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Voddie Baucham - What Do the Numbers in the Book of Revelation Mean · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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  Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in the church. I came to
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  Speaker 1: faith late, never heard the gospel until I got to college.
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  Speaker 1: What I didn't share was that the first book that
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  Speaker 1: I ever read as a new believer was Revelation. I
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  Speaker 1: don't recommend it. I did not love it then like
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  Speaker 1: I love it now. But in order to understand this book,
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  Speaker 1: there are a few things that will help you. This
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  Speaker 1: book is filled with symbols and with numbers. And our
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  Speaker 1: text today is filled with some important numbers. And when
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  Speaker 1: you get a hold of these numbers, it really helps
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  Speaker 1: to understand and interpret the book of Revelation. And by
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  Speaker 1: the way, it also helps to memorize the book of Revelation,
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  Speaker 1: but I'll share that with you. Some of the numbers
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  Speaker 1: that are important in the book of Revelation are The
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  Speaker 1: number three is important. It's important for a couple of reasons.
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  Speaker 1: One is it's the number of God, obviously, right? The
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  Speaker 1: Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But it's
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  Speaker 1: also an important number because it is the number of
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  Speaker 1: what I like to refer to as the rhythm of revelation.
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  Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a moment. The number four
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  Speaker 1: is important because the number four is the number of creation.
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  Speaker 1: And so we read about the four angels on the
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  Speaker 1: four winds and the four corners of the earth, but
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  Speaker 1: also a people from every tribe, nation, tongue, kindred. What
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  Speaker 1: does that mean? A people from all over creation. And
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  Speaker 1: that number four, when you see that number either expressed
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  Speaker 1: numerically or something repeated four times or something something said
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  Speaker 1: in four different ways, like tribe, nation, kindred, tongue, understand
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  Speaker 1: that that's the number of creation. There is also the
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  Speaker 1: number seven, which is a number of perfection, a number
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  Speaker 1: of perfect completion, if you will. And that number is
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  Speaker 1: important throughout the book of Revelation, not least of which
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  Speaker 1: because the book of Revelation is really organized around seven
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  Speaker 1: parallel narratives. But also there are the seven churches, the
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  Speaker 1: seven spirits, the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars, seven seals,
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  Speaker 1: seven horns, seven eyes, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven thunders,
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  Speaker 1: seven crowns, seven heads, seven plagues, seven bulls, seven hills,
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  Speaker 1: seven kings. And then when you get tired of seven,
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  Speaker 1: you get multiples of seven, like 7,000 who died because
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  Speaker 1: of the earthquake. The seven Beatitudes. that we find in Revelation.
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  Speaker 1: One of them we'll look at in chapter one. Then
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  Speaker 1: there's the number 10, this number of completion. The number 12,
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  Speaker 1: which is the number of the people of God. So
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  Speaker 1: you have 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 stars above the
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  Speaker 1: woman's head. New Jerusalem has 12 foundations on which are
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  Speaker 1: the names of the 12 apostles. The tree at the
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  Speaker 1: end in chapter 22 bears 12 kinds of fruit for
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  Speaker 1: the healing of the nations. And then you have multiples
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  Speaker 1: of 12. The 24 elders around the throne. That's 12
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  Speaker 1: representatives of the people of God in the Old Testament
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  Speaker 1: and 12 representatives of the people of God in the
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  Speaker 1: New Testament. 12 tribes, 12 apostles. Then you have multiples
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  Speaker 1: of 12. In chapter 7, we have this mysterious, debatable
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  Speaker 1: number of 144,000, which is what? 12 times 12 times 1,000.
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  Speaker 1: People of God times the people of God times a
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  Speaker 1: number that represents hugeness. The official theological term for 1,000
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  Speaker 1: in Revelation, it represents hugeness. So these numbers are incredibly
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  Speaker 1: important if we're going to understand this book. But as
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  Speaker 1: I said, the other number that's important, the number that's
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  Speaker 1: doubly important is the number three. It's the rhythm of revelation.
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  Speaker 1: I like to call it that revelation waltz, that one, two, three, one, two, three.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting. We talked about this backstage with the worship team,
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  Speaker 1: and then they came out and they did one song
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  Speaker 1: with three, four time, and another with six, eight time.
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  Speaker 1: Y'all didn't know I knew that. It's the rhythm of Revelation.
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  Speaker 1: So you have threes. By the way, that's why people
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  Speaker 1: tend to find this book easy to memorize because of
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  Speaker 1: the triads that you find all over the book. So
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  Speaker 1: our text starts in verse four, but let's start at
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  Speaker 1: verse one because it'll help us when we get to
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  Speaker 1: our text. In verse one, the revelation of Jesus Christ,
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  Speaker 1: which God gave him, so that's one, God gave this
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  Speaker 1: revelation to him to show his servants the things that
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  Speaker 1: must soon take place. And then he made it known
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  Speaker 1: by sending his angel. So God gave it to him.
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  Speaker 1: He made it known by sending his angel to his
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  Speaker 1: servant John. And then what does John do? John bore witness.
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  Speaker 1: John bore witness. So that's one, two, three. Father gave
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  Speaker 1: it to the son. The son gave it to his angel.
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  Speaker 1: And then angel gave it to John who bore witness. One, two, three.
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  Speaker 1: What did John bear witness to? He bore witness to
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  Speaker 1: the word of God, one. He bore witness to the
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  Speaker 1: testimony of Jesus Christ, two, and to all that he saw, three.
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  Speaker 1: So now we have one, two, three, one, two, three.
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  Speaker 1: Might we have another? Yes, we do. Verse three, blessed
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  Speaker 1: is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy.
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  Speaker 1: That's one. And blessed are those who hear, that's two,
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  Speaker 1: and who keep what is written in it for the
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  Speaker 1: time is near. So right there in that first paragraph,
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  Speaker 1: we have one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three.
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  Speaker 1: We've got three threes. So John is saying to you,
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  Speaker 1: three is important. Amen? It's important. Now let's come to
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  Speaker 1: our text. And immediately we see seven. John to the
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  Speaker 1: seven churches that are in Asia. How many of you
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  Speaker 1: know there were more than seven churches in Asia? There were.
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  Speaker 1: There were more than seven churches in Asia. But John
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  Speaker 1: writes to these seven churches in Asia because that's an
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  Speaker 1: important number, this number of perfect completion. These seven churches
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  Speaker 1: that were in a circular postal route. This message is
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  Speaker 1: not just for those seven churches, but this is a
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  Speaker 1: perfect message from a perfect God that is perfect for
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  Speaker 1: his people. And in the first part of this, we
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  Speaker 1: understand why Christ is worthy of worship.