The End of History

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0:00 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne and from the Lamb. Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. Lord Jesus Christ, be present now and let your Holy Spirit bow. All hearts and love and truth today to hear your word and keep your way.

0:54 Give us the grace to grasp your word, that we may do what we have heard. Instruct us through the Scriptures, Lord, as we draw near, O God adored, to God the Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit, three in one. To you, O blessed Trinity, be praised throughout eternity. Amen. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I began our prayer today with one of the doxologies in the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation has a lot of doxologies, meaning praises of God, giving Him glory. And that came from Revelation chapter 7, right in the middle of it, and also towards the end.

1:47 There's so much in the book of Revelation. And so, tonight we're covering chapter 29 of Understanding the Scriptures. The chapter title is The End of History. But what we're going to do tonight is we're going to be using the theme song of R.E.M., R.E.M. It's the end of the world as you know it. You guys familiar with that song? Too old? Much too old for that song. Yeah. It is the end of the... We're going to be talking about the end of the world, but the end of the world as the Jews knew it. Okay? Because that's what the book of Revelation is about. It's primarily about the end of the Old Covenant. The end of the Old Covenant. Now, the Old Covenant still exists.

2:36 So, an Israelite, such as the Jews today, still have the Old Covenant. It still continues. But it's a covenant of damnation. It's a covenant where there are just covenant curses to be administered. And the blessings can't come from it because it can't be kept. There's no longer a Levitical priesthood. Even if we had the temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, we couldn't get the Levitical lineage to come about. There is no pure Levitical lineage to have Levitical priests. So, the Mosaic Law can't be kept. So, you just have curses. And so, they need to be delivered from that covenant by the redemption won by Jesus Christ from upon the cross. And likewise, we need to be redeemed. We need to be delivered from the Adamic covenant formed with Adam, which was transgressed and has been transgressed every time we sin.

3:34 So, this covenant came to an end visibly at a certain point in time. And we're going to talk about that tonight. So, the covenant continues, but the visible manifestation of it and God's will for Israel to keep the law of that covenant is over with. And that ended with the destruction of the temple by the Roman legions from between 70 and 73 A.D. It started with the burning of the temple in August of 70 and then the dismantling of the temple stone by stone went on for three years. Because when Titus' armies burned the temple against their commander's command, when they burned it, all the gold in the temple melted into the cracks of the rocks in the temple. And so, in order to mine the gold out, you had to take apart the temple stone by stone.

4:30 And that took three years for the Romans to do. And we'll see how that's pertinent to tonight's reading. The book of Revelation is also a commentary, in a certain sense, of one of Jesus' most famous discourses. Does anybody know which discourse this is that we're going to be discussing tonight? I'm sorry? Yes, the Olivet Discourse. And Jesus gave the Olivet Discourse from upon the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem had these city walls going around Jerusalem. And the temple was kind of up a little bit north on the eastern edge. And it took up a fourth of the city when you really included all of the temple.

5:21 And you had the wall of Jerusalem next to the temple. And then you had a valley. And that's where Gethsemane is. Gethsemane is in this valley. And then you have the Mount of Olives to the east of that valley. And it's called the Mount of Olives because on the mount sides, on the slopes, are a bunch of olive trees, groves of olive trees. And it's also a huge burial place for Jews. Thousands and thousands of Jews are buried on this mount. And Jesus was standing upon this mount when he gave this discourse. And you had a clear view across this valley of the temple. And so they're sitting there on the Mount of Olives. And, you know, they're hanging out.

6:10 And they go, hey, Jesus, isn't that a great temple? Look at that, man. Herod. He's really built that thing up. You know, it has these costly stones. It's just really being, it's really not nice, isn't it? And Jesus gives the Olivet Discourse to that. So we're going to go, we're going to look at the Olivet Discourse in a moment. But before we do that, I want to talk about the genre of literature that the book of Revelation is. The book of Revelation is a part of a certain genre of literature called apocalyptic. Apocalyptic. And this is a specialized form of writing of literature among the Israelites. You also have apocalyptic literature outside of Israel.

6:59 But it was also very popular within Israel. And it comes from the Greek word apocalypsis. Apocalypsis. And what that means is to unveil. To unveil. So when you take back the veil, you're apocalypsing. And that's where we get the term revelation from. To reveal. And so this is why we call it the book of Revelation. Or the revelation of St. John. It's also called the Apocalypse of St. John. Or the Apocalypse. So the word apocalypse or apocalyptic literature does not mean the end of the space-time continuum. The end of the world. You know, that's not what, so often, you know, we hear of the apocalypse.

7:49 And we're like, oh, it's the end of the world. You know, the, but that's not what it is. It's a form of writing that reveals God's actions in history right now among the people. So, to an Israelite, God is not, you know, on some far-off, distant universe, you know, and oh, he might visit us every now and then and hang out and maybe reveal himself a little bit. But God is always active in human history. He's right here. He's involved. This is his providence. He's with us. He's involved. He's very active. He's imminent. There's another word we would use for that. And so what apocalyptic literature did is it used vivid imagery, vivid symbols, to disclose what God is doing. The heavenly and divine realities behind the earthly realities.

8:48 Okay, we see that, you know, George Bush was elected president. Well, what's happening in heaven? What does God mean by that? Or when Clinton is elected president. What does God mean by that? Let's look to an apocalyptic literature. You know, that's just kind of what it would look at what's going on right now and it would give a commentary upon that. And so we have apocalyptic literature in the Old Testament. So we have, you know, the mini-apocalypse of Isaiah. Isaiah has apocalyptic imagery. The Gospels have apocalyptic imagery. Matthew chapter 24. And you guys should memorize Matthew chapter 24. That's called Matthew's mini-apocalypse. That's the Olivet Discourse. Jesus speaks in apocalyptic imagery in the Olivet Discourse. So it's not just the book of Revelation.

