Study of Revelation and End Times 3
Notes
Transcript
bbWeek 3 - Symbols, Signs, Numbers
bbWeek 3 - Symbols, Signs, Numbers
Last week we looked at the background and four truths found in the first three verses of chapter one of Revelation.
Tonight, we are looking at symbols, signs, numbers, analogies, figures of speech, and other things that help us understand the study of Revelation and end times.
We need to know that we interpret Revelation and end time prophecy both literal and symbolically.
For example, in the book of Revelation we will see Satan symbolized as a great red dragon, but Satan is not literally a dragon, he is actually a fallen angel.
18 And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.
Satan doesn’t literally sweep a third of the stars from heaven with his tail. That is symbolism.
We cannot make the mistake of saying that Satan is not real because he is symbolized as a red dragon.
Symbolism does not do away with literal interpretation. Rather you must understand symbolism to understand Revelation and end time prophecy.
Cracking the Code:
Cracking the Code:
One of the things that help us understand the prophecies of Revelation and end times is signs and we must learn about the word sign, a variation of which is first used in:
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John,
At the end of the verse there where it says that Jesus sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, the word communicated can also be translated as signified and in the Greek it is semaino. The first four letters in the English word are s-i-g-n, which are in the Greek is sema. There are symbols and signs in Revelation and end time prophecy, and if we do not understand them, we cannot crack the code.
For instance, just in the book of Revelation: John speaks like a zoologist. When John draws the symbolism of Jesus as a lamb and as a lion. Later, there is beast around the throne of God.
Then John speaks like an astronomer when Jesus holds seven stars in his right hand. Or when the dragon sweeps a third of the stars from the heaven with his tail.
Then there is the use of colors, white is used a lot. It is used to symbolize purity, people in white robs, people riding white horses, the bride of Christ is in a white wedding gown, Jesus sits on a great white throne.
Green symbolizes life, it is also the color around the throne of heaven.
There is different color horses with different riders that represent different things. The black horse speaks of famine, the gray horse speaks of death, and the red horse speaks of war.
We will also learn about a woman dressed in purple, which is the color of richness and royalty.
Then there is the use of geography. We will learn that a woman sits on seven mountains likely speaks of the city of Roman. A heaving, restless sea speaks of peoples, nations, and languages.
Lastly, John speaks like a mathematician. The key number in the Bible is seven.
For example, in Revelation 1:4
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,
There are other seven’s mentioned throughout prophecy of end times, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven vials of judgments, seven new things, and seven persons.
Scientific Matter of Numbers
Scientific Matter of Numbers
We hear about laws of nature, but really, they are God’s laws that nature obeys.
God is a God of order and design, and because of that, He has created the laws of numbers in the universe.
The philosopher Aristotle said, “Numbers are the principle of all things.”
I am not necessarily good with numbers, but I know that God is. I am more like the guy who said, “there are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can’t.”
Symbolic Meaning of Numbers
Symbolic Meaning of Numbers
The study of the symbolic meaning of numbers provides one of our greatest confirmations of the inspiration and thematic symphony of the Word of God.
Number One:
Number One:
For obvious reasons one is the number of unity. It is, therefore, the number that portrays the nature of God.
There is one God; His name is Jehovah. He is the one and only.
4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Number Two:
Number Two:
The number two is the number of witness.
The Old Testament taught that no one could bring an accusation without a witness to confirm it.
15 “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.
17 “Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true.
The Bible itself is a testimony of witness.
We have two testaments to bear witness of the Lord Jesus Christ - the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Jesus Christ is the witness as the second person in the Trinity.
3 “And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”
7 And He summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits;
Number Three:
Number Three:
Three is the divine number of God in His tri-unity. God in not only one, but He is also three in one.
When Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up sitting on His throne, the Seraphim were standing around the throne worshipping Him.
3 And one called out to another and said,
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
The whole earth is full of His glory.”
What they are saying in their worship is Holy is the Father, Holy is the Son, Holy is the Spirit.
Three is the simplest compound unity. Man, who is made in the image of God, has a triune nature of body, soul and spirit.
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We also know that Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, conquering death.
Time is triune - past, present and future.
Space is triune - height, width, and depth.
Matter is triune - energy, motion, and phenomena.
Energy is made up of three different wavelengths or light types: ultraviolet radiation, visible radiation, and near-infrared radiation.
Number four:
Number four:
In the Book of Revelation, four is the earth number.
It deals with creation. The earth has four distinct seasons - spring, summer, fall, and winter.
The Bible speaks of the four corners of the earth.
12 And He will lift up a standard for the nations
And assemble the banished ones of Israel,
And will gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
2 “And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land.
1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.
What does the four corners mean?
The four points of a compass: north, south, east, and west. This is the nature of things as they are.
The number four is also significant in Revelation 4:6-7 where the four beasts represent all of creation around the throne of God.
Then if you take four and multiply it by ten, you get forty. The Bible uses the number forty in testing and trial.
It rained for forty days and forty nights when the flood came over all the earth in Genesis 7.
The Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years in Exodus 16.
When Moses climbed Mount Sinai, he was there for forty days and forty night in Exodus 24.
When Jonah entered the city of Nineveh, he cried out, in forty days Nineveh will be destroyed, in Jonah 3.
The greatest temptation ever recorded was in the Gospels with our Lord Jesus. When Jesus went into the wilderness to fast for forty days, and forty nights and Satan came and tempted him in Matthew 4.
Four is the earth number, why?
