What in the World is an Apocalypse?

Transcript

so brothers and sisters um the class tonight I have entitled what in the world is an apocalypse

um and here's how it came about as some of you know I had an opportunity to as Jim Sullivan did last year uh go up to the Sussex New Brunswick Ecclesia where they had a study weekend and the subject that I um that I spoke on was the Revelation and

what we did in our studies on the Revelation was try to understand the Book of Revelation from the perspective of a first century believer

as opposed to a Christadelphian in the year 2022 who has the hindsight of looking at modern history and trying to apply modern history to our interpretation of the Revelation

um like many prophetic books their tense in my view it seems as though there is a way to interpret prophecy for the you know those original hearers and then sometimes we can see sort of a later day prophecy that can be applied to us and I think the same might be said with the Book of Revelation this is not a class about the Book of Revelation though and what we'll be looking at today are examples of apocalypses I don't know if that's a word but uh of Apocalypse that have appeared to other

Believers other men and women uh written about in the scriptures other than John

so the first the first thing that I'd like to point out

is that when we think of the word apocalypse

it comes you know I it comes from Revelation The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ that word apocalypse is very different I had a very different meaning to the first century believer than it does to us

so in modern days when we think of Apocalypse if you're like most people you think about it as sort of the end of the world in fact if you were to look up the word Apocalypse in a dictionary a modern dictionary that's how it would be defined it would be defined just as that the end of the world the end times

but in the first century it was completely different the word apocalypse has mer has molded over the years it has a different meaning today but originally the word simply meant an uncovering a revealing hence the word revelation a revealing of things

and um to try to understand that I'd like to go to two places initially the first place is is found in First Peter and we'll look at First Peter chapter one and it's here where Peter is writing about those ancient prophets those prophets from the Jewish scriptures

who you know looked intently trying to understand you know when is this Messiah coming what's the deal with this Messiah and we'll pick up uh in Peter and we'll read what Peter has to say about these prophets and we'll find the word apocalypso the Greek word revelation there or revealing and and hopefully this will help help us make sense of the original meaning of the word so we're in First Peter chapter one and I'd like to pick up in the 10th verse and it says concerning this salvation

the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come so this is Prophet speaking about the future the grace that was to come they searched intently with the greatest care

trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when it predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow right so these are prophets that are speaking about the future they're searching intently trying to understand about the the sufferings of the Messiah right that was something that this it wasn't on their radar right they were thinking of the Messiah as the coming King the you know the one that would fix all the problems in the world right

and then in verse 12 so we're First Peter 1 verse 12. here's where we see the word apocalypso it says it was revealed that's the word it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves

but you so this is what Peter is writing you know when he's talking when he uses the word you there he's talking about the readers of this letter that he's writing it was not revealed to them as they were not serving themselves but to you when they spoke of those things that they not that have now been told you

by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit Sent From Heaven even angels longed to look into these things so the reason I want again the reason I wanted to go here is because we see that this word apocalypso this Revelation this word revelation is just that it's not about the end of the world it's about the revealing of things in this case it's about the revealing of things that even prophets and Angels didn't understand but now you through the spirit are beginning to see these things it's been revealed it's been apocalypsed to you so that's the first one First Peter chapter 1 verses 10 to 13. second place I'd like to go to sort of set the stage on all of this is found in Matthew and it's Matthew chapter 11 where where we're going to actually be reading the words of Jesus himself

and what happens here in Matthew 11 is Jesus begins to offer a prayer he's praising his father in Heaven and we're going to see what he Praises God for when we turn it up so we'll look at Matthew chapter 11 and we'll start in the 25th verse Matthew 11 verse 25. that section where Jesus is promising rest for the weary and he begins by praising God he says at that time the gospel accounts says at that time Jesus said

I praise you father Lord of Heaven and Earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed

apocalypse so you've revealed them to little children

yes Father for this was your good pleasure all things have been committed to me by my father no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and those to whom the son chooses

to reveal him

and so here Jesus I mean think about it Jesus is praising God thanking God that he Jesus has the privilege to reveal his father to people that just quite didn't understand it the wise and the Learned didn't understand it God revealed himself to the little children and Jesus is praising God because as it says there at the end of that passage we read because he's been given the privilege to reveal these things see that there in verse 27 all these things have been committed to me by my father no one knows the son except the father no one knows the father except the son and those to whom the son chooses to reveal him so brothers and sisters we're the beneficiaries of this revelation you know there was a time when people didn't get it the prophets searched and they didn't get it the wise and the Learned searched they didn't understand but Jesus through through the spirit Jesus has revealed these things to us and now we have the benefit of that understanding so I think that's the first place that I wanted to go it's about bringing these hidden things these things that were hidden were clouded it's about bringing these things to light

and you might think of it as an opening or as um know providing A New Perspective

so

when

in Sussex last weekend we were talking about the Book of Revelation we were trying to understand the people to whom it was written and the the struggle that these early brothers and sisters were facing at that point in time was was two-pronged

the first problem the first thing they were struggling with was their faith they were starting to have doubts and they were starting to feel disillusioned about their faith because if you think about it the Book of Revelation was written they they think probably around 90 A.D

which means that Jesus had been dead and raised to life again and had ascended to heaven and as he ascended to heaven the angel said to those Witnesses the same Jesus who you've seen go into heaven will so come in like manner and for 60 years these early brothers and sisters were anticipating the return of Our Lord they were expecting Jesus

at any moment and all of a sudden you know 60 years into the mission their their family their friends their their brothers and sisters in their Ecclesia are starting to die

even some of the apostles who walked with Jesus at this point in history have died and they're wondering wait a minute is this real I mean is it really true that Jesus is going to come back so that was the first of the issues they were struggling with it was one of disillusionment and doubt and then the second issue that they were facing as Citizens or as residents in the Roman Empire in Asia Minor was persecution there was uh this cultic Emperor worship at that point in history and for early Christians who refuse to Bow Down and Worship the emperor they were being persecuted and they were suffering as a result

so a revelation a revealing comes about in The Book of Revelation and the purpose behind this was to give them A New Perspective

on their problems in the world as though it was like God saying okay I this is how you see things you see things from your human perspective

I'm going to give you

a Godly a Heavenly perspective of the things that you're that you're feeling and that you're facing and that's really where we started our classes about the Book of Revelation and I set the stage I sort of provide this background now brothers and sisters because the next place we're going to go is a very familiar verse to all of us I would think it's found in Romans chapter 8. and it's that verse that I think you know we probably as we were chatting before the start of class you know we're all thinking about our brothers and sisters who are struggling with their health our brothers and sisters who are hurting you know physically with cancer or mentally with you know anxiety and depression and stress or financially you know all of the problems that we seem to experience in this life when we experience these problems if you're like me you know you'll sometimes go to this you know well-worn passage from Romans and maybe you're saying it to yourself as as I'm sort of teeing it up here and it's for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory

remember how it goes that shall be revealed in US

and as you might guess that word revealed is apocalypso it's it's that that revealing so while in this life we're struggling the temporal problems of you know the consequences of sin and the consequences of mortality God has a plan that goes well beyond our temporal lives and there is a glory that will be revealed in all of us and when that eventually is revealed you know we'll be able to look back at our life experience and say

that was nothing wasn't even worthy be compared to the to the glory that we have those sufferings that was nothing it's hard to imagine that now sometimes but that's the difference that's the that's the gulf you know between today's problems and tomorrow's glory in Jesus again it's a revelation the purpose behind the Revelation is to give us a perspective a Heavenly perspective on life's problems so those were a couple of uh passages that I wanted to um that I wanted to bring up and as we think about this perspective and as we think about the the process of receiving an apocalypse we'll talk more about that there's an important distinction though that I want to bring out and that is that this revealing this sort of better understanding of life's problems

when we're talking about an apocalypse it doesn't come about by our own you know understanding our own life's experiences it doesn't come about by us reading the scriptures and the wisdom that's associated with those things that's part of the the maturing process as a follower of Jesus that's all well and good but when we're speaking about uh an apocalypse this is something that God does to us

it's not something that just happens through our own experiences God does this to us or does this for us okay so let me give you um you know we can go back to to the quote from Matthew where Jesus says you know God reveals the hidden things to the little children remember that from from Matthew 11 God reveals these hidden things these things that were hidden from the wise and the Learned he reveals them and that's what it's about it's not about what book learning it's not about what we know it's about what God does

and I'll give you an example so uh let's let's take a look at uh let's take a look at the sort of next section and that is this idea of God God actually doing the work God actually performing this apocalypse performing this revelation and I want to start by looking at an example from the New Testament and we're going to look at the experience of the Apostle Paul at the time he's not the Apostle Paul he saw the one who was hunting down those early First Credit First Century Believers those ones who first left the quote-unquote Jewish faith to identify as Jesus followers