9:47 And Revelation is one of the most misused and misquoted, mistranslated books of the entire Bible. Because people, when you, sister, when you read poetry, what should you interpret it as? You don't read poetry. You should interpret it as poetry. You know, if you have a historical work, how should you interpret it? As history. Yeah. And if you have rhetoric, something that's, you know, there to convince you of something, how should you interpret it? How should you interpret advertisements? As history? No, you should interpret advertisements, which are rhetoric, as rhetoric, as an advertisement. So you should be a little beware, you know?

10:38 Don't just buy everything you see an ad for. But you kind of interpret it through your interpretive lens. Well, in the same way, we should interpret the book of Revelation as apocalyptic literature, as highly symbolic and talking about the events that God is bringing about in the world. Now, there is substantial agreement among scholars that whenever John wrote the Apocalypse, that besides, he meant for it to be read as if it was written in 68 A.D. So if we're just going to, you know, kind of just go, okay, we read the text according to what it's like, and we want to say, the author intended for us to read it as if it was being written in 68 A.D. And so this is a pretty, this is pretty standard among scholars.

11:35 This isn't really debated that much. Now, there is debate among scholars as to whether or not this is really when it was written, or whether it was written after all the events, and it was written in 96 A.D. And there's details as to why we come to that year, but I'm not going to get into that tonight because it would take too long. So, it was, scholars generally fall into two camps. Either it was written before the events, and it truly prophesied things that happened, and so it was in 68 A.D., or it was written after those events in 96 A.D. And tradition has it that it was written by St. John the Apostle. Okay, and again, scholars differ over that because it has such different Hebrew, such, I'm sorry, such different Greek, such different phraseology than John's Gospel, but yet the same concepts and the same words in a certain sense.

12:36 You know, he kind of, it's almost like the book, like the book of Revelation unlocks the Gospel of John, and terms and phrases in the Gospel of John help you interpret Revelation. Scholars have seen this. So, it's to be read within the, what we call the Joannine corpus of literature. It should be read in light of the Gospel of John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and, you know, Revelation itself, that this is Joannine literature. The earliest existing commentary on the book of Revelation is written by a bishop and a martyr. He was martyred under the Diocletian's reign of persecution. Diocletian, he died in the year 303 A.D.

13:29 And his name is Victorinus of Ptah. P-E-T-T-A-U. He was a bishop and a martyr for the faith. And that's the earliest existing commentary on the book of Revelation. You know, there might have been other commentaries written, but this is the earliest one that we have that we can still access. And Victorinus gave us some interpretive principles on how to read the book of Revelation, and so it kind of helps us, and I'll be talking about those in a moment. By the way, Ptah is in modern-day Austria. That's where he was. You know how St. Irenaeus of Lyon was in what's now Lyon, France? Well, Victorinus is now in what's modern-day Austria.

14:19 Okay, there are 404 verses in the book of Revelation. 404 verses. And not once is the Old Testament quoted word for word. You know, in most all books of the Bible, another book of the Bible is quoted word for word. This is what you call a canonical reading of a text. You look, where else in the canon is it referring to? Is it quoting from? Not once does it quote word for word. But very often it quotes from the Old Testament. It just changes a word here. Changes a verb there. Or it will combine two quotations together. So you're not really getting, you know, a direct quotation of one passage of Scripture, but you'll have different passages combined.

15:12 You also have allusions to the Old Testament, where it's not quoting the Old Testament, but it's alluding. We've already seen how allusion is used. Can you guys guess how many times in these 404 verses you have a quotation or an allusion to the Old Testament? Just give me a number. 110. 300. Is that all? Anybody else want to make a guess? You guys are all afraid. I'm sorry? 404. Good guess. This has got to be something to Carson asking this, you know. There's got to be some trick or something, right? Right?

15:59 518. Allusions or quotations from the Old Testament, but not directly. 518. So, would you think that maybe a knowledge of the Old Testament would be necessary to unlock the book of Revelation? Yes. John is writing the book of Revelation, or it's being revealed to him with Old Testament imagery. And so you're supposed to know the story of the Old Testament, especially the prophets, to be able to understand it. And out of all of these quotations, 17%, which is a pretty good percentage, 17% come from the book of Daniel. So, if you want to understand the book of Revelation, you're going to have to understand the book of Daniel.

16:51 Now, tonight, I'm not going to go into all of this, how it corresponds to Daniel, etc. This would be a whole Bible course on its own. It's so complex. But I will tell you this. If the book of Revelation is structured after Daniel, Daniel has a certain structure, if you take it apart. You can see, you know, there are certain things that are happening in Daniel, and it's structured in a certain way. The book of Revelation is structured in the exact same way, just like Daniel. Perhaps, to show the reader that you're supposed to be looking to Daniel. Remember, what was Daniel revealing the mystery of? What was the mystery to come that he talks about? Remember, we have the four beasts, or we have the statue. Remember, what was the end of that?

17:41 What's the mystery that's going to be revealed after these beasts or after this statue? Christ, certainly. But even more than Christ. The kingdom. Yes, the mystery of the kingdom. The coming of God's kingdom on earth after these other kingdoms. And so, Revelation is about this. It's about the coming of the kingdom that Daniel had talked about so long ago. It's also structured, let's look in your textbooks on page, if I can find it here, page, oh, 508. Page 508 in your textbooks. You'll see also another way that it's structured.

18:33 You'll see on page 508 of your textbooks that the first half of Revelation, and by the way, the division happens right about at the middle of Revelation. You have the first half can be seen as the liturgy of the word. And the second half can be seen as the liturgy of the Eucharist. The first half is about reading scrolls, unbreaking the seals of scrolls, the words coming forth, and the effects of those words and those pronouncements. And then the second half of Revelation has to do with chalices and blood and a wedding, a marriage supper between the lamb and the lamb's bride. And who's the lamb? Jesus. And who's the bride?

