By: Tom Adcox

PREFACE

This work is entitled Revelation, a Chronological Approach. It is an attempt to study the events of the book in the order in which they will occur in history, not in which they are placed in the book. No such arrangement can be perfect, for God has not revealed all the facts about the times of the end to us, and there will be many who would arrange the events in some other way. I have no argument with any of them, though I do believe that it would be difficult for anyone to demonstrate from the Scriptures, as opposed to preconceived doctrines, the inaccuracy of the major tenets of this volume. And it does seem that such a chronological approach to this wonderful close to the New Testament will be a help to many who find its contents a jumble of confusion. As its name says, it is not the purpose of Revelation to conceal truth, but to reveal it. It is not a Concealment, but a Revelation.

The revelations in this book are not in chronological order. For example, the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls are usually considered to be consecutive, occurring one after the other, but if one reads the text on the seven seals in chapters 6 and 7 and 8.1-2, he will see that the sixth seal ends with the Great Tribulation, as 7.14 clearly shows, and then come the seven trumpets in 8.2. But, when one reads the text about the seven trumpets, he will see that the seven trumpets go back to the Great Tribulation, repeating the sixth seal. This is made certain by 8.12: “And the fourth angel sounded the trumpet, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck that a third of them might be darkened, and the day might not shine for a third of it, and the night likewise,” compared with Mt. 24.29-30, that shows  without dispute that at the end of the Great Tribulation and before the visible second coming of Christ, the sun, moon, and stars are so affected.

The present volume goes forth with the prayer that God will use it to be of help to his people in being just such a revelation.

            The translation of the text of Revelation from the Greek is my own. It is deliberately quite literal, with little attempt to put it into polished English, though I have tried to use correct English grammar. The purpose is not to do a new translation in finished English, but to get at the meaning of the text, and that the reader who does not know Greek may get as close as possible a feel for the way the original is worded. I do not believe that a translator into English should change the Greek text into what he thinks it ought to say or into what he thinks the writer actually meant. He should render the text as literally as possible in the confines of grammatical and acceptable English. It is up to the reader, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to determine for himself what the writer meant, indeed, what the God who inspired him meant. Where I have had to insert an English word that is not in the Greek text to make the translation understandable, I have put that word in italics. Please be aware of the very literal translation as you read through these pages.

            I have made use of a number of works by other authors, but I have not copied any of them. I take full responsibility for the contents, thanking God for those who have helped me and accepting the blame for any errors. I arrived at my interpretation of Revelation by studying the book itself before reading anything else.  My reading of other books was designed to reveal if I was wrong on major points and to help with details. Rather than changing my views substantially, my reading has confirmed them, either by agreeing with them and showing good evidence for doing so, or by setting forth opposing views that obviously come from a preconceived system rather than from the Scriptures themselves.

            Of the books and articles I have read on Revelation, by far the best and most helpful is a little-known work by G.H. Lang, The Revelation of Jesus Christ. I owe him, or I should say, I owe our Lord who used him, a great debt of thanks. If my work should be only a fraction as helpful to the people of God, it will have succeeded in its purpose.

INTRODUCTION

            Before getting into the book of Revelation itself, it is fitting that we first make a few remarks about prophecy in general and about the keys to understanding the book, for Revelation is a book of prophecy. We read in 2 Tim. 4.3 about those who will collect teachers who cause the ears to itch. That is decidedly not the purpose of prophecy. Our God has not revealed to us things to come in order to entertain us or to excite us. How tragic it is that so many who are believers are so titillated by the details of prophecy, but who give no thought as to what their reaction to it ought to be. Peter asks the great question, “What kind of people ought you to be?” (2 Peter 3.11). That tells us the purpose of prophecy. It is that we may always be alert and ready for the events of prophecy to take place, and specifically, to be ready for the rapture, for we do not know on what day or at what hour these things will occur, but occur they surely will, and woe be to those who are not ready, and woe not just to the lost, but to God’s people who are not ready. We are told of events that will take place, and we are told the time when some will happen, but God has revealed enough to challenge us to be ready, and withheld enough to keep us from thinking we can wait until the last minute to get ready. It may be the last minute as I write this sentence, or as you read it. Be alert! Be ready!

            As noted, there are events and times revealed in Scripture, so we ought to study these simply because they are in Scripture, and also because knowledge helps clarify the confusion of our thinking. Ignorance breeds confusion and misinformation. God has revealed what we need to know, so we will study events and times, but not for excitement. We will study them that they may challenge us to be ready, and that we may come to know our Lord more fully, for he himself is the living Word, and what is revealed in the written word ultimately reveals him. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

            The Bible is not written systematically, that is, organized as we would organize a book. If we were to write a book such as the Bible, we would group all the material about a given topic together, and we would put it into some order logical to us. Thus, we would have a chapter on prophecy that told us what would happen and the order in which things would happen. But God has not so ordered the Bible. There are bits of prophecy scattered all through it, some in passages that do not deal with prophecy themselves. There are also longer passages that deal specifically with prophetic matters, but these are not arranged in any kind of related or chronological order. Why has God so ordered the Bible? We do not know fully, of course, but one reason is that he wants us to search the Scriptures, for many pearls are found by one searching for something else, and it is his desire for us to find these pearls, and most of all to find himself as the Pearl of great price. In addition, biblical truth comes out of life experience, not out of the classroom, so truth is there in the Bible in the way in which it occurred in the lives of God’s people and of his opponents. So we find that we must study all through the Scriptures to gain an understanding of prophecy. Who knows what else of great value we will find during the search?

THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION

            There are, however, pegs of prophecy on which we can hang other events so as to determine to some extent what will happen when. One of these pegs is the abomination of desolation. This term occurs first in Dan. 9.27. Dan. 9.24-27 is one of the key passages in all the Bible on prophecy, and should be studied carefully by one wishing to understand prophecy. This passage tells of the rise of Antichrist and says, in v. 27, that

… he will make a firm covenant with many for one week, but in the midst of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, and even a full end, and that determined, will be poured out on the one who makes desolate.

Antichrist will make a covenant with the Jews (the many) for seven years (the one week), but in the middle of the week, after three and one-half years, he will violate the covenant. He will stop sacrifice and offering in the Jewish temple by abominations which make desolate. What is the meaning of these words?

            Let us look at the next occurrence, in Dan. 11.31: “And forces will stand, and they will profane the sanctuary fortress, and they will take away the continual sacrifices, and they will set up the abomination that makes desolate.” We see in this verse that the abomination of desolation has to do with the desecration of the Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies of the temple.

            Dan. 12.11 says, “And from the time that the continual sacrifices are taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, the days will be 1290.” Again the abolition of sacrifice is referred to.

            The Lord Jesus used this abomination of desolation as a guide to his followers as to what they ought to do. In Matt. 24.15-16 he said, “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place” (let the reader understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains….”

            What is the abomination of desolation? We are told in 2 Thess. 2.3-4. Let no one deceive you in any way, for the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against all things called God or an object of worship, so that he sets himself in the sanctuary of God, showing himself forth that he is God.

            Antichrist will make a covenant with the Jews that is to last seven years. In the middle of that seven years, at the three-and-one-half-year point, he will break the covenant, put a stop to Jewish worship in the Temple, and desecrate the Temple by setting himself up in it as God. A man claiming to be God in the Temple of the Jews is an abomination, to God and the Jews, and it makes desolate both the Jewish place of worship and the hearts of the Jewish people. In addition, it will usher in the Great Tribulation, for the judgment of God will be poured out on this abomination for three and one-half years. Furthermore, as God is judging evil men on the earth, Satan will inspire the persecution of God’s people. It will be a time of double tribulation, the judgment of God on evil and the persecution of those faithful to God (see Jer. 30.7), a time such as has never been on the earth and never will be again. It will be a time of great tribulation, the Great Tribulation.

            Just as Dan. 9.24-27 is a very important passage for the understanding of prophecy, so also is Matt. 24, which should be studied carefully, where the Lord Jesus himself referred to the abomination of desolation. We quoted from vs. 15 and 16. In v. 21 the Lord said, “For there will then be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will be.” The Lord himself tells us that the great tribulation will be launched by the abomination of desolation. So the abomination of desolation is one of those pegs of prophecy on which we can hang other events. We know when it will happen, not the date, but its order in prophetic events, three and one-half years after Antichrist makes his covenant with the Jews, and we know what follows it, the Great Tribulation.

THE LAST TRUMPET

            The other peg is the last trumpet. It is also in Matt. 24 that we first read of this trumpet in the New Testament. We need to quote vs. 28-31, the words of the Lord Jesus:

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures are gathered. ²⁹But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰And then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and much glory. ³¹And he will send his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

V. 28 is Armageddon (compare with Rev. 16.16 and 19.17-18). Immediately after the destruction of the wicked at the visible appearing of the Lord, there will be a great trumpet blast, at which the Lord’s people will be gathered to him. This is the last trumpet. V. 29 tells us that it will occur immediately after the Great Tribulation.

            The next mention of the last trumpet is in 1 Cor. 15.51-52:

Look, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, ⁵²in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we will be changed.

This verse is very important, for it tells us that the dead will be raised and we will be changed at the last trumpet, and Matt. 24.28-31 tells us that the last trumpet will occur after the Great Tribulation at the visible appearing of the Lord.

            The next passage is one of the most misinterpreted in all of Scripture. It is 1 Thess. 4.13-18:

But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you might not sorrow as also the rest, who do not have hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. ¹⁵For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain, at the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep, ¹⁶for the Lord himself, with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, will descend from Heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first, ¹⁷then we who are alive, who remain, together with them will be caught up in the clouds for a meeting of the Lord, into the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸Therefore comfort one another with these words.

            This passage is almost universally interpreted to refer to the rapture of the church before the Great Tribulation, but it occurs not before, but after the Great Tribulation. Matt. 24.29-30 shows us that the gathering of the Lord’s people occurs at the trumpet blast coming after the Great Tribulation and at the Lord’s visible coming. We saw in 1 Cor. 15.51-52 that the dead will be raised and the living will be changed at the last trumpet, the one that occurs after the Great Tribulation at the visible coming of the Lord. The passage just quoted from 1 Thess. 4.13-18 occurs at the same time, at the last trumpet after the Great Tribulation at the visible coming of the Lord. Only then will the dead in Christ be raised. The purpose of the rapture is to escape the Great Tribulation. The dead in Christ have no need of that escape, having already gone to be with the Lord, so there is no point in a raising of the dead before the Great Tribulation. They are already with the Lord in spirit.

            The truth of this interpretation is demonstrated by Rev. 11.15-18, where we read of the last of the seven trumpets, the last trumpet, and the seventh angel sounded the trumpet, and there were great voices in Heaven saying, “The kingdom of the world has become our Lord’s and his Christ’s, and he will reign to the ages of the ages.” ¹⁶And the twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshipped God, ¹⁷saying, “We thank you, Lord God almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and reigned. ¹⁸And the Gentiles were angry, and your anger came and the time for the dead to be judged, and to give the reward to your slaves the prophets, and to the saints and to those who fear your name, the small and the great, and to destroy the destroyers of the earth.

The kingdom of the world will become our Lord’s and his Christ’s when he appears visibly to destroy the wicked at Armageddon and gather his own to himself, at the last trumpet, the seventh trumpet of Revelation, the same trumpet referred to in Matt. 24.31, 1 Cor. 15.51-52, and 1 Thess. 4.16. This is the last event of history as we know it, for after it will come the judgment seat of Christ and the Millennium. Thus, knowing the time of the last trumpet, we can use it to determine when, not dates, but their order, other events will occur, such as the raising of the dead in Christ and the general rapture of the church.

            We will have further reference to these two pegs of prophecy, the abomination of desolation and the last trumpet, as we go through the book of Revelation.

KEYS TO REVELATION

            There are certain keys to understanding Revelation that occur in the book itself. The first of these is the title of the book, Revelation. Many say that Revelation is a mysterious, closed book, but it is not a hiding, it is a revelation. We need to approach the book not as a work that tries to hide the truth, but as what it is, a revelation. The Lord desires for us to understand this book, and he will give understanding as we read and study it before him. So first of all, approach it as a book to be understood.

            The second, and most important, key is the Lord Jesus himself. This book is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the revelation that he possesses because God gave it to him, and which God gave him to show to his slaves. It is also the revelation of which he is the subject. He himself is revealed. Whatever disagreements interpreters may have in studying this book, virtually all would agree that its great center is the Lord Jesus Christ, and its great conclusion is that in the end, he will be King of kings and Lord of lords. Having the book of Revelation is like having the last chapter of a book and reading it first to learn how it will end. We who know the Lord do not have to wonder how history will end. We know. It will end with the total defeat and abolition of evil and the exaltation of the Lord Jesus to the throne of the universe forever. It will end with a new beginning, the kingdom of God and then the coming down of the bride out of Heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. Many of our fairy tales end, “And they lived happily ever after.” That will be literal fact. The King and his bride will live together forever in a kingdom of joy and service to God. That is the ultimate revelation of Jesus Christ and the ultimate key to the book of Revelation.

            The third, and very important, key to Revelation, is its recipients. To whom was the book written? It was written to the church, as represented by the seven churches in Asia Minor, as we see in 1.4 and 11. Many say that since the word “church” is used some eighteen times in Rev. 1-3, and is not used again in the book until its conclusion in 22.16, the church has been raptured before the events beginning in chapter 4 and taking up the rest of the book through chapter 19, and so is not present during the events of Rev. 4-19. But this view raises a serious question. If Revelation consists of events that will occur after the church is no longer here, what is the point of the book? Why write a book to the church about events that have no bearing on or relationship to the church? No, if Revelation was written to the church, its message is to the church. What is that message?

            At this point we must draw in other keys to understanding this book in order to see what its message is. A fourth key is found in the phrase “the testimony of Jesus,” used over and over in the book. It often occurs with “the word of God,” showing that holding to the truth of God’s word is a part of the testimony. Its first occurrence is in 1.2: John, “who bore witness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, the things he saw.” The next use helps us to start seeing the significance of this phrase, “the testimony of Jesus.” It is in 1.9: “I John, your brother and fellow sharer in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island which is called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” John was a prisoner on Patmos, sent there because he held to the truth of the word of God and bore faithful witness to the Lord Jesus. Because he maintained the testimony in a hostile world, he was persecuted. That is what the testimony of Jesus is, faithful witness to the Lord, no matter what.

            The word next appears in 6.9: “And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those put to death because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had.” This verse goes a step further. These witnesses had been faithful not just in persecution, but unto death. They had the testimony of Jesus, and they maintained it even unto death.

            In 11.7, we read that when the two witnesses (“witness” has the same word root as “testimony” in Greek: a witness gives testimony) had finished their testimony, the beast was allowed to kill them. They, too, bore a faithful witness unto death.

            Those who overcame Satan did so, we are told in 12.11, “because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their soul (or life, the Greek word can mean both) unto death.”  The blood of the Lamb was the ultimate defeat of Satan. Because of it he is surely doomed. The Lord’s people who overcome Satan’s efforts to defeat them do so by first being under that precious blood, and then by maintaining a faithful testimony in trial, even unto death if necessary.

            V. 17 of this same chapter tells us that “the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.” Faithful witness draws the ire of Satan.

            The final occurrence of this word is in 19.10: “And I fell before his feet to worship him, and he said to me, ‘Look, no. I am a fellow slave of yours and of your brothers who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.’” It is the Holy Spirit who speaks to us the testimony and enables to be true to it.

            The testimony of Jesus is of great importance in Revelation. We read in 1.14 that the Lord Jesus is walking among the churches with eyes like a flame of fire. What is he looking for with those penetrating eyes, eyes that can burn into the very soul and spirit? He is looking for the testimony of Jesus, for churches, and Christians, that are faithful to him no matter what the conditions. Revelation is a warning to the church that one with eyes like a flame of fire is looking for the testimony of Jesus in her, and that her lampstand may be taken away if that testimony is not found.

            We saw in 12.11 that those who were victorious overcame Satan because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their soul or life unto death. The word “overcame” brings up another key to Revelation. Rev. 2-3 consists of seven letters, one each to seven churches. In five of these letters, the Lord finds something to criticize, and he speaks a word of warning. Then he says, in every case, “To him who overcomes,” I will give some reward. To him who overcomes. Revelation indicates that in the midst of churches where there is general failure, there are overcomers. The overcomers are an important concept in Scripture. In the Old Testament they are called the remnant, the faithful few among the many, those who hold to God no matter what conditions surround them. Elijah, for example, overcame, and thought he was the only one, but God told him that there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. They were the remnant. After the Jewish exile in Babylon, most Jews stayed in Babylon, a symbol of the world and man’s religion in Scripture, and only a few returned to the land promised them by God. Most of God’s people were content in the world. Only a few were not, and went back to the land at no little cost. They were the remnant. As prophesied by Isaiah, a remnant returned. In Revelation, this group that is faithful to God to any extent is called the overcomers. This book is a challenge to the church, and to individuals in the church, to overcome in the midst of failure, the failure of God’s people.

            We come now to the final key to understanding this book, and that is Rev. 3.10. This verse is perhaps the key verse of the entire book. We noted above that in five of the seven letters, the Lord found something to criticize in the churches addressed. The church at Philadelphia, however, was only commended by the Lord, and is the model church. He says to her, in 3.10, “Because you kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing that is about to come on the whole inhabited earth to test those dwelling on the earth.” Only one church, the church in Philadelphia, is told that it will be kept from the hour of testing. That hour is the Great Tribulation. Only one church, the church at Philadelphia, will be kept from the Great Tribulation.

THE MESSAGE OF REVELATION

            So we come back to the matter of the message of Revelation. What is it? Revelation is a warning to the church, and thus to individual Christians, that a Great Tribulation is about to come on the earth, and an exhortation to escape it. The implication is clear that not all Christians will escape it. Who are those who will and those who will not? Those who will escape the Great Tribulation are those Christians who have maintained the testimony of Jesus, those who are overcomers, who have been faithful and obedient to the end. But there are Christians who have not maintained the testimony, who have not overcome. They have neglected spiritual things. They have resisted the dealings of God with their flesh. Instead of accepting their trials as the work of God designed to apply the cross to their flesh and yielding to him in that effort, they have resisted his dealings, wanting only to be delivered from trouble, and perhaps becoming bitter at God for not making their lives more comfortable.

            Wheat in the New Testament pictures the Lord’s people, those who will be harvested by him at the end. Wheat is ripened by the heat of the sun. There is early wheat, and there is later wheat. Wheat that is ripened by the early sun of spring is harvested at the end of spring, before the searing heat of summer. Wheat that is not ripened by the early sun is left to go through that withering heat, and is harvested only after enduring that heat. Christians who are alive when these events occur and who accept the dealings of God with their flesh, yield to him in them, allow him to do his work, try to gain what he has for them in trouble instead of just trying to get out of it, will be matured by the early sun and will be harvested before the Great Tribulation. Those Christians who resist God in his efforts to take them deeper will be left to be matured by the scorching heat of the summer of the Great Tribulation.

            There is a rapture before the Great Tribulation, but it is the rapture of the overcomers, of those who have been matured by their trials, by the dealings of God, and not of the whole church. There will be Christians left here to go through that terrible time because they were not matured up to that point. Those who teach that the whole church will be raptured before the Great Tribulation do Christians a disservice, for they in effect tell them that it does not matter how they live, just get saved and you will escape the Great Tribulation. That is not the case. It does matter how they live. If Revelation is anything, it is a warning to the church to be ready now. If we need another verse to underline this truth, it is Luke 21.36. After giving some description of the terrible things that will come on the earth during that frightful time, the Lord says, “But be alert in every time, praying that you may be strengthened to escape all these things that are about to happen and to stand before the Son of Man.” The Lord Jesus was talking to his own when he said those words. His admonition to pray for strength to escape the Great Tribulation clearly implies that there will be those who do not escape it. Escape is not automatic because one is a Christian. It comes to those who are ready. That is the purpose and message of Revelation.

            What about those who die in the Lord before these events occur? It will be the same in principle for those Christians. What is written in these pages applies to all Christians. All will be accountable to God on the same basis. We must all appear before the judgment seat of the Lord (Rom. 14.10, 2 Cor. 5.10). There will be rewards given and rewards lost at that judgment seat. Those who are ready will be rewarded, and those who are not will be saved, yet as through fire as their works are burned up (1 Cor. 3.12-15). Those who are ready will reign with Christ as his bride in the millennial kingdom. Those who are not ready will miss this greatest of blessings. So whether you expect to be alive when the end comes or to die before it does, the message is the same: be ready!

JOHN’S VISION OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

1.1-20

            The first chapter of Revelation is the book’s introduction. It sets the stage for the warnings to the seven churches of chapters 2 and 3 and the warnings contained in the description of events to happen from chapter 4 through the end of the book. It shows that the thoughts contained in this book are not John’s, but the Lord’s. Thus the book has the authority of Scripture. It shows who the recipients are, the church. It shows that the basis for the warnings of this book is the facts that the Lord is the righteous Judge and that it is time for judgment to begin from the house of God (1 Peter 4.17).

1. “Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show to his slaves, the things which must be in quickness, and he signified, sending through his angel to his slave John, ²who bore witness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, whatever things he saw.

            The book of Revelation begins with the word “revelation.” The word “The” is not there in the Greek text. The literal Greek meaning of “revelation” in “unveiling.” This book is the unveiling of Jesus Christ. It is so in two senses. First, it is the unveiling of the person, Jesus Christ. When he first came into the world as a human being, he was hidden in a veil of flesh (Heb. 10.20). When people looked at him they saw not God, but a man. There were people who came to believe that he was more than what appeared outwardly, that there was something veiled in that flesh. They believed that he was the Messiah, the long-awaited Deliverer of Israel. It is of no small importance that when Peter had this insight and confessed it, the Lord said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of John, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in the heavens” (Matt. 16.17, emphasis mine). The word “reveal” there in Matt. 16.17 is the verb form of the noun “revelation” here in Rev. 1.1. What was veiled in the flesh of the man Jesus was unveiled to the faith of Peter and the others who believed. Yet he remained veiled to the eyes of unbelievers.

            It is still the same. The Lord Jesus, crucified, resurrected, ascended, sitting at the right hand of God as a man in Heaven, is still veiled to the world. When he was raised from the dead, only those who believed in him saw him, and he has still not been unveiled to the world. To the world, he is a great religious leader, a great teacher, a misguided reformer, a joke, a myth, or whatever. And he is still veiled physically even to his own. We who believe in him have not seen him. He has been unveiled to our faith, as with Peter, but not to our physical eyes. And not only is he veiled to the Jews, but they in addition have a veil over their hearts (2 Cor. 3.15). They have a double inability to see the Lord. But the book of Revelation is an unveiling of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to faith now, and it prophesies his physical unveiling to all in God’s time. Rev. 1.7 says that every eye will see him. Jesus Christ will be unveiled, revealed, for all to see. Lord, hasten that day!

            The second sense in which this book is the unveiling of Jesus Christ is that it tells us the things he revealed to John. It is the unveiling of the person, and the person’s unveiling of what is going on now in the church and what will take place at the end. And ultimately, he is what will take place!

