Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today I want to ask you, how do we interpret prophecy in general and the book of Revelation in particular? Interpretation. It's an important question to ask and really must be asked even prior to coming to the book itself.

Otherwise, we're guaranteed to get prophecy in Revelation wrong. How do so many people come to so many disparate and varied interpretations of things like the mark of the beast or the identity of the beast itself and the nature of the thousand year millennium, for example? Not everyone will with a maybe it means this or maybe it means that can be right, can they? Certainly some or all interpreters who say the Pope is the beast or Henry Kissinger, is the beast or even Donald Trump is the beast. Some of them have to be wrong.

Now, one of my favorite examples of charlatans practicing today is John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. He's one of the foremost dispensational prophecy preachers in the country. In his book, Four Blood Moons, something is about to change. That sounds omnivorous, doesn't it? Well, he predicted, this book predicted, and I quote, the coming four blood moons points to a world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015, unquote.

And that's the period when these four blood moons would transpire. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he says, the world-shaking event would signal that God was bringing about doomsday. Well, what happened, huh, with these four blood moons? Nothing. There was no world-shaking event to usher in doomsday.

Lo and behold, we're still here. The prophetic clock is still ticking, and Hagee's predictions are an absolute bust, and his book is good for little else than kindling in my fireplace. Now, this is just one example of the contemporary church's fever about the future, her pagan passion for prophecy, the contemporary church's endless entrapment in end times. Why is this? Why has the modern church gotten revelation so wrong?

Well, I submit to you, it's the same problem Hagee has. That is the modern church's faulty interpretive method. That basic method, which lies at fault, is the literal interpretation of Scripture. Now, Charles Ryrie, in his book, Dispensationalism Today, he defines the literal method in his chapter, the hermeneutics of dispensationalism. And this is where much of literal interpretation of revelation comes today, is from dispensationalism.

This means interpretation, as he says, and I quote Ryrie in his book, Literalism. He says, this means interpretation which gives to every word the same meaning it would have in normal usage, employed in writing, speaking, or thinking, unquote. He goes on to characterize it as the plain or the normal approach to interpreting language, since all languages have this assumed baseline of plainness or normalcy.

But of course, as beguiling and attractive as this method may be on its surface, literalism, when carried through consistently, which all dispensationalists say must be done, in fact, Ryrie has a whole section on consistency in interpreting the Bible literally, well, it leads to error when applied to prophecy, precisely because the kind of writing that prophecy is takes words and brings to them meanings and significances that transcend their normal or plain usage. That's the very point of prophecy. One glaring example is that of Revelation's mark of the beast from chapter 13, verse 17.

Not only does the dispensationalist see the mark of the beast as they think to happen in the future, but also that it must be a literal mark on the forehead and or hand. Now, various options have been proposed as to what this mark of the beast might be. Early on, it was speculated that it could be a tattoo like the inmates of Hitler's death camps, or maybe a brand like slaves in the ancient world. More recently, of course, those on Revelation red heifer rapture rants speculate that it must be a barcode or even the more recently looming chip inserted just under the skin. Well, why?

Why are all of these teachers just red heifers chasing their tails? Well, I submit to you it is because they take these prophecies literally. Well, then you may ask me, how should they be interpreted, Mr. Smarty Pants Bible Answer Man? And that's really the pertinent question, an excellent question. And I would just suggest that rather than interpreting Scripture literally as a binding principle for all of it, that we must interpret Scripture according to its genre, to its genre.

Now, if you've never heard that word before, genre merely means a type or kind of writing. All literature is of one type or kind or another. Historical narrative is one genre. Poetry is another genre of writing. Paul's letters are yet another genre of writing, and so it is that apocalyptic is yet another genre or type or kind of writing altogether.

Apocalyptic and revelation is of this genre. Apocalyptic. And each genre has its own rules and styles and ways of communicating its intended meaning. If I say, for example, one of my favorite examples is, you send me to the moon. If I say, you send me to the moon in a historical narrative, it might mean that NASA is undertaking another Apollo mission.

They intend to make me an astronaut. If I say, you send me to the moon in a poem to my wife, it means that she pleases me very much. If I say, you send me to the moon in some ancient Greek apocalypses, and this phrase is rife there, it means that a witch has placed a spell on me and has me under her control. She's drawn down the moon upon me. So, one and the very same sentence may have a completely different set of meanings depending upon its genre, its type or kind of writing.