19:19 The church. Right. And so, the book of Revelation is a very liturgical book. Very liturgical. You know, why was sacred scripture canonized? Why did the bishops come together at Hippo and at Carthage or at the Council of Rome? And why did they say, you know, these books are not sacred scripture and these books are? It was primarily a liturgical decision. What books are going to be read in church? What books are going to be proclaimed when we gather together and what books are not, but will still be useful for our study? You see, it was a liturgical decision. And so, scholars are beginning to see more and more as they study the Bible that these books all throughout the Old and the New Testament, that liturgy is all throughout them. I mean, Paul in his epistles just quotes liturgical hymns.

20:15 H-Y-M-S. M-N-S. You know, the canticle of kenosis. He did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but humble to himself coming in human likeness. That's the canticle of kenosis. And that was a Christian hymn. And Paul just kind of incorporates it because he knows that his listeners are singing this. You know, and so we have a liturgical setting. And so we're also going to need to know that Revelation is like a liturgical book in order to interpret it as well. I'm going to give you a couple of ground rules for interpreting Revelation. Numbers denote a symbolic meaning, not an empirical value. So, for instance, one of the most famous passages is in Revelation 20, and it talks about how Christ will reign for 1,000 years.

21:10 Well, so many Christian groups have said, that's exactly 1,000 years he's going to reign on earth. And then, oh, when that 1,000th year is up, the clock ticks, oh, then Christ is, you know, then it's going to be over with. You know, as if it's 1,000 means 1,000 literally. Or there's going to be 144,000 Israelites in heaven. 12,000 from each tribe. Therefore, there's going to be exactly 144,000 in heaven. That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses say. Just look a little bit closer, and it says that they're all male, celibate, Jewish virgins, or Israelite virgins. So, if you want to take it literally, that's actually what you need to believe. So, numbers denote a very symbolic meaning. One image can symbolize two or more realities.

21:58 And, by the way, this is how apocalyptic literature is written. We know from other apocalyptic literature. Images can denote one or two realities. So, it's not like one symbolic image is equal to one reality. No, one image can image two realities or three realities. Dramatic imagery of cataclysmic disruptions, such as the stars falling from the sky, or the sun being blotted out, or earthquakes. Cataclysmic disruptions of the cosmos. They are indicative and they describe changes in the human political sphere. So, when you have a new election of the U.S. president, the stars are falling from the sky, and the sun's being blotted out, and the moon is turning red. You know, it's a change in the political sphere.

22:54 The fall of a kingdom, or the rise of a kingdom. And, we see this especially with Isaiah's language, when Isaiah describes the fall of Babylon. Physical objects can denote spiritual realities, not necessarily an earthly reality, something you can feel and touch, but a spiritual reality, such as redemption. And, also, chronological order is not always observed. And, Victorinus of Pateau tells us about this. He says that, you know, not always is it, you know, this happens, then this happens, and this happens, and that's the way it happened. But, rather, something can be mentioned later that happened earlier. And, the same event can be described over and over again in different ways. And, it looks as if five different events are being described, but it's really a commentary on the same event.

23:46 It's just from different perspectives. So, some commentators have seen that those people who receive the judgment in Jerusalem, as Jerusalem is being destroyed, they see it as, you know, horror and terror. But, then, you have the heavenly vision, which is one of justice, judgment, and it's not one of terror, because you're not the recipient of the terror. It's one of righteousness. It's one of, well, you had it coming, because you didn't heed the prophets, especially the greatest prophet, Jesus Christ. And, then, finally, apocalyptic imagery would talk about things as if it's the end of the world. And, this is what we call the eschaton in Greek. Eschaton.

24:33 And, so, the study of the end times is eschatology. So, apocalyptic literature is talking about the eschaton, the end. But, it's imminent eschatology, meaning that the end is now. It's not far off, 2,000 years later, but it's going to happen soon. It's coming. The end is almost here. But, the end is not the end of the space-time continuum. The end is the end of the world as we know it, you know, R.E.M. Do you guys know what CD that's on? Is it the self-titled R.E.M.? Okay, you guys are way above my age level. Okay. Okay, this is really embarrassing. This is really embarrassing.

25:28 I just think I'm hipper than you are. We're hipper than you really are. You think that you're hipper than you really are. No, you think we are. We're not hipper. Oh, you're... That's great. Let's turn to Luke chapter 19. Luke chapter 19. I turned on the A.C. a lot earlier today, so it's a nice temperature. Okay. Luke 19. Barbara, would you please read from verse 41 to verse 44. Okay, here's 41 up here.

26:19 As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, if this day you only knew what makes for peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you. They will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. Great. So, no, that's fine. So, Jesus is lamenting over the city of Jerusalem. He's crying over the city of Jerusalem. Who lamented over the city of Jerusalem in the Old Testament and so the lamentations are attributed to him?

27:15 Jeremiah. There you go. Good job. Jeremiah. You're welcome. So, Jeremiah, remember, he was an inhabitant of Jerusalem and he prophesied against the temple and the corrupt Israel. And he said, you know what? It's too late. Jerusalem's going down and so is the temple. And he was vindicated because Nebuchadnezzar's armies took down the temple in Jerusalem. And then, finally, Jeremiah was taken off to Egypt in exile by his fellow countrymen. And so, Jesus, in a sense, is a new Jeremiah. A new Jeremiah. Let's look at... Let's go ahead and continue with verse 45 and let's read 45 through 46.

28:09 Just go ahead and continue there. Two verses. Then Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. Okay, great. So, that first half of that saying of Jesus, My house shall be a house of prayer, is Isaiah 56, verse 7. And the second half of that verse, a den of thieves, comes from... What prophet do you think it comes from? Jeremiah 7-11. When Jeremiah was prophesying the destruction of the temple.

28:56 So, when Jesus comes in and he says, You've made it a den of thieves. He overturns the money changers' tables and he's cleansing the temple. This is kind of a pre-enactment of what's going to happen. The destruction. The visitation of judgment by God. Okay, so let's go ahead and... By the way, do you guys remember the stations of the cross? That one station where Jesus meets his mother on the way. But then he also meets the women of Jerusalem. And he says, Weep not for me, but weep for... Your children. Yeah, yourselves and your children. Yeah, he weeps for them. He says, Don't weep for me. Something worse is coming. You guys need to watch out. And so, Jesus is giving these parables about exhortation.