            This revelation which God gave to the Lord Jesus was given to him to show to his slaves. We need say about the word “slaves” only that slavery to Christ is freedom indeed. We tend to think that freedom means that we can do anything we please. That is not true. Everyone is a slave to a master, either to sin or to the Lord (see Rom. 6.16-19). Everyone who has been a true slave of Jesus Christ has said the words of Ex. 21.5, “I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,” and has experienced Ex. 21.6, “… then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.” We who know his service would not be free from him, but desire to serve him permanently, indeed, forever.

            The things revealed in this book must happen quickly, it says. Yet it has been about 1900 years since this book was written. Does that not prove its untruth? Does it not give ammunition to the scoffers of 2 Peter 3.3-4? Most assuredly it does not. First, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. Then we need to understand that Revelation is a book about the end, and the end comes to everyone, and it comes soon. Those who are young may think they will live forever, but those who are older will testify that they cannot believe how rapidly life has slipped by. Whether it is the end for one who dies before the events of this book happen or the end for one who is alive when they happen, it comes soon, and both will face the same accountability to God.

            There is a second possible interpretation of the word “quickly” which should be considered. It is that the Lord did not mean that the events would happen soon, but when they did happen, they would happen suddenly. In favor of this view is 1 Thess. 5.2, “sudden destruction.” Matt. 24.27 says, “For as the lightning comes out from the rising of the sun and shines to the west, so will be the presence of the Son of Man.” When the Lord returns, it be as quick as lightning. There will be no time to get ready. However, Rev. 22.10 says that the time is near, and it cannot mean other than “soon” in that verse, which is at the end of this age.

            There is yet another possibility. Dan. 9.24-27 is one of the foundational passages in the Bible on prophecy. It says that there are seventy weeks, that is, four hundred and ninety years, for God’s dealings with the Jews. There would be sixty-nine weeks from the issuing of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah. At the end of this period, Messiah would “be cut off and have nothing.” Then there would be one final week, a seventieth week, and it is obvious that it is the last seven years of this age, the seven years of Antichrist. Between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks there is an intervening period of unknown duration, the age of grace and the church. The Jews are not the primary focus of God’s dealings during this period, but the church is. When one sees world events in terms of God’s dealings with the Jews, he sees seventy weeks. In what John was writing about in this verse (1.1), the sixty-nine weeks had come and gone. He was writing about the last, the seventieth, week. There was only one week, seven years, left in the seventy weeks of the Jews. Thus the events would happen quickly, that is, soon, within seven years. Again the watchword sounds: Be ready!

            Revelation says that the Lord Jesus signified these things. “Signified” is a significant word! It is not just that the Lord told John some interesting stories or gave him some encouragement. The words of this book are mightily significant. He who heeds them faces great blessing. He who does not faces great tribulation. The word “signify” is the verb form of the word “sign.” These words are not just words, they are signs of something. They point beyond themselves. They signify, are signs of, the unveiling of Jesus Christ, and the events leading up to that unveiling. They are important. Listen!

            These words were given to John by sending through an angel. The word “sending” in Greek is the verb form of the word “apostle” [“apostle” literally means “one sent”]. This angel was on a mission. Again, this book is not just pleasant reading. It is anything but that! It has apostolic force. This apostle was an angel, reminding us of the many times in the Old Testament when angels appeared to God’s people, telling them that he was doing something and how to be a part of what he was doing. That is true of this book.

            Finally in v. 1, we are told that John was one of the slaves of Jesus Christ referred to above. He knew that perfect freedom of slavery to the Lord.

            We saw in our introduction that the idea of the testimony of Jesus is one of the keys to the Revelation, and here we have the first occurrence of the phrase in the book. We saw that the overcomers are those who hold to the truth of God’s word and who are faithful to his testimony no matter what. John was such a one. He was an overcomer.

³Blessed is the one who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and those who keep the things written in it, for the Lord is near.

            The word “blessed” means “happy,” but it does not refer to the happiness the world seeks, the happiness it erroneously thinks will result from wealth and pleasure. The Bible shows us that happiness is not a goal to be sought after, but the by-product of a way of life. The one who seeks happiness will never find it, for by the very fact that he seeks happiness he puts himself at the center of his existence, and man is not made to occupy such a place. Happiness results from putting Christ at the center, from being his slave, as noted above, and, as John says here, from reading, hearing, and keeping the words of this book. The word “keep” is the important word in this statement, for the words of this book are not magic words that bless simply by being read and heard. It is living by them that is important. James says to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only (James 1.22). That is exactly what the Lord says here in Revelation.

            The time is near. This thought is a repetition of that of the word “quickness” in v. 1. Life is fleeting for those who die before the events of this book, and they will come suddenly on those who are alive when they take place.

⁴John to the seven churches which are in Asia: grace to you and peace from the one who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits who are before his throne, ⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the one ruling the kings of the earth.

            John tells us that he is the writer of Revelation, but he is not the author or sender of it. We will come back to authorship in a moment. The recipients of the book are the seven churches in Asia. Again, these seven churches will come up for closer consideration in chapters 2 and 3, but let us just say here that they are not only seven historical churches in Asia Minor, but they also symbolize the whole church, showing us that Revelation is to the church. As we stressed in the introduction, the fact that the church is the recipient of this book is vital to an understanding of it. If the church is not to be here during the events described in chapters 6-19, what is the point of addressing the book to the church? The book is written to the church, and its message is for the church. That message is that a Great Tribulation is coming on the world and that it is possible for a Christian to escape that tribulation or to be left here to go through it, and thus to be ready when it comes so as to escape it.

            Next John writes, “Grace to you and peace.” It seems ironical that when one is about to write the truly horrible things contained in this book, he would begin by praying for grace and peace for his readers, but in fact, that is exactly what is needed. If one draws on the grace of God for such a time as Revelation describes, he will be at peace, no matter what may come. The grace of God will deliver him from this time if he has indeed drawn on that grace and overcome, holding to the truth of God’s word and maintaining his testimony to Jesus.

            Now John tells us who the author of Revelation is, himself being merely the writer, the secretary, we might say. The author is the triune God. First, the letter is from “the one who is and who was and who is coming.” This is God the Father, and the words descriptive of him emphasize his eternal nature.

            Then we read, “… and from the seven Spirits who are before his throne….” The seven Spirits are actually one Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The reason for calling him seven Spirits is that both his diversity and his perfection are being stressed. We see his diversity in Is. 11.2: “And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” We see it again in John 14-16 where he is the Helper (14.16), the one who is with us (14.16), the truth, including teaching and bringing to remembrance what the Lord Jesus said (14.17, 26, 16.13), the one who bears witness to Jesus (15.26), the one who convicts the world (16.8), the one who discloses things to come (16.13, compare with Rev. 19.10), and the glorifier of the Lord Jesus (16.14). Seven is a number of completeness in the Bible, and a number frequently used in Revelation to show completeness (e.g., the seven churches = the whole church, the seven seals, trumpets, and bowls = completeness of judgment), and here it is used to show the perfection of the Holy Spirit in being fully complete in his offices, as exampled in Is. 2 and John 14-16. This letter to the church is from the diverse and perfect Holy Spirit of God.

            It is also from the Son: “… and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the one ruling the kings of the earth.” The words “witness” and “testimony,” “bear witness” and “testify,” are related. In Greek they come from the same root, the word from which we get our English word “martyr.” We have already seen the importance of the concept of the testimony of Jesus in Revelation. In this verse we are told that the Lord Jesus is the faithful testifier, for that is what a witness is, one who testifies. We might also underline the word “the”: he is the faithful witness. That is, he is the Overcomer. Indeed we read in John 16.33 that the Lord himself said, “I have overcome the world,” and, of course, he overcame the flesh (he was sinless) and the devil, too (Col. 2.15, Heb. 2.14, 1 Jn. 3.8). The necessity of our being overcomers does not depend on our ability to do it. It depends on the Overcomer, the one who will bring us through faithful to the end if we will but let him.

            Because the Lord Jesus is the faithful witness, he is also “the firstborn from the dead and the one ruling the kings of the earth.” This statement is another way of putting that great passage, Phil. 2.5-11:

Have this mind in you which also was in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be held onto, but emptied himself, taking a slave’s form, becoming in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he made himself low, becoming obedient as far as death, and death of a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in the heavenlies and those on the earth and those under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Because the Lord was completely obedient to the Father, even to the point of dying, and dying the shameful death on a cross of a blasphemer and criminal at that, God raised him from the dead, “the firstborn from the dead,” and highly exalted him, “the one ruling the kings of the earth.” He is worthy of the position he holds, he is worthy of being unveiled for every eye to see, and he is worthy of making this revelation to the church.

            One of the outstanding features of Revelation is its saturation with the Old Testament, as we saw in our introduction. The statement that the Lord Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead and the one ruling the kings of the earth” comes from Ps. 89.27:

“I also will make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” The exaltation of the Lord to kingship is not only the result of his obedience, but is also the fulfillment of prophecy and the keeping of God’s promise to David that his descendants would rule forever. We see that Revelation is not a flight of fancy, but is solidly rooted in the prophetic tradition, in the sense that prophecy is the word of God as well as predictive.

To the one who loves us and delivered us from our sins by his blood, ⁶and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be the glory and the might to the ages. Amen.

            Following this explanation of the Sender of the book, the triune God, is an ascription of praise to the Lord Jesus for all he did for us. He loves us, the word for “love” here being the word used in the New Testament for the unconditional love of God (agape). True love is expressed, and he expressed his love for us by delivering us from our sins by his blood. This deliverance from our sins by the blood of Christ is one of the foundational facts of Scripture and one for which we cannot properly express thanks and praise. We were not only lost in sin, with its terrible penalty awaiting us, but we had no hope of deliverance. There was nothing we could do for ourselves. No amount of remorse, no amount of good works, no amount of pleading with God, no amount of religious ceremony was of any avail. Sin requires the sacrifice of a lamb without blemish, and such a lamb was not to be found among men. But our Creator, the one offended by our sins, himself became a man and lived a sinless life as a man, and thus became the unblemished Lamb who could die for sins. That he did, out of sheer grace, the offended for the offenders, and for that eternity will be insufficient for our thanksgiving. To him indeed be glory and might, and everything else worthy we can think of, forever.

            But not only did our Lamb take away our sins, the negative side. He also did the positive. He did not just save us from something, a life of sin and an eternity of hell, but he saved us for something. He made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father. What is meant by this statement? It is one of the most profound in Scripture. For an understanding of it, we need to go to the Old Testament.

            We are familiar with the Jewish priesthood instituted by God in the book of Exodus. All the priests of Israel came from the tribe of Levi, and thus we call it the Levitical priesthood. Aaron, the brother of Moses, was the first High Priest of Israel, and according to the Law, all the High Priests had to be descended from Aaron. These priests were to officiate at the daily sacrifices of animals and grain, and to present the blood before God to cover the sins of Israel. They maintained and carried the Tabernacle. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest took blood into the Holy of Holies, to cover the sins of the people for the year. (By the way, the Hebrew word translated “atonement” actually means “covering.” The Jewish sacrifices did not atone for sins, but only covered them until the true Lamb of God was sacrificed. He did not cover our sins. He got rid of them. They no longer exist.) The High Priest was thus the only one in Israel who could actually go into the presence of God in the Holy of Holies. No one else could do so, and only the Levites, the priests, could go into the Tabernacle at all. The people of Israel could only watch from afar, knowing that their God was dwelling in their midst in the Holy of Holies, but never able to go into his very presence. This dealing with blood and having the people separated from God, with the priests as go-betweens, were the outstanding features of Levitical priesthood.

            Not only was blood one of the outstanding features of Levitical priesthood, but that has also been true of priesthood in general in the world. Most religions have had animal sacrifice, and some have even had human sacrifice. Even those religions that do not have blood sacrifice have recognized the need to sacrifice something to God to try to atone for their sins. The separation of the people from God is also characteristic. The priest is always the one who goes to God on behalf of the people and tells the people what God says.

            We have become so accustomed to thinking of priesthood in this way that we miss a very important truth in the Bible. That truth is that this kind of priesthood is not God’s original thought at all. We saw above that the remnant in the Old Testament and the overcomers in the New are those who are faithful to God in a time of general failure by God’s people. The same is true with the Levitical priesthood. It was brought in for a time of failure. God’s original thought for priesthood was expressed in one of the most important passages in the Bible, Ex. 19.5-6: “Now therefore if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you will be my own possession from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine,and you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

That is God’s idea of priesthood, that every one of his people should be a priest, should be able to come into the Holy of Holies and experience his presence. He does not want a system where most of his people are shut out from his presence. He wants to be with his people. But Israel failed. When God appeared to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the sights and sounds were so terrifying that the people told Moses that he should go to God for them and speak the words of God to them, but that God himself should not speak to them, lest they die (Ex. 20.19). In addition, while Moses was on the mountain for forty days and nights, the people had Aaron make a golden calf for them to worship. When Moses came down from the mountain and found the idolatry, he called for those on the Lord’s side to take their swords and kill the offenders. It was the Levites who responded, and so they became the priestly tribe. Thus was instituted a system of priesthood designed for a time of general failure, but one that never represented the original thought of God.

            Where in Scripture is that thought represented? We find it in the very first passage in the Bible where the word “priest” is used, in Gen. 14.17-20. Gen. 14 tells the story of the battle between Abraham’s men and those of some kings of the area. After Abraham had won the battle and recovered the people and goods taken by the kings, he had the encounter described in vs. 17-20:

And the king of Sodom went out to meet him, after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh (the same is the King’s Valley). ¹⁸ And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine, and he was priest of God Most High. ¹⁹ And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of Heaven and earth, ²⁰ and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him a tenth of all.

This Melchizedek was the first priest mentioned in the Bible, and he came over four hundred years before Moses was given the Law with its Levitical priesthood. Melchizedek represents God’s original thought for priesthood. His name means “king of righteousness,” and he was king of Salem, that is, king of peace. Under the Jewish Law, only members of the tribe of Levi could be priests, and after David became king, all the kings of Judah were descended from him, and thus were of the tribe of Judah. A member of Levi could not be king. A member of Judah could not be a priest. Yet here is Melchizedek, both king and priest. As such, he pictures the Lord Jesus who is also both King and Priest.

            There is another peculiarity about Melchizedek. We stressed above the importance of blood in the priesthoods of the world, and even in the Jewish priesthood. Yet Melchizedek did not bring forth blood. He brought forth bread and wine. Why would he bring forth bread and wine? Because he represented God’s original thought for priesthood and he was making a prophetic statement about the Lord Jesus, who would bring in this thought of God. What do bread and wine speak of? Of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, the death of the Lord Jesus, and of his Table, which symbolizes that death.

            The Old Testament is filled with the Levitical priesthood. From the time of Moses’ receiving of the Law at Mt. Sinai right through to Malachi, we read about Jewish priests. Yet right in the middle of all that, there is a bolt out of the blue. In Ps. 110, a psalm prophetic of the Lord Jesus, David writes that God says to his Son that he will be King, and then he says to him that he is a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Why would David, the king who ruled over the Levitical priesthood, say such a thing, a thing that appeared to have no reason or relevance in his time? He was speaking prophetically of the day when the Lord Jesus would bring into being God’s original thought for priesthood, represented by Melchizedek. He would be both King and Priest. Yet under the Jewish Law, the Lord Jesus could not be a priest, for he was of the tribe of Judah, and all priests had to be of the tribe of Levi. While the Lord fulfilled the Jewish priesthood, with its High Priest and sacrificial system, by his death on the cross – the blood that was so important in the Levitical system – at the same time he thereby became the heavenly Melchizedek, the one who established the priesthood that God had in mind all along, one that combines King and Priest in one, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is one of the primary themes of the book of Hebrews that the Lord Jesus is this High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and indeed Hebrews says that there has been a change of Law so as to make this possible (Heb. 7.11-14). And Zech. 6.13 says, “Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the LORD, and he who will bear the honor and sit and rule on His throne. Thus will he be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices.”

            We said above that Ex. 19.5-6 is one of the most important passages in the Bible, and that it expresses God’s original thought for priesthood. What God said to his people in that passage was said before the Law was given. Let us repeat it here: “Now therefore if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you will be my own possession from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine,and you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” That is what God wanted for his people, and still wants, not that there be one tribe only that can serve as priests and that only one man can ever actually come into his presence, and that only once a year. God wants a kingdom of priests. That did not happen with the Jews because of their failure to lay hold of all that God had for them, and the Levitical priesthood was brought in for this time of failure. But now the Lord Jesus has fulfilled that Levitical priesthood and brought it to an end, replacing it with the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. And here is the wonderful truth about that priesthood as it regards us: the Lord Jesus is the High Priest (and also King) under this new priesthood, and we are the priesthood. We are what the Jews could have been in Ex. 19.5-6, but chose not to be in Ex. 20.19. We are a kingdom of priests, as Rev. 1.6 tells us.

            What does it mean for us to be this kingdom of priests? It means that every one of God’s people is able to come into his very presence. Indeed we live in his presence! What the High Priest of Israel could do only once a year, we do continually. We are in the Holy of Holies, in the presence of God. Perhaps the best expression of this fact appears in 1 Peter 2.4-5, 9:

… to whom coming as a living Stone, by men rejected but with God, chosen, precious, you yourselves also as living stones are being built as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, that you might show forth the excellencies of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

In Israel, there was first a Tabernacle, then a Temple, buildings in which God dwelt, but which shut him in and shut the people out. But in the church, the people are the building! God does not dwell in houses made with hands (Acts 7.48). We are his house. He dwells in us (Eph. 2.21-22). Thus we are always in his presence. Though there are those gifted by God to shepherd the flock, to lead, to teach, there are no classes of Christians. There are not some who are priests and some who are not. The idea of clergy and laity cannot be found in the New Testament. The word “laity” comes from the Greek word laos, “people”, and means all the people of God, including the evangelists and preachers and pastors and teachers. There is no word for “clergy” in the Greek New Testament. That is because there is no clergy in the New Testament. All God’s people are priests. V. 9 of 1 Peter 2 shows that we are the fulfillment of Ex. 9.5-6, the possession of God, the kingdom of priests, the holy nation, the priesthood that represents God’s original thought for priesthood, a kingdom of priests under the King who is also the High Priest, and that is the doing, says Rev. 1.6, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and for this the glory and the might are due him forever. Amen.

⁷Look, he is coming with the clouds [Dan. 7.13], and every eye will see him, and those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him [Zech. 12.10]. Yes. Amen. ⁸“I am [Ex. 3.14] the alpha and the omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is and who was and who is coming, the almighty.”

An interesting thought came to me a few minutes ago. God the Father (Rev. 1.8 and 21.6) and the Lord Jesus (Rev. 22.13) are the Alpha and Omega (see also Is. 41.4). I’m sure you know that those are the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet, like our A and Z. It occurred to me that the word “end” in “end of the alphabet” does not mean that everything stops there, such as the end of a ride or something like that. The Greek word for “end” in these verses means maturity or perfection or completion or the goal. My thought was that something lies beyond the letters of the alphabet, namely words! And there is an infinite number of words. That is, God has been completing the spiritual alphabet since the fall of man. It will be complete at the coming of the Lord Jesus. Then there will be a thousand year reign and then eternity. God will begin creating words from his spiritual alphabet and we will be blessed to watch him unfold all he has in mind for eternity! Wow! Or we might say, he has the building blocks; now let’s watch him build. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (12/20/11)

            Just as v. 6 of Rev. 1 alludes to Ex. 19.6, so v. 7 is based on Dan. 7.13 and Zech. 12.10. The book of Daniel has much in common with Revelation. It deals with some of the same concerns relating to the end of history as we know it and the coming of the Lord, but it does so from the viewpoint of God’s dealings with the Gentile nations that would rule over Israel. Dan. 7 pictures the heavenly court at the end, when the nations are judged and found wanting and the rule is given to “one like a son of man.” That one would come with the clouds, says Daniel, and Revelation points out the same fact here, a fact which the Lord Jesus himself also referred to in his earthly ministry, in, for example, Mark 13.26 and 14.62. Then v. 7 alludes to Zech. 12.10, a verse that tells us that when the Lord Jesus returns, the Jews will see him with their physical eyes, the one they pierced, and will mourn over him. By referring to these two Old Testament prophecies, Revelation tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the Jewish Messiah and prophesies his return in agreement with the Old Testament. A part of the great climax of Revelation is the second coming of Christ, and here at the beginning of the book we have the prophecy of this event.

            There is a further allusion to the Old Testament in v. 8, where God the Father speaks, identifying himself. He starts by saying “I AM,” the name of God revealed by God to Moses in Ex. 3.14. “I AM” not only is, that is, exists eternally, he is also the beginning and the end, symbolized by the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and omega. We would say the A and the Z. God himself is eternal, without beginning or end, but whatever had a beginning was begun by him and whatever has an end is ended by him. His eternal nature is further emphasized by his statement that he is and was and is to come. No matter where we go in time, past, present, future, God is there, for he always exists. Finally, he says that he is almighty. That is, what he says he will do in Revelation is not idle boasting. He is fully able to do what he says he will do. He raised his Son from the dead (v. 5), and he will bring him to the throne.

⁹I John, your brother and fellow-participant in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island which is called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

            The events that happen at the end are not events that suddenly happen at one time with great fury. They are the final climax of experiences that run all through history. For example, the Bible teaches that one called Antichrist will appear at the end, yet 1 John 4.3 says that he is already in the world at the time 1 John was written, the first century A.D. The one man who would be the Antichrist had not yet appeared in the first century, and has not yet today, so far as we know (he has not been recognized as such if he is here now), but the principle of opposition to Christ and the effort to usurp his rightful place has operated since Satan first fell, and that principle will find its greatest expression at the end when Satan causes one man to embody all his evil in one last effort to displace Christ from his throne. It is the same with the Great Tribulation. The Great Tribulation is the intensification of the experience of man all through history, the judging of evil men and the purifying of God’s people. Everyone who lives experiences tribulation of one kind or another, whether it be persecution or the ordinary or great trials of life. These trials come as warnings to the evil, and then as judgments if they do not repent, and as purifying fires to the Lord’s own. No one escapes the principle of the Great Tribulation, God’s judgment and dealings.

            John experienced this tribulation, as Rev. 1.9 points out, and he adds to it that he was a “participant in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus.” That seems an odd combination, tribulation and kingdom and perseverance. What did he mean by such a statement? He meant that, as we have said, everyone experiences tribulation, the saved and the lost, but if we will yield to the rule of God (for that is what the kingdom is) in tribulation, letting it do the purifying, refining work God intends it to do, then we will persevere. If we do not yield to the rule of God in trial, we will fall away and lose the good in the trial intended by God. Only by accepting the trial as from the hand of God, all of whose purposes are for our good, can we endure. John’s presence on Patmos was evidence of the truth of this statement. Patmos was an island used for the exile of prisoners. John was not vacationing on Patmos. He was there as a prisoner because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. We saw in commenting on v. 2 that this faithfulness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, no matter what, is what constitutes an overcomer. John was faithful, he was an overcomer, because he yielded to the rule of God in tribulation, and thus endured.