This is why revelation must be interpreted according to its genre, not literally. It becomes apparent if we turn to an example, perhaps, of the mark of the beast. For example, number one, two things when we interpret the mark of the beast according to genre. Number one, the mark of the beast is a counterpoint to the mark of God upon his own. Oh, we run right to the mark of the beast.

Don't we? When, long before we come to the mark of the beast in chapter 13, we've seen in revelation that the servants of God have been sealed on their foreheads in chapter 7. Being sealed in the forehead is a metaphor, a figure of God's sovereign knowledge and care over his own. It's not literal. It harkens back even further to Ezekiel chapter 9, where Ezekiel says, and the Lord said to him, pass through the city, that him is an angel, an angel is sent through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it, unquote.

From Ezekiel chapter 9. These, with the marks in their forehead, are the servants of God who are spared in the destruction of Jerusalem. In the same way that God lovingly, sovereignly marks his own for salvation. So, with the mark of the beast, he marks out the reprobate for judgment and destruction. And secondly, we must note the mark of the beast.

When we interpret it according to its genre, the actual mark is a picture for all that we think and do. We think with our heads and we do with our hands. All that we think and do is emblemized in our foreheads and our hands. Those given over to God think and do all in God's name and his word. Those little boxes, you know, filled with God's word that Jews tie onto their foreheads and their hands.

This picture is what they aspire to. That is to have all that they think and all that they do given over to God in his word. In the same way, those with the mark of the beast have given over all that they think in the forehead and all that they do in the hand to the beast and the one who stands behind them, that is the dragon. World and its system is all that consumes them. And then again, not just in the future, but how often has this happened in the world since the beginning of time, huh?

Genre is also crucial when it comes to understanding the numbers of scripture. The genre of apocalypse uses numbers in a highly figurative and symbolic fashion. Almost all acknowledge that the number 666 is such an example, right? It's the number of the beast. It's the standard number of 6, which is the number of man and imperfection.

The number of 7 and 777 is the number of God and perfection and the number of his name too. 666, the number of the beast. It's also the number of his name, John says, which when interpreted according to Gematria renders the name of one of the kings of Revelation, right? Well, if this is one of the interpretive rules of apocalypse, and it is that numbers are highly symbolic and figurative, then why do we suddenly shift to a literal interpretation of the number 1000 when John tells of the time of the millennium to come in Revelation 20?

There in Revelation 20, it is said that in the time of the millennium, Satan will be bound for a thousand years and that the saints, as the Bible says, will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with him for a thousand years, unquote. According to the rules of literal interpretation, this can mean nothing less than a literal 1000 year reign of Christ upon the earth and a millennium to come. It's a bulwark of dispensational teaching. It's an important linchpin in their interpretive scheme. The number 1000 must be interpreted literally.

As Ryrie might say, giving the word the meaning it would have in normal usage. Yet is prophecy normal usage? How can this be seriously maintained in a genre of literature that is type or kind of writing like apocalypse, which Revelation is? So that by its very nature, it is highly symbolic and figurative and spiritual even. If numbers are this way through out apocalypse, why are they not here in chapter 20 of Revelation?

In fact, the number 1000 is one of the most highly used metaphors and symbols in the Bible. Psalm says, for every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. Oh, but on that thousand and first hill, it's open season. Oh, no, no, no. Or Job says in chapter nine, how can a man be in the right before God if one wished to contend with him?

One could not answer him once in a thousand times. No, you can't answer God back once in a thousand times. But that thousand and first time, oh, you've got God in a corner. No, that's not what Job is saying, is he? Not at all.

Or Joshua says, one man of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you just as he promised you. And then, of course, that famous verse in 2 Peter chapter 3, but do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Oh, symbolic, figurative, spiritual even. The number 1000 throughout the Bible is almost always used as a metaphor for a vast innumerable amount of a given thing.

Whether it's the innumerable hills, the innumerable answers of God, the innumerable enemies that Israel faced, or the countless years of God's transcendent existence, the number 1000 is consistently used as a metaphor for this state of things. But what does the dispensational literalist say? No, no, no, no, no, not here. In contravention of all the rules of interpreting the genre of apocalypse, we're clinging to our ironclad rule of literalism. It's a binding and absolute rule in all cases.

