9:26,27 we leap from Messiah's First Coming to just before His Second Coming with the desolater and `the

abomination of desolation' placed by Christ just before this great event (Matt. 24:15-22). Luke 1:31,32 and 1 Peter

1:11 are further examples.

We believe the same thing occurs in the Book of Revelation. The `churches' are there in chapters 2 and 3 but not

the church revealed in Ephesians and Colossians. In the final fulfilment these are predominantly assemblies of

Hebrew Christians living under the terrible reign of the Beast with its tremendous pressure to worship this monster

and Satan behind him. This condition of things is described in chapter 13 with death as the end for the faithful.

During the Acts of the Apostles a situation commenced which, if Israel had repented could have developed into the

events described in this chapter. Hence the seven Asian churches were facing similar persecution and trials. This

being so, we can well understand the word of the Spirit to the overcomer in 2:10 `Be thou faithful unto death, and I

will give thee a crown of life'. Israel did not repent, consequently what happened in the Acts was only a partial

fulfilment. The complete fulfilment awaits the end of this age, the last week (seven years) of Daniel's 70 x 7 years

(Dan. 9).

Many interpretations of the Revelation separate the first three chapters from the rest of the Book and place

chapter 4 onwards at the end of the age in the Day of the Lord. But John calls the whole Book a prophecy (1:3) and

there are definite links between these churches and in the chapters that follow we shall exhibit this fact.

There has been a tendency on the part of some expositors to divide the Revelation into three parts, past, present

and future, on the basis of the Authorised Version rendering of 1:19 :

`Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter'.

This view makes the future portion of the book commence with chapter 4.

However, no less an authority than Dean Alford points out that the word `are' here means `signify' and says:

`I would take genesthai (was or become) in the sense of happening, not in the wide ages of history, but in the

apocalyptic vision ... Ha mellei genesthai (the things about to be, literally) will by analogy mean the things

which shall succeed these, i.e. a future vision' (Greek Testament p. 559),

and so he translates the verse:

`Write therefore the things which thou sawest, and what they signify and the things which are about to happen

after these'.

Rotherham likewise renders it:

`Write therefore what things thou hast seen and what they are (i.e. represent), and what things are about to come

to pass after these things'.

Moses Stuart, like Alford, translates similarly `what they signify'. And this is just what we find John doing:

`... the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven candlesticks are the seven churches'.

In other words he is fulfilling the command of the Lord in telling us what the symbols (stars and candlesticks)

represent and then goes on to record further visions given him of which the rest of the book consists.

Verse 19 therefore is a very shaky foundation for the idea of dividing the Revelation into three parts, past,

present and future. The whole is called a prophecy in 1:3 and we therefore accept it as such.

A difficulty may be raised by asking, did these churches exist in John's day? The answer is yes, but that does not

mean that they completely fulfilled the prophecy revealed in chapters 2 and 3. We must ever bear in mind that some

prophecies may be only partly fulfilled, leaving the complete fulfilment to a later date. Our studies in the Acts of the

Apostles should help us here. We saw that Joel's prophecy was only partly fulfilled at Pentecost.  The time that

followed could have been an introduction to the great Day of the Lord with the personal return of Christ to set up the

earthly kingdom. But this depended on the repentance and turning of Israel to God (Acts 3:19-26) which did not

materialise. Had it done so, all the events described in the Revelation could have taken place at that time. An age

that could produce a Herod that accepted divine worship (Acts 12:20-23) and a monster like Nero, could easily have