29:46 Be ready. Be vigilant. Listen to my words very carefully. And so let's look at... Let's go to Luke 21. And let's go with verse... Barbara, would you just start reading with verse 5? I'll interrupt you. Okay. While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, he said, All that you see here, the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down. So he says that... Like, we're looking at the temple, one of the greatest objects of... that makes you a Jew, that makes you an Israelite, that is your...

30:33 like your national symbol. It's like St. Peter's Basilica. And Jesus says, For I tell you that there will not be one stone left upon another. You think that this is the way you curry favor with the people? What if somebody came up to St. Mary's tomorrow and said, Oh, I tell you, by this time next week there will not be one stone upon another. Get out of here, you whack. Right? Okay, go ahead and continue with verse 7. Then they asked him, Teacher, when will this happen? I'm sorry, does he ask... Do they ask him when it will happen? That's what they do. Okay, so, when will this happen? Okay. And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen? He answered, See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name. saying, I am he, and the time has come.

31:23 Do not follow them. So there's going to be like kind of false messiahs. Okay. When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for such things must happen first, but it will not be immediately... I'm sorry, but it will not immediately be the end. So we're going to have wars and maybe insurrections, like maybe civil war or something like that, but it's not yet the end. It's not, you know, it's not immediately the end. There's still more. Okay. Then he said to them, Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky. Okay.

32:09 So there's going to be earthquakes, famines, and plagues, and sights and mighty signs will come from the sky. Okay. Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you. They will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death.

32:59 You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance, you will secure your lives. Okay, so he's saying that there's going to be great persecution, but if you persevere, you're going to secure your life? So you're not going to die. Okay? keep going. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is at hand. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains. Let those within the city escape from it and let those in the countryside not enter the city. For these days are the time of punishment when all the scriptures are fulfilled. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Jesus is the prophet of mercy and compassion and, you know, and when he dies upon the cross, you know, he takes away our sins so there's no more punishment to happen, right?

33:56 I mean, how could Jesus be talking about armies coming and surrounding Jerusalem and you don't want people to go into the city because there's punishment coming? Okay, keep going. Is the prophecies will be fulfilled? Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days for a terrible calamity will come upon the earth and a wrathful judgment upon this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken as captives to all the Gentiles and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles are fulfilled. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world for the powers of the heavens will be shaken and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

34:59 But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand. He taught them a lesson. Consider the fig tree and all the other trees. When their buds burst open, you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Okay, we can go ahead and pause right there. So, when is this going to happen?

35:57 It sounds like two different times. One's the fall of the temple, but one's the future. Now, why would you say one is the future tense? The coming of the Son of Man. And the Son of Man hasn't come yet, right? I mean, we haven't seen Him coming on the clouds, right? So, the second coming hasn't happened. The coming of the Son of Man where He's going to receive glory with power and great glory. Where was this in the Old Testament? Daniel. Daniel chapter 7. Daniel's vision. And when the Son of Man is coming and He's given power and glory, where is He coming to? Is He coming to earth? No. He's presented before the throne of the Ancient of Days to receive this kingship.

36:51 And we've already seen how at the end of the Gospels they present Jesus as having taken His seat at the right hand of God the Father that He was given the throne of His Father David in heaven and He has been presented before the Ancient of Days to where He receives power and glory and now He can act as judge and Savior. Have you guys ever seen that icon of Jesus where one half of His face is the judging Jesus, the condemnatory Jesus and the other half is Jesus the Savior? And depending upon whether you are of Him or not of Him, that's the side that you're going to see of Jesus at the last day. It's a really great icon. I like to put my hand right over one side and go, oh Jesus, and put it over this.

37:39 Oh my gosh. It's a really neat icon. But the coming of the Son of Man of the Son of Man gets people because they hear this and they're like, you know, they imagine Jesus coming down from heaven going, yee-haw, you know, on a cloud, coming to earth, you know. This is the image we get. But again, Jesus is using apocalyptic imagery. He's speaking, you know, with this apocalyptic sense using Daniel and Daniel has apocalyptic imagery in it. And this is the imagery of Jesus receiving glory and the throne in heaven, not of coming to earth. There nowhere is mentioned that he's coming to earth. It just says that he's going to come on the clouds. But to where, it doesn't say. And this is a famous, it's alluding to a famous passage of Daniel 7.

38:26 Now it says in verse 32, Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. I love C.S. Lewis. He's a great Christian author. You know, and he's gone on to his reward. C.S. Lewis has wonderful writings, wonderful things to say. I own many of his books and my former college roommate has read everything he's ever written except for like one book. I'm like, why don't you read that book? He's like, I don't know. Well, you know, C.S. Lewis is a great guy but he looked at the Olivet Discourse and he said that this is still today an embarrassment for Christians because that generation came and went and these things did not happen according to C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis is wrong by the way, just to let you know.

39:15 I would take Jesus' word over C.S. Lewis's. I'm not dismayed or disappointed or embarrassed at all by these words because I know how they did come to pass within that generation. And how long was a generation according to an Israelite? Forty years. So when you had the generation, the first generation after Mount Sinai passed away in the desert, how long did they have to be in the desert for that first generation to pass away? Forty years. So this is going to happen in about forty years, right? So Jesus, you know, this is about 30 A.D. if we do our corrections to the calendar, you know, if we leave our calendar as it is, it was in 33 A.D., but we know Jesus was actually born about 3 to 5 B.C. So we'll say 3 B.C.

40:02 So he ends up being crucified about at the age of 30 at about 30 A.D. What's forty years after 30 A.D.? Seventy A.D., which is the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome. Look at verse 36. Actually, let's look at verse 34 where we left off. Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. Catch you by surprise like a trap. Remember that. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth.