¹⁰I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and I heard behind me a great voice like a trumpet ¹¹saying, “What you see write into a scroll and send to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”

            Some have taken the phrase “the Lord’s day” to be a reference to the end, the matters Revelation deals with, meaning that John was transported in spirit, or by the Spirit, to the end, but that phrase is always “the day of the Lord,” not “the Lord’s day.” The two phrases are different in Greek, as they are in English. It seems natural to take John’s statement as referring to Sunday (though it does not say “Sunday”), the day specially set aside for the worship of the Lord, and there is no reason for taking it to refer to the day of the Lord without the presence of some other information that requires it. John was worshipping the Lord on the Lord’s day and he moved into a condition he calls being “in the Spirit.” That is, he was no longer just thinking his thoughts and saying his words of worship, but was caught up by the Spirit and was hearing from or experiencing the Lord in an unusual way. In this condition, he had a vision, starting with his hearing of a great voice, a voice that sounded like a trumpet. The primary function of a trumpet other than its use to make music is to get attention, for announcement or summoning or giving directions or warning or worship, and this voice like a trumpet got John’s attention! This loud voice gave him his commission to write the book of Revelation and to send it to the seven churches. Everything up to this point in Revelation has been introductory remarks by John, and now he explains how he came to write the book, thereby revealing that he was divinely commissioned to do so by the Lord Jesus who appeared to him in this vision.

¹²And I turned to see the voice which was speaking with me, and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man dressed in a long robe and belted at the chest with a golden belt.

            Having had his attention attracted, John turned to see the voice, that is, the one who spoke with the voice like a trumpet. When he turned he saw seven golden lampstands. The meaning of the lampstands is explained in v. 20. He also saw in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man. We have already seen that the reference to one like a son of man is an allusion to Dan. 7.13, the chapter in which God judges the nations and finds all the kingdoms of this world deficient, then gives the eternal rulership of the world to the one like a son of man. The one like a son of man in Daniel and the one like a son of man here in Revelation are one and the same, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Dan. 7 is a chapter of judgment. Indeed, the name Daniel means “God is my judge,” the book of Daniel thus by its name showing us the theme of the book, God’s judgment of the nations and finding them wanting, and of his Son, finding him perfect. As in Dan. 7, the picture here in the last verses of Rev. 1 is one of judgment. The vision of the Lord Jesus revealed to John was of the Lord as Judge at the end. Each element of the description of the Lord as seen by John shows him as Judge.

            He was dressed in a long robe and belted at the chest with a golden belt. In Dan. 10.5, in one of the other visions of Daniel, the prophet saw a man “clothed in linen, whose waist was girded with pure gold of Uphaz.” This is the angel who came to Daniel three weeks after Daniel had prayed, having been delayed three weeks by the prince of Persia (Dan. 10.13). He reveals to Daniel what will happen at the end (Dan. 10.14). Again the scene is one of judgment. The angel has been doing battle with the price of Persia and will continue to do so, and says that the prince of Greece is about to come. These princes are not human, but are evil spirits in the hierarchy of the ruler of this world, Satan. This final vision of Daniel shows how these rulers will be defeated so that their earthly counterparts will come to an end so that the kingdom of the Lord Jesus may come, a kingdom that will never end.

            Furthermore, this angel is dressed in linen, a robe like that of the Lord Jesus in Rev. 1.13. As we learn in Rev. 19.8, white linen is righteous deeds. “Righteousness” is a legal term meaning “not guilty.” The righteousness of God means that he himself is sinless and that he requires man to be sinless in order for him to be saved. Thus righteousness is a term of judgment. In the visions of Daniel, the kingdoms of this world are found to be unrighteous, and thus are judged as guilty and cast down. The kingdom of the Lord Jesus is found to be righteous, and thus judged not guilty and given eternal rulership. So the picture of judgment is continued by the long robe of the Lord Jesus in Rev. 1.13, the robe of a judge.

            The golden belt, also seen in Dan. 10.5, lends itself to this theme of judgment also. Gold in the Scriptures speaks of divinity, of something of God, referring either to God himself or to something of God worked into his people. This one belted with a golden belt is both God and man. The gold symbolizes him as God, but it also symbolizes him as a man in whom God has deposited something of himself. Indeed that deposit is perfect, and thus he, the Lord Jesus, a sinless man, is qualified to be Judge.

¹⁴And his head and hair were white like white wool, like snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire,

            The Lord’s white hair is seen in Dan. 7.9 as the hair of his Father, the Ancient of Days (another way of saying “eternal” as stressed in Rev. 1.8). In this scene of the divine court at the end, the idea is of an older man, one who through the wisdom of experience, is qualified to be judge.

            Returning to Dan. 10, we see in v. 6 that the angel who appeared to Daniel had eyes “like flaming torches.” These are the piercing eyes of one who is wise and all-knowing, one who can see right through a person (or a kingdom) and tell whether he is righteous or unrighteous. Heb. 4.13 says, “And there is not a creature hidden before him, but all things are naked and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do” [or, “to whom we must give account”]. These are the eyes like a flame of fire, the eyes of the Judge who is looking for something as he walks among the seven golden lampstands, as we will soon see.

¹⁵and his feet were like bronze as though fired in a furnace, and his voice was like the voice of many waters,

            The feet of bronze also occur in Dan. 10.6: “his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze.” Bronze in the Bible is the metal which is the symbol of judgment, for it is a metal that can exist only by passing through the fire since it is not a pure metal, but an alloy. Its constituents must be melted by fire and mixed together. Thus the altars of sacrifice, the place of judgment, in the Tabernacle and the Temple, were made of bronze. The feet of bronze show that the Lord Jesus is the Judge. “Fired in a furnace” could mean either “glowing,” as in Dan. 10.6, or “refined,” as of the Lord Jesus as a man in Heb. 2.10 and 5.8. If it means “glowing,” the idea would be that judgment has come: the fire of judgment is hot. If it means “refined,” the thought would again be of qualification to be Judge.

            In Dan. 10.6, we read that the voice of the angel who appeared to Daniel was “like the sound of a tumult,” reminding us of the statement here in Revelation that the voice of the Lord was like the voice of many waters. In Ezek. 1.24 we read about the four living beings, in the vision of the glory of the Lord, “I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army camp….” Ezek. 43.2 reads, “… and look, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east. And his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with his glory.” Does this voice occur in a context of judgment? Listen to what God says to Ezekiel in vs. 7-8:

Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. And the house of Israel will no more defile my holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their harlotry and by the dead bodies of their kings in their high places; ⁸ in their setting of their threshold by my threshold and their door post beside my door post, and there was only the wall between me and them. And they have defiled my holy name by their abominations which they have committed. Therefore I have consumed them in my anger.

Consumption in anger is judgment! The voice like the voice of many waters is the voice of the Judge.

¹⁶and he had in his right hand seven stars, and from his mouth a sharp, two-edged sword went out, and his face was as the sun shines in its power.

            As with the seven lampstands, the seven stars are explained in v. 20. The fact that the Lord holds these seven stars in his hand shows that he controls their destiny. He is their Judge.

            In Is. 49.2, another prophecy of the Lord Jesus, he says of himself through the prophet, “And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword….” Perhaps the writer of Hebrews draws on this image in 4.12 (keep in mind that the Lord Jesus is the living Word of God): “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than every two-edged sword and piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrows, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Revelation itself shows that this picture of the sharp sword proceeding from the Lord’s mouth is a sword of judgment in 19.15: “And from his mouth went out a sharp sword, that with it he might smite the nations, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron, and he himself treads the wine press of the wine of the fury of the anger of God the almighty….” This verse pictures the judgment of Armageddon at the visible return of the Lord.

            We read of the face shining like the sun in Jud. 5.31. Jud. 5 contains the song of Deborah and Barak, sung after their victory over Jabin, king of Canaan, and his army commander, Sisera. At the end of the song, in v. 31, Deborah and Barak pray for the perishing of all God’s enemies, then say, “But let those who love him be as the sun when it goes forth in its might.” Judgment on the enemies; the rising to their highest power of those who love God. The Lord Jesus has defeated Satan and risen to this position, from which he will be the Judge of all evil.

            Thus is finished this great, awesome picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as Judge.

¹⁷And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead,Wouldn’t you!

and he put his right hand on me saying, “Do not fear. I am [Ex. 3.14] the first and the last [Is. 41.4, 44.6, 48.12, Rev. 22, 13] ¹⁸and the living one, and I was dead and look, I am living to the ages of the ages, and I have the keys of death and of hades. [Seiss, “And as death holds the bodies of men, so hades holds their souls.”—The Apocalypse]

            John fell as a dead man at the awesome sight of the Lord Jesus Christ come in his glory as Judge, but that Judge inspiring such awe said that the death of John (judgment) was not what he had in mind for him. The Lord Jesus had been dead and was alive from the dead. Thus he had the keys to release from death and hades (in this verse, the grave or another word for death). If one is ready for the coming of the Judge, he has no reason to fear, though, of course, such a sight would cause anyone to fall down as though dead!

¹⁹Write therefore the things you saw and the things that are and things about to be after these things.

            John’s commission to write is repeated (see v. 11), and this time what he is told to write is given in more detailed form: not just, “What you see, write…,” but, “… the things you saw and the things that are and things about to be….” Past, present, future. This commission gives Revelation a broad outline: The things John saw in chapter one, the things that are in chapters two and three, and the things that will be in chapters four through twenty-two. V. 3 calls this book a prophecy, and now v. 19 states that part of the book is about things that will be. While there is much prophecy throughout the New Testament, Revelation is the one book that is specifically a prophecy.

²⁰The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are seven churches.

            We first read of the golden lampstands in v. 12, and of the stars in v. 16. Now the Lord explains what these symbolize. The seven stars, he says, are the angels of the seven churches. It is still unclear who these angels are, and students of Revelation are divided. Some think that since all the other references in Revelation are to actual heavenly angels, these angels must also be the same. However, it is difficult to see why the Lord would send a letter through a man to an angel, as the first verse of each of the letters to the seven churches indicates: “To the angel of the church in … write.” The word for “angel” in Greek can also mean “messenger,” and others take that to be the meaning in this case, human messengers either sent by God with messages to the seven churches or already in the churches, but given messages by God for the churches. Some take the angels or messengers to be not just one person, but all the responsible men in a given church. This is a riddle that will probably not be solved this side of the Lord’s return, speculation is of little if any value, and the point of the book is not affected in any case, so we will not hazard a guess as to the exact identification of these angels/messengers. The important fact is that the Lord had messages for the churches and sent them. We will concentrate in the next chapter on what those messages were. Their contents still apply to us today.

            It is clear what the seven golden lampstands are. They are the seven churches addressed in this book. Seven is a number of completion in the Bible, indicating that these seven churches symbolize all the church, the one church. Though there are many local expressions, there is only one church. These seven stand for the whole, and thus the book of Revelation is sent, not just to the seven churches in Asia, but to the church. This fact is of great importance, as we saw in our introduction. Revelation is addressed to the church, and its message is for the church, including us today.

            Gold in the Bible pictures God. We saw in our consideration of the Lord’s golden belt in v. 13 that it symbolizes both his deity and the fact that as a man there was something of God deposited in him. That is also true of the church. The church is not an organization, though it is organized, but an organism, a living thing made up of many members, just as a human body is. The thing that distinguishes this organism from any other is that it consists of people in whom is the life of God, and thus there is something of God in the church. These people are not partially or wholly divine, nor is the church, but both contain the life of God. It is the desire of God to develop that life within, to increase our capacity for him, and thus to increase the deposit of himself in us. He uses our tribulations as one of his means of achieving this objective. When we deal with difficulty by faith in him and submission to him, rather than blaming him for letting such things happen to us and trying to wriggle free of them, our capacity for him is expanded, much as a weightlifter’s capacity for more weight is expanded by his lifting just a bit more than he is capable of. It is a difficult struggle, but it results in greater capacity. Thus, while the church is made up of humans, the thing that makes it the church is the life of God in it, and it is the will of God that there be more and more gold, more and more of himself, and less and less flesh.

            Finally, these symbols of the church are lampstands. The purpose of a lampstand is to hold a lamp or lamps and thus give light. The lampstand is not itself the light, but is to hold forth the light. Jn. 5.35 says that John the Baptist was a lamp, but he was not the Light. We are to be lamps. That is, one of the purposes of the church is to provide a place from which the Light of the world may shine forth. It is to bear testimony. We have seen the vital importance of the testimony of Jesus. The Lord wants his church, and its local expressions, the churches, to bear the testimony of Jesus. The seven golden lampstands are seven local expressions of the church designed to give out the deposit of God within in the form of light to the world, and they are the one whole church, having the same purpose.

            Before moving on to chapters two and three, the letters to the seven churches, we ought to say a word about the seven churches. There are at least three theories as to what these seven churches stand for. Some think that they do not stand for anything other than themselves, and that they are simply seven historical local churches that existed in Asia Minor at the time of the revelation to John and his writing down of what he saw. It is true that they were seven local churches at that time, but it is also true that they represent more than themselves.

            Others believe that in addition to being historical churches, they symbolize seven ages that the church will pass through between the two comings of the Lord. The first age, Ephesus, was contemporary with the writing of Revelation and showed the first bit of decline in the church away from its pristine purity. The second, Smyrna, prophesies the period of persecution the church went through under the Roman Emperors beginning at the end of the first century. The third, Pergamum, symbolizes the marriage of the church to the world when the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, thus causing virtually everyone to become a Christian in name in order to be on good terms with the government. (Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship with a Peron.) Thyatira, the fourth, shows the rise of Catholicism and the development of the church into a rigid institution with unbiblical theology, systems, and rites. The Reformation is seen in Sardis, the church which pulled away from Catholicism, but did not complete the work of returning to the New Testament concept of the church. Philadelphia is the recovered New Testament church of the nineteenth century when many began to worship the Lord in the simplicity of just gathering around him in their homes or other quarters outside the established institutional churches with their systems and rituals, and when the worldwide missionary movement began in earnest. Finally, Laodicea is the apostate church of the last days before the return of Christ.

            While this is an attractive theory, it is just that, a theory. It cannot be demonstrated to be true, and some of the elements of the seven ages have to be manipulated a bit to make them fit the theory, or some of the descriptions of the seven churches in the second and third chapters of Revelation have to be forced into the theory. Furthermore, it is hard to see the point of the theory. If it is true, perhaps it was given to prepare the churches for what was going happen. If the idea is that when we see Laodicea we will know the end is near, we must point out that Laodicea existed in the first century and was one of the recipients of this book. We do not reject this theory as untrue, but regard it as a possibility that may or may not be true, but that has little if any bearing on the message of Revelation.

            It is also felt that the seven churches represent seven kinds of churches that exist all through the history of the church. The reasons for this interpretation will be seen as we go through the seven letters, so we will not elaborate on them now. Let us just say that we believe this understanding to be true. The seven churches were seven historical local churches in Asia Minor at the time of the writing of the book of Revelation. Because of their varying characteristics, they show us seven conditions that a local church can be in, and thus they show us seven kinds of churches that have existed almost from the beginning. As chapters two and three, the letters to the seven churches, reveal, the fact that these seven churches picture seven kinds or conditions of churches is vital. It is at the very heart of the message of the book. Revelation is a warning to the Lord’s people to be ready at all times to meet him, to be overcomers. The seven letters tell us what overcomers are, and what they are not. We need to examine our own lives and our church fellowships in the light of these seven letters to see just where we are before the Lord. These seven letters tell us how to escape the Great Tribulation, if we are alive when it happens, and how to be ready to meet the Lord if we should die before it happens. May our God give us grace to be ready at all times to stand before him.

THE LETTERS TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES

2.1-3.22

            Rev. 1 told the church that the Lord Jesus is the Judge, and that he is walking among the churches (the church) looking for his testimony. Now chapters two and three reveal that there are seven kinds of churches, symbolized by seven historical local churches in Asia Minor. The Judge is examining each church (and each Christian) for its testimony. What does he see in each one, and how does he respond?

            Each letter follows a pattern, with slight variations. First, there is a word about the Lord Jesus, who is walking among the churches as Judge, that shows some characteristic of him as it relates to the condition of the respective churches. Then the Lord himself speaks, telling what he sees in each church, giving words of commendation and criticism. Sometimes there is a warning or a challenge. There is a word about overcomers and their rewards, and either before or after the word about overcomers, there is the saying, “Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” As we go through each letter, we will see, with one exception, that there is one issue which is decisive for that church, one matter between the Lord and that church which must be cleared up.

The Letter to the Church in Ephesus

2. “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, ‘These things says the one having the seven stars in his right hand, the one walking in the midst of the seven golden lampstands:

            The letter to Ephesus begins with this word about the Lord: he is the one who has the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the lampstands. We will see how this description relates to the church in Ephesus after we have dealt with the condition of that church.

²“I know your works and labor and your perseverance and that you are not able to endure evil men, and you test those calling themselves apostles and are not and you find them false, ³and you have perseverance and you endured because of my name and you have not grown weary. ⁴But I have against you that you have left your first love.

            Everything outward in Ephesus is good. The Lord commends this church for her works, her labor, her perseverance, her being unable to endure evil men, her testing of false apostles, again her perseverance and endurance, this time stressing that it is because of his name, and her not having grown weary. Anyone else looking at Ephesus would judge this a model church, for everything that can be seen is right, but the Lord is the one who looks not at the outward appearance, but at the heart, as he told Samuel in the Old Testament (1 Sam. 16.7). We saw earlier in quoting Heb. 4.12-13 that we can hide nothing from God, but that he sees not just what we do outwardly, but what is in our minds and hearts. He knows our thoughts and motivations, and that matter of motivation is just the issue in this letter.

            We learn from this letter to Ephesus that what matters most to the Lord is our relationship to him and the inward reason for which we serve him. The original motivation of the church for serving the Lord was first love, love like the love of a bride for her husband-to-be or new husband. That first love is so fresh and innocent, so totally without guile, so purely devoted, and so excited. We read in Jer. 2.2 these words of God, “Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says I AM, “I remember about you the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothals, how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.”’” That is first love. When Israel was betrothed to God, she was so in love with him that she would follow him anywhere, even into a wilderness where there was no food supply. That is how the church, intended to be the bride of Christ, began with him. She was so in love with the Lord Jesus that she would go anywhere with him, do anything for him.

            But, says the Lord, while the church in Ephesus continued to do all the right things, her motivation had slipped away from first love. Why was this church serving the Lord and doing all the right things? Was it a sense of duty, a sense of guilt, fleshly pride in good works, a desire to earn salvation rather than receiving it as a free gift, just habit? We do not know, for the passage does not tell us, but we do know that first love had faded, and because of this there was an issue between the Lord and his church, the issue of motivation.

⁵Remember therefore where you have fallen from and repent and do the first works. Otherwise, I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place, if you do not repent.

            We who are so accustomed to judging things by their outward appearance might not think this state of the Ephesian church was so bad. She was doing all the right things, and nothing wrong was being done. Indeed, wrong was being resisted. But the seriousness of this charge, the importance of this issue to the Lord, is seen in his threat to remove the lampstand. This church might go on as an organization, but it would cease to be recognized by the Lord as the bearer of his testimony. Of course, it is historically true that the church in Ephesus did cease to exist, and that dark land is now under Islamic control. Is this the fulfillment of the Lord’s threat?

⁶But you have this, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

            The Lord of grace then gives a final word of commendation to Ephesus, that she hates the works of the Nicolaitans, even as he does. There is no historical reference to the Nicolaitans outside of Revelation and they are not explained in the book, so we do not know who they were or what their works were. The word “Nicolaitans” means “conquer the people,” and many have taken this to mean that the Nicolaitans were a group who were trying to subjugate the laity to a group of clergy. This is certainly a possibility, for, as we saw in dealing with the kingdom of priests in chapter 1, verse 6, the New Testament knows nothing of the separation of clergy and laity in the church. Indeed, there is not even a word for clergy in the New Testament, and the word “laity” refers to all the people of God. The Greek word, laos, means simply “people.” It is one of the great departures from the New Testament picture of the church that now most “churches” (in quotation marks because they are largely human organizations) do have clergy and laity, with the clergy being seen as the professional Christians who do the work of the gospel, while the laity are not as capable of doing so and are there primarily to support the clergy. That is not the Lord’s idea of the church. There are those gifted for spiritual ministry, in evangelism, of the word, in pastoring, but they are not clergy in the New Testament. They are simply members of the body of Christ who perform those functions while other members perform other functions. So, if that is who the Nicolaitans were, the Lord says that he hates their works, and if it is not who they were, he still hates those works!

            We saw in the first verse that the Lord is the one who has the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the lampstands, and that this description of him relates to the condition of the church. How does it do so? The fact that the stars are in the Lord’s hand shows that he has control over them, that he can do with them as he sees fit. If they are commendable, he can reward them. If not, he can judge them. He does not issue idle threats, but is able to do what he says. His walking among the lampstands shows that he is looking for something, and that something is the testimony of Jesus. In the letter to Ephesus, we see that the fundamental aspect of the testimony of Jesus is first love for him. Heart motivation is what matters most to the Lord. More than anything else, he wants a people who love him with all their hearts simply for who he is. Do we so love the Lord? As Paul says in 1 Cor. 13.1-3, if we can speak in the tongues of angels and eloquently in the tongues of men or know many human languages, if we can prophesy, if we know all mysteries and have all knowledge, if we have such faith that we can remove mountains, if we give away all our possessions, if we even go so far as to give our bodies to be burned, but do not have love, it is all worthless. No matter how perfect we may be outwardly, if our heart motivation is not pure bridal love for Jesus, he will remove our lampstand. He cares nothing for our works if they do not spring from such love for him. Oh, can we see the Lord Jesus as a heavenly Bridegroom longing for his bride, and have the same love for him? God have mercy on us!

⁷Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

            This statement is the same as the one used by the Lord Jesus in his parables, in Mk. 4.9 and 23, for example, and it recalls Is. 6.9-10, the passage quoted by the Lord in Mk. 4.12 in explaining why he taught in parables. His point is that everyone who can hear hears what he says with his physical ears, but what is important is spiritual hearing. Only those who understand what he means spiritually will be obedient to his message. It is easy, indeed it is human nature, for us, when we hear a warning to repent, to try to justify ourselves, especially if our works are outwardly as commendable as were those of the Ephesians. If we do, that just shows that even though we hear physically, we do not understand. It is those who understand and repent who will be commended by the Lord.

To the one who overcomes I will give to him to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”’

            The letters are addressed to the churches, but the fact that the message to him who overcomes is in the singular shows that they are also calls to individual Christians to be overcomers in the midst of general failure by the Lord’s people. That phrase “by the Lord’s people” is vital. Remember that Revelation is not written to the lost, but to the church. It is his own people that the Lord is judging. It is time for judgment to begin from the house of God (1 Pt. 4.17). Most churches settle for a very low level of spirituality, and perhaps most Christians are not overcomers. There is general failure in the church, just as there was in Israel in the Old Testament, and in the New. The Lord is calling for overcomers in the midst of this failure. He is calling for those who will examine their hearts and confess any motivation other than first love and cry to the Lord for mercy and for a change of heart so that the love of the bride is the motivation.