Here, in the most symbolic and spiritual book of the Bible, Revelation, we insist that this number be taken literally. And consequently, I submit to you, dear listener, dispensationalism falls into many hurtful errors interpreting Revelation, especially here. The only thing literalism does in Revelation is literally guarantee that its teachers will fall into many errors interpreting the book. And one of those errors as well is not spiritualizing. We are meant to spiritualize passages in Revelation.

So one of those errors of the literalist is not spiritualizing passages which are meant to be interpreted in a spiritual fashion. For dispensational literalism to spiritualize a passage of prophecy is tantamount to heresy. And Ryrie tries to be diplomatic, but his contempt for the non-literalist is evident when he says that the dispensationalist, and I quote him, charges him with allegorizing or spiritualizing when it comes to the interpretation of prophecy, unquote. Well, dear listener, the book of Revelation itself openly testifies to spiritualizing its contents.

If you have a King James version of the Bible, turn to Revelation 1118 and read it. It says, and their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified, unquote. Ah, here John spiritualizes the text. In a spiritual fashion, Jerusalem is pictured as Sodom or Egypt. The Greek adjective is pneumatikos, to spiritualize.

That which the inhabitants of Jerusalem worship follow practice as a moral and spiritual way of life is like unto both Sodom and Egypt spiritually. This is spiritualizing the text, dear listener, a thing that dispensationalist literalism abhors. But the apostle John employs to great effect. And he does it throughout the apocalypse too. A couple other examples.

For example, the souls of those slain as martyrs in Revelation 6, 9 through 10 are said to be under the altar in the heavenly temple. This is a spiritual picture of their sacrifice on behalf of the Lord and Savior in martyrdom, this same Jesus Christ who treasures and keeps them as his own, right? And then in great contrast, we have elsewhere, the whore of Babylon riding the beast. She is a spiritualized picture of the religion of the Roman empire of John's day. Rome in John's day worshiped in the same spirit as that of Babylon of old.

And then finally, my last example, though there are many more, in chapter 19 of Revelation, we have the marriage supper of the lamb, which is a spiritual picture in and of itself, in which it is sung that the bride, that is the church, has made herself ready, clothed in fine linen, bright and pure, which John then goes on to explain is the righteous deeds of the saints, this linen, bright and pure. Here is a spiritualized picture of our good deeds as fine white linen. On and on we could go.

Apocalypse is a genre, is a type or kind of writing, and Revelation in particular spiritualizes many, many times at every turn, for that matter, to spiritualize. So then to literalize at every turn guarantees that the reader will misinterpret at crucial junctures in the text. Revelation chapter 20 and the thousand-year millennium as interpreted by the literalist being exhibit A of this era. Dispensationalism falls then into another critical error too, in pushing all of Revelation from chapter 4 on into the future. This is called futurism.

And those who hold that Revelation speaks of things to happen in the far future, the distant future in particular, and undisclosed future time, these are called futurists. But once more, our interpretive key must not be literalism or futurism, but genre. What type or kind of writing is here? Because it follows certain patterns, certain conventions, certain rules, certain patterns. The genre and Revelation happens to be of the genre of apocalyptic.

And if we do this, we come to understand that apocalypse as a genre was invariably written to comfort and encourage the generation in which it was written, not some far-off peoples 2,000 years away. And more often than not, the generation in which the author of the apocalypse in question composed his work, this generation was oppressed and suffering too. To hear, though, to hear from the apocalypse that God was not only aware of their suffering, but he was working it all to his glory and their good for eternity. Revelation points to eternity, doesn't it?

This brought great encouragement and comfort for the suffering saints of the generation to which the apocalypse was written. That's precisely the case here in Revelation. Revelation, composed around AD 64, the church was under severe persecution by Emperor Nero at this time. Nero would, for example, he would sew Christians into animal skins and then he'd feed them to wild beasts or he'd take the Christians and he'd coat them with tar and pitch and then he'd light them on fire on pedestals in his gardens to illumine them for his night parties. Can you see why Nero is often characterized as the beast?

But then for the Revelation saints of that first century to hear that their suffering and their martyrdom meant something to God. He saw it. He acknowledged it. In fact, he sovereignly superintended it to suffer like Christ. Take up your cross and follow me, Christ said, and the saints of that first century did so.