40:49 By the way, this word, gi, used to translate in my Bible as earth, is best translated as land. It's used all, you know how in the Old Testament it talks about the promised land? Well, in the Greek Septuagint, it's the promised gi, the promised land, not the promised earth. And so, this is actually the land. The land of Israel will assault everyone who lives on the face of the land. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man. So, these tribulations are imminent. They're about to happen. They're right now. Well, if we look back at the early church and we look back at Josephus, are you guys familiar with Josephus?

41:39 He wrote it right at the end of the first century. He was a Jew. He was a Jew who was captured. He was a historian and he was captured by the Roman legions and the Romans made him write the history of the Jews called the antiquity of the Jews. He also wrote the wars of the Jews. And, by the way, John's taken off and I just want to tell you why John took off. He's read Michael Barber's book Coming Soon. Michael Barber is an acquaintance of mine. He wrote a book called Coming Soon and it's a commentary on the book of Revelation and so if you guys want a really good commentary on the book of Revelation, by coming soon, by Michael Barber. Very good. And so I know John just took off and he's like, I've read all of this because I recommended that book to him.

42:28 I was like, man, do I have bad breath from all the way up here? You know? So, Michael Barber, just like you go to to get your hair cut. We know by Josephus that there were false messiahs before the destruction of Jerusalem. That different people led, you know how John the Baptist went out to the wilderness and people went out to see him. Well, the same type of thing happened with these false messiahs. They led them out into the wilderness and they, you know, they tried to convince them that they were the messiahs. So you had false messiahs arising. Jerome also talks about this in his commentaries. There were wars and insurrections. You know how you had the Pax Romana, the peace of the Roman Empire going on for so long?

43:15 Well, that started to break up. That started to break up. You actually had an insurrection up in Britain and civil war actually broke out in Rome shortly before the Jewish-Roman War. And if you have civil war, I mean, it's like having civil war in Washington, D.C. That's a big deal. I mean, everybody's going to hear about that. Earthquakes. Guys remember Pompeii? Pompeii had a great earthquake in the year 63 A.D. It's now famous now because it was kind of frozen in time from the volcanic eruption, so we know all what happened in that earthquake. The famous earthquake of Pompeii in 63 A.D., but yet it's not the time yet, Jesus says, when you have wars and insurrections and earthquakes.

44:02 It's not yet. He says, but what's going to happen right before it happens? You're going to have persecution, great persecution, but you're going to have persecution not just before the Jews, but before Gentile lords, before kings. I'll give you guys a little bit of history. Christianity was seen by the Romans as being just, you know, another sect of Judaism for quite a while. It wasn't seen as being its own religion in the eyes of the Roman emperors. But something changed all of that. in July of 64 A.D., two-thirds of Rome burned to the ground.

44:56 You guys remember the famous earthquake in San Francisco in the early 20th century and pretty much all of San Francisco burned to the ground? Well, that's pretty much what happened here. Two-thirds of Rome burns to the ground. huge fire. The emperor at the time is, by the way, Caesar was a title, like Christ is a title. It wasn't a name. So you had Caesar Augustus. You had Caesar Nero. And so Caesar Nero was the Caesar at the time. Did I do that right or is the ego before the A? That's right? Okay, Caesar Nero. By the way, just to let you know, Caesar Nero in Hebrew adds up to 666. Just to let you know.

45:44 And Caesar Nero was the emperor at the time and he had to find somebody to blame it on. And back then, I mean, these guys who were nuts, especially Nero, he thought he was God. And he was really upset when the Jews stopped sacrificing to him in the temple because the Jews did that. They would sacrifice to him in the temple. And then they stopped it for a while because they started to get zealous for the law. And he got real upset because he actually thought he was God. But Caesar Nero blames the fire on the Christians. And now you have a huge persecution that comes upon the Roman church. And what two major figures in the church die under this persecution of Nero? Peter and Paul. Paul is beheaded. He's given a merciful execution because he's a Roman citizen. Peter is crucified upside down because he was not a Roman citizen so he doesn't get such a merciful death.

46:39 And so Christians are persecuted mercilessly pretty much until February of 67 A.D. And so you have these great persecutions of the Christians. Not just in Rome but elsewhere. And so these persecutions that Jesus talks about happen. And by the way if you guys want to read more about this the Roman historian Tacitus talks about this. Talks about all this history of the burning and the persecution of the Christians. Tacitus. So you'll see writings if you ever read books about this Tacitus will be quoted quite a bit. Now why in February of 67 did the Romans start to relax their persecution of the Christians?

47:35 Well that's when the Jewish Roman War began. The Jews started an insurrection of their own. A revolt back in Jerusalem. And Nero said that's it. I'm sending my general to go put down this insurrection. By the way the reason that there was an insurrection it wasn't like the Jews were just being bad people. They were just like bad subjects. I forgot his name at the time. I think it was Flavius. It was something like that. But he was sent to Jerusalem by Nero to be governor. You know long after Pontius Pilate. And he was just a ferocious governor. Just absolutely ruthless. And the Jews said this is enough. We've had enough of this. We've had enough of Rome. And so we're going to revolt. And so the Jewish Roman War begins in February of 67 A.D.

48:22 The Jewish Roman War continues up to, by the way, Vespasian or Vespasianus is the general. And by the way, Nero was such a horrible emperor that his own people, his own men, were trying to oust him from office, were turned against him. So Nero fled Rome and committed suicide. So while Vespasianus is going towards Jerusalem to attack Jerusalem, Nero commits suicide in 68 A.D. Nero commits suicide, which causes Vespasian or Vespasianus to go back to Rome to be crowned Caesar.

49:09 So now you don't have Caesar Nero, you have Caesar Vespasian. And so Vespasian has his, I believe it was his son, Titus. Flavius Vespasianus. Titus becomes the general. And Titus goes down to conquer goes down to conquer Jerusalem. And it's under Titus that Jerusalem is conquered. And finally, in August of 70 A.D., the temple burns. And that was huge. That was huge. That was the end of the world as we know it. Okay. Can you guys count here about how many months transgress or go by between February of 67 A.D.

