Now why does Jesus have to say ‘the Son of God.’ And by the way somebody wasn’t sure that it was Jesus talking. He just confirms it. A lot of people say ‘well I can’t believe that’s Jesus. I need…’ This is what He’s saying. Why Son of God? Why is He using that? First of all because He can; don’t even mess with that. That’s just too simple. He can. There’s another reason in fact multiple reasons. One of them is this Jezebel proclaims to have the infallible oracles of God. And only One can put the claim as Son of God. By the way I didn’t bother to put the Greek of that up on the board. But huios, which is ‘son’ in the Greek is nominative and Theou is genitive. And I like the fact that the Father nominated the Son and none other can take that place. Only Jesus can save – Son of God. But yet in the realm of this church which is the church of the Dark Ages.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that it was very common for high ranking officials – let me give you a type in the Roman world it was very common for a Roman official to take the title as ‘son of god’ as deified recipient of a titulary like for example Caesar son of god Julius because they were deified. Not our Lord, but their own version. They deified themselves. He talked to the people at this church exactly where they were at. This is what I love. If you’re reading this and you’re reading it with the eyes, same eyes that I’m looking at – you’ll see Jesus comes to the people and relates to them with a little – there’s a little unusual thing. I’m just going to mention it.
It’s not going to make or break anything but I’m just going to say it. As I analyzed the whole thing in Greek the ‘Son of God’ appears forty-six times in the New Testament. That’s not a big deal. I mean that’s wonderful but the anomaly is that is only appears here in the book of Revelation once like this. The subject: Son of God; the subject itself is subject of a transitive verb ‘saith’ which is very unusual. Usually ‘Son of God’ would be God as the subject or the Son as the subject, but not of a verb that’s moving. That is He that speaketh. It’s just unusual. And if you recall in the first message when I started in this book I said there’s some unusual grammar. There’s some unusual things. This is one of them, which tells you this is not somebody just kind of writing down makeshift. This is something spoken out of Jesus’ mouth and it is just completely unique. It doesn’t appear anywhere else like this.
I lived in Israel. I lived on a Kibbutz. I have absolutely extreme admiration for a culture and a society that knows what it believes and why it believes and celebrates its own. I have no problem with that, my attitude is the French is chacun fait ce qui le satisfait, ‘each does what pleases him,’ I know what pleases my Lord but let everything be what it is for right there.
I said earlier, I’ll say it again Jesus is not, Jesus is talking, not me and He’s saying there are people professing to be something they’re not. So when Jesus is talking He says there are those professing to be Ioudaious and they’re not, He’s got good reason. Now this is where the grammar is going help us lest anybody think that there’s some tinge to this. This is going to be very relevant.
This, if it was a person, place or thing, it would be a noun. I said simple grammar. This turns out to be an adjective. An adjective helps to describe a noun. In this case it’s a pronominal adjective which means it’s standing in for something representing something it’s not. Let me give my analogy of a substitute teacher. The substitute teacher is standing in for the real teacher today. Okay? That makes the substitute teacher an adjective pronominal pretending to be something it’s not for the sake of. Do you see what I’m saying? If you understand what’s being said here, let me help the situation along.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that this word here in the Greek Satana, ‘Satan,’ and this word here diabolos, ‘the devil.’ You ever wonder why when Jesus is speaking in this sentence when He says “synagogue of Satan,” and in the very next verse, in verse 10 He says “behold the devil.” Why didn’t He use the same word? I’m going to give you the same analogy I just gave you here for this word and that word, same analogy.
This place becomes plagued with something. As we, we’re looking at church history, we’re looking at a whole bunch of things that will ultimately change the way we are today. How the Church is today and one of them is in 195, this is after Alexander the Great, 195 B.C., there is a new god added to the whole equation, called the Dio Roma, the Roman Goddess. And the people wanted something to call their own because all these other gods belonged to the Greeks and the Pagans. They wanted a god that would belong to them, they got it. This first temple is built to the Dio Roma and then things started to mount, the people wanted more, they wanted something tangible. They didn’t just want another place with another statue, they wanted a person. And the deification of Caesar and Caesar worship began. Now it started way before this with Domitian. If you recall he was the one that said “You must call me Lord, I’m your Lord, bow down to me.” But a wave of emperors there afterwards looked down on that until this point.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that in 23 A.D. a temple is erected to Augustus by the hands of Tiberius who decides he elects Smyrna to be the candidate for this place. A temple, an imperial temple remember we call the temple at Ephesus was neocorus. This was the imperial temple; this was the place of all places where Caesar worship would occur. By the way the, the temple was issued to Augustus, Livia, the mother and the Senate. So you went in there and it was required now by law that you go in there, every single person was required by law, no longer by your own choice, to take a pinch of incense, burn it on the altar and say “Caesar is Lord.” You were required now as a Roman citizen to do that.