            To those who do overcome by so loving the Lord, he will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God (the heavenly city, new Jerusalem, Rev. 22.2).  What does he mean by this statement? Will not all Christians eat of the tree of life? Yes, all will, but the Lord indicates that the feeding will have special meaning for the overcomers. Recall the verse we quoted, Jer. 2.2: “Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says I AM, “I remember about you the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothals, how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.”’” We saw that Israel was so in love with God that she followed him anywhere, even into a land where there was no food. She trusted him to provide. So it is with the Lord and the overcomer. The overcomer is the one who so loves the Lord that he will follow him anywhere, even into a wilderness, trusting him to provide. Did God provide for Israel in the wilderness? Of course. Can the Lord Jesus be trusted to provide for his own? Of course. He provides for us now in the barren wilderness of this world. He will provide for us in his kingdom when he returns to rule the earth. He will provide for us eternally. Many who are saved barely get by spiritually, and some materially, because they have not learned to trust the Lord explicitly out of a heart of pure love for him. Those who so love and trust him know his feeding in the wilderness, and will always know it in a way that others do not. The Lord will not lose any of his own (John 17.12), but how he longs for those who are not satisfied just with getting saved and making it into Heaven, but who want to be utterly in love with him. That is what he wants, and those who go that way are those who overcome.

The Letter to the Church in Smyrna

⁸And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, ‘These things says the first and the last, who was dead and lived:

            As with all the letters, this one begins with a statement about the Lord with significance for this particular church. We will return to that significance after we see what the Lord says to this church.

⁹“I know your tribulation and poverty, but you are rich, and the slander of those saying themselves to be Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

            The Lord’s commendation of the church in Smyrna is that they are rich even in the midst of tribulation and poverty, meaning, of course, that even though they are poor in material goods, they are rich in spiritual things. In addition, they have been slandered by those who call themselves Jews, but are not. It was common for the apostle Paul to encounter Jews in the cities where he preached and churches were raised up by the Lord, Jews who tried to tell the Gentile Christians that they should indeed believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but they also had to become Jews and keep the Jewish Law. Perhaps the Jews in this letter were such Judaizers.

             As time went on, the Jews and Christians grew farther apart. At first, virtually all Christians were Jews and were more or less regarded as Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, a sort of sect of Judaism. Eventually, though, as the implications of the messiahship of the Lord Jesus became clear, the Jews separated themselves from these Christian believers and even engaged in persecution against them. It may be such persecuting Jews that this letter refers to.

             Whatever their situation, the Lord tells John that they are not Jews, but are a synagogue of Satan. They probably were Jews racially, but the New Testament teaches that true Jews are those who are Jews at heart, that is, they are spiritual descendants of Abraham because they are people of faith in Christ, and they have circumcised their hearts. The Lord uses an exceedingly strong term in calling them a synagogue of Satan. They were supposed to be the people of God, but now they were people of Satan. The Smyrnan Christians were commended for enduring their slander.

¹⁰Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days.

            Unlike all but one other letter, this one contains no criticism of the church. They have been faithful in their trials, and receive only approval. Now the Lord moves on to announce that there will be further tribulation. First, he tells them not to fear. Very often in the gospels he told the disciples not to fear, even when they were in very frightening situations. It is a fact that our God is sovereign and nothing happens to us unless he either causes it or allows it, and either way it is for our good, as Paul wrote in Rom. 8.28 (see also v. 29 that tells us the ultimate good). What is scary to the flesh is designed by God for our growth in him, so it is not to be feared. Indeed, even if we die, we have nothing to fear, for that will not hurt us, but only put us into the Lord’s presence.

            After telling his church not to fear what they are about to suffer, he then gives some idea of what that suffering is. Some would be cast into prison by the devil, but, the Lord says, it is for their testing. We are reminded of 1 Peter 1.6-7: “Now for a little while you may be grieved in various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though proved by fire, may be found to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Gold, when mined, is mixed with impurities and must go through the fire to be refined. So it is with our faith. We have faith, but our faith is not pure. It is mixed with questions and doubts, even outright unbelief on some matters. The Lord says that we need to have not just faith, which is as precious as gold, indeed, more precious, but to have a purified faith. The fire through which faith goes to be refined is tribulation. We need not fear the trials of life, even when they involve severe persecution, for they are God’s means of testing and purifying our faith.

            They will have tribulation ten days. What is the meaning of this statement? Those who believe that the seven churches represent seven ages of church history point out that there were ten persecutions of the church at this point in time. One Bible interpreter points out that there was a persecution under the Roman Emperor Diocletian that lasted ten years. Others believe ten days means a short time. All of these theories may or may not be true. I think the important point is that the sovereign God has control of these circumstances and designates the time during which they may occur. God may allow Satan to persecute his people for their refining, but he will not allow the persecution to go one second longer than he intends. Satan may do the persecuting, but it is God, not Satan, who is in control.

Be faithful unto death and I will give you the wreath of life.

            In addition to the admonition not to fear, there is the positive reinforcement of the promise of the wreath of life. It seems ironic that the Lord would say that those who die will receive the wreath of life, but it is fundamental to our faith that just as the Lord died and rose from the dead, so will his people. Death is not the last word. It is only a gateway into life eternal. Everyone will die except those alive at the rapture of the overcomers before the Great Tribulation or the rapture of the Lord’s people who survive it. It is not death that is so important, as we tend to think, but being ready for it that matters. Whether we die of natural causes at an advanced age, or at a younger age, or by accident (supposedly), or by persecution, all that really matters is that we be ready to meet the Lord. If we are, we will receive the wreath of life.

¹¹Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

            As in every letter, the Lord repeats the admonition to hear with spiritual ears and get the point of what he is saying.

The one who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.”’

            The one who overcomes is the one who is faithful unto death. This does not mean that one must be martyred to be an overcomer. We all will die except those alive at the end, and we all can be faithful to the Lord unto death whether we die a martyr’s death or a normal death by natural causes. The reward for the overcomer is that he will not be hurt by the second death.

            Rev. 20.14 tells us that the second death is the lake of fire, hell. The first death is the death of the body that all go through, with the exception of those alive at the end. The second death is the spiritual death of eternal separation from God. It is not nonexistence or unconsciousness, but eternal punishment, a sort of living death. The one who overcomes will not be hurt by hell.

            It is true that none of the saved, whether they are overcomers or not, will spend eternity in hell, but the Lord tells us here that it is the overcomers who will not be hurt by the second death. Does this imply that there are Christians who will be hurt by it, though they will not be in hell eternally, but with the Lord? There are some who believe that God will use hell to purify his people who have not been purified in this life. We do not believe this, for the Bible does not state it. Catholicism teaches purgatory, which is the use of hell to purify Catholics who were not good enough in this life, but there is no such thing as this in the Bible. Indeed, Catholicism is not Christian, but a false religion that does not go by the Bible. Their belief is that what they call the Church, the Catholic hierarchy, is the source of doctrine, not the Bible. They did not want their adherents to read the Bible in the Middle Ages, and indeed put to death some, such as William Tyndale, who were trying to make Bible available to the masses in their own language, not the Latin that only their priests knew. I suspect that the Catholic hierarchy knew that if the people could read the Bible, they would see that the religion did not follow the Bible. For example, the Bible says to call no one on earth “father” (Mt. 23.9), but their priests are called fathers, and their priests call their male member “son.” If one of them ever called me son, I would say that you are not my father. God is my father! And the Bible teaches that every Christian is a priest and can go to God for himself (1 Pt. 2.5 and 9). By the way, this does not mean not to call your earthly father by that word. Mt. 23.9 is dealing with your spiritual Father, God.

The answer to the question about the second death lies in the fact that, except for Antichrist and his false prophet and the goats of Matt. 25.32, 33, 41, no one is cast into hell until after the millennium. The issue of the second death does not come up until after the millennium. It may be that some Christians may think that they have not been “good enough” Christians (who has?!), and that they might be hurt by the second death. Thay will not. John is addressing the overcomers in this verse, Rev. 2.11, and assures them that they will not be hurt by the second death. If we are saved, overcomer or not, we need have no fear of hell.

            We noted in passing that v. 8 gives a description of the Lord Jesus that has relevance to the church in Smyrna. It says that he is the first and the last, who was dead and lived. Then we see that tribulation and suffering and even death are to be the lot of the Smyrnaeans. The Lord tells them to be faithful unto death, and closes the letter with the word that he who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death. We see that, just as motivation was the issue in the letter to the Ephesians, the issue here is death. This church was already under tribulation and faced death. It is interesting that the word “Smyrna” is the Greek word for “myrrh”, which means “bitter.” These Christians knew the bitterness of suffering.

            The Lord who tells them not to fear, and even to be faithful unto death, is not a Lord who sits in the heavens immune from the sufferings of men, but is one who came to earth as a man and experienced those sufferings himself, up to and including death, and a death far worse than any of us will ever know, for it was not just a physical death, but a death of shame as a criminal and blasphemer for one who had no reason to be ashamed, a death of bearing sin for one who knew no sin, and a separation from his Father for one who had known nothing but eternal love with the Father. He was dead and lived again. He was the first, and even though he died, he is also the last because he was raised from the dead because of his perfect human life so that death has no claim on him. It is this one, this one who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who told the church at Smyrna not to fear but to be faithful unto death. He himself had been faithful unto death and had received the wreath of life. Thus he could speak such words with full authority, with comfort, with encouragement, for a suffering church. Death is the issue between the Lord and the Smyrnan church, and life out of death, and the one who overcame is able to tell them how to overcome. He is worthy of all praise!

The Letter to the Church in Pergamum

¹²”And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write, ‘These things says the one having the sharp two-edged sword:

            Again we have a description of the Lord, the meaning of which we will see later.

¹³I know where you dwell, where the throne of Satan is, and you hold my name and did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

            It is not known exactly what the Lord meant by saying that Pergamum was the place where the throne of Satan is and where he dwells. This city was the Roman capital of Asia Minor and was the first city in which a temple to the Roman Emperors was built after they began to claim divinity and to be worshipped as such. Emperor worship was required there during the time of John’s exile and this revelation to him, so Christians would have faced persecution for refusal to worship him. Indeed, Antipas had already died as a faithful witness. Rome is also associated with Babylon in Revelation, Babylon being symbolic of the world’s opposition to God under Satan’s rule and used as a cryptic name for Rome, showing that the Lord who made this revelation to John considered Rome to be the heir of Babylon as the capital of evil in the world. If Rome was the capital of evil, its provincial capitals could be seen as extensions of that evil, as the throne of Satan. Whatever the exact meaning of this description of the city, it shows that the church in Pergamum dwelt in a particularly difficult place.

            In this situation, the Lord says, the church there holds his name and did not deny his faith even when faced with the martyrdom of Antipas. Thus he commends this church.

¹⁴But I have against you a few things, that you have there those holding the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat meat offered to idols and to commit immorality.

            There is also criticism for this church. First, they have some who hold the teaching of Balaam. What is the teaching of Balaam? His story is recorded in Num. 22.1-24.25, 31.8, and 31.16. He is also referred to in the New Testament in 2 Peter 2.15 and Jude 11. When the Israelites were about to pass through Moab, Balak, the king of Moab, hired Balaam to come and curse Israel for him so he could defeat her in battle. To make a long story short, Balaam tried three times to curse Israel, but the Lord would not let him. He finally had to abandon the effort. However, wanting Balak’s money, he found a way to help him anyway. Num. 25.1-3 tells us that while Israel was encamped, her men became involved with the women of Moab when they were invited to their sacrifices to their gods. Thus the men of Israel became involved in idol worship and immorality, committing a double adultery, spiritual adultery against God through joining themselves with Baal, as Num. 25.3 says, and physical adultery through their immorality with the Moabite women. Num. 31.16 says that it was Balaam who taught Balak to use this method of seducing the Israelites.

            Thus the teaching of Balaam is that it is acceptable for the Lord’s people to become involved with idol worship and immorality. The idol worship of Pergamum is obvious. Not only was there Emperor worship there, but also the worship of Zeus, Athena, Dionysus and Asclepius. The meat from these pagan sacrifices was eaten as part of the sacrificial ritual, taken home for meals, or sold in the markets. Those who held the teaching of Balaam said that it was acceptable for Christians to eat such meat. There may also have been pressure to take part in these sacrifices in order to stay on good terms with Rome, thus avoiding persecution.

            It was also common for there to be religious prostitution connected with pagan temples. Many pagan religions had to do with agriculture, consisting primarily of rites designed to cause the gods of nature to give good harvests. Because the idea of fertility applies to both agriculture and human reproduction, ritual prostitution was supposed to influence the gods. If the Christians of Pergamum became involved with pagan sacrifice, it would be easy for them to slip into the other error of cult prostitution. Those who held the teaching of Balaam supported this view.

            In such a situation, those who held this teaching were telling the church to do what amounted to the same thing Israel did in Num. 25. They were committing double adultery, against God and their own wives, by becoming involved with pagan gods and temple prostitutes.

            This idea of marriage is of great importance in the Bible. In the second chapter of the Bible, after the creation has been completed, God makes a woman for the man and thus is himself the author of marriage. In the Old Testament, as we saw in quoting Jer. 2.2 in connection with the letter to the church in Ephesus, Israel is the wife of God. Hosea shows the adulterous nature of Israel, but promises that God will ultimately win back his wife. Isaiah prophesies the same recovery in 62.4-5:

You will no more be termed Forsaken; neither will your land any more be termed Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah [My delight is in her], and your land Beulah [Married], for I AM delights in you, and your land will be married. ⁵ For as a young man marries a virgin, your sons will marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

            The New Testament teaches that the church is betrothed to Christ (2 Cor. 11.2). Biblical betrothal is different from our engagement. Engagement today in our society is an agreement that can easily be broken by the action of one or both of the parties, but betrothal in the Bible was a legal arrangement. The couple had not yet married, but they were legally bound. When the virgin Mary became pregnant with the Lord Jesus, Joseph, Matthew tells us, decided to divorce her quietly so as not to disgrace her publicly. How could Joseph divorce her when they had not yet married? Because they were betrothed, legally bound. The breaking of the betrothal was a divorce. We are betrothed to Christ, so when we become involved with any other god, whether it be an actual god such as a demon or an idol, or with things of this world that we actually worship, even though we would never admit it, we are committing spiritual adultery against our Betrothed. In James 4.4, the apostle calls Christians who want to be friends with the world adulteresses, a female term. Why would he call both men and women adulteresses? Because as they relate to Christ, they are the female, the bride-to-be. It is a serious matter for a Christian to become involved with any other than her true Lord. It is adultery, spiritual adultery.

            Of course, the great climactic pictures of marriage occur in Rev. 19 and 21 where we see the church as the bride of Christ. Marriage is a picture of the nature of God, for he is not alone, but is a Trinity in eternal relationship within himself. And Eph. 5.32 tells us that marriage is intended by God to be a picture of Christ and the church. Thus marriage is one of his great symbols in the Bible and is not to be taken lightly. That is a primary reason why marriage and the family are under such vicious satanic assault in our day, as they were in Pergamum. Whether it be spiritual adultery against our heavenly Bridegroom or physical adultery against our wives, idolatry or immorality, it is a grave offense and is held against us by the one walking among the lampstands.

¹⁵Thus you have also those holding the teaching of the Nicolaitans in the same way.

            In Rev. 2.6, we saw that the church in Ephesus hated the works of the Nicolaitans. Now we encounter the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Whatever these practices were, they have now been elevated by some from the status of just something that some do, to accepted Christian doctrine. Some are not just doing these things, but teaching them as what Christians ought to do. Thus we see not only wrong practice, but theological error, creeping into the church in the teaching of Balaam and the teaching of the Nicolaitans. It is common practice for sinful man to want to justify himself rather than repenting and accepting God’s justification of him through Christ (see Luke 10.29), and one of the best ways to do so is to have one’s practices accepted as right and enshrined as Christian doctrine. But the Lord includes this teaching in his criticism of this church for having some who hold the teaching of Balaam.

¹⁶Repent therefore. Otherwise I come to you quickly and I will make war with them with the sword of my mouth. 

            To some of the churches the Lord gives a warning, and such is the case with the church in Pergamum. After the exhortation to repent, he says that he will come shortly and make war with them with the sword of his mouth. We saw in v. 12 that the Lord’s description of himself in the case of the church in Pergamum was “the one having the sharp two-edged sword,” and noted that we would consider its meaning after we had seen what else the Lord had to say to this church. Then we saw that the great problem in Pergamum was spiritual adultery, with physical adultery resulting from it. That is, the issue in Pergamum between the Lord and the church was marriage, primarily the spiritual marriage between the Lord and his church. The church was committing adultery against her Betrothed by becoming involved with other gods. She was entering into an adulterous relationship. Now the Lord says that he will make war with them with the sword of his mouth. What does he mean by this statement?

            He means that he will come and cut apart the illicit relationship, destroying it. At many of our wedding ceremonies we say that what God has joined together, man should not put asunder. Here in Revelation, we learn that what man has joined together, God will put asunder. He will not forever tolerate the spiritual adultery of his people, but will deal with it harshly if they do not repent.

¹⁷Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

            The Lord repeats the statement that he makes in every letter, calling for those with spiritual hearing to understand what he is saying.

To the one who overcomes I will give to him the hidden manna and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except the one who receives.”’

            Then he concludes with the statement to the overcomers that also occurs in every letter. Even in the midst of this situation of terrible failure, of adultery against the Lord, there are those who overcome, who hold fast his name (that is, honor the name of the Lord, the heavenly Bridegroom, and thus the new name of the bride on her marriage), who do not deny his faith, who do not hold the teaching of Balaam or the Nicolaitans. These will receive of the hidden manna, and a white stone, and a new name written on it. What is the meaning of these rewards?

            We have already noted Jer. 2.2 in connection with the letter to the church in Ephesus, and again in considering v. 14 in this letter. In Ephesus, the issue was the devotion of the new bride-to-be to her Betrothed, and God said he remembered that devotion of Israel that had then turned adulterous. But in Pergamum, the issue is not motivation, devotion, but practice. The issue is faithfulness to the marriage. Ephesus was not unfaithful to the Lord, but the first love had gone. Pergamum is unfaithful. Yet there are overcomers who are faithful, and thus will receive of the hidden manna. Jer. 2.2 also says that Israel followed after God in the wilderness, through a land not sown. That is, there was no food supply in the wilderness, it being desert, unsown land, but Israel was so devoted to God that she trusted him to provide for her even in such a place, and provide he did, with miraculous manna. So it is with Christ and the church. Eph. 5.29 says that Christ nourishes the church. Provision for his wife is the first duty of a husband. Christ fulfills that duty for the church. He is the bread of life. Even in the wasteland of adulterous Pergamum, he is able to provide manna for his own, and that will always be the case. Those who are faithful to the Lord now, trusting him for provision, can trust him forever. He will provide eternally.

            He will also give to the overcomer a white stone. There is much debate about the meaning of this symbol. It seems to me that the answer is to be found in the common biblical practice of casting lots. Decisions were often made by that method, sometimes under the direction of God. One way of casting lots was for stones to be placed in a box, all of which were black, except for one, which was white. The one who drew the white stone was chosen by lot. In saying that he will give to the overcomer, the one who is faithful to betrothal to the Lord, a white stone, the Lord is saying that he will choose that one to be a part of his bride, to be his wife. And remember that the lot is not chance, but is controlled by God. It is not the lucky one who gets to help make up the bride, but the one the Lord chooses, the one to whom he gives the white stone. Of course, all the overcomers will receive a white stone. This also implies that there will be Christians who do not receive a white stone.

            On this stone is written a new name, which no one knows but the one who receives it. There are probably two meanings to this reward. One is that the Lord sees great potential in the one faithful to him. That potential is realizable only in the Lord. Peter is perhaps the best example. He was Simon, a man with a common Jewish name. He was anything but a rock, an impulsive man who would blurt out any rash statement, then go back on his word when difficulty came. But the Lord Jesus saw in him Peter, a rock, and gave him that name. He saw that in Christ, the Rock, Peter would become a rock. (See 1 Peter 2.4-5 in this connection). Just so the Lord sees in his bride all that she can be in him. He gives her a new name that expresses that potential, and, as with many secrets between lovers, no one else knows this pet name.

            The greater meaning of this giving of a new name is that just as when a woman marries she gets a new name, the name of her husband, so the bride of Christ will take his name on marriage to him, and Rev. 19.12 tells us that he has a name written that no one knows except himself. He will share that secret name with the one who will know all his secrets, his lover, his bride.

            Everything in Pergamum has to do with marriage. That is the issue in this church. The word “Pergamum” means “much marriage.” There was much marriage in Pergamum, and it was largely adulterous, but to those faithful to their Betrothed, there was the promise of a coming marriage to him. May the day of that marriage hasten! Come, Lord Jesus!

The Letter to the Church in Thyatira

¹⁸”And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, ‘These things says the Son of God, the one having his eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like bronze.

            As with the other letters, this one begins with a word about the Lord that applies to the conditions of this church. As with them, we will see this relevance after we have examined those conditions.

¹⁹I know your works and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and your last works are greater than the first.

            There is commendation for this church. It does works of God, and it has love, faith, service, and perseverance. Indeed, its works have increased, being greater at the time of the revelation to John than at the first. The Lord finds good in this church, and gives praise for it.

²⁰But I have against you that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives my slaves to commit immorality and to eat meat offered to idols. ²¹And I gave her time that she might repent, and she did not want to repent of her immorality.

            But there is also much to criticize. There is a woman in this church, called Jezebel by the Lord because of her great evil, who calls herself a prophetess, but who demonstrates that she is not a prophetess of the Lord by what she teaches: to commit immorality and to eat meat offered to idols. This is the teaching of Balaam of Rev. 2.14, but there is a difference from the church in Pergamum, and it is the difference that shows the issue between the Lord and the church at Thyatira. Here in Thyatira, it is a woman who is doing this teaching. In 1 Tim. 2.12 we read, “But I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man….” We find that in Thyatira a woman has taken the place of authority in direct opposition to the stated intent of God. The issue in Thyatira is authority. When the wrong person is in authority, whether it is a man or a woman, there is difficulty. The Old Testament abounds with examples. To cite just two, without going into detail, let us mention Saul after he had been rejected by the Lord. David was the one chosen by God, and even though it was not yet God’s time for Saul to be removed and David to take the throne, nonetheless the wrong man was in authority and Israel experienced great difficulty. Let us also refer to David’s son Adonijah who tried to take the kingship when David was about to die. Solomon was the one whom God had chosen, not Adonijah. When Solomon did indeed come to the throne, Israel experienced her golden age. The right man was in authority.

            The Lord says that the wrong person is in authority in Thyatira, and that this person is giving false teaching that is leading his people astray. He adds that he gave her time to repent, but that she did not want to repent.

²²Look, I am throwing her into a bed and those committing adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works. ²³And her children I will kill by death. And all the churches will know that I am the one who searches kidneys and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works.

            Next comes the Lord’s word of warning. Ironically, the Lord says that he is throwing Jezebel into a bed, lately the place of her immorality, but under the Lord’s judgment, a sickbed. We reap what we sow. Then the Lord says that he will throw those committing adultery with her into great tribulation. This great tribulation would appear to be the Great Tribulation, for it is in keeping with the purpose of Revelation to warn the church to be ready to escape the Great Tribulation, and it is further reinforced by what follows. The Lord says that he will kill her children, that is, those who follow her teachings, “by death.” This phrase is identical with that used in Rev. 6.7-8, the breaking of the fourth seal just as the Great Tribulation is about to begin. When the fourth seal was broken, death rode forth, with Hades following him. They were given authority to kill with sword and famine and death. Why would the Lord threaten to kill by death? Is not all killing “by death”? It seems that this death is not just any death, but specially that of the Great Tribulation, judgment poured out by God on the unrepentant.