49:59 and August of 70 A.D.? how many months is that? 40? No. 42. Three years and six months. 42 months. which is also two years, one year and a half a year, or three years and a half a year, and you can even break it out in days if you want to. In the book of Revelation, it talks about this certain time period over and over again. It'll talk about three and a half years or 42 months or two years, one year and half a year. Or it'll talk about, it'll give the number of days that that is.

50:47 It talks about this over and over again because it's talking about this period of time of the Jewish Roman War, how long it lasted from February of 67 to August of 70 A.D. And it wasn't like the Jewish Roman War ended at one point in time. I mean, you know, because constantly things were happening month by month by month. But the official ending date is kind of like the burning of the temple. That's, you know, the straw that breaks the camel's back. Ooh. Okay, so, when the Christians, when Vespasian came into Jerusalem, they, the Christians saw that as a desolating sacrilege, which Matthew talks about. Luke doesn't talk about the desolating sacrilege of Daniel, but Matthew does.

51:35 So, Matthew says, when you see the desolating sacrilege of Daniel, then I want for you guys to flee. Well, this happens when Vespasian comes into Jerusalem, but he has to leave. And this opens an opportunity for the Christians to flee Jerusalem. And Eusebius, in his church history, tells us that the whole body of the church in Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, which had been entrusted to approved men before the war, left the city and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan called Pella, P-E-L-L-A. Have you guys ever heard of the Decapolis? No?

52:22 The Decapolis is a region of ten cities. They were very Hellenized, very Greek. And let's say you have the Sea of Galilee up here, Tiberias as it's also called, the Jordan River, and then the Dead Sea down here. Jerusalem is southwest of the Jordan River, just northwest of the Dead Sea. And the Decapolis is composed of nine cities on the eastern side of the Jordan River and one on the western side of the Jordan River. And it's called the Decapolis. Polis for city, polity, politics, you know, polis. And I'm also thinking of metropolitan, you know. And then Deca for decade, ten. The Decapolis. And Pella was right here in the northwest of Jerusalem, across the Jordan River, and that was part of the Decapolis.

53:15 And that's where the Christians went when these prophecies of Jesus were fulfilled. And by the way, when they were leaving Jerusalem, all sorts of Jews were fleeing into Jerusalem for protection because they knew that they would be protected by the city walls because the Romans weren't nice to people outside of the city walls. So when it looked like you should be going inside of the city walls, hey, we got a break. You know, we can all get in. We can fortify our walls. The Christians are leaving. What are you doing? You're crazy. What are you leaving for? This is where you'll find protection. Jerusalem can't be taken. God is with us. The Christians go, uh-uh. He's not with you. You crucified Jesus. You know, and he rose from the dead, and so we know his prophecies are going to come true.

54:00 So they leave Jerusalem, go up to Pella, and Pella is in the desert. It's like in a desert valley, and so you have Pella up there. It's in the desert. And that's where they are when Jerusalem is destroyed. Let me give you some facts about the destruction of Jerusalem. You guys remember what happens at Passover? Remember Pentecost? Why were there so many different Jews that spoke so many different languages there for Pentecost? It was a Jewish feast. So they're all coming to Jerusalem for Pentecost. Remember Jesus, as a boy, he was lost in the temple. Why were they in Jerusalem? No, not Pentecost.

54:53 Huh? Yes, the Passover. Jesus and his family went down for the Passover. Jews would make a yearly pilgrimage to the temple for Passover, and then the Levitical priests would sacrifice the Passover lambs in the temple. Well, guess what happened when the Jewish-Roman war broke out? When did it break out? In the spring. Guess what was at hand? Passover. 2.7 million Jews inside of Jerusalem when Titus comes back with his armies. A three-year siege. Can you imagine a three-year siege inside Jerusalem?

55:40 And by the way, Jerusalem wasn't like, you know, didn't have a lot of land. This isn't Texas. I mean, the entire Holy Land is the size of New Jersey, and then Jerusalem is one, you know, city inside of that, and it's on, and the temple is one-fourth of the city, so if you take the size of the temple and take three of that, that's basically where people are. 2.7 million Jews. Pretty much all of them were killed. I mean, there were some that were sold to slavery, the younger, more robust ones that were not killed. There was such a famine inside of the walls that women would eat their children to stay alive. In fact, their children were being born stillborn because they didn't have enough nourishment to nourish their own children.

56:30 The Roman legions used psychological warfare. They went around the countryside and tore down trees all around Jerusalem, just strip the land, it's like strip mining, and used those for siege works, for ladders, for battering rams, and for crucifixes. Josephus tells us that there were not enough crucifixes for the men, and there wasn't enough land for the crucifixes. There were Jews being crucified all around Jerusalem, 360 degrees by the Romans, and as they cried and shouted and screamed and cried, this was supposed to intimidate the people in the walls to come out and to surrender, but they wouldn't.

57:17 People left Jerusalem because they're starving, so they leave. The Romans catch them, whip them, and crucify them when they leave because they haven't surrendered yet, because the city has not surrendered yet. 500 a day are escaping. In the last seven months of the destruction of Jerusalem, one million Jews died. That's 7,000 a day. Does this seem like the end of the world? Oh, certainly it seems like the end of the world. Can you see possibly why John used apocalyptic literature to talk about this? It was huge. God bless you. I'm so glad I didn't live back then. I'm so glad I'm a disciple of Jesus, and if I was back then, hopefully I would have been a disciple and would have escaped all this because I would have had trust in my Lord to deliver me from this.

58:08 And by the way, this still happens today. Wars are still punishments for our sin. Our Lady of Fatima prophesied the First World War. Or the end of it. She prophesied the Second World War. She prophesied that Russia would spread its errors. And so the Soviet Union was formed because we didn't pray enough and we didn't sacrifice enough. This still happens even today. This is a very real event. It didn't just happen back then, but it continues to happen today. War is a punishment. When Mary starts saying in these apparitions that have been approved by the church that tribulations are coming, I'm like, oh no. Am I past the draft age?