and I want to look at Galatians chapter one

and we're going to actually read Galatians because these are the words of Paul and Paul's going to give us a description from his point of view about what it was that happened to him on the road to Emmaus

so Galatians chapter 1 we'll look at the 12th verse

um I'll start at the 11th verse that's where the paragraph begins

so he's writing to these uh brothers and sisters in the ecclesion galatia and he says I want you to know Brethren I want you to know brothers and sisters that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up I did not receive it from any man nor was I taught it rather I

received apocalypsed

I apocalypsed it from Jesus Christ this was something that was heaven sent this was an experience that was dictated by God through Jesus

and that's how Paul explained his situation you know explained his his experience to other brothers and sisters he referred to it as an apocalypse and when we go to acts and actually look at the account we can now start to open up and see how it is that God works in this way so

you know it happens usually when when one receives a revelation and revealing of this sort it happens usually in the form of Dreams or nightmares or visions and that's what we're seeing in Acts chapter nine so let's flip over there we'll start at the beginning uh chapter three at the chapter nine uh verse 3. Acts chapter 9. so again Steve we're thinking about the conversion of Saul all right uh here we go acts 9 verse 3. he says uh as I neared Damascus so he's ex you know we're reading about his experience on the road to Damascus as I near Damascus on as he neared Damascus on his Road uh on his journey suddenly a light from Heaven flashed around him he fell to the ground and Heard a Voice say to him Saul Saul why do you persecute me who are you Lord Saul last I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting you replied now get up and go into the City and you will be told what you must do the men traveling with Saul stood there speechless they heard the sound but did not see anyone Saul got up from the ground and when he opened his eyes he could see nothing so they led him by the hand into Damascus for three days he was blind did not eat or drink anything

now

we're familiar with this right I mean obviously we know the account of Saul on the road to Damascus but what I want you to focus on now is the hint that explains why this happened to him God did this to him and like all Revelations all apocalypses there's a purpose there's a method there's a reason behind these experiences

and in Saul's case it was to change him

and we get a sense of it there where it says um

verse six now get up and go into the city and you will be told what to do the purpose of the Apocalypse was to affect a change in Saul's life the purpose was to cause him to do something and what it was that he was to do was to rescue Jews and Gentiles alike and turn them from Darkness into light

that was his role that was that was the purpose of this apocalypse and he's now in darkness and he experiences the light of vision once again and he's now to take this this Vision this nightmare whatever it was and he's to to now bring light to the Jews and the Gentiles Acts chapter 26 will go and look at a second account of the same experience of his Acts 26 verse 13. um he it says on one of these Journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests verse 13 about noon O King I was on the road I saw a light from Heaven brighter than the sun blazing around me and my companions we fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic Saul Saul why do you persecute me it is is it is hard for you to kick against the goads and then I asked who are you Lord I'm Jesus whom you are persecuting the Lord said now here's the point here's the reason now get up and stand on your feet I have appeared to you to appoint you

as a servant and as a witness for what you have seen of me and what I will show you what I will reveal to you

I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles I'm sending you to them to open their eyes and to turn them from Darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are Sanctified by faith in me all right and that's sort of like that that was an apocalypse brothers and sisters you know you think about the apocalypse that John received on the Isle of island island of Patmos what happened to Saul is not much different than what happened to John it was this Revelation this thing that God had happened to him in a vision in a dream and a nightmare however you want to experience describe that experience that real experience it happened to Paul

now if you think about like closely held beliefs that you've had you know I'm speaking to not just you Jim but to all of us right when we think about you know closely held beliefs and you think what would it take for me to change my opinion on this like when was the last time I changed my mind on something that was important right it's a hard thing for a lot of us to do

and it's so difficult in fact that there are times when it seems to me that God has to do the changing he's got to create this environment that snaps you out of what whatever the the blinders are that you have on and this apocalypse that Paul experienced is something that many other people experience throughout the Bible well look at one yeah Steve go ahead I see you've got your your hand raised go right ahead jump in yeah um when we have saw and called paw

uh was that a question is that a uh a change in his mind is it that switch over for for him to understand uh what he was thinking was wrong uh when was that switch it was that when he his name was changed