But when they heard that their suffering and their martyrdom really meant something to God and that he was using it in his providential way to build his church, it lifted up the saints of the first century. This was John's first audience, not us. No. And the text is clear on this too. Do you read with the same eyes I do, dear listener?

We see in the opening verses of Revelation, for example, the very first verse says, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. The things that must soon take place. In John's own day, that is. And he says in verse four, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it. For the time is near.

Yes, the time was near in that very first century. And many of the things, most of the book of Revelation, we might even say transpired in that first century. And he closes the book by saying, he who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

That's from the very last chapter, chapter 22 of Revelation. Surely I am coming soon. And he did. He came in judgment upon Jerusalem and then later Rome. We see that in apocalypse, because Revelation is of the genre apocalypse, John fully expected that much of his apocalypse would transpire within the lifetime of his audience.

To cast the book of Revelation into the future robs these people of their book. This is the literal understanding of these words too, by the way. This is the literal understanding of these words. It's the normal usage of these words, the plain meaning of the text. But oddly enough, the literalist refuses to take them.

So of all the verses to take literally, these are it. But their plain meanings are denied by the futurist. Indeed, they must be denied or explained away. That's what most dispensationalists do with these verses. They are explained away in order to cast the prophecies of Revelation into the far, far future, i.e.

our own day, right? Oh, dear listener. And they do this. They explain away the contemporary nature of these verses with the idea of imminence. That is, God is imminently at the door.

He's about to rapture us, right? The idea of imminence. That is, it's close. It's almost here. When that is not the sense of these words.

Imminence rather than immediacy. No, this text, these things that must soon take place, the things that are near, the time is near. Surely I'm coming soon. These are all immediate versus the sense of immediacy, not imminence, dear listener. So when we read Revelation in its first century context, it comes alive, I submit to you.

Read it this way. Read Revelation in its first century context because it comes alive with meaning, not only for John's first century audience, but also for us. When we read Revelation as apocalypse in its context, in its genre, we come to see that not only God's seal has always been on the foreheads of his elect in the first century, but it's always been on the foreheads of his elect. That is, God has always known and kept and loved his own all through the ages, no matter how dire their earthly circumstances may be.

When we read Revelation as apocalypse, when we read it according to its genre in the rules and conventions of apocalypse, we come to see also, as we understand the genre, that there have always been beasts from the sea and the land too. There have always been beasts in every generation from the sea and the land to afflict God's people, not just for some far-off great tribulation.

When we read the book of Revelation according to its genre, its own style and conventions and forms, we come to see that God has been about conquering his kingdom by the blood of the Lamb throughout the history of the church, and not just for the last seven years of some supposed great tribulation in the far-off future. No, God has always been conquering his kingdom by the blood of the Lamb, the testimony of his saints, has he not? Political power may come through the barrel of a gun, but the power of God comes through the blood of the cross.

So this book, the book of Revelation, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ, is for us here and now, just as it has been for the whole church since it was written. For 2,000 years, the book of Revelation has been ours, not just for a far-off future generation in which these prophecies supposedly will come true. It speaks eloquently, the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation speaks eloquently and beautifully of our Savior and his bride, the church. The text says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches, i.e.

the churches of the first century and the churches subsequently to all through the 2,000-year history of the church. Jesus goes on to say, I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. The spirit and the bride say, come, and let the one who hears say, come. Let the one who is thirsty, come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

This is offered to us. It beckons us. It beckons the whole church of Christ for the last 2,000 years, not just for some seven-year tribulation, dear listener. He goes on to say, John does, he who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Ah, there we are again.

Surely I'm coming soon. He's saying this to his first century believers. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

Well, I just hope that you have seen today how crucial it is to interpret the Bible according to its genre. That is apocalypse and not in a literalistic fashion because you are guaranteed to come up with many errors in interpreting the book of Revelation when you interpret it literally as dispensationalists do today. And we've seen many of those errors, John Hagee being one. Instead, let us come to the Lord Jesus in his book, the book of Revelation, because he says, surely I am coming soon. Amen.

Come, Lord Jesus, we say with the whole church. Come, Lord Jesus, and the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you, dear listener. Amen.

Come and study the book of Revelation with us. We're doing that now in our worship service. And we meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. And we meet at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for more information, maybe some comments. Maybe you'd like to make a comment on this broadcast or others in the past.

And you can do so by calling us at area code 208-523-0196. That's area code 208-523-0196.