58:59 Okay, so let's turn to part of the book of Revelation and let's look at it quickly. Of course, I'm not going to do an extensive, exhaustive Bible study in the book of Revelation because that would take us way too long. But I do want to turn to the very beginning. Let's turn to Revelation chapter 1 verse 1. The revelation or the apocalypses of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants what must happen soon. Hence the title of Michael Barber's book, Coming Soon. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who gives witness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ by reporting what he saw.

59:51 Blessed is the one who reads aloud. All right, I'm getting a beatitude right now. And blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time is near. So again, we see how it's a liturgical book because blessed is the one who reads and the ones who listen. A blessing is given for the lector and for the assembly. John to the seven churches in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood who has made us into a kingdom.

1:00:48 A kingdom. We've been made into a kingdom. Again, the mystery of Daniel, the kingdom of God. Priests for his God and father. We've been made priests. To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming amid the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. All the peoples of the earth will, by the way, all the peoples of the land will lament him. Yes, amen. That's a dual quotation, but of course not an exact quotation, of Daniel 7, 13, and Zechariah 12, 10. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

1:01:45 So who's the Alpha and the Omega? Does this say the who? The Lord God. Later on, whenever you go home for your homework, I want for you to read the final chapter of Revelation, and you'll see someone else being referred to as the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. And it happens to be Jesus. The book of Revelation is a lot about revealing the identity of Jesus as God. I, John, this is verse 9, your brother, who share with you the distress, the kingdom, again, there's that word, the kingdom, and the endurance we have in Jesus, found myself on the Isle of Patmos, because I proclaimed God's word and gave testimony to Jesus.

1:02:35 And he was, John was exiled to Patmos by the, by Caesar Domitian, okay, the reign of Domitian, is who, sent John to Patmos in exile. I was caught up in spirit on the Lord's Day. So if you go back to early Christian literature, Lord's Day is all over the early church. Lord's Day here, Lord's Day there, Lord's Day everywhere. And it's always Sunday. Christians, you know, when they talked about the breaking of the bread, they were talking about the mass, not just having any casual meal. You know, today we say, let's go break bread together. Well, no, it wasn't like that. That was the word for the mass. So when you said the Lord's Day, that meant Sunday, the day the Lord rose from the dead, the first day of the week and the eighth day of the week.

1:03:28 What's the seventh day of the week? The Sabbath, Saturday. And so John is being caught up by the spirit on Sunday, the day when Christians gather to celebrate the Eucharist, according to St. Justin Martyr in 160 A.D. St. Justin Martyr in 160 A.D. gives us an account of the liturgy, and he says that the Christians gather on Sunday to read the instruction of the apostles, to listen to discourses by the presbyters of that, and then to celebrate the Eucharist, which is not given to anybody who has not been baptized. And then whatever is left over is brought to those who were not able to come because they were sick or infirmer or were not able to travel that distance. And so he sees this on Sunday, and Jesus says, you know, and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet, which said, this voice said, write on a scroll, and here we start having the scrolls, the liturgy of the word, what you see

1:04:32 and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. And remember, I think it was last week we read from St. Ignatius' epistle to the Smyrnians. Here's Smyrna. You know, we have St. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. Here's Ephesus. I forgot who, man, I have such a blank mind tonight, but one scholar went back and did his homework and found out that these churches in the list that's given are listed in the same order that the postal route went in the Roman mail system. And that's a little bit of, you can start to see a verification of the historicity of the scriptures. Because, you know, he's writing this to these churches and probably submitting it in Roman mail.

1:05:23 You know, this is how things got around. They didn't have the Pony Express, they had the Roman mail system. But this was the order of the churches. Okay, verse 12. Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and when I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands, which reminds you of what? The seven gold lampstands. The menorah. And where was the menorah located? For Jews? In the temple. In the temple. So, here's, John is being caught up to heaven, he sees the menorah, and in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man. And who is this? Jesus, of course. Wearing an ankle-length robe, like the high priest, because maybe he is the high priest, ministering in the heavenly temple, with a gold sash.

1:06:18 Gold. What does gold represent? Royalty. Our royal high priest. What did we just see before? God, in verse 6, has made us into a kingdom, priests for God his father. We're a priestly kingdom, king and priest. Jesus is both priest, high priest, and king. And that's what he makes us in our baptism. The hair of his head was as white as white wool, okay, so he must have been old, or as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame, his feet were like a polished brass, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing water, etc., etc., etc. So much here. Okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to flip forward to show you a couple more gems.

1:07:05 By the way, that's a play on words because there are lots of gems in the book of Revelation. I want for you guys to look at Revelation chapter 4, verse 4. Revelation 4, 4. Surrounding the throne, I saw 24 other thrones. thrones, on which 24 presbyteroi sat. What does presbyteroi mean? Elders. Sat dressed in white garments and with gold crowns on their heads. So somehow they're ruling on these thrones, these presbyters in heaven.

1:07:54 Okay, I did this last week. I'm going to do it again for a little bit better clarification. The word for elder, if you want to say elder in Greek, you say presbyteros, or in plural, presbyteroi. Pres- bi- ter- ros. It means elder. And in the Old Testament, the first people who Moses appointed to sit on thrones and to judge Israel were the elders, the older people. And by the time of Jesus, the people who sat on the Sanhedrin, who descend from the 70 that Moses appointed, this is where you get the Sanhedrin from, the head guy was the high priest, they were called presbyters.

1:08:43 Because at first they were just old people, but now this was the title that they were given were presbyters. They were the ones in authority. And remember we saw last week how in first Timothy, Paul says, do not neglect the gift that you have received with the imposition of the hands of the presbyterate. But right before that he says, do not let people look down on you because of your youth. But yet Timothy becomes a presbyter, but he's young. Because presbyter denotes an office, a spiritual authority of being, you know, elderly. But yet at the same time in physical reality, he is younger. And so, the leaders of the church, those ordained by the laying on of the hands in the New Testament are called the presbyters.

