

We are going to start with a timeline that gives us a clue as to when the starting point for some major timelines lie and to prove that our understanding of timelines is correct.

‘Seventy weeks have been declared for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.  So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.  Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.  And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.  And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering….” Daniel 9: 24-27

This passage was spoken by the angel Gabriel to Daniel so it comes straight from heaven.

Gabriel was saying that the Hebrews and the city of Jerusalem had 70 weeks, or 490 years (7 days per week multiplied by 70 weeks equals 490 years), of probation left to straighten out and start keeping their side of the bargain they had made with God way back when God brought them out of Egypt.  The start of the probation period would begin when a decree was issued allowing the Hebrews to “restore and rebuild” the city of Jerusalem. 

It was not long after the Medo-Persians conquered the Babylonians that many of the Hebrews were allowed to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed.

Jerusalem with orders that, in part, called for Ezra to organize the city so it could rule itself independently while still being part of the Persian Empire.  Ezra was to appoint magistrates and judges and was to ensure the carrying out of the king’s laws. (Ezra 7: 25, 26)  Although the decree from Artaxerxes did not specifically say that the city of Jerusalem was to be rebuilt, Ezra and the rest of the Hebrews knew the orders they held implied the rebuilding.  How else was a city to function without buildings for the government, the courts, etc?  So Artaxerxes’ decree “restored” Jerusalem to the Hebrews and they began to “rebuild” the city in 457 BCE.  

Part 8: Daniel's Dream.

Part 8: Daniel's Dream.

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This timeline of world history was so important that God repeated it three times and in each of them God added a little more detail.  In Daniel Chapter 7, while Daniel was still living under the Babylonian Empire, God gave him a dream.  

“…the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.  And four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from one another.  The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle.  I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man; a human mind also was given to it.  And behold, another beast, a second one, resembling a bear.  And it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth; and thus they said to it, ‘Arise, devour much meat!’…and behold, another one, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird; the beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it…and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth.  It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns…behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts.” Daniel 7:2-8

Daniel saw the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea (for an explanation of prophetic symbols see Appendix 2).  Out of this great sea there came four beasts corresponding to the four metals making up the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. 

ANIMAL		KINGDOM		ATTRIBUTES
Lion		Babylon		Wings of Eagle = speed
				Wings Plucked = decadent and complacent
Bear		Persia		Raised on one side = Persia stronger than Media
				Three Ribs = three areas of conquest:
Leopard		Greece		Four Wings = extreme speed
				Four Heads = empire divided among the generals
Beast		Rome		Iron Teeth = consumes nations
				Extremely Strong = crushes all opposition
Horns		Mixed Nations		Arising from Rome

The first was a lion that had wings like an eagle (signifying the speed with which the beast could move).  It had its wings plucked and it was given a human mind.  Babylon stopped conquering other nations and felt secure in its power, becoming decadent and complacent, losing the attributes of a preying lion and instead became the prey.

 The lion was replaced by a lop-sided bear (signifying that one side was stronger than the other) with three ribs in its mouth (signifying the three geographical areas it ‘devoured’; its own lands of Media and Persia, lands the Babylonian Empire once ruled, and new lands such as Anatolia).

 The bear was replaced by a leopard with four wings (signifying even greater speed of movement) and four heads (Alexander’s empire divided among his generals).

And finally a fourth beast, Rome, which was terrifying and extremely strong, ; it had iron teeth and crushed the other beasts.

  There are ten horns on the last beast, signifying many smaller kingdoms arising from the beast.  In prophecy, a horn stands for a person, so the ten horns would represent ten kings.  If it is a literal number, did ten kings and kingdoms arise after the Roman Empire fell?  Yes.  Rome had become too large for one central government to rule effectively so it was split into two halves by the emperor Diocletian in the third century CE.  The Eastern half of the Roman Empire eventually became what we know as Byzantium with its capitol at Constantinople.  The Western half of the divided Roman Empire kept Rome as its capitol and this is the part that fell and was eventually divided into ten parts.  Differences exist regarding which nations comprised these ten parts; it seems to depend on the date chosen as the fall of the Roman Empire. One commonly accepted date chosen as the beginning of the fall of Rome falls in the middle of the fourth century CE.  If that is our start time, then the group of nations that divided up the Roman Empire consists of the Anglo-Saxons, the Franks, the Suevi, the Visigoths, the Burgunians, the Alamanni (later replaced by the Huns), the Lombards, the Ostrogoths, the Heruli and the Vandals.  And here we see the beginning of individual European nations such as France, Germany, Spain, etc.  

Following all these beasts and horns Daniel saw Jesus returning to the earth and setting up his kingdom. 

“I kept looking in the night visions,

And behold, with the clouds of heaven

One like the Son of Man was coming…

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

Which will not pass away…”  Daniel 7: 13, 14