Because the earth is where we have our testing and trials.
Numbers five and ten:
Numbers five and ten:
Number five speaks of completeness.
We have five fingers, five toes and five sense (sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch).
The number ten speaks of fullness.
God gave us the Ten Commandments.
1 And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.
Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.
Satan will establish his man of sin which is the Antichrist upon the throne of this earth, and he will have ten horns with ten crowns.
When God judged Egypt, He sent ten plagues:
Blood - Exodus 7:14-24.
Frogs - Exodus 8:1-15.
Lice - Exodus 8:16-19.
Flies - Exodus 8:20-32.
Pestilence - Exodus 9:1-7.
Boils - Exodus 9:8-12.
Hail - Exodus 9:13-35.
Locusts - Exodus 10:1-20.
Darkness - Exodus 10:21-29.
Death of the First Born - Exodus 11:1-10.
10 ‘Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
The number ten represents completion, and therefore, here what we are seeing Jesus tell the church at Smyrna is that Christians will and at times face tribulation and trials, not necessarily the great tribulation of end times, but tribulation that builds character.
Therefore, what Revelation 2:10 is telling us is there is times we will face a time of tribulation in our life that will be complete and possibly even to the point of death, for the point of building character in our life in order that we may become the man or woman, the Christian, the disciple that God has called us to be.
Number six:
Number six:
The number six is probably the most famous of numbers when people discus the symbolic use of numbers in God’s Word.
Six is the number of man:
18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.
Man also created on the sixth day. By the beast identifying himself as 666, he is pretending to be God. Three is the number of God, and six is the number of man. The Antichrist will sit in the temple of God promoting himself as God.
Number seven:
Number seven:
Seven is the number of perfection.
Natural man will never be a seven, apart from grace, because every man, woman and child is a sinner in need of salvation.
God has written the number seven through everything.
For example, how many days are in a week? Seven.
How man notes are in a musical scale? Seven.
When Joshua came against Jericho, how many days did they march around the city? Seven (Joshua 6:12-16)
How many parables of the kingdom are in Matthew 13? Seven - 1. Seed and Sower Vs. 1-23; 2. Wheat and Tares vs. 24-30, 36-43; 3. Mustard seed vs. 31-32; 4. Leaven V. 33; 5. Buried Treasure v. 44; 6. Precious Pearl Vs. 45-46; 7. Fishing Net Vs. 47-50.
Then there is the seventy weeks of years in the Book of Daniel that speaks of God’s dealing with all of time.
2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
24 “Seventy weeks have been decreed 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.
10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;
For soon it is gone and we fly away.
Not only does God create symbols from the multiples of numbers but also from the division of numbers.
For example, half of seven is three and one-half.
When you find seven fut in half in God’s Word, you find violence done to the seven (this speaks of danger, division, and foreboding.)
When Elijah preached and prophesied, how long did God shut up heaven? Three and half years - both Luke 4:25 and James 5:17 speak of this.
The Antichrist will make a covenant with Israel for seven years; then in the midst of those seven years, he will break that covenant.
Number eight:
Number eight:
The number eight stands for new beginnings or the new birth.
The eighth day is the first day of the next week. Christians worship on the eighth day.
Jewish children in the Old Testament were circumcised on the eighth day.
Here is another symbolic use of the number eight: it speaks of grace. How many people were saved out of the ark after the flood? Eight (Genesis 7:13.)
When a leper was cleansed of leprosy and was given a fresh start, he was pronounced clean on the eighth day (Leviticus 14:10-11.)
When did Jesus Christ rise from the dead? He rose from the dead the third day, which, if seen on a calendar, was the eighth day of the week, or what we refer to as the Lord’s day today.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ on the eight day is the reason Christians worship on Sundays.
Number twelve:
Number twelve:
Twelve is God’s governmental number.
If you multiply three (the divine number) by four (the earth number), you get twelve.
It is God ruling and reigning over the earth.
How many patriarchs were there in the Old Testament? Twelve.
How many apostles were there in the New Testament? Twelve.
28 And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads.
As we have seen, numbers have a scientific significance because God is the God of all nature, and He has built numbers into everything. Numbers also have a symbolic meaning because of God’s sovereign wisdom and plan.
Spiritual Message in Numbers
Spiritual Message in Numbers
We can interpret messages us from numbers in God’s Word.
The number one tells us there is one God. He is Jehovah.
6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
The number two tells us that Jesus is the faithful and true witness. God has given us His Word in the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. And He is speaking to us today.
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.
The number three tells us that God of the Bible is a triune God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
The number four tells us that the earth is our Father’s world.
1 The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains,
The world, and those who dwell in it.
2 For He has founded it upon the seas
And established it upon the rivers.
The number five tells us that whatever God begins, He will complete.
6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Number six tells us that we are sinners.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Number seven tells us that God has provided perfection and that perfection is in Jesus.
8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
9 And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,
The number eight tells us that every man, woman, and child can have a brand-new life through Jesus Christ.
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
The number twelve tells us that one of these days every child of God will enter heaven and will see the Lord rule and reign in glory.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Do you think these scientific, symbolic, and spiritual interpretations of numbers are simple happenstances?
Or perhaps do you think it is all an impressive interpretation of overzealous religious types who have nothing better to do.
Nothing could be further from the truth!!!!!
The Bible tells us what exactly it is!
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
We are not called to adapt the Bible to our lives, but to adapt our lives to the Bible.
Next week we will start looking more at chapter one, and John’s vision of the revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave him.