1:09:32 Over time, today, we don't really use the word presbyter, we use elder. That's the English translation. Another word that comes straight from this, presbyter. Let's take out the B and the Y and the E-R-O-S and what do we have? Priest. That's where we get the term priest from. Priest, as an English word, if you want to go back to the real etymological history of the word priest, what does it mean? Elder. And that's why we call our pastors priests. Because that, because they're presbyters. Now get this, in Greek, the word for what we now call a priest, you know, one who offers sacrifice in the Bible, is hieros.

1:10:23 Can you say that with me? Hieros. This is how you pronounce it. Hieros. And have you guys ever heard of a word, oh, called hierarchy? That means rule of priests. Rule of priests. And it was used by a guy in the early church called Pseudo-Dionysius, or Dionysius, the Areopagite, to talk about the angels in heaven and the heavenly orders. And he coined that term hierarchy. Well, that's where hieros, or hieros, comes from. Today, we do not have an English word that derives from hieros, that means to offer sacrifice.

1:11:16 Instead, we're using the word priest. This is why language can be a real, can be a hindrance to understanding things. You know, when you change the language, it gets real difficult. And so, today, we know, we're saying, I'm a priest, you're a priest, by our baptism. But if we want to get back to the meaning of priest, no, we're not elders. We are not ordained ministers. We are hieros, though. So we're heirs, I guess. I haven't looked up heir, the word heir, you know, the heir to the throne. That may come from that word. But I just kind of wanted to give you this little bit of a lesson so you guys would kind of understand a little bit better of why we call our pastor's priests. So if anybody ever tells you, why do you call your pastor a priest?

1:12:04 Actually, you're a priest. You say, yes, but no. Yes, I can offer sacrifice now in union with Jesus Christ. My sufferings I can offer to God the Father. I can offer my prayers, my thanksgiving as worship acceptable to God. But that's not what priest originally meant. Priest meant presbyter, an elder. So really, if we want to get back to the meaning of words, where they really came from, only our ministers are priests. And this is why those denominations such as Anglicanism that come from Old England still call their ministers priests. Because that's what the word first was used in English. It denoted the presbyters. Okay. We are almost out of time. About five minutes. And so I want to turn to Revelation 12.

1:12:52 Oh, by the way, the reason I wanted you to look at that in Revelation 4.4 is it talks about the 24 presbyteroi. And there were 24 ministers, Levites, that served every day in the temple. The Levites were divided into 24 subdivisions, 24 groups. And one person from each group would serve in the temple each day. And so in the temple, you always had 24 Levites serving. So in the heavenly temple, you have 24, not Levites, but elders, the ministers. Because on earth, who's ministering in the earthly temple, which is now the body of Christ? The presbyters. Revelation chapter 12.

1:13:42 Let's go one verse back to Revelation 11, 19. We see that God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a violent hailstorm. Here's the cataclysmic disruptions. The temple is being revealed. And what is the temple? A great sign appeared in the sky of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. There's so much Old Testament imagery being used. It's unbelievable. But the ark is none other than a woman. Of course, John's not going, oh, we'll hold off on the ark. We're going to talk about something else now. No, the ark has been missing for six centuries. People are going to want an explanation.

1:14:29 And he gives an explanation. It's the woman. Why is the woman the ark? Because Mary has within her womb the new manna, the new high priest, the word of God. Just as the old ark had the manna, a jar of manna, I think it was an ophir of manna, it had the rod of Aaron that had budded, and it had the decalogue, the Ten Commandments. This woman is with child. She wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. If you go back to, this is also taken from the end of Isaiah, Isaiah 66. Then another sign appeared in the sky. It was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and its heads were seven diadems.

1:15:17 Its tail swept away a third of the stars of the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth to devour her child. When she gave birth, did Jesus run into any problems when he was born? Yeah, Herod. Okay? She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Alluding to Psalm 2, 7, the Davidic king. So, who's this male child destined to rule the earth with an iron rod? Jesus. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. Whoa! She just gave birth to him, and now he's caught up to God and his throne. When was Jesus caught up to God and his throne? At his ascension, right. His resurrection and his ascension.

1:16:04 So you're having a whole bunch of history being talked about right here all at once with apocalyptic imagery. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God that there she might be taken care of for 1260 days. How long is 1260 days? 42 months. Three and a half years. Where the church went to the place prepared for her by God at Pella in the Decapolis while the Jewish-Roman War was going. So who is this? Is the woman Mary or is it the church? It's both. First it's Mary, then it's the church. This is why we consider Mary to be an icon of the church. This is why Mary is called the icon of the church.

1:16:53 In Mary we see the perfect disciple. Okay, and then it continues, but we can't follow this too long because we're out of time. But I do want to just point out that it re-mentions the time again in verse 14. It says, the woman was given two wings of the great eagle so she could fly to her place in the desert where far from the serpent she was taken care of for a year, two years, and a half year. Again, there it is. Again, it's mentioned in a different way, the same time amount. And then it talks about in verse 17, then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring. So this is why we call Mary the mother of the church and we also call the church holy mother church. Because Mary gave birth to the church, which is the body of Christ, Mary gave birth to Jesus in her womb.

1:17:41 And likewise, the church gives birth to us in holy baptism, so we call the church mother. Okay, we're out of time. Lord, thank you tremendously for St. John's Apocalypse. Thank you for giving us the tools necessary to study what he has written. We ask that these warnings that were given to the Jews, the unbelieving Jews, and to the believing Jews in the first century would resonate within our hearts and that we would take these warnings as pre-figurements of our own day when we today experience tribulation and distress and war due to the effect of our sins.

1:18:35 We know from the book of Hebrews that you discipline all of your children and that we should endure our trials of suffering as discipline from you and that this should confirm in our hearts that we are your children. And so with all humility we accept any suffering that you give within our lives and we ask that you would turn that suffering into glory because we have been made a kingdom of priests to offer spiritual sacrifices in your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.