Now you read this passage in the book of Revelation you say, “How could this church have so much trouble, how could there be these problems?” Well, for starters, the Christians would not bow down to Caesar. If you know church history the most famous martyr, they call him the twelfth martyr of Smyrna, Polycarp, and I love this out of, if you have a copy of Fox’s Book of Martyrs, if you don’t please get one, you’d do well to read it. Polycarp under Marcus Aurelius is brought into the council. All he has to do is reproach Christ, all he has to do is recant and say, “He’s not what He is to me.” That’s all he has to do and they’ll let him go. He stands before the council and he says, “86 years.” Can you imagine 86-year-old man being put through this, Bishop of Smyrna, “86 years I’ve served my Lord and He’s done me no harm, He’s not wronged me? How can I blaspheme the name of the one that saved me?”
This is why I love combing through the Old and New, because you can see from the beginning God had a purpose to ‘call out’ His people. Jesus just put, took it finally and said once and for all “I’m here!” This is that. But people were being called out back then. Of course our, our word ‘church’ does not come from here. Our word ‘church’ comes from the kurios, kurios word coming down from ‘the Lord’s,’ ‘the people belonging to the Lord,’ which is a totally different word which brings us to our word ‘church’ from the German and Scandinavian. But you already knew all that because you’re so smart.
Now, back to the text. So we have a ‘to,’ ‘to’ the Church ‘from.’ It’s like a card: ‘to’ and ‘from.’ Here’s the ‘from:’ “From these things sayeth he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.” I have to stop here and address two things: 1) almost, not all but almost, all of the letters have a description of Jesus from the previous description of Him in the first chapter, which is very strange but very beautiful because it’s confirmation that what John saw, that John is scribing about, Jesus says “and this is me now.”
In other words, John said “and He looked like this and He looked like that” and now Jesus says “you write this and it’s coming out of the mouth of the One who holds the seven stars in His hands” pretty amazing to me that it’s so beautifully woven together, and please don’t tell me that it’s a coincidence because that’s just not possible! I want you to just isolate this thought. He holds the seven stars, which are the seven messengers, which are the seven angels, which are the seven pastors. He holds the seven stars in His right hand and He walks in the middle of the Churches. He’s got the pastors “He’s got all the pastors in His hands” but that’s what’s being said there!
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that in light of this writing, and now why set the stage at the front? Some people will say “Well why did we do this at the front?” To show you, and if you’ll go back and read at a later time, all that had to happen for this one Church to be set up at Ephesus, including I mentioned Paul and the price that he paid and what he poured in to set it up, now John who is aged writing, scribing, this who I’m sure loved the Lord and loved the Church, he is the ‘Last of the Mohicans.’
The fact that he even established a Church is astounding! This paganistic, where they worshiped idols and different gods made of this and made of that, gods from here and gods from there, that he even succeeded in building a Church and Christianity even prospered is a miracle! And you read “But when some were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years; that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.”
Now, I want you to pay close attention because thus far we’ve encountered people who are disciples who really weren’t, we’ve encountered Paul going into the synagogue and disputing and then basically now he has to go to somebody else’s place; he’s not wanted in the synagogue anymore. Got a lot of things already going against him. “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.
So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.” Let me tell you what it says in the Greek, and those of you who read and, go check me out. “Miracles, not having commonly occurred, were wrought by the hands of Paul.”
The one thing I love about the Bible is if you stick with the Bible and the Word of God you won’t be misled. I started on this to say if your Faith is rooted and grounded, and I’ve said this before, and you know why you believe. It’s wonderful to be a new convert and say “Well, I believe now” but then, like the Bible says, ‘any wind of doctrine comes along and you’re swayed with it.’
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that if you are rooted in this you know that whatever happens, what Paul says tribulation, whatever comes your way you’re not going to be moved you’ll stand like that Rock ‘unmoved’ because you know ultimately this is part of the trip, you’re going to be well taught.
But, if hell is such, the picture we’ve painted, it’s certainly coming from other denominations, then why does it say He has the keys to this place? We’ll talk about that down the road because there’s something remember when David wrote Psalm 39, he said if I ascend up, if I go to heaven, you’re there; and if I make my bed in hell, you’re there?
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that there’s something that we don’t yet understand about this place that Jesus is going to reveal in this letter, at least a little bit more clarity. And if you turn to 3:7, you’ll read “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” There’s something more I’m going to tell you I really believe David knew something more of this element than we could possibly understand or glean out of the Psalms and Jesus is going to reveal to us what these keys are.
Now I know if you’re like me, the minute you read the word kleis, ‘key, you think it’s a key. Never mind . Jesus coming, “Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack! He’s got the key ring. “Okay! Follow me! That’s how we caricature things as ludicrous. ♪ We’ll understand it . ♪ Now if you are like me, I like to pick apart and look, and there’s something in this next verse that is important to verse 18. I’ve just put the first two words of verse 19 here, okay? It is said unilaterally, every single person it’s a universal thought that if you read this verse 19 you’ll understand the synopsis or the overview of the book, which is true. It says “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.”
The Textus Receptus, the King James, they left a word out. It’s a small word, but it’s an important word. “Write the things, see this little word here? It’s an illative particle in the Greek. Oun, we’ll, we’ll do it this way for you. Oun, illative particle which means ‘therefore.’ Now some of you are going to go “Oh, is she going to make a stink about ‘therefore’? Yes, and there’s good reason to. Hear me out. The illative particle is used in a sentence to make you go back to the previous thought, which is of great importance.
We don’t think about the history before it and, I’m just going to touch on this a little bit because not everybody likes history, but it’s imperative we understand this place prevailed some time around, oh, I want to say 660 we have the building of the first temple.
Pastor Melissa tells us that there were not just one temple, Artemis. There was more than one; it was rebuilt twice, and as far as I’m concerned most people when you mention the Temple at Ephesus, they think there was only one temple. There were multiple temples.
There was one Great Temple. About 660, rather, is when the temple was destroyed by the Cimmerians the first time – not Sumerians, Cimmerians 660, rebuilt by Krosis in 550. And there’s a whole wave of things that happens in between. Then you’ve got the night Alexander the Great is born, the temple catches on fire: down to the ground it goes. Believe it or not, very little was left. Why is this important for us?
Because when Paul sets up shop there to gospelize find the mindset to see it was a colonized place, Ionia. In fact if we go back to Genesis 10, we’re going to encounter the names in the genealogies of the sons. Javan we say ‘Javin, but Greek Yavin like John is Yanni. Iona, Yonah; so Yonah, Yavin. Javan, Iona. That’s, it’s like a, a transformation of the word that crept in in the Hebrew you can see it a little bit clearer than in the English. And we have this history that goes through the Bible of the people of Javan, right into Daniel where you hear about the king of Javan, the prince of Javan, the kingdom of Javan Alexander the Great being at the forefront.
These things are important for us to understand how this place not only survived, but what a tough ordeal Paul had to have combating not just one we picture Ephesus as just one crossroads, hodgepodge of people, pagan worshippers. The fact of the matter is within Ephesus, if you look at how the progression. Let me go back to the first temple, because this is a fuzzy line. The first temple was not the temple that Paul saw. The temple that Paul saw is at a much later time. The first one, just to give you an idea, the first Temple Artemis, was four times bigger than the Parthenon.
He was there at the Cross. He looked up and saw Jesus hanging there. He’s the only one who really bore the witness of this martyr: the Word of God. So it’s a little bit more than just ‘witness’ and ‘testimony.’ ‘Testimony’ sounds like, “I want to tell you what the Lord’s done for me.” Jesus Christ. Whatsoever he saw, again: verb, indicative, aorist, simple: action in the past, factual statement, and active which means the subject is doing the action.
I don’t want to do any more grammar with you because I think some people, they hear grammar and they go “Oh, wake me up when it’s over,” but, so important for us because without it you read “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which He gave” and it sounds very King James, but when you see that he was witness, he was witness to the martyr of the Word of God, the Logos, logon changes the reference. Now, who’s John? And I’ve got the five Johns of Revelation. He is called, “His servant” in 1:1, in 1:4 the address of “John to the seven churches,” and in 1:9, “I, John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation” not the Great Tribulation, but in trouble, in trial, in these trying times.
Remember the time that John is writing somewhere 95, 96 AD the sliding scale, everything has changed around him. He is in exile on this island called Patmos, which is no bigger maybe, it’s a little bit smaller than the island of Anguilla, but he’s not that far away from the seven churches that are identified but he’s still isolated from the outside world. And the time that he was exiled who knows, we don’t know specifically at what time he was exiled precisely, but the thing we do know is a lot of the world was changing around him while he was writing.
You have other references to John at the back of the book. Two more references in the latter part and is that strange? We have John at the beginning and John at the end. Well, we’ll see what that means. Revelation 21:2 reads, “and I John saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” and the last one Revelation 22:8, “I John saw these things, and heard them.” Now I’m going to say something to you that’s rather brutal, but if you cannot switch hats and believe that John actually saw these things and he’s like a scribe writing them down you will not be able to get into the book of Revelation and really understand what’s being said as if you’re going treat it like a mystery novel.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that it has to be with the eyes of the Spirit that you read these things and you understand this happened to be at the back of the book, but it was never penned as the last book of the Bible so when we have all this happening the spiritual eyes have to read with understanding. And John goes into, hey, we just went to the back to the book, we can all go home now. John’s goes into this verse 3, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy,” not ‘of this letter’ and not ‘of this mystery story, “of this prophecy.” Underline it: prophecy, prophecy, prophecy, prophecy.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that three different references from Josephus and he goes on to say how it is actually the name of it is Apobatayrion place of descent is the proper rendering of the Armenian name of this very city. And there is a whole list of and catalogue of findings for the city. Now another scholar, he identifies the place of descent with the modern city, I hope I’m going to say this right, Nakhichevan situated southeast of Ararat about sixty-five miles inside the former USSR. And now there is another speculation but it all culminates around here.
Now this name of the city that I probably just boggled and messed up is according to an Armenian language scholar Heinrick Hudsman. The city of Nakhichevan is the name in antiquity. Rather, he says the present day name evolved from Nakskavan; the prefix name that I have penned here was the name, and Avan which is Armenian for town. I have penned the two there so you can see how it would look and forgive me for botching the names.
There are more records. Of course Eusebius in the third century, he says a good part of the ark still remained. What I omitted to say about Josephus, Josephus is complaining in one of his Antiquities saying “the people are robbing and taking from the ark as trinkets.” They’re taking it; they’re robbing it: so pilfering existed all the time. I just covered the Peshita, which is mentioned in here, Mountains of Kardo and it goes on and on even believe it or not the Koran has something to say about this; so it just goes on and on and on. And this is one really good book I think amongst many, many books with some good solid documentation so we’re not looking at somebody’s speculation just on fly-by.
Now getting back to the Bible. Why is this important for us to understand this? It’s important for multiplicity of reasons, but it’s important to understand the operation, which God, the way, which He functions with us. He tells us to do something and He doesn’t have to give a reason why, although He did tell Noah. Noah carried out those orders obediently. In fact you don’t have any dialogue with Noah until much later. And a lot of the Judaic and Christian world frown on Noah and say “Well you know it’s, he started out good and he ended up drunk.” Well, let me tell you something, wait until I get to that text we will have fun with that. It says, don’t turn there, but it says “He planted a vineyard” and “he was a husbandman” and then he got drunk.
But Noah let me read from Dr. Boice. My husband used to read a lot of him. Now this is funny you will get a kick out of this. Sometimes I quote Dr. Scott quoting somebody else; you have heard me do that. I am going to quote Dr. Boice quoting somebody else because I could not find the source, so I am going to quote him quoting the source same issues here. He is talking about the name of Noah. “The name of Noah. We are assuming” as we make this point that Noah’s story is, across the board everybody is familiar with the story. “We are assuming that the flood of Noah’s day was worldwide.” I am going to pause there. I have to make a comment on this.
That is the other side of the debate. If you talk to people that studied geology, science; they will say the flood had to be localized. It couldn’t be global and they give their reasons. Now let me say this again because God is sovereign and God possesses all the wisdom. Why would God tell Noah to build this crazy huge ark if it was just going to be local? God is pretty smart. He could have said, “Noah, you got a 100 years to take you and your family and go as far west as you can go.” This…pretty silly. “Now I am going to make you build an ark so you could float around in a little pool between a couple of lakes.” All right.
He says here, “The name of Noah is interesting in itself.” He draws from the study of human etymology by the Swedish businessman named, Bengt Sage. He says, “To begin with the name Noah passed into ancient Sanskrit, the language where it became Manu. Manu was the flood hero in the traditions of India, so it is highly probable that he and Noah are the same individual. Ma is the ancient word for water.” And if you remember when we studied Hebrew together I showed you that in the Hebrew language, the Mem not ma as he says but the letter Mem was the picture of water in Hebrew. So he says, “Ma is the ancient word for water, so Manu could mean Noah of the waters.” “In the Hebrew Old Testament the word for water is mayim, the syllable yim as you know, those that have studied, is the plural.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that the ma prefix is also the original form of the Spanish word mar, for the French word mer, which both means ‘sea.’ The Latin word for mare is where we get the words in English for maritime, mariner, and marine. In Sanskrit, manu eventually came to mean ‘man’ or ‘mankind.’ This is not surprising since from the perspective of the ancient Indian civilization, Noah or Manu was the father of all post flood peoples. Manu is related to the Germanic Manus, the mythical founder of West Germanic peoples. Manus is also the name of the Lithuanian Noah.” He is covering it all. It is a brilliant little study.