To the Churches - Ephesus
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Things that are - Church age
Things that are - Church age
Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.
Our guide for understanding the book of Revelation is found in this verse
Things which you have seen - The preceding vision of the glorified Christ
We find great hope in the question what awaits us after we depart this place. The answer…Jesus as reveled to John so we fear not death!
We move now to the second section of the book “the things that are”
The word “are” here means to be identical, an exact correspondence, ]
And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, “You are the Son of God.”
The practice picture is of the church age which began when Christ commissioned the believers to go and make disciples
Chapters 2 & 3 are clearly dealing with the things that are - the church era
We need to go back for a moment and center our discussion in the prophecy of Daniel
“Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.
“Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.
“And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.”
Look at the purpose of the 70 weeks or Hebrew “seventy sevens”
Finish the transgression, end of sin, reconciliation, everlasting righteousness, seal up vision & prophecy, anoint the Most High
70 weeks = 70 repetitions of 7 years each
It begins with the command to rebuild Jerusalem
Ezra 7 receiving his decree from Artaxerxes in 457 BC. (In the seventh year of Artaxerxes) rebuild the temple
445 the decree was given to restore both! Artexerxes - Nehemiah - the walls down
Palace of Shushan - decree given 3/14/445
360 day years - 173,880 days = 4/6/32 - Palms laid for the Messiah - Hosanna
It goes on to say that after 69 weeks the messiah is cut off “not for Himself”
This means we should see the Messiah - this is exactly the time the Jesus is entering the city and then later crucified -
We are told that He is “cut off, but not for Himself”
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;
not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—
He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
After the Messiah is cut off the city will be destroyed
The temple is then destroyed in
In the year 66 AD the Jews of Judea rebelled against their Roman masters. In response, the Emperor Nero dispatched an army under the generalship of Vespasian to restore order. By the year 68, resistance in the northern part of the province had been eradicated and the Romans turned their full attention to the subjugation of Jerusalem. That same year, the Emperor Nero died by his own hand, creating a power vacuum in Rome. In the resultant chaos, Vespasian was declared Emperor and returned to the Imperial City. It fell to his son, Titus, to lead the remaining army in the assault on Jerusalem.
he Roman legions surrounded the city and began to slowly squeeze the life out of the Jewish stronghold. By the year 70, the attackers had breached Jerusalem's outer walls and began a systematic ransacking of the city. The assault culminated in the burning and destruction of the Temple that served as the center of Judaism.
In victory, the Romans slaughtered thousands. Of those sparred from death: thousands more were enslaved and sent to toil in the mines of Egypt, others were dispersed to arenas throughout the Empire to be butchered for the amusement of the public. The Temple's sacred relics were taken to Rome where they were displayed in celebration of the victory.
The rebellion sputtered on for another three years and was finally extinguished in 73 AD with the fall of the various pockets of resistance including the stronghold at Masada.
So the agents of the “prince who is to come”
The prophecy tells us that desolations would be purposed on the city until the end of the war! That has been the lot of the city unto this day
This leaves us with a 7 week period - 7 years that still is yet to be fulfilled in which God will deal with the nation of Israel fo their unbelief and the world for their rejection of Christ
It tells us that in the middle of the last period the Prince of this world would make a covenant to allow temple worship but then in the middle claim himself to be God
We appear to be in a pause between Daniel’s 69th week and the fulfilment of the prophecy of the restoration of righteousness and peace
And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Many say that this refers to the fulfilment of the role of the church
While that is partially true it speaks of the rule of Gentiles over Jerusalem
But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months.
This is the argument that the temple can be rebuilt and not after the dome of the Rock is destroyed
That will end when Jesus takes His rightful place in the city as King and Lord!
It is important to understand what the last 7 weeks of Daniel is for - the dealing with the nation of Isreal not the church!
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
The moment when the trumpet sounds and those of us who are alive will be “caught up” to be with Him will be the deliverance from the coming judgement of God
The last seven years will begin when the antichrist confirms the covenant with “many” of the people breaking it 1/2 way through the 7 years to usher in the judgements of God
Next week, the things that are! The church age in which we are living and seeing the completion of the grafting in of the Gentiles and then God will turn His work to the redemption of the nation of Israel