I've always thought so Steve yeah I've always thought that anyway the the change in name was sort of reflective of the change in character of the man

right

you know let the reader understand you know it's sort of like a a little hint uh

yeah this is not the same guy it's not the same guy same guy but not the same guy yeah yeah

and you know brothers and sisters

the excitational point here is that should be a lesson to us because on the day of my baptism I put on the name of Jesus Christ

right we are Brothers and Sisters in Christ and we are to be different with the same guy

but we're to live a different life we've got to have a different priority in life we're no longer serving our own you know desires

what was good for us we're we're serving our heavenly father yeah so Steve to answer your question I think it was reflective of the change that went on in his character

and what I what I was saying is this example of Paul the Apocalypse happening to him so that he would change is something that we see not just to Paul but to it wasn't unique to him it happened to many other people too and we'll look at one more example in the New Testament and it's also an acts so I'd like to flip back to Acts chapter 10. so the reason I want to go to Acts chapter 10 is because this is the this is the passage that describes

the vision that Peter

the Jew

who practiced kosher eating all his life had to experience

so that he could know that it was okay for him to give up the the idea of eating only kosher foods

I mean how hard must that have been for him it was part of his identity it was part of who he was who he thought he was and for somebody to say you know hey you're a follower of Jesus now you don't need to follow the law of Moses you can you know you want to have shellfish go right it go right ahead pork no problem Bacon's good right uh he's like no way

and as a result there is this apocalypse that happens to him it's the vision it's where he's in a trance on the roof and and you know the curtain gets lowered with all sorts of evil you know unclean animals on it and he's told that he can go and eat

and it was that apocalyptic Vision that dream that you know nightmare however you want to describe it that changed him

so those are two examples from the New Testament right two examples of the New Testament

any questions on that or anybody can want to add anything to that before we start looking at the Old Testament uh sort of we have some internet problems so you might have answered the question the last couple minutes we might have missed but um is this term apocalypsis is the Revelation uh you you went out of the way to make the point that um this isn't something we set out intentionally to get uh by book learning or by going out to have a life experience or something like that

um but you've provided examples where

um a revelation is occurring where it seems like the fabric of reality and or or the the gulf Between Heaven and Earth is somehow being torn and and people are getting direct Revelation from God would you say that experiences that we have in life that are not of our own creation but have been you know we would look back upon and reflect and think oh I can see the hand of God working in my life at this time to teach me something would that qualify as this or or is that a an equally valid experience but not quite the same as what you're talking about here

I'm not sure how to answer that Ben um

and I think one of the you know speaking personally I think one of the challenges that I have as a as a believer is looking at my own experiences and trying to recognize when God has been working in my life it's a weakness that I think I have

um I remember some time ago we had a Bible class speaking of Sussex and Paul Baines was getting ready to move to England and you know he felt like God was opening doors for him and I asked him the question you know what's that mean what's that look like when you say that God is opening the door for you

um so

I think it's hard for me to answer that because I admittedly I I recognize that as a struggle in my own walk

um certainly it's it's I would imagine that it's possible for one to look back and say oh that was God revealing this to me but when I think of uh the apocalypse like what John received in on the island of Patmos or what you know you know Peter saw when he was on the roof of cornelius's homes those to me are different than a life experience

certainly there's no question about what just happened whereas we might take it might take many many years for us to look back at something and realize how God has molded us it seems like that is in a different category okay I I think it is and and it's not to say that that other category isn't valid I think it's an important thing I think it's something that I hope that I can be more attuned to looking for God working in my life right I think that's an important thing for us all to recognize

I have my experience but I think it's a little bit different and yeah

not Richard yeah I have an experience I'd like to share

um I remember when I was uh teaching brother Phil

um oh yeah you were talking about that experience uh I think you've told that story a couple of times where you uh you started searching about uh the angel that had fallen from heaven yeah that one but this is a little another one

oh uh it was uh um we had been doing our lessons and um the uh um

um before the next day uh we were we had said we was going to do another lesson and uh I prayed about it that night and I said I believe Lord you have a call this man and I checked in my book um the uh uh Isaiah 14 12 or Lucifer that was falling from heaven and I marked it and the next day when we got together before we usually always open up with a prayer and uh after I opened up with a prayer he said uh I want to know about that and uh and I thought that's what yeah that's what we were talking about yeah okay so I you know I think that's really interesting I think that probably goes more along the lines of what Ben was describing as opposed to a vision from Heaven uh which seems to be what we see in uh you know the Apostle Paul or Peter or John on Patmos so I'm gonna in the in the in you know because we're already at 20 past eight I'm gonna plow ahead is that okay Richard oh sure yeah okay so when we go to the Old Testament uh the Jewish scriptures you know one of the things that jumped out at me was Abraham

like the father of the faithful I never thought about Abraham as receiving an apocalypse but when we come to Genesis chapter 15 and we we read it it does give us this idea that what was happening to Abraham here was just that it was a revealing if you know through a vision through uh an opening through as Ben I think you described it the merging of Heaven and Earth and uh I'll just I'll read uh verses one through six to start it says uh in Genesis chapter 15 verse 1. after this the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision

do not be afraid Abram I am your Shield your very great reward but Abram said o Sovereign Lord what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eleazar of Damascus and Abram said you have given me no children so a servant in my household will be my Heir and you know we know the story but the point that I'm trying to bring out here is this well-known passage this you know patriarch the father of the faithful the one who received the great and precious promises

I don't know if it's just me but I don't know that I you know recognize that it was in a vision as opposed to just the Lord speaking to him and when we come down to verse 12 it says as the sun was setting Abram fell into a deep sleep

and a thick and Dreadful Darkness came over him no for certain that your descendants your seed will be strangers in a country not your own and they will be enslaved and mistreated for a hundred years 400 years but I will punish the you know so the point again here chapter 15 starts out with a vision and now in in verse

chapter uh verse whatever it was 13. verse 12 he falls into a deep sleep you know this deep and Dreadful sleep I think we can view that as an apocalypse

we'll look at a couple more how about uh David

King David

did David receive an apocalypse was there this merging of you know Heavenly reality with Earthly circumstance and I think the answer is yes let's take a look at First Chronicles

First Chronicles chapter 21. it's a a tiny little verse in here but it says an awful lot

um first Chronicles 21 we'll look at the 16th verse

this is uh David numbering the fighting men and in the 16th verse we see this David looked up and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between

Heaven and Earth with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem

than David and the elders fell clothed in sackcloth fell face down right there's that that that Heavenly perspective of what's happening on the earth he looks and he sees a vision a revealing an apocalypse I think

um

we can go on uh over and over again you know you look at Jacob

you think of this this man Jacob fleeing for his life I mean he's deceived his family he's stolen the birthright

he's in trouble right in his mind he's in trouble let's go to Genesis chapter

um

28. you know I don't know that we have time to go there but you know you know that you know the story you know where he has this vision and he sees the Angels you know going up and down through the the gate to heaven you know Earthly problems Heavenly perspective what's the Heavenly perspective Jacob

pick yourself up you're gonna be okay right you are going to be you know one of the faithful uh you know one of the fathers of faith of faithfulness Abraham Isaac and Jacob you know the Patriarchs of old

um there was a reason for this vision and it was to change him either to change like in the case of Saul to change him from the error of his ways to a new way or in the case of Jacob one who is doubting everything and now to realize that oh I am Abraham's seed

there's something special about that so um those are some examples of why I think we see these apocalypses and of course I've I've left out some of the you know the more common ones you know we could go to Isaiah or we'd go to Ezekiel or we could go to Daniel and we see these you know very familiar apocalyptic Visions but what I tried to do tonight was draw out some of the less obscure ones that when we read it and carefully consider it we can say yeah that's probably an apocalypse too

so what seems to be a common theme between all of these events is what Ben had described it seems to be um this merging of everyday life

on Earth with a view of God's perspective from heaven it's though the apocalypse is designed to reveal or to open up a better understanding of Earth's problems of my problems of your problems and the reason this is done is to affect change in our lives change in our Attitude Change in our faith if our faith is waning like it was with the brothers and sisters in Asia Minor the apocalypse was to show them that God is good God is in control and that the Roman Empire despite their might and power and seeming success

is destined to fall Babylon has fallen and that's the thing that all of us must recognize we are either going to be

citizens of the kingdom of God or we're going to choose to be citizens of the kingdom of men and sometimes the kingdom of men looks so attractive with its successes and with its you know wealth and you know power

but the perspective that we receive from these apocalypses is that God is a loving creator who has chosen you to live forever in the restoration of Eden

Revelation ends with those words

that you know he sees a vision and the New Jerusalem is coming down out of heaven and if we choose to align ourselves brothers and sisters with the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of men we will be inhabitants we will be Kings and Priests in that Kingdom age we will experience the joy of the glory that will make our present-day sufferings not worth anything

these are the hopes that we have and it's my hope that the you know the hour we've spent tonight will encourage us in our faith and uh maybe open up to us reveal to us some of these apocalyptic visions

because uh they can be hard to understand but when we step back and we try and just look at the big picture it's my hope that we can find our comfort in these things the way the early First Christians did God is in control there will be a day when just like Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden we too will walk with God it's an exciting proposition and uh we can look forward to that especially now as we suffer with struggles in this life