            The result of this judgment will be that all will know that the Lord “searches the kidneys and hearts.” We have translated literally to show the Greek expression. The people of that day, not having the modern scientific understanding of the body, thought of some of the internal organs as the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and purposes. (And how much do we really know about the interrelations of our physical brains and the glands, with their chemical secretions, with our psychological makeup, not to mention our spirits?) Just as we saw in John’s vision of the Lord in 1.14 as having eyes like a flame of fire, and in the letter to the church in Ephesus where he sees not just the outward activity, but the motivation, so here we see the Lord looking deep within, seeing not just the outward, and not even just the internal organs, but seeing the very thoughts and motives. The one who so sees will give to each according to his works, but not just his works as an outward thing, but his works as evidence of what is within.

            This message is for the church. Paul tells Christians in 2 Cor. 5.10 that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive reward or loss for the works done in our bodies (see also Rom. 14.10). That is also the message of Revelation, except that Revelation is written against the impending end, with its devastating persecutions by Satan and its fiery judgments from God. What a crossfire the world will be caught in! Do not run the risk of being left here for that terrible time, but take to heart the message of Revelation and be prepared for the rapture of the overcomers before the Great Tribulation, should we still be alive when that time comes. Even if we die before that time, we need to be prepared to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Our salvation will depend wholly on our faith in Christ and the efficacy of his blood, but our reward will depend on our works. And for those living when the events of Revelation begin to unfold, escape from or going through the Great Tribulation hangs in the balance.

²⁴But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not have this teaching, who did not know the deep things of Satan, as they say, I do not put on you any other burden. ²⁵Nevertheless, what you have, hold till I come.

            The Lord gives a final word of commendation and encouragement to those in Thyatira who do not follow the teachings of the Jezebel, and who do not know the deep things of Satan, a chilling thought. He will not ask anything more of them, for they have been faithful in a very difficult place, yet he does exhort them once more to hold what they have till he comes (see also Rev. 3.11). His reward is theirs if they do so, and it is worth any cost.

            We saw at the beginning of this letter that the Lord is called “the Son of God, the one having his eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like bronze,” and noted that we would return to these descriptions to see how they applied to Thyatira. The issue in Thyatira is authority. There was improper authority, and thus deviation from the truth and the threat of judgment from God. What had to be done was the restoration of proper authority. The Lord Jesus is the Son of God, the Son who, because he humbled himself, has been exalted by God to the throne of the universe forever. He himself said in Matt. 28.18 that all authority had been given to him in Heaven and on earth. He is the ultimate authority. In the end, it was his authority that was being disobeyed in Thyatira. Whomever God had chosen among men to be in leadership in Thyatira, it was the authority of the Lord Jesus that mattered, and the resistance to the proper human authority was in reality resistance to the authority of the Son of God.

            This Son of God has eyes like a flame of fire, those penetrating eyes that look right through all outward pretense and see the kidneys and hearts, indeed, even the invisible thoughts and motives. Jezebel made a show of being a prophetess, but the eyes like a flame of fire saw her heart, and they saw the hearts of her followers. Outward titles mean nothing to him.

            His feet of bronze speak of judgment, as we saw that bronze is a symbol of judgment. He will judge accurately based on what his eyes like a flame of fire see, and judge he surely will. He is walking among the churches in judgment, and he sees much deserving of judgment in Thyatira. Yet he also sees those who have not followed the false authority and teaching, and judges them not guilty. They will be rewarded if they continue so to the end.

²⁶And the one who overcomes and who keeps my works till the end, I will give to him authority over the nations, ²⁷and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron as the vessels made of clay are shattered” [Ps. 2.8-9]. ²⁸As I also have received from my Father, I will also give to him the morning star.

            It is fitting that the overcomers in this situation of failure are promised authority. That is the issue in this church. Authority has been usurped, and those who would hold to proper authority are put down. Never mind, says the Lord, overcome in these circumstances and you will have ultimate authority. The humble will inherit the earth. Those who usurp the earth will lose it, and everything. The quotation given in the promise to the overcomer, “I will give him authority over the nations, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron as the vessels made of clay are shattered,” is from Ps. 2.8-9. There the words are the promise of God the Father to the Lord Jesus, showing that he has chosen him to be King over his universe forever. Here we learn that the overcomer will reign with Christ.

            Finally, the Lord says that he will give the overcomer the morning star. What is the meaning of this promise? In v. 22, the Lord said that those who followed Jezebel would be thrown into great tribulation, which we take to be the Great Tribulation. The overcomer, however, will receive the morning star. The morning star is that star that appears at the darkest hour of the night, just before dawn, and presages the coming of dawn. The Great Tribulation will be the darkest hour of earth’s history, but it will come just before the dawn when, as Mal. 4.2 puts it, “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.” We believe that passage refers to the visible appearing of the Lord after the Great Tribulation, and could be interpreted, “the Son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.” When the Lord promises the morning star, he is promising that, unlike those who follow the teaching of Jezebel, the overcomer will not go into the Great Tribulation, the darkest hour, but will be raptured before the Great Tribulation. Just as things start to look their worst, he will be caught up to the throne of God, receiving not just a part in the visible return of the Lord, but the morning star, that event before the visible return that forecasts its coming and delivers the overcomer from the Great Tribulation. What a precious promise this is to those who await the Lord.

²⁹Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’

            As with every other letter, the Lord says these same words, exhorting his hearers to hear not just with physical ears, but to understand the spiritual import of what he is saying.

The Letter to the Church in Sardis

3. “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says the one who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars,

            Again we will hold comment on this description of the Lord until we see how he sees this church and how these words about the Lord relate to this church.

“I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, and you are dead. ²Become awake, and strengthen the things that remain that were about to die, for I have not found your works completed before my God.

            The Lord’s words to the church in Sardis begin with criticism, the criticism that the church has a name of being alive, but is dead. That is, the church is full of activity, but there is no spiritual life. It is man’s activity, not God’s will being done. In John 6.63, the Lord Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who makes alive; the flesh profits nothing.” The works being done in Sardis were works of the flesh, not of the Spirit, so were dead and of no profit.

            The Lord adds in the next verse that their works have not been completed. The church started in the right way, but it did not go on to completion. We are reminded of his words in Luke 9.62: “No one having put his hand on a plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God,” and in Heb. 12.15: “… taking care that no one fall short of the grace of God….” The grace of God was available to the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews, and it was available to the church in Sardis. Indeed they had received a measure of grace, for they had begun the Lord’s works, but they were in danger of falling short of the grace of God by not going on with his works to completion. They had put their hand to the plow, but were in danger of looking back. It is not those who only begin with the Lord, but those who go on with him to the end, who are fit for the kingdom of God, and even that is his grace.

            The Lord’s exhortation to this church is to become awake. The Greek for, “Become awake,” is difficult to translate. “Become” is an imperative verb, that is, a command, and shows that the church in Sardis is spiritually asleep, but “awake” is actually a participle, “being awake,” stressing the active side of wakefulness, not just not being asleep, but actively being alert and watchful. The Lord is commanding the church in Sardis to wake up and become active in watching. “Become being awake” is not good English, so we settle for “Become awake,” not such good English either, but acceptable and expressive of the Greek.

            When the church becomes awake, it is to strengthen the things that remain. This statement continues the exhortation by showing that there is still something left of the Lord’s works that were begun. They were about to die, but they can still be revived if the church will wake up and seek the Lord’s life and will in their works.

³Remember therefore how you have received and heard, and keep, and repent.

            There is further exhortation. The church had at one time received something living from the Lord. They had heard something living and had responded. We quoted John 6.63 above. The same verse also says, “The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and are life.” When the church in Sardis initially heard the word of the Lord, it was life to them and they received it as such. Thus they began in the works of the Lord, but somewhere along the way they had lapsed from the will of God and had fallen into the activity of the flesh. They were carrying on a church program, but God was not in it. They needed to remember what they had heard and received. Then the Lord adds, “… and keep….” That is, they were to keep what they had received and heard, observe it, live by it. They had left the way of life. They needed to go back to it. “… And repent….” When one, or a church, is going in the wrong way, changing the mind and turning and going back in the right way is repentance. Saying one is sorry is one thing, but it is meaningless if one does not repent and actually change direction. We may think repentance is only for the lost. It is not. The Lord’s people should live repentant lives. We are constantly having to deal with the uprisings of our flesh, and thus are in constant need of repentance. If we think we have it made with God, we are in great danger, but if we have a repentant heart, we will find the grace of God keeping us in the way.

If therefore you are not awake, I will come as a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.

            The Lord has criticized and exhorted. Now he threatens. The thief likes to strike in the dark and when people are asleep, at an unexpected hour, so that he will not be detected. That is how the Lord will come upon those who are not ready for his coming. They will be surprised, and it will be too late. The word “upon” is very expressive. The Lord does not come to them, in a good sense, but upon them, for judgment.

⁴But you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.

            We saw in v. 2 that there was still something left for the church to strengthen. That is, the Lord’s words are not all criticism. He does see some life that can be strengthened. That commendation is made more explicit in this verse, where we learn that there are those who have not defiled their garments. Garments and nakedness are symbolic in Scripture. The fact that Adam and Eve knew they were naked after they sinned refers not just to natural physical modesty, but shows that they realized that they were sinners who stood exposed before God the Judge and who had no covering for their sin. (This does not mean that the body is evil, a Greek philosophical idea, not a Scriptural one, but is symbolic.) They tried to cover themselves with leaves, but that was inadequate. God himself clothed them with the skins of animals, showing that when there is sin, death must occur to cover that sin, and prophesying the ultimate coming of the Lord Jesus to die a death that would not just cover sin for a time, but that would effectively deal with it, taking it away. That is one reason the New Testament says that we are to put on Christ, to be clothed with him. If we stand before God naked, that is, in our own merits, clothes of no value, we will be judged and found guilty, but if we stand before God in Christ, he will see us in him, him in whom there is no sin, and he will acquit us.

            In addition, there is the matter of wedding garments. In Matt. 22.1-14, we learn that the kingdom of the heavens is like a king giving a wedding feast for his son. There was one at the feast who did not have a wedding garment, so he was thrown out. This man was not a lost man. He was invited to the feast and had made it into the banquet hall. No lost man will do that. He was a Christian who did not have a wedding garment. What does that mean? Rev. 19.8 tells us that the wedding garment is the righteous deeds of the saints. The Bible is quite clear that there are rewards for Christians. All will be saved, but not all will be rewarded in the same way. When the Lord returns to claim his bride, there will be a wedding feast. Not all Christians will help make up the bride, but those who have woven themselves a wedding garment throughout their lives by their righteous deeds. Salvation is God’s free gift. Attendance at the wedding feast is a reward for a life of righteous deeds, and not just good works, but the will of God (see Matt. 7.21-23 and Heb. 6.1 and 9.14). The church in Sardis was not weaving a wedding garment, but there were some in the church who were. They had not defiled their garments, their having been clothed with Christ, by a spiritually adulterous relationship with other gods or with the world, which in effect is another god. They would walk with the Lord in white. That is, at the marriage supper of the Lamb of Rev. 19.7-9, they would wear the white linen wedding garments they had spent their lives weaving. There are Christians who are not attending to this matter of weaving a wedding garment, and they, like the one in the parable who was thrown out, will not be a part of the marriage supper of the Lamb, and they will be outside, weeping and gnashing their teeth because they will know too late what they have missed.

            As we think through all that we have seen of Sardis, what do we see as the issue in this church? The issue is life. Sardis was full of works, of activity, but those works did not have the life of God in them because they were not the works that God wanted them to do. It was what seemed good to them. It was the works of the flesh, the dead works of Hebrews. And what works of God there were, being left uncompleted. The church fell asleep on the job spiritually and did not finish what it started. So we see how vital it is that we do not just good works, but the will of God, and that we go on to the end with the Lord.

            This matter of life is one of the most vital in the Bible. There are two kinds of life, uncreated and created. God’s life is uncreated. He is self-existent and has always existed. Furthermore, God is the only one who can create life. All life originated with God. Man, animals, plants can reproduce, but they are only passing on the life that is already in them, not creating new life, and that life that they are passing on ultimately originated with God. Even though in the end Satan will bring Antichrist back from the dead, as we will see later in our study of Revelation, he will not actually be creating life, but will simply be restoring life that is being held in Hades at that time to a human body.

            Actually, uncreated life takes two forms. First, it is the original life of God (if we may say “original,” for God had no origin). It is also resurrection life, life back from the dead, but not just physical life back from the dead, as in the case of Antichrist, but a new kind of life, life in a spiritual body that is no longer subject to disease, death, and decay. This is the life that Jesus the Man has now, for he is alive from the dead. But this life is actually the uncreated life of God imparted to a man, thus not only restoring his body to physical life, but also transforming it into a spiritual body. In addition to Jesus the Man having this life now, so do all who are born again, for new birth is nothing other than the life of God, in the form of the Spirit of God, coming into the dead spirit of a lost human and making that spirit alive toward God. We do not have uncreated resurrection life on our own, but because Christ dwells in us by his Spirit.

            Since only God is life and can create life, life becomes the great test of everything that claims to be religious or spiritual or specifically Christian. Is it alive with the life of God, or is it only dead works, the activity of the flesh? Every born-again person knows something of life, for he has received the life of God, but the question then is as to whether or not he goes on in life or lapses into the works of the flesh. It is possible for a Christian to try to serve God in the flesh, either just doing what seems good to him without reference to the will of God, or trying to do what he believes is the will of God, and may be, but in his own strength. Having begun in the Spirit, he tries to go on in the flesh (Gal. 3.3). It is also possible for a Christian to stop trying to serve God and go back to his fleshly life. The life of God is in him, but he does not nourish it and seek its enlargement.

            Once we are born again, it is one of God’s primary purposes in our lives to deal with the flesh, causing it to decrease and his life in us to increase. This is the explanation of our sufferings and trials. God is using them as the cross to put to death the flesh. If we would yield to him in those times of trial, not just asking him to deliver us from the trial, and perhaps becoming upset with him if he does not, but asking him to bring us through the trial into what he has for us in it, we would find the flesh gradually decreasing and our capacity for the life of God increasing.

            Perhaps the greatest biblical statement of this principle is in John 12.24, where the Lord, speaking first of himself but ultimately of all, said: “Unless a grain of wheat, falling into the ground, die, it remains alone, but if it die, it bears much fruit.” The Lord Jesus was the first grain of wheat, but he was only one man. Because he fell into the ground and died by giving his life on the cross, he came into resurrection life that has since been imparted to all who have had faith in him, and thus he is no longer alone. It is the same with us. Like a seed, we have life in us, the life of God, but that life is encased in a husk of flesh. So long as the husk remains intact, the life is trapped inside and we remain alone. But if we allow God to put the husk to death through the trials of our lives, we find that the life escapes and is able to be used by God to reach others for him and to bring us into fellowship with others in a way we had not known before.

            The point is, life is the test of everything. Can a thing survive death? Only the life of God can. All else will ultimately disappear from the scene, but the life of God will go on forever, in himself and in his people. That was the test for the church in Sardis. They were a very active church, but the activity did not have the life of God in it. The issue was life, and they were failing on that issue. Thus the Lord’s exhortation and warning to them.

            How does the description of the Lord in v. 1 relate to this issue of life in the church in Sardis? First, he is the one who has the seven Spirits of God, that is, the one Holy Spirit seen in his diversity and completeness. We saw in John 6.63 that it is the Spirit who gives life, while the flesh is of no profit. That Spirit was just what was needed in Sardis, the Spirit giving life to their works by leading them in the right works and lending his life to them. It is the Lord of the church, Jesus Christ, who has and can impart this Holy Spirit. If the church will repent and call on him, they will find the Spirit abundantly supplied.

            The Lord also has the seven stars. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches (1.20). We saw earlier that it is not entirely clear who these angels are, but the statement here that the Lord has them shows that he is the Judge who has control over these angels, and thus over the churches also. He is able to impart the Spirit, greater life, if the church will repent, but he is also able to impose judgment if it will not.

⁵The one who overcomes will be clothed in white garments, and I will not wipe away his name from the scroll of life, and I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.

            We saw that the issue in Sardis is life, with the church doing the dead works of the flesh instead of the living works of the Spirit. The overcomer in this situation of failure is the one who does the living works, led by the Spirit of God. He is characterized by life that is beyond himself. In addition, he does not defile his garments. He is faithful to his heavenly Bridegroom. Thus he will be clothed in white garments, the wedding garment of Rev. 19.7-9. He will have the great blessing of helping to make up the corporate bride of Christ when he comes to claim her. Furthermore, the Lord will not wipe away his name from the scroll of life (Ex. 32.32-33, Ps. 69.28, Dan. 12.1, Phil. 4.3), but will confess his name before the Father and his angels. This statement is difficult to interpret, for the general belief among Christians is that once someone is genuinely saved, his name would never be wiped away from the scroll of life, yet there is the implication in this word of the Lord that perhaps someone’s name could be wiped away.

            Perhaps the best way to understand this thought is that since a tree is known by its fruit, that is, we are known by our works, one should see to it that his works are the Lord’s so that he will not give Satan ground for accusing him and questioning his salvation, and thus possibly even raising doubts in his own mind about his standing with the Lord. If a Christian allows the life of God in him to grow so weak that he has trouble detecting it within himself, he is opening himself to the questionings of Satan. We are living in an evil day and we need all the spiritual strength and assurance we can get, so we do not need to bring on ourselves the added burden of wondering where we stand with God. We can deal with that issue by making certain that we have trusted in Christ to be our Savior, making him Lord, and then being very careful to seek the leadership of his Spirit in our works, not assuming that because we have good intentions or are doing good works that we are doing the works of God. Our works must be alive with the Spirit.

            In addition to this thought, we might add that while Scripture generally supports the idea that once a person is saved he will never be lost, there are enough passages that hint otherwise that a Christian cannot assume that he can do just anything he pleases because he is saved and will go to Heaven. One of the dangers of the teaching of eternal security is that some will take it that it does not matter how they live. It does matter, and matter greatly, as we saw in our introduction to Revelation. It is very dangerous to presume on the grace of God. We never stand on our own, and we cannot assume that the Lord will always bail us out no matter how we treat him. If we insist long enough on going our own way, he might just let us go. How careful we need to be with the life of God in us. It is our greatest treasure.

⁶Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’

            Sardis, like every other church, hears this challenge from the Lord to hear what the Lord is saying spiritually.

The Letter to the Church in Philadelphia

⁷”And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, ‘These things says the holy, the true, the one who has the key of David, the one who opens and no one will close, and closes and no one opens [Is. 22.22].

            The Lord refers to a passage in Isaiah for the description of himself that applies to the church in Philadelphia. Once more we will defer comment until the appropriate time.

⁸“I know your works. Look, I have given before you an opened door which no one is able to close, for you have little power, yet kept my word and did not deny my name.

            As with the church in Smyrna, the Lord has no criticism for the church in Philadelphia. He has only commendation, but actually he says very little even in that regard, but what he says is full of meaning. We saw in the introduction that one of the keys to understanding Revelation is the matter of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. In this verse the Lord tells the Philadelphians that, even though they have little power, they kept his word and did not deny his name. That is, they held to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. This church represents what the one walking among the lampstands and gazing with eyes of fire is looking for. He is looking for faithfulness to the word of God and the testimony, and here he finds it. Thus he says, ‘I know your works. Look, I have given before you an opened door which no one is able to close….’ He knows their works, that they are the works of faithfulness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. They have held to the truth of God’s word, despite appearances, and they have maintained a faithful testimony to Jesus.

            Because of their faithfulness he has given before them an opened door that no one is able to close, a door opened in two ways. First, this door is an openness for them to do the Lord’s work while they are here. They have maintained his word and testimony even though they have little power. That is, it is not their power, but the power of God, that has opened this door of opportunity to bear witness in an evil day, and that has enabled them to do so. ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts’ (Zech. 4.6). But this door is also the door to the throne of God in Heaven, for, as we will see, this church will not be here for the Great Tribulation, but will be delivered from it by being caught up through this opened door.

⁹Look, I place from the synagogue of Satan those saying themselves to be Jews, and are not, but lie – look, I will make them come and bow before your feet and know that I loved you. ¹⁰Because you have kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing that is about to come upon the whole inhabited earth to test those who dwell on the earth.

            Because he has found this church faithful, the Lord makes two promises to it. First, in v. 9 he says that the Jews who claim to be the people of God and that the Christians are not, will eventually come and bow down before them and know that God loved them. The Lord’s description of these Jews is very harsh – the synagogue of Satan. He used the same term in describing the Jews encountered by the church in Smyrna. These who are supposed to be the people of God, and who think themselves so, are in reality the people of Satan, for they have rejected the God who came to them in the person of Jesus. Now they oppose those who are God’s people, the church. But in the end, they will acknowledge the truth, that these Christians are indeed the people of God.

            This acknowledgment will take place probably after the visible coming of the Lord when he rules the earth and those who overcome rule with him, as he promised in Rev. 2.26-27. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Is. 45.23, Phil. 2.10-11). This synagogue of Satan will also bow before the church of Philadelphia and acknowledge that they are indeed the people who have been loved by God.

            The second promise is in v. 10. We said in the introduction that this verse is perhaps the key to the book of Revelation. The message of Revelation is for the church. It is that there is coming a Great Tribulation on the world, a time of judgment from above and persecution from below, but that God’s people who are living at that time can escape it if they are ready. It is also possible for Christians not to be ready and to go through the Great Tribulation. The church in Philadelphia was made up of Christians who were ready because they had maintained the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, and thus the Lord promises them that they will be delivered from that terrible hour of trial. They are the overcomers who will be raptured to the throne of God before the Great Tribulation. The message of Revelation is for all who name the name of Jesus to be Philadelphian Christians. What a blessed group this is, these who, having little power, have drawn on the almighty power of God to maintain a testimony in a dark, evil, persecuting world. They are the recipients of God’s great promise, rapture to his throne.

            Lk. 21.36 is a corroboration of Rev. 3.10. There, in Luke’s prophetic chapter, the Lord Jesus tells his disciples to be always alert, praying that they may have strength to escape these things that are about to fall on the world, the Great Tribulation, and to stand before the Son of Man.

¹¹I am coming quickly. Hold fast what you have, so that no one take your wreath.

            Then the Lord gives a word of encouragement and a word of exhortation. He encourages by saying that however long the time of his coming may be, when he does come it will be quickly, like a flash of lightning (Mt. 24.27). His people do not have to endure for long. What seems a long time to us is the blink of an eye to God, and will be to us, too, when we are with him. He exhorts by saying that while they do have to endure, they should hold what they have. They have his life, his power, his promises. If they will hold fast, no one will take their wreath, that symbol of victory, but they will receive it from his hand.

            How does the Lord’s description of himself in v. 7 apply to these words about the church in Philadelphia? In Is. 22.22 we read that the Lord prophesied that he would remove the unfaithful steward over David’s house, Shebna, and replace him with Eliakim. To Eliakim would be given the symbol of the king’s authority, the key of David. With it, he could open in the name of the king and no one could close, and he could close in the name of the king and no one could open. Why was Eliakim given this key, this symbol of authority? It was because Eliakim was a faithful steward. He was worthy of the position and would not abuse its authority. It is the same with the Lord Jesus. In Heb. 3.1-6 we read that he was faithful in all God’s house, not only like Moses, and also Eliakim, who were servants, but as a Son. Because the Lord Jesus was so faithful, or, as Rev. 3.7 puts it, holy and true, he has been given authority by God the Father over all his house. He has been given the key of David, the symbol of royal authority. Of course, in the case of the Lord, he is not only the one who acts as a steward, but he is also the King. With this authority, he opens and no one will close, and he closes and no one opens.

            We noted above, in dealing with v. 8, that the door which the Lord opens for the church in Philadelphia is the door of escape from the Great Tribulation and to the throne of God, and no one will be able to close this door to them. It will also be closed behind them and no one will be able to open it again until the Lord is ready at his second appearing. The significance of the Lord’s description of himself is that because he is a faithful steward, holy and true, he has authority to open this door for those who, like him, are faithful, holding to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. The church in Philadelphia is the church of the overcomers, and their reward will be rapture before the Great Tribulation and presence with the Lord at his throne.

¹²The one who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the Sanctuary of my God and he will go out no longer, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down out of Heaven from my God, and my new name.

            The one who overcomes is the one who meets the description of this letter: though he has little power, he keeps the word of the Lord and does not deny his name, and he holds what he has. His reward is twofold in this letter. First, he will be made a pillar in the Sanctuary of God and will go out no longer. What does it mean to be a pillar in the Sanctuary of God? The overcomer has little power in himself, but a pillar has much power and is able to bear much weight, and thus is symbolic of power. The one who is faithful while having little power will become a symbol of great power. In 1 Kings 7.21 we read in the description of Solomon’s building of the Temple that he set up two pillars at the entrance, and he named them Jachin and Boaz. Jachin means “he will establish” and Boaz means “in it is strength.” Just as God established his house and put in it symbols of his almightiness, so he will establish the overcomer and put his might in him. It is of no little interest, too, that the name Eliakim from Is. 22 means “God will establish.” Faithfulness to God and his word and testimony in time of little power will lead to being established in great power in his house. And let me say that this power is not so that we can get whatever we want for ourselves, but so that we can carry out God’s will for us in his kingdom. We will not be tempted by the selfishness of the flesh in his kingdom.

            In addition, the overcomer will no longer go out. That is, he will always know the presence of God. It is not that he is confined somewhere. There are people who are in a good place, but they cannot leave, even if they want to. That is not a good thing, but imprisonment, despite the good surroundings. The Temple of God is simply God’s dwelling-place, and his dwelling-place is not a building made with hands, but his people. The one who has been faithful to God when it seemed that God was nowhere to be found will find that God was with him all along, and was indeed the reason he was able to be faithful, and will also come into an experience of his presence that will not end.

            The second promise to the overcomer is that he will have written on him the name of God and the name of the city of God, the new Jerusalem that will come down from Heaven, and the new name of the Lord Jesus. To write one’s name on something is to identify it as one’s own. Those of the synagogue of Satan in v. 9 said that God did not love those in the church in Philadelphia. God’s answer to that will be that he will claim these faithful ones as his own by writing his name on them.

            Further, the name of the city of God, the new Jerusalem that comes down out of Heaven from God, will be written on these people of God. The significance of this city is seen in two places. The first is in Ps. 87. There we see that the Lord loves Jerusalem more than all the other cities of the earth, indeed, more than all the other dwelling-places in Israel. His love for Jerusalem is such that he takes special note of those born in her. We might say that they are his favorites. He will say, “This one and that one were born in her.” Lest those of us born elsewhere in this world feel left out, that is just the point. We are not left out. We are born again, and our new birth is in the new Jerusalem. As Paul puts it in Gal. 4.26, the Jerusalem above is our mother. The one who overcomes will know the great joy of the Lord’s special love for those born in the city of his heart. I was born in Hendersonville, NC in this world. I was born again in the new Jerusalem!

            The second passage where we see the significance of the new Jerusalem is Rev. 21.2, 9, and 10: she is a bride. The overcomer will help to make up the bride of Christ and will be with him at his marriage supper in Rev. 19. He will have written on him the name of the one whom Christ will come for as his bride, the one for whom he died and for whom he always lives to make intercession and for whom he will return. What greater blessedness could we know than to be claimed by Christ as his bride?

            And that is the significance of the Lord’s promise that the overcomer will have written on him his new name. What happens when a bride marries? She takes the name of her husband. She receives a new name. That is a part of her joy: she bears the name of the one she loves, the one who also loves her. In Rev. 19.12 we read that at his return the Lord will have written on him a name which no one knows except himself. We know the Lord by many names that are given in Scripture, all of them revealing some aspect of his character, but he has a new name that no one knows except himself, some wonderful name that will reveal something about him that surpasses our wildest imaginations. No one knows that name except himself, but the overcomer has the promise that he will know the joy of the bride in discovering the most intimate secrets of her beloved. He will reveal that new name to his bride, and he will write it on her, claiming her as his own for all eternity. O dear Lord, may that day hasten!

¹³Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’

            Once more we hear the Lord’s challenge and warning. It is not enough just to hear his words with the physical ear. If one is to be in the church in Philadelphia, he must have his spiritual ears open and alert. The Spirit is warning the churches: Be ready. He is making wonderful promises to the churches, but the opposites of these promises are also true. How vital it is that we understand what the Spirit is saying. Lord, open our ears!

The Letter to the Church in Laodicea

¹⁴”And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write, ‘These things says the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

            As with all the letters, we have the Lord’s words about himself that relate to the condition of this church, the significance of which we will again hold.

¹⁵“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot. ¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷Because you say, ‘I am rich and have become rich and I have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked,

            The Lord’s words to the church in Laodicea begin with criticism. Every other church received some commendation, or at least the hint that there was something that could be salvaged, but there is no commendation for this church. All is criticism, threat, and warning. This is a church near to being vomited out of the mouth of God. The Lord’s problem with the church in Laodicea is that it was neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm. They were just going through the motions with no zeal.

            We may take cold as bad and hot as good, or we may take both as good in their place. There are times when cold is good, and there are times when hot is good. It depends on the circumstances. Whichever way we take the metaphor here, the point is that lukewarmness is sickening to the Lord. He wants a hot drink or a cold drink, not a tepid one. He makes the threat that he is about to vomit this church out of his mouth.

            What is the source of the lukewarmness in Laodicea? This church says that it is wealthy and has become wealthy and has need of nothing. In all likelihood, this was a church which had material wealth, and because of that material wealth it had no sense of need. Some take the wealth meant here to be spiritual, and perhaps this church did feel that it was spiritually wealthy, but if so, it was probably because it was materially comfortable. It was one of the misconceptions of some of the Jews that material wealth was a sign of God’s blessing, and poverty, a sign of his judgment. Job and his friends are the best example. His friends said that Job must have sinned since he had lost his wealth, implying that while he kept his wealth, he was not guilty of sin. God had blessed him with wealth while he was righteous, but when he sinned, he lost his wealth.

            The disciples of the Lord Jesus showed this same thinking in Mark 10.17-31, the story of the rich young ruler. When the Lord said that it was nearly impossible for a rich man to be saved, the disciples asked, “And who can be saved?” Why would they ask such a question? Because they believed that the rich man must be pleasing to God because he was obviously being blessed by him. If he could not be saved, who could! The Lord made it plain that material wealth is no sign of acceptance by God, nor is lack of it a sign of rejection by him. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. God has his own reasons for blessing a man with wealth, or for not doing so.

            It is one of the great warnings of the Bible that material wealth is dangerous. Moses said to Israel in his farewell sermon in Deut. 8.11-18,

Beware that you not forget I AM your God in not keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes which I command you this day; ¹² that when you have eaten and are full, and have built good houses and dwelt in them, ¹³ and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then your heart not be lifted up, and you forget I AM your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves, ¹⁵ who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where was no water; who brought you water out of the rock of flint; ¹⁶ who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and that he might prove you to do you good at your end; ¹⁷and  that you not say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth.” ¹⁸ But you shall remember I AM your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers, as at this day.

This Old Testament passage is virtually a description of the church in Laodicea. They had become wealthy and had forgotten God, perhaps not in word, but certainly in their works.

            The New Testament also contains several warnings against desiring to be rich. We will cite only two passages, both in 1 Tim. In 1 Tim. 6.9-10 Paul wrote,

But those wanting to become wealthy fall into temptation and snares and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all the evils, longing for which some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves through with many pains.

He added in 1 Tim. 6.17, “Command those wealthy in the present age not to be proud or to hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who gives us all things richly for enjoyment….” So dangerous is wealth that the Bible is full of warnings not to desire it and to be careful with it if one has it.

            These passages show us so much of what was wrong in Laodicea. The church had become prosperous, and had done just what the Bible warns against, becoming proud, forgetting God, trusting in material wealth.

            Another way of putting the condition of the Laodicean church is found in Amos 6.1: they were at ease in Zion. Because this church was materially well-off and aware of no need that was not being met by its wealth, it was at ease. It was lukewarm.

            What was the true condition of the church in Laodicea? It was “wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.” The Lord moves from the church’s thoughts about itself because of its material condition to its spiritual condition. “Wretched” refers particularly to the suffering of hardship. “Pitiable” obviously means that, though this church was wealthy in this world, it was to be pitied because it was wretched, poor, blind, and naked. It was suffering hardship spiritually and did not even know it, so insensitive had their spiritual senses become. It was poor in the things of God. It was blind to spiritual truth and reality and its own condition. It was naked before God.

            Clothing is a very interesting symbol in the Bible, as noted above on Rev. 3.4. It goes all the way back to Gen. 3, when Adam and Eve sinned, realized they were naked, and tried to cover themselves with leaves. It was not just that Adam and Eve realized that they were physically naked, but they realized that they were naked before God and they were trying to hide from him. Adam said, when he heard the sound of God in the garden, “… I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” The clothing of leaves was not sufficient to cover Adam and Eve before God. He covered them with garments of skin, thereby showing that the shedding of blood was necessary for sin to be covered, and also prophesying the ultimate coming of one who would shed his blood for the sins of the world. Thus we see that nakedness is a symbol of the sinful condition. Heb. 4.13 says, “And no creature is hidden before him, but all things are naked and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” The New Testament’s remedy for this situation is to be clothed with Christ and his righteousness. Rom. 13.14, Gal. 3.27, Eph. 4.24, and Col. 3.10 all tell us to put on Christ. And we have already seen how important the wedding garment is in Revelation. The overcomers in Sardis (and all overcomers) will be clothed in white garments. Rev. 19.7-8 tells us that the white wedding garment of the bride is the righteous deeds of the saints. We are clothed with Christ for salvation. We are clothed with the garment of our works for our marriage to the Lamb. But the church in Laodicea was naked.

¹⁸I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire that you may become rich, and white garments that you may be clothed and the shame of your nakedness not be revealed, and eye salve to rub on your eyes that you may see.

            The Lord now moves from criticism of the church to direction as to what to do. It is interesting that he tells the church to buy from him. We are accustomed to thinking that the Lord’s provisions are all free. It is true that new birth is free. Christ did all the work necessary for us to be born again. All we can do is receive this gift by faith, with no works whatsoever on our part. Indeed, that is the only way for us to receive life. No amount of works on our part will ever gain forgiveness and life from God. That is a free gift.

            The Scriptures, though, are quite clear that there are rewards for Christians, and those rewards are based on their works. It is by our works that we buy from God. So that we not take this truth to mean that God is ever in our debt, let us hasten to add that even the fact that we do the Lord’s works is his grace. Even though we work, God owes us nothing. Everything is from his grace, as is shown by the parable of the laborers in Matt. 20.1-16.

            What is the gold that the Lord counsels this church to buy from him, and how does the church buy it? Gold in the Bible symbolizes God himself, his deity and royalty. For the Lord to counsel the church to buy gold is for him to counsel it to seek for the Lord’s deposit of himself in them. This deposit comes about through trust in God, obedience to him, and especially faithfulness in trial. All of us experience trials in life. Everyone suffers. When we yield to God in those sufferings and let him do what he is trying to do through them, we find that he makes a deposit of himself in us. Rom. 8.28 says that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to purpose, and v. 29 says that that purpose is that we be conformed to the image of Christ. We buy gold from God by being faithful to him in all the circumstances of life, not blaming him, questioning him, badgering him to get us out of trouble. The formation of Christ in us is the deposit of gold.

            The Lord also said that the church should buy white garments. This is a clear statement that he wants all of his to be at the wedding supper of the Lamb, but one must have a wedding garment to attend that feast, and we have seen that the wedding garment is the righteous deeds of the saints. The works in Laodicea were neither cold nor hot. They were not the works of God, the righteous deeds of the saints. In order to buy the wedding garment, the church must turn from its lukewarmness and develop a zeal for the will and works of God. The shame of their nakedness before God must be covered by Christ their righteousness and by the wedding garment.

            Finally, the church should buy eye salve to rub on their eyes so that they could see. All through these letters, the Lord has been saying, “Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” The point is that one can hear words with his physical ears and miss the spiritual implications. Spiritual blindness and spiritual deafness are really the same thing, an inability to perceive spiritually. The need for eye salve is the same as the need to have the ears opened. The church in Laodicea needs to have its eyes opened to what is really happening spiritually. Because of their material wealth and comfort, they think everything is right with them. They have need of nothing. They do have need, the need to see that they are “wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.” If they can see their true spiritual condition, perhaps they will repent and turn to the Lord for the meeting of their needs. One of the great needs of all of us is to see ourselves as we are before God.

¹⁹As many as I love I rebuke and discipline. Be zealous therefore and repent.

            The Lord’s words to this church have been very harsh up to this point, but now he makes it known that everything he has said has come from his heart of love. He has not said what he has said to hurt this church. He is not passing final judgment. What he has said has been said because he loves them and wants them to repent and come in to all that he has for them. He wants them to be in full enjoyment of him, spiritually enviable, wealthy, and seeing, and he wants them to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb, clothed in white, ready to be claimed by him as his bride. Oh how he loves this lukewarm church. That is why he disciplines them, not to judge and punish, but to correct. “Whom the Lord loves he disciplines.” His word to them is, “Be zealous therefore and repent.”

            That word brings forth the issue between this church and the Lord. We have seen that in every church except the one in Philadelphia, there is an issue of contention between the church and the Lord. What is the issue in Laodicea? It is interesting that we are usually told that the church in Laodicea is the apostate church of the last days. That may be true, but it is not what is said here in Revelation. This passage says nothing about such a condition. It says that the problem in Laodicea is that the church is lukewarm, and the Lord’s counsel is that they be zealous and repent. We see that the issue in Laodicea is zeal. This church is at ease in Zion, with no zeal for the Lord and his work. Their works are lukewarm.

            Zeal is another biblical concept of interest. In John 2.17 we read the Lord’s reason for his cleansing of the Temple: “The zeal of your house has consumed me.” The Lord Jesus was consumed by zeal for God’s house. Was that zeal for a building in Jerusalem? Not really, but for what it stood for. The building was the dwelling-place of God among his people. Yet we are told in Acts 7.48 that God does not dwell in houses made by hands. He dwells first of all in Heaven, with earth as his footstool (Is. 66.1). But then he dwells among his people in his Son, Emmanuel, God with us. Today Christ is building his church, and he is making it of living stones, with himself as the chief cornerstone (Eph. 2.19-22, 1 Peter 2.4-6). We are the living stones. It is a great desire of God that he have a house to dwell in, a house made up of his people. Zeal for that desire of his Father has consumed the Lord Jesus, and he was willing to do such an audacious deed as to cleanse the Temple in front of the Jewish authorities, with Roman soldiers stationed nearby, because of it.

            In Rom. 10.2, Gal. 1.14, and Phil. 3.6, we are told by Paul that there can be a misguided zeal. Before his conversion, Paul was so zealous for his faith that he persecuted the church, but it was revealed to him that he was zealous for the wrong things. Then he became equally zealous for Christ, so much so that he suffered greatly all through his life and finally died for the Lord. When he came to that point, he realized that the Jews, though zealous, were zealous without knowledge. They, like him, were zealous for the wrong things. But zealous they were. It could not be said that they and Paul were neither cold nor hot. They were zealous. God had something to work with. The church in Laodicea gave little to work with, for they had no zeal.

            In 1 Cor. 12.31, 14.1 and 39, Paul tells the church in Corinth to be zealous for spiritual gifts, especially for prophecy. Spiritual gifts are important in the functioning of the body of Christ, especially prophecy, the ability to hear from the Lord and to declare his word in a living way. But keep in mind that Paul inserted between his remarks on spiritual gifts the chapter that tells us that love is more important. Be zealous for love.

            Titus 2.14 says, “… who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and cleanse for himself a people for possession, zealous for good works.” It is part of the Lord’s purpose and part of the reason that he redeemed us that he have a zealous people. The Lord himself is zealous, and zeal is important to him in his people.

            Zeal is the issue in Laodicea. These people need to repent of their comfort and their pride and become zealous for doing the works of God. This issue brings us to the Lord’s description of himself in v. 14: “the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” How is this description relevant to the church in Laodicea? The Lord is the Amen. The word “amen” means “So be it.” The Lord was a man of zeal, one who was so zealous for the will of God that he said, “So be it,” to that will no matter what the cost. He was willing to die to accomplish the will of God. That is zeal! Because of this zeal, he was the faithful and true Witness, faithful and true, again no matter what the cost. He is the example to the church in Laodicea. If they were zealous for the Lord’s works, they, too, would say, “So be it,” to the will of God, and they, too, would be faithful and true witnesses. The words “witness” and “testimony” are the same at the base. A witness gives testimony. He could be called a testifier. The two words have the same root in Greek. We have emphasized that one of the keys to the book of Revelation is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. The Lord Jesus held to that testimony himself, the faithful and true Witness, even to death, and he calls on his church for the same zeal.

            The Lord Jesus is the beginning of the creation of God. That does not mean that he was the first creature, for he was not created, being himself eternally God. It means that he is the agent of creation, the originator of it. He is the Word of God, and God created by his Word. In the context of the church in Laodicea, it means that he is the one who created the wealth they were proud of and comfortable with.

            This one who is so zealous himself is able to say to this lukewarm church, “Be zealous therefore and repent.”

²⁰Look, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hear my voice and open the door, I will enter in to him and I will dine with him and he with me.

            Now the Lord holds out a word of hope to this church. He is actually standing outside the door of this church and is knocking on the door. Most inside, in their comfort, do not hear him knocking. He says that if anyone does hear and opens the door, he will come in to that one and will dine with him, and that one with the Lord. He does not say that he wmay will not repent, but that each one who does will know the fellowship of the Lord. And that fellowship is pictured by a meal, that prophecy of the marriage supper. Those in Laodicea who do repent and become zealous for the Lord will be at the marriage feast as part of the bride of Christ.

²¹The one who overcomes, I will give to him to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat with my Father on his throne.

            Why would the Lord make this promise to the church in Laodicea? We are told in Phil. 2.5-11:

Have this mind among you which also was in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be held onto, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he lowered himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death of a cross. Therefore also God has highly exalted him and given to him the name which is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly beings and earthly beings and beings under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Because the Lord’s zeal led him to such lengths to obey the will of his Father, he has been exalted to the highest position in the universe. Every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess him as Lord, voluntarily or involuntarily. His zeal took him from Heaven to earth and a cross and a grave, but because of it, he is on the throne of his Father. He promises that those who show the same zeal in doing the works of God will sit with him on his throne. They will know the same reward of zeal as he did. Zeal may be costly, but it is worth it in the end.

²²Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

            The letters to the seven churches close with the same word of exhortation as is heard in every letter. God give us ears not just to hear the physical sound of words being read, but to grasp their spiritual meaning and to call on God for grace to live up to that meaning. What is that meaning?

            We said at the beginning that Revelation is written to the church and is a warning to the church to be ready for the events of the book so as to escape them by way of the rapture of the overcomers before the Great Tribulation. The same truth applies in principle to those Christians who die before the events of the end. They, too, are called on to be overcomers, and they will be judged by the same criteria at the judgment seat of Christ. Now we see in these letters to the seven churches that there is general failure in the church. Five of the seven churches are criticized and warned by the Lord himself. Many Christians are not overcoming as set forth in these letters. There are loss of first love, worldliness, failure to follow the Lord’s order, activity without life, complacency with the comfortable status quo. Into this failure the Lord speaks. He calls for all Christians who will to be overcomers in these churches. Just as Elijah and the seven thousand overcame in the general failure of Israel, so does the Lord call for those who will be fully true to him in the midst of churches that are not fully true to him. Those who do will, if they are alive as the end approaches, know the joy of rapture to be with the Lord before the horrors of the Great Tribulation envelope the world. Those who die in the Lord will know the same reward at the judgment seat of Christ as those who are overcomers at the end. The concept of the overcomers is one of the keys to the book of Revelation. We see this theme played out in the letters to the seven churches. “To the one who overcomes I will give…. Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Amen. So be it.

THE SCENE IN HEAVEN

4.1-5.14

4. “After these things I saw, and look, a door having been opened in Heaven, and the former voice which I heard as a trumpet speaking was with me saying, ‘Come up here, and I will show you the things which must take place after these things.’ ²Immediately I was in Spirit.

            The first question we must address with regard to these two chapters concerns the time and nature of the vision depicted in them. There are many who believe that v. 1 symbolizes the rapture of the church before the Great Tribulation. The angel says to John, “Come up here.” This belief is reinforced in the minds of those who hold it by the fact that the word “church,” which occurs numerous times in Rev. 1-3, does not occur again in this book until the last chapter. They take this to mean that the church has been raptured and does not appear on earth during the events of chapters 4-19. There are two or three objections to this view.

            First, as we have seen, there is every reason to believe that Revelation teaches that only the overcomers of the church are raptured before the Tribulation, with  many of the church left here to go through it. In addition, this verse will not support the view that the rapture occurs here. When the angel says to John, “Come up here,” he is speaking to John when he was on Patmos in the first century A.D., not to the church, and nowhere in Revelation does John symbolize the church. Further, and more important, John says in v. 2 that after this call to “come up here,” he is in Spirit. The rapture is bodily, not spiritual, but John does not say that he was in Heaven in the body, but that he was in Spirit. That is, when the angel made the call, John entered into a spiritual state in which he had a vision. He was in the Holy Spirit who was making a revelation to him.

            Others have felt that chapters 4 and 5 picture the ascension of Christ. He has won the victory on the cross, come back alive from the dead, and ascended in triumph into Heaven, where he is received with the worship of Heaven. However, the angel says plainly that he will show John the things which must take place “after these things.” After what things? After the events of chapters 2 and 3, events which certainly take place after the ascension of Christ, which was in or about A.D. 33. These events are the experience of the church, which did not come into being until ten days after the ascension, and this experience lasted at least until the time when John received the revelations of chapters 2 and 3, which was late in the first century A.D. This vision could not picture the ascension of Christ.

            What then does it depict? Let us look at the next few verses for an answer.

And look, a throne stood in Heaven, and on the throne one sitting; ³and the one sitting was like in appearance to a jasper stone and a sardius, and a rainbow was around the throne like in appearance to an emerald; ⁴and around the throne twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones, twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and on their heads golden wreaths; ⁵and from the throne went out lightnings and voices and thunders; and seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God, ⁶and before the throne something like a sea of glass like crystal; and in the midst of the throne and around the throne four living beings full of eyes in front and behind.

            We have seen that Revelation has to do with Christ as the Judge walking among his churches looking for faithfulness to his word and his testimony. In addition, it concerns the time of the end when the kingdoms of this world will be judged by great tribulation from God and will be removed, with his Son receiving the rulership of the universe forever. Rev. 1 gave us this picture of Christ as the Judge, and chapters 2 and 3 showed us the various conditions of the church which merit judgment or approval. Thus we have been brought up to the point of judgment, of God’s final judgment. And that is just the scene we have here in Rev. 4-5. It shows us the events in Heaven preparatory to final judgment. A comparison with Dan. 7 will make this fact clear.

            In Dan. 7, Daniel has a vision. In this vision he sees the time of the end in which Antichrist is judged and the kingdom is given to Christ. His vision begins, in v. 9, as follows:

I kept looking

Until thrones were set up,

And the Ancient of Days took His seat;

His vesture was like white snow

And the hair of His head like pure wool.

His throne was ablaze with flames,

Its wheels were a burning fire.

A river of fire was flowing

And coming out from before Him;

Thousands upon thousands were attending Him,

And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him;

The court sat,

And the books were opened.

Is this not the same picture as we have in Rev. 4-5? Daniel saw thrones, just as John did, with both seeing one throne in particular at the center. In Daniel, it is the throne of the Ancient of Days, the eternal God, and in Revelation, it is the throne of the Lord God almighty. In Daniel there is a throne ablaze with fire, with fire flowing from it. In Revelation, there are lightnings and voices and thunders proceeding from the throne, with seven lamps of fire burning before it. In Daniel, there are thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads, just as in Rev. 5.11. In Daniel the court sat and the books were opened. In Rev. 5, the little Lamb takes the scroll in preparation for opening it. What is this court? It is the court which God will set up in Heaven at the time of the end to pass final judgment on Satan and his hordes and the evil of this earth. The word “Daniel” means “God is my judge,” and the teaching of the book of Daniel is that God will judge the kingdoms of this world, find them wanting, and do away with them, and he will judge the kingdom of his Son and find it not wanting in any way, and will give him the rulership of the universe forever. God has judged, and he has judged in favor of his Son. That is just what we see in Rev. 4-5: the little Lamb is worthy and receives the scroll from his Father’s hand.

            So we see that Rev. 4-5 gives us the scene in Heaven just before the events of the end. Let us look now at a few more details in these verses.

            Those who believe that John’s “coming up here” is the rapture of the church take the twenty-four elders of this passage as symbolic of the church and use this symbol to show that the church is indeed in Heaven at the time of these events. However, it is by no means certain that the twenty-four elders are the church, and in fact, it is more likely that they are not. The primary reason that they are probably not the church is the fact that they are sitting on thrones and wearing white garments and golden wreaths. It is without doubt true that the Lord’s people will wear the white garments of the bride and will reign with him, but at the time of Rev. 4-5, the Lord himself has not come to his throne. Will the church sit on thrones and wear their garments of victory and their wreaths of gold before the Lord himself does so? Not likely.

            It is much more probable that these twenty-four elders are the angelic elders of Heaven. Twelve is a number of government and order in the Bible. There were twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps these twenty-four elders are angels who oversaw those twenty-four tribes and apostles. It is clear in Scripture that both God and Satan have their angelic followers organized into a hierarchy. In Dan. 10.13, the angel Michael is called one of the chief princes, and the prince of the kingdom of Persia of the same verse is obviously the Satanic spiritual ruler of Persia, not the human ruler of Persia. In Eph. 1.21 we read of spiritual rule and authority and power and lordship, in Eph. 6.12, of rulers, authorities, and world powers, in Col. 1.16, of spiritual thrones and lordships and rulers and authorities, and in Col. 2.15, of spiritual rulers and authorities. We are told in 1 Thess. 4.16 of an archangel, and Jude 9 names him as Michael, the same Michael, we believe, as in Dan. 10. In this hierarchy of God is an eldership of Heaven, consisting of twenty-four elders, the twenty-four elders of Revelation.

            In Rev. 4.5, we have the seven lamps of fire, which are the seven Spirits of God. The seven Spirits of God appeared in Rev. 1.4, where we saw that the figure shows us the Holy Spirit in his diversity and perfection, indeed, in his perfection within diversity. Here he is seen as seven lamps of fire. Remember that this chapter shows us the court of judgment sitting, and that fire is a symbol of judgment in the Bible. Here the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of judgment, ready to carry out to perfection the decisions of the court. Also, recall the Tabernacle and Temple of the Old Testament. These structures were types of Christ, everything in them picturing him in some way. There were seven lamps of fire in those buildings, the Menorah, the golden lampstand on which were seven lamps. This lampstand pictures the Lord Jesus as the Light of the world. What is the fuel of the light? It is the oil, and oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4.1), and thus he was able to fulfill every intention of God the Father for him. He was able to be the Light of the world.

            What is meant by the sea of glass in v. 6? It is not altogether certain what this picture means, but if we look at Ex. 24.10, where Moses and the elders of Israel saw God with a pavement of clear sapphire at his feet, and Ezek. 1.22, where there is an expanse of crystal over the heads of the four living beings, we get an impression of the separation of God in his purity from everything else. Even though there are thrones around his throne and myriads of myriads (a myriad is 10,000. Myriads of myriads would be at least 400,000,000) of angels and saints gathered around him, yet he is wholly other than any creature. Just as the sea of glass is so pure as to be as clear as crystal, so God is utterly pure, and that purity is unlike anything else. He is among his angels and his people, but he is God and there is no mistaking it.

            In the midst, that is, centered before the throne, and around the throne, there are four living beings. Some take these, as also the twenty-four elders, to symbolize the church. Why two figures of the church are needed is not known. And like the twenty-four elders, they are not the church. They are the cherubs of Ezek. 1 and 10. If we read those two chapters, we see that these angelic creatures have something to do with the glory of God. They manifest it. Yet they do so in such a way as to keep it from destroying those to whom it is revealed. We are reminded of the experience of Moses when he asked to see the glory of God. He saw it, but only as seeing the back of God, with God’s hand over him to protect him while his face passed before Moses (Ex. 33.18-23).

            In Ezek. 28, we read of the beginnings of Satan, when he was perhaps the chief angel. In v. 14 it is said of Satan, “You were the anointed cherub who covers….” Vs. 12 and 13 show the glory associated with Satan at that time, so that we get the same impression, that the cherubs were those angelic beings who manifested the glory of God while covering it in such a way as to make it accessible to man without destroying him.

            Here in Rev. 4-5 we see these cherubs in Heaven at the court of judgment. They have revealed the glory of God, and yet man has rejected the God of glory, and so these revealers of that glory are witnesses in this court. They are full of eyes in front and behind. These witnesses in the court have seen everything and will bear true witness. The next two verses give us more information about these beings.

⁷And the first living being was like a lion, and the second living being, like a calf, and the third living being, having the face like a man’s, and the fourth living being, like an eagle flying, ⁸and the four living beings, each of them having six wings, around and within full of eyes. And they do not have rest day and night saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, having been and being is and coming.”

            These verses confirm our statement above that these beings are the cherubs of Ezek. 1 and 10. In Ezek. 1, we read that each cherub had four faces and four wings, the four faces being those of a man, a lion, a bull, and an eagle. One might object that the cherubs of Ezek. 1 each had all four faces, while in Revelation each has only one of the faces of the cherubs in Ezekiel, and that the beings of Revelation had six wings each, while Ezekiel’s had four. However, if we look at Ezek. 10, we find a difference between the same cherubs there and in chapter 1: in chapter 1, the four faces are those of a man, a lion, a bull, and an eagle, while in chapter 10, they are the faces of a cherub, a man, a lion, and an eagle. Apparently angelic beings can manifest themselves differently at different times. The variations between Ezekiel and Revelation are far outweighed by the similarities, so that there can be little or no doubt that the beings of Revelation are the cherubs of the Old Testament.

            V. 8 tells us that the cherubs had six wings. In Ezekiel, two wings touched another cherub, and two covered the body of their possessor. Revelation does not tell us the function of the wings. This verse does stress again the fact that the cherubs are full of eyes, again showing the importance of their knowledge and seeing everything.

            In this great scene in Heaven before the judgments of the end, these cherubs do not cease to praise God day and night: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, having been and being and coming.” These revealers of the glory of God help to lead the praise of the God of glory.

⁹And when the four living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne who lives to the ages of the ages, ¹⁰the twenty-four elders fall before the one sitting on the throne and worship the one living to the ages of the ages, and they cast their wreaths before the throne saying, ¹¹’Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for you created all things, and because of your will they were and were created.’

            When these four cherubs praise God, the elders join in. They fall before him and cast their wreaths before him. It was the custom in ancient times for the various kings of an empire to cast their wreaths before the emperor, showing his superiority and their submission to him. So it is in Heaven. The ruling elders of Heaven, who wear wreaths in their authority over other angels, cast them before the one who is over them, and over all, acknowledging that they wear their wreaths at his pleasure and by his grace. We might add the note here that one reason it is so important that a Christian overcome and gain his wreath is that he might have that wreath to cast before his God in worship. What loss it would be to stand before the God who redeemed us with nothing to cast at his feet in worship. May he give us the grace to overcome, and to gain that wreath with which to worship him.

            God is worthy, in this instance, because he is the Creator. Life is a blessing, despite its hardship, for it holds the promise of eternal life in the bliss of marriage to the King, and God is the creator and bestower of that blessing. It is the will of God that things, and people, be, rather than not be, and so they were created by him. To him indeed be the glory and the honor and the power forever.

5. And I saw on the right hand of the one sitting on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. ²And I saw a strong angel proclaiming in a great voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?”

            This great scene in Heaven just before the end of history as we know it now moves from worship of the one who is calling forth that worship by the fact that he is about to put things right in the world, to the details of that putting right. After hearing the great choruses of worship, John notices a scroll on the right hand of God, the one sitting on the throne. The picture is of the hand laying open with the scroll there just waiting for someone to take it. The first, and less important question, which we must address concerns the nature of this scroll. What is it? Recall Dan. 7.9-10, quoted above: “… the court sat, and the books were opened.” This scene in Rev. 4-5 is the same as the scene in Dan. 7, the calling into session by God of the court that will judge the kingdoms of this world, and when that court sits, the books will be opened. What are the books? They are the records of the motives and deeds of the kingdoms of the world. They are the evidence that will be used in judgment. That is the meaning of the scroll in Rev. 5. It is the same as the books of Dan. 7, the record of the motives and the deeds of the kingdoms of this world. Based on the evidence in this scroll, God will pass judgment.

            This scroll is written on both front and back. Most scrolls of that day were written on one side only, so that the fact that this scroll is written on both sides indicates the fullness of the evidence. Nothing has escaped God’s notice, nothing done in darkness, nothing done when no man was looking. God will hold man accountable for everything.

            The scroll is also sealed with seven seals. Why is it sealed? It is sealed because it is court evidence, and not just anyone can open such documents. Seven is a number of perfection in the Bible, as we will see many times in Revelation, showing that this document is an especially sensitive one that is not just sealed, but that is perfectly sealed. Then the strong angel asks in a loud voice, loud so that anyone and everyone can hear, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?” We see in this question exactly why the scroll is sealed. It is because worthiness is the qualification for opening this scroll. Worthiness is the theme of Rev. 5.

            Since judgment is about to be passed, worthiness is vital. Not just anyone can pass judgment, but only one who is worthy to do so. It would be hypocritical, not to mention unjust, for a court made up of offenders to condemn another offender while letting themselves go without judgment. The Judge in this court is God the Father, the one sitting on the throne. It is obvious that he is worthy. But it is men who are to be judged, so there must be a man worthy of presenting the evidence against them. We will not go into detail at this point on the matter, but it is one of the teachings of Scripture that since it was man that God intended to be the ultimate display of his glory when he created man, and since it was man who chose to sin and thus ruined that plan for the time being, it will be man through whom God recovers everything. As God, he could just pass judgment, for he is righteous and worthy of doing so. But he has chosen to use man to undo Satan, just as Satan used man to undo God’s plan at the outset.

³And no one was able in Heaven or on the earth or under the earth to open the scroll or to look at it. ⁴And I wept much, for no one worthy was found to open the scroll or to look at it.

            But a problem arises. There is no man who is not guilty of sin, so no one is worthy to open the scroll or to look at its contents. No one in Heaven is worthy. There are saved men and women at this holy gathering, but all of them were at one time sinners. That is also true of the people still on earth. Those under the earth would be in Hades, and these are the unrighteous dead waiting for final judgment, so they certainly are not worthy. So, just as it appears that God will finally judge the kingdoms of this world and bring an end of evil so that the hopes of all, angels and men, who serve him are at their high point of anticipation, those hopes appear to be dashed because no one is worthy to open the scroll, read its contents, and call for judgment. So John weeps much. His disappointment is like that of the two walking on the road to Emmaus. “We were hoping….” But now there is no hope. Now there is only much weeping. Worthiness is the qualification, and no one is worthy. Evil will continue its ugly course.

⁵And one of the elders said to me, “Don’t weep. Look, the Lion who is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, overcame to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

            But wait! One of the elders says to John that there is one worthy. He is the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David. The tribe of Judah is the royal tribe of Israel, the one from which all kings must come. David was the great king of Israel, and the first king from the tribe of Judah. His root is his origin. This great King has his origin in the mind and will of God. He was raised up by God to be a picture of his Son who would one day come.

            Why is this man worthy? Because he has overcome. We have already stressed the importance of the concept of overcoming in Revelation. It is one of the keys to understanding the book. It is those who are overcomers at the end who will escape the Great Tribulation, who will be raptured to the throne, who will be the bride of Christ at his marriage supper. But what we must see is that we do not overcome in ourselves. We can no more overcome than the Old Testament Jews could keep the Law. “It is not of works, so that no one should boast.” We overcome only by being in the Overcomer and being filled with him in the person of his Spirit. It is overcoming that makes us worthy of rapture and of being the bride of Christ. (Again, it is not our worthiness, but his in us.) And just so, it is overcoming that makes Christ worthy to open the scroll. He is without sin, so he is worthy to call for judgment on those who are not without sin.

            Christ overcame the world, the flesh, and the devil. He told the disciples in John 16.33 to be of good cheer, for he had overcome the world. Its pressures to conform so as to be accepted and get on in life had no control over him. He was true to the will of God no matter what pressure the world exerted. Christ was dead to himself and alive toward God, thus overcoming the flesh. We will deal fully with this thought when we come to Rev. 13.8, where we will see that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb slaughtered, not just in history, but from the foundation of the world. That is, he has always been dead towards himself and alive toward God. And he overcame the devil, in the wilderness of temptation, throughout his ministry, in his encounters with evil spirits, in the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done,” and on the cross, where he died rather than disobey his Father, who willed for him to die such a death. We see the results of this overcoming in Col. 2.15, where we read of the rulers and authorities being disarmed and being put on display by the one who triumphed over them; in Heb. 2.14, where we are told that the Lord Jesus rendered Satan powerless; and in 1 John 3.8, where we find that he destroyed the works of the devil. And the ultimate result of this overcoming is that God has highly exalted the Lord Jesus to the kingship of everything forever. He is the Overcomer.

⁶And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living beings and in the midst of the elders a little Lamb standing, as though slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth.

            We come now to one of the most remarkable pictures in all the Bible. John has just been told that the one who is worthy is the Lion, the great King. He turns to look at this mighty Lion, ready to pounce on his foes and destroy them, and what does he see? He sees a little Lamb, standing as though slaughtered. What volumes these few words speak! They tell us that the mighty Lion did not come to the throne by devouring his enemies, but by laying down his own life. The one who has the power of the Lion, the authority of the King, is a Lamb at heart, one who always gives himself for his people, rather than using his people for his own advantage. This one who is to judge the kingdoms of this world is worthy to do so because he is a King unlike any other king who ever lived: they all, to some extent, and many to a great extent, exploited their people for their own enrichment. He has never done even a shred of such a thing, and never will. He is the Lamb who, far from using his people, dies for them. And he will always be that way. Even when he comes as the mighty Lion and takes the throne, he will rule as a Lamb, always for his people, never for himself (see Lk. 12.37). Oh, how worthy he is! May that great day come soon when he will take his throne and rule as the Lamb.

            The picture is heightened by the fact that John does not use the word for “lamb” used elsewhere in the New Testament. That word means just “lamb,” and is not used in Revelation. The word used in Revelation is used only once outside that book, in John’s gospel, but it is used twenty-eight times in Revelation. The difference between the two words is that the word used in Revelation is the diminutive, “little lamb.” It tells us that this one who was always the Lamb, the one perfectly yielded to his Father and willing to die for our sins, will in the end be even more of that nature, if it were possible. Perfection cannot be improved on, or it would not be perfection, but it is as though John is saying that the one who has always been perfect will be even more perfect. The one who has always had the character of a lamb, willing to lay down his life, will have even more of that character, if that were possible. He underlines heavily this nature of our Lord: he is not just the Lamb of God, but the little Lamb, standing as though slaughtered, dead to himself, but alive toward God, and for his people.

            John saw this little Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. A “horn” in Scripture signifies strength. Since seven is a number of perfection, John sees here the perfect strength of this little Lamb. We do not think of a little Lamb as having strength, but the strength of this little Lamb is perfect, precisely because of his nature: he does not try to grasp power and wield it for himself. His is the power of a life laid down. There is no greater power.

            He also has seven eyes, “which are the seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth.” We saw in Rev. 4.5 that the seven Spirits of God were seven lamps of fire, and that there the emphasis was on the fire of judgment, since this passage is the sitting of the court for judgment. Now in 5.6, we see the one who is to open the scroll and present the evidence as one whose intelligence and knowledge are perfect. He will make no error in presenting the evidence. He is full of the Spirit who goes through all the earth and sees and knows all. No one will be able to refute his claims, and he himself will miss nothing.

⁷And he came and took from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne.

            No one had been found worthy to take the scroll, so it laid there on the hand of the one on the throne. But now the little Lamb, worthy, takes the scroll. Evil is about to be judged. Right is about to be established.

⁸And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell before the little Lamb, each one having a harp and golden bowls full of incenses, which are the prayers of the saints. ⁹And they sang a new song saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and you purchased for God with your blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, ¹⁰and you made them to our God a kingdom and priests, and they will reign on the earth.” ¹¹And I looked, and I heard a voice of many angels around the throne and of the living beings and of the elders, and the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, ¹²saying with a great voice, “Worthy is the little Lamb who was slaughtered to receive the power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” ¹³And every creature which is in Heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all the things in them, I heard saying, “To the one sitting on the throne and to the little Lamb be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the might to the ages of the ages.” ¹⁴And the four living beings were saying, “Amen,” and the elders fell and worshipped.”

            These verses show us the response in Heaven when the little Lamb takes the scroll. Those there know that evil is about to be judged and right established, so mighty worship breaks out. The four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb. What an expression of submission, to fall on the floor before one, but this one is worthy and they gladly fall before him. It is worship!

            Each living being and elder has “a harp and golden bowls full of incenses, which are the prayers of the saints.” With the harp they make music in worship, as we will see momentarily. The bowls of prayer are the cries of God’s people all through the ages for just what is about to take place, the judging of evil and establishing of what is right. For those who know the Lord and are close to him, there has always been a sense of sorrow at how much evil there is in the world, and a desire for it to be done away with. God’s people have always asked why the wicked prosper while the righteous are badly treated. All of those longings, those cries, have been stored up in golden bowls in Heaven, and when the time comes, they will all rise to the throne for the answer of God. Hallelujah!

            The living beings and the elders sing a new song:

Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and you purchased for God with your blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and you made them to our God a kingdom and priests, and they will reign on the earth.

The first word of that song is “worthy,” the theme of this chapter. The little Lamb is worthy to take the scroll. Why is he worthy? Because he was slaughtered, and by that shedding of blood bought for God a people, a people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation on earth. And he did not just buy them. That is the negative side, buying them out of the slave market of sin. He also made something great and wonderful of them, and kingdom to God, and the priests who fulfill the desire of God expressed in Ex. 19.6, as we saw in our thoughts on Rev. 1.6. He made them into a people who will not be shut out from God, with one priest or a few priests qualified to represent them before God. They will all live in the Holy of Holies in the very presence of God. And they will reign on earth with Christ as his bride. The humble will inherit the earth! He is worthy!

            The angels join in with the four living beings and the elders in ascribing praise to the one who is worthy. The number of them is staggering. A myriad is ten thousand. There were myriads of myriads, at a minimum, twenty thousand times twenty thousand, or four hundred million. There were also thousands of thousands, at least four million (two thousand times two thousand). Their praise also begins with the word “worthy.” The little Lamb is worthy to receive “the power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” The angels who did not rebel with Satan, but have been loyal to the only God for all these ages, now see the end of Satan’s rampage about to come, and they join in with praise of the one who is worthy because he brought about this long-awaited event.

            When the angels join in, “every creature which is in Heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all the things in them” join in as well. All these myriads of worshippers ascribe worthiness and praise to God and to the little Lamb. As they do so, the four living beings say, “Amen,” and the elders fall and worship. Amen – so be it. And worship. The word “worship” actually means the recognition or ascribing of worth. All these created beings recognize the worth of God and of the Lamb and they gladly fall before him in worship that gives expression to that recognition. What they have long yearned for is about to take place, and the one who accomplished it is worthy. Worthy, worthy is the Lamb!

EVENTS OCCURRING JUST BEFORE THE GREAT TRIBULATION

7.1-8, 12.1-12, 14.1-5, 12.13-17a, 14.6-7

            We stated at the outset that we would take a chronological approach to Revelation, attempting to put the events of the book in the order in which they will occur, as nearly as we can determine. Obviously we cannot date every event precisely, but we can get a general idea of the order of events.

            Chapter 1 sets the stage for the entire book by telling us its origin and recipients and showing us Christ as the Judge. The letters of chapters 2 and 3 give the various conditions of the church, showing us what the Lord is looking for and what he condemns and approves. Then chapters 4 and 5 reveal the scene in Heaven just before God’s judgment begins to fall on the evil world. Chapter 6 will show the beginnings of those actual judgments, but before they start, there are some other matters that actually happen before the Great Tribulation, but that are recorded later in Revelation. It is as though the Lord reveals certain judgments to John, then goes back and explains some question that might arise from that description as to what preceded or caused the judgment, or some aspect of a judgment calls to mind some topic that the Lord pauses to explain. The first of these explanatory passages is Rev. 7.1-8. In chapter 6, we see the first judgments of the end. Then in chapter 7, before proceeding with the judgments, the Lord stops and tells John about a certain group that was sealed by God so that they would be kept through the Great Tribulation. We turn now to that passage.

7.1-8

7. “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.

            Some have felt that what John now relates happens after the events of chapter 6 because John writes, “After this I saw….” But John does not say that this event occurred after those of chapter 6, but that he saw it after he saw those. It is very likely that the four angels of this verse are those who carry out the first four trumpet judgments, which we will come to in Rev. 8.7-12. The first three angels there sound their trumpets, and then the earth is harmed directly, then the sea, then the rivers and springs. Then when the fourth angel sounds his trumpet, the sun, moon, and stars are darkened. This is not a direct attack on the earth, but harm to the sun especially would harm the earth, preventing enough light for the plants to grow properly. We will see that the judgments of the seven trumpets cover the same time period as those of the seven seals, and as the seven bowls as well. That being the case, the sealing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand here in 7.1-8 must take place before the judgments of chapter 6, since no harm could come to the earth till after the sealing of 7.1-8, but in 6.1-8 harm does come to the earth. After showing John his first vision of the judgments of the end, the Lord now takes him back and tells him how he will provide for his people during that terrible time.

²And I saw another angel coming up from the rising of the sun, having a seal of the living God, and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to harm the earth and the sea, ³saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we seal the slaves of our God on their foreheads.”

            These words confirm our belief that no harm will come to the earth before the sealing of this passage. Harm comes to the earth in chapter 6 in the form of famine. If no harm could come to the earth before the sealing, the sealing must take place before chapter 6.

            The angels who are given authority to harm the earth, the sea, and the trees are told not to do so until the slaves of God are sealed on their foreheads. It is of great interest, of course, that just as the followers of Antichrist will have his mark on their foreheads or on their right hands, so the Lord’s people will have his mark. Whether this mark is visible or some spiritual mark is matter for speculation, and makes no difference at this point. Suffice it to say that when these judgments occur, these sealed ones will be kept. This does not necessarily mean that they will not be physically harmed, for many will be martyred during this time, but they will be kept. That is, they will be faithful to the Lord, even unto death. We saw in our study of the letter to the church in Smyrna that those who are thus faithful are overcomers. Being kept by the Lord does not mean that there is no possibility of suffering, or even of death, but that one will be kept through whatever he must experience, good or bad. And let us say that it is just as important to be kept by God through good times as through bad, for it is easy for us to forget God when times are good. But the immediate concern of Revelation, of course, is the very bad times of the end.

⁴And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

            The number of those sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand, is most likely a symbolic number. We would not argue with anyone who believes it to be literal, for it may well be. The point is that there will be those kept faithful to God through the Great Tribulation. Twelve is a number of completeness in the Bible. Just as there were twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve apostles of the church, indicating the completeness of God’s people, so there are twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes, making up the one hundred and forty-four thousand. We feel that this spiritual significance of the number twelve indicates that the number is symbolic in this instance.

            Of more importance is the question as to who these sealed ones are. Some think they are the church, taking the reference to Israel according to Paul’s usage in Rom. 2.28-29: inward, spiritual Jews, that is, Christians. However, we see no reason to take the reference to the sons of Israel in this passage in that way. Unless there is some clear reason for taking a statement of Scripture as symbolic, it ought to be taken at face value. There is no such reason in this place. There will be Jews who are faithful to God even in the Great Tribulation, and they will be purified by it, made ready to recognize their Messiah when he appears visibly at the end of that terrible time. Even now there are Jews who are faithful to God as Jews, though not according to knowledge, as Paul puts it in Rom. 10.2. We believe the one hundred and forty-four thousand who are here sealed are faithful Jews who will go through the Great Tribulation, and will be kept by God through it (see Zech. 12.10-13.1).

⁵from the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, ⁶from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, ⁷the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, ⁸from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand sealed.”

            The list of the tribes given in this passage does not match any other such list of the tribes of Israel in the Bible. Dan is omitted, replaced by one of the sons of Joseph, Manasseh, and Joseph himself is listed while his other son, Ephraim, is not. There are as many interpretations of this list as there are interpreters. We will not attempt it, remaining satisfied that the Lord will keep his own in the worst of times.

12.1-12

            The next event in Revelation that actually occurs before the opening of the seals in chapter 6 is found in chapter 12.1-12. This is the story of the birth and catching up of the male child, and its proper interpretation is quite important for a right understanding of the entire book of Revelation. In fact, this story is usually misinterpreted. Let us begin with comments on the first verse and continue through the passage.

12. ¹“And a great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet and on her head a wreath of twelve stars,

            Who is this woman? That is the question!  The usual understanding is that the description of her refers to Joseph’s dream in Gen. 37, with the sun being Jacob, the moon being Rachel, Joseph’s mother, and the twelve stars being the twelve sons of Jacob. In this interpretation, the woman is Israel. But there are problems with applying this description in this way. If the woman is Israel, then Israel is clothed with Jacob, has Rachel at her feet, and has a wreath made up of twelve sons. It seems odd that Israel would be clothed with Jacob and have Rachel at her feet, though sons could certainly be taken as a wreathing glory. Further, Joseph’s dream was a picture of his glory among his family, not of Israel’s glory. He was the one bowed down to. The symbol was of Joseph’s experience in Egypt, not of Israel as a whole. Let us seek further help in v. 2.

²and she was pregnant, and she cried out, having birth pains and being tormented to give birth.

            If this woman was Israel, with whom was she pregnant? Since the Lord Jesus was born of Israel, it is concluded that he is the one referred to. One problem with this interpretation is that John was seeing visions of things to come, and the birth of Jesus had already occurred long before he saw these visions. V. 5 will produce another difficulty, which we will deal with when we come to it.

³And another sign appeared in the sky, and look, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems, ⁴and his tail swept down a third of the stars of the sky and cast them to the earth.

            It is obvious who the dragon is, and v. 9 tells us that he is Satan. We will see the significance of the seven heads and ten horns later, in chapter 13, when we deal with Antichrist. Satan has the same form, being the one who will give Antichrist his position and power. Stars sometimes refer to angels, good or evil, in the Bible (Jud. 5.20, Job 38.7, Dan. 8.10, Am. 5.26, referred to in Acts 7.43, Rev. 1.20), so it is likely that the third of the stars referred to here are angels who rebelled against God in the beginning along with Satan. Dan. 8.10 indicates that Antichrist will cause some of the host and some of the stars of the heavens to fall, so it is possible that this statement in Revelation refers to such an event, but there is nothing else in the Bible to indicate that there will be another falling or defeating of angels after Satan’s initial rebellion. This whole matter is not entirely clear, nor is it essential to the proper interpretation of Rev. 12, so we think it best not to speculate, but to leave it as it stands with the statement of what we do know, as indicated by the verses noted above.

And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, that when she gave birth he might devour her child.

Satan stood before the woman who was about to give birth, and his purpose was that he might destroy her child by devouring it. It is obvious that Satan would have wanted to destroy the Lord Jesus when he was born, and he attempted to do so in Herod’s slaughter of the babies, so some take this fact as further evidence that the woman is Israel and the baby is Jesus. But let us read on.

⁵And she gave birth to a son, a male, who would shepherd all the Gentiles with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

[The overcomers are caught up to the throne, not to meet the Lord in the clouds. They are on Mt. Zion in Heaven until the visible coming of the Lord after the Great Tribulation. Those who think there is a secret rapture into the clouds have no Scriptural basis. They use Acts 1.9-11, saying that the Lord Jesus will come back as he went, with the clouds. But these verses say nothing about the Lord Jesus stopping in the clouds for some period of time on the way up, as they hold. He ascends to Heaven. He will come back in the same way at the end, in the clouds (Rev. 14.14). I know of no Scriptural basis for a secret coming to the clouds before the Great Tribulation.]

            When the woman gives birth, her child is a son, and John emphasizes that fact by noting that he is a male. Then he adds that this son would shepherd the Gentiles with a rod of iron. This last statement comes from Psalm 2, and refers to the Lord Jesus as the King of God’s choice. Is this not yet more evidence that the child is the Lord? It might be, but Rev. 2.27 applies the same Scripture to the overcomers of the church. They will reign with the Lord as his bride, and thus will exercise this same authority. Furthermore, John saw that when the child was born, he was caught up to God and to his throne. This last observation excludes the Lord Jesus from being the child, for he was not caught up to the throne at his birth. It is usual for those who believe that the woman is Israel and the child is the Lord to apply this catching up to his ascension after his resurrection. But this catching up of the child takes place not at the end of life, but at birth. As soon as he is born, he is caught up. This child is not the Lord Jesus, but the overcomers of the church, and the woman is not Israel, but the church as a whole.

            It is a tragic fact that not all, indeed, possibly not even a majority, of Christians are overcomers, those who are wholly the Lord’s in faith and obedience (We do not, of course, believe in sinless perfection. We are referring to intent of heart and effort made). Only a remnant of Israel were faithful to the Lord, and that seems to be true of the church as well.  That is exactly one of the reasons the Lord gave the book of Revelation to the church, as we saw in our introduction. The idea of the overcomers is one of the main keys to understanding this book. All through the history of the church, the Lord has been developing an overcoming body within the church as a whole. There have been overcomers in every age, even in the darkest ages of the church. The Lord has not left himself without a witness (Acts 14.17). It is as though there must come a certain number of overcomers, or we might say by way of illustration a certain amount of overcoming, what the scientists call critical mass. We have the same kind of idea in Rom. 11.25. When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, the Deliverer will come from Zion and Israel will own her Messiah. There is a certain fullness that must be reached in the purpose of God. When this fullness of overcomers or overcoming has been reached, it is as though the church, pregnant with this developing child, gives birth. The overcomers, hidden in the church as a whole, represented by those who are alive when these events take place, are called forth by God, and they are raptured. Satan wants to destroy this overcoming body, and he has ever labored to do so, and he will do all in his power to prevent this child from coming to birth. He will not be able to prevent this birth, though, so he will try to destroy those who overcome for the Lord in the end days. But God will protect them by catching them up to himself and to his throne, the beginning of the fulfillment of Rev. 2.27.

            It is important to note that the rapture of the church as a whole, which will not occur until after the Great Tribulation, is to the Lord Jesus in the air (1 Thess. 4.16-17), after he has descended from Heaven at his second coming. But the rapture in Rev. 12 is to God and to his throne. The overcomers do not meet the Lord in the air as he descends, for he has not yet begun his descent at that time. They are raptured to the throne before the Great Tribulation. The rest of the church will be raptured to meet the Lord in the air after the Great Tribulation. This is the main point of the book of Revelation. Be ready at all times to face the Lord. Overcome. Are you ready at this moment? The rapture of the church as a whole will not occur until after the Great Tribulation, so the second coming of Christ will not occur till then, but the rapture of the overcomers could happen as you read these words. If it does so, will you be among those raptured, or among those left to endure the torments of the Great Tribulation? Your answer is vital. May God give you, and all of us, the grace to be ready for him at every moment.

            If the child is the overcomers of the church and the woman is the church as a whole, how does this fact relate to the vision of the woman in v. 1, clothed with the sun, with the moon at her feet and a wreath of twelve stars on her head? In the garden of Eden there were Adam and Eve. Adam was the first Adam. Out of his side, while he was in deep sleep, was taken the woman who would be his bride. These two are types of Christ and the church. Christ is the last Adam. Out of his side, pierced by the sword of the Roman soldier while he was in the deep sleep of death, flowed the blood and water (a symbol of the Holy Spirit poured out on God’s people precisely because the blood had been shed for the forgiveness of sins) which gave life to the church, to be the bride of Christ. Adam and Eve were given dominion, lordship, over creation, the sun, the moon, the stars, by God. The sun, the moon, and the stars had just been created, so it is easy for us to picture this woman, designated by God as a type of the coming bride of Christ and exercising dominion along with Adam, clothed in the garden of Eden with the sun, with the moon at her feet, and wreathed with twelve stars. Further, Mal. 4.2 prophetically calls the Lord Jesus “the sun of righteousness.” Is not the church clothed with Christ, even as the woman was clothed with the sun? The moon reflects the glory of the sun, having no light of its own. Does not the church, having no light of its own, reflect the glory of her Lord? And could not the twelve stars symbolize the twelve apostles of the church?

            The woman is the church, and the child is the overcoming body who will be the human instrument by which God will bring about the final casting out and overthrow of Satan and his ages-long vile purposes. We cannot be blamed for pausing here for a moment to worship our Lord and give glory to him. May this day hasten!

⁶And the woman fled into the desert, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they might feed her one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

            After the male child, the overcomers, is born and raptured to the throne, the woman flees from Satan into the desert. What is the desert? It is this world. The history of Israel is a picture of a Christian’s and the church’s spiritual history. Egypt is the lost condition. The desert is a double symbol. It can be taken as the defeated Christian life before victory is entered into, and it can be taken as the world, the desert where the Lord’s people live before they behold him in Heaven. It is the latter understanding that is the case in Rev. 12. The overcomers are raptured to the throne. The rest of the church is left in the desert of this world to endure the Great Tribulation, but God has prepared her a place in the world where he will take care of her. The meaning is that even though she will undergo persecution, and some will be martyred for the Lord, the church cannot be destroyed. The Lord is building his church, and the gates of hades (death) will not prevail against it.

            God will feed the church in the wilderness. Two other passages come to mind in this regard. In Ps. 78.19, Israel asked, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” They were expressing their distrust of God’s ability to feed them during their desert wanderings, but ironically, the answer to the question is a resounding yes! God can indeed feed his people, prepare a table, in the desert! He did so for Israel, even when they were unfaithful to him, and he will do so for his church in the days of the Great Tribulation, just as he has done throughout her history.

            The second passage is Eph. 5.29, where we read that the Lord Jesus nourishes his bride-to-be, the church. Even though those who pass through the Great Tribulation were not as wholly the Lord’s as they should have been up to that time, he loves them nonetheless and will use the Tribulation to purify them and make them a beautiful bride.

            This verse also tells us that this feeding will continue for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. That is forty-two months, three and one-half years, the time of the Great Tribulation. Those of the church who are not raptured before the Great Tribulation will be left here to go through it.

⁷And there was war in the sky, Michael and his angels making war with the dragon. And the dragon made war, and his angels, ⁸and he was not strong, nor was a place found for them in the sky.

            It is one of the mysteries of God’s grace that he uses the church, imperfect and weak as she is in herself, to overcome Satan. We learn in Job 1 that Satan appeared before God as the accuser of the people of God. Apparently Satan has tried to tempt even God to harm his people, but God is not able to be tempted, and, omniscient as he is, knows all the schemes of Satan. And those of us who are the Lord’s know all too well ourselves the accusations of Satan made in our own thoughts and consciences, how he tries to call to mind forgiven sin to cause us to brood over it, bringing into doubt the grace of God, or how he tells us that some sin we have committed is too much for God to forgive and that we are thus cut off from God. Yet in his wonderful grace, God uses these very ones who are falsely accused to overcome Satan. When the overcomers are raptured to Heaven, Satan is cast out of the sky! A war is touched off. Michael, the archangel, and his angel army make war with Satan and overcome him. It is revealed that Satan is not strong.

            What a revelation this is. One of Satan’s methods is to exhibit himself as strong, as a fearsome being who can do terrible things to people. Satan certainly is not to be underestimated or taken lightly, but his ability is not in strength, but in his ability to lie and deceive. The Lord Jesus is almighty. That does not leave any might for anyone else, including Satan, does it? Furthermore, the Lord Jesus utterly defeated Satan, and Col. 2.15 tells us that God disarmed Satan and made an open display in the spiritual world of Satan. He is powerless. He cannot make one of the Lord’s own do anything. But he is the cleverest deceiver who ever lived, and thus the Lord’s people must take him seriously. He works by deceit, not by power, and his lack of strength will be revealed when the overcomers are raptured to the throne. No place will be found for him in the sky any longer. Eph. 2.2 says that Satan is “the ruler of the authority of the air,” the sky, but in his last days he will be cast down to the earth itself. (See the comment on Rev. 16.17, pg. 158.) So what is the result?

⁹And the great dragon was cast down, the old snake, who is called devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth. He was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.

            Satan is given four names in this verse, all of which reveal something about his character, if we may use such a word of him. He is the great dragon, the one who tries to destroy the overcoming people of God. He is the old snake, the one who tempted Eve in the garden and brought the blight of sin into God’s perfect creation. He is the devil, the slanderer of God and accuser of God’s people. He is Satan, the adversary, the enemy. And he deceives the whole inhabited earth. Man as a whole is living in the control of Satan and does not even know it, (Jn. 31, 14.30, 16.11), so great is the deceiving power of this one. He is a liar and the father of lies, the Lord Jesus himself said (Jn. 8.44). Here he is cast down to earth, the dwelling place of those whom he controls, as well as of the people of God living there as ambassadors of Christ and as those being purified by the refining fires of the world. And his angels were cast down with him. That third of the stars of the sky who first rebelled with Satan now experience with him expulsion from the sky. What is the result of this expulsion? It is twofold.

¹⁰And I heard a great voice in Heaven saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been cast down. ¹¹And they overcame him because of the blood of the little Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death. ¹²Therefore rejoice, heavens, and those dwelling in them.”

            There is great joy in Heaven! What a great victory to be rid of Satan! With his casting down, to the fore come the salvation and power and kingdom of God and the authority of Christ. The Lord Jesus himself said that Satan is the ruler of this world. Now Satan has been cast out of Heaven, showing that the salvation and power and kingdom of God and the authority of Christ will soon come on earth, too. If God can cast Satan out of Heaven, he can cast him down to the earth, too. And he will ultimately cast him into hell (Rev. 20.10). This casting out of Satan has been done by God, but through the instrumentality of his overcoming people. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.

            Satan has accused the people of God day and night before God. How do we overcome the accusations of Satan? By protesting our innocence? No, but by pleading the blood of Christ. Yes, we have sinned and deserve judgment, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Our sins are effectively dealt with by the blood of Christ, and when the angel of death sees the blood, he will pass over. Praise to our God!

            They also overcame him by the word of their testimony. It is not enough just to believe in the heart, but there must also be confession with the mouth, as Paul tells us in Rom. 10.9-10. We believe in our hearts in the efficacy of the blood of Christ, but we must also confess that belief with our mouths to be saved. That is the word of our testimony. And our faithfulness to that testimony is overcoming. Perhaps some who are the Lord’s in the Great Tribulation will fall away in that terrible time, but many will learn to overcome.

            It is also important that the Lord’s people not love their lives even in the face of death, but be willing to die for the Lord, and many will be martyred during that time, just as many have been martyred down through the ages. Just as the instant of the death of the Lord Jesus was the utter defeat of Satan, so our faithfulness even unto death, if need be, is victory over Satan. He may be allowed by God to destroy the body, but he cannot harm the child of God who is faithful to him. Death is the gateway to Heaven.

Woe, the earth and the sea, for there has been cast down to you the devil, having great fury, knowing that he has little time.

            We said that the response to the casting down of Satan will be twofold, with rejoicing in Heaven being the first. The second is woe to the earth. The casting down of Satan will touch off the Great Tribulation, for he will have great fury, knowing that he has little time. His end is three and one-half years away. He will be powerless in the air, so we will take out his bitterness on the earth. He will incite Antichrist to history’s greatest persecution of God’s people, Jews and Christians. At the same time, God will pour out judgment on Antichrist and the wicked of the world. What a time that will be, full persecution and full judgment at once. God give us the grace to heed Luke’s exhortation to pray to have strength to escape these things (21.36). If we are alive when these events occur, we do not want to go through them, but to be safely at the throne of God, having been caught up before these events begin.

            So we see that another of the matters taken care of before the Great Tribulation is the rapture of the overcomers and the casting of Satan out of the sky and down to earth.

14.1-5

            This next passage affords us a second, underlining, picture of the overcomers raptured before the Great Tribulation.

14. ¹And I saw, and look, the little Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads.

            The first question this verse raises is the location of Mount Zion. Is this the earthly Mount Zion in Jerusalem, or is it in Heaven? There can be little doubt that this Mount Zion is in Heaven because this scene occurs before the return of the Lord Jesus to earth. Heb. 12.22 tells us that there is a heavenly Mount Zion. Gal. 4.26 and Rev. 21.2 tell us that there is a heavenly Jerusalem, the city of Mount Zion.

            Who then are the one hundred and forty-four thousand? Are they the same group as the one we saw above in 7.1-8? We believe the first group were Jews, sealed for the Great Tribulation. But this second group is with the Lamb on Mount Zion, in Heaven. They are there before the Great Tribulation. They are the overcomers, raptured before the Great Tribulation and seen by John in Heaven with the little Lamb, the Lord Jesus. The number one hundred and forty-four thousand is also symbolic, as it is in chapter 7, meaning the full number according to God’s will, twelve being a number of perfection in the Bible and one hundred and forty-four thousand being twelve times twelve thousand.

            Just as the followers of Antichrist would have the mark of the beast on their foreheads or right hands, as we will see in our consideration of chapter 13, these will have the name of the Father written on their foreheads. This fact is further proof that this group is the overcomers, for in Rev. 3.12 we are told one of the promises to the overcomers: “… and I will write on him the name of my God….” In addition, these are in Heaven, and as v. 3 will show us, before the throne. The overcomers are caught up to the throne before the Great Tribulation (12.5), but all other Christians are raptured to the Lord in the air, not to Heaven, after the Great Tribulation at the Lord’s visible coming (1 Thess. 4.16-17). There is further evidence in this passage that these are the raptured overcomers, evidence we will presently see.

²And I heard a sound from Heaven like a sound of many waters and like a sound of great thunder, and the sound which I heard was like harpists harping on their harps. ³And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living beings and the elders, and no one was able to learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand, those purchased from the earth.

            A great sound came to John’s ears from this group. At the same time that he heard the loudness of it, like many waters and thunder, he also heard music. We have translated the Greek literally to show how it was written: “like harpists harping on their harps.” The beautiful strains of harps came through the great sound. In addition, John heard singing, and saw that it was before the throne of God, with the four living beings and the elders, too. We read in chapter 5 of the singing of the four living beings and the elders, a song of praise to God for what he had done for men. Now we see some of these men, and women, themselves redeemed, purchased, in Heaven with their Savior, and they sing a song of their own, one which no one but those who have been bought by the blood can learn. Only those who know the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin, seeing themselves as they really are before a holy God, and then the wonderful peace with the God of forgiveness, can learn this song. It is experience, not intellectual knowledge. The fact that these men and women were purchased from the earth is another indication that they are a different group from the one hundred and forty-four thousand of chapter 7. Those were Jews, left on earth to go through the Tribulation. These are overcoming Christians, purchased from the earth and raptured to Heaven before the Tribulation.

⁴These are those who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are those who follow the little Lamb wherever he goes. These were purchased from men, firstfruits to God and to the little Lamb. ⁵And in their mouth no lie was found. They are without blemish.

            These words describe the character of these on Mount Zion. Some say that they were never married during their earthly lives because the statement is that they have not been defiled with women, coupled with the fact that they are virgins. However, the physical relationship between a man and his wife is not defiling, but holy (1 Tim. 4.3, Heb. 13.4). The apostle Paul tells us in Eph. 5 that human marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, and this very book of Revelation likens the overcomers to the bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb. The Lord would not use a defiling human relationship as a picture of his relationship with his own. Defilement with women is adultery, fornication, and other forms of illicit relationship. The apostle Peter was married (1 Cor. 9.5). Was he therefore not an overcomer? Virgins in the New Testament are symbolic of Christians. The parable of the virgins in Matt. 25.1-13 confirms this statement, at the same time as it verifies our belief that not all Christians will be ready for rapture before the Great Tribulation. All ten were virgins, the Lord’s people, evidenced by the fact that all ten had oil, the Holy Spirit. But not all ten were ready for the Lord when he came. Five were left behind. We see in 2 Cor. 11.2 that Paul’s desire was to present the Corinthians to Christ a pure virgin, not physically virginal, but spiritually pure as a virgin bride for Christ. