In Revelation 4:1-4, we come to one of the most wonderful and encouraging passages in this great Revelation:

         After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things."

         Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne.

         And He who was sitting was like...

...

“To the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things say the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would thou were cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:14-15).

         Laodicea means, “judged” or “judging by the people.” The implication is that in this church, men’s opinions are exalted above God’s, resulting in a people lukewarm to Him. There is...

         We have spent a year on this study and are barely through the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation—and we have covered these in a very cursory way. There is much more that we did not have time to delve into, but in the rest of Revelation, these periods are repeated with increasing insight into them. Having established principles and factors, we will be able to go back and fill in many of the details.

         Do we have time to approach it like this? Yes, we have plenty of time. With the foundational principles laid out...

         The Church at Sardis (1400-1844) was proclaimed to be dead even though they had a name that they were alive, and so they were exhorted to wake up and strengthen what remained. This was a period of relative stagnation in the restoring to the church what had been lost through the Dark Ages. Yet the church responded to its wake-up call from the Lord. The next church period was one of the most remarkable, as addressed in Revelation 3:7-12:

    "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, 'These things says He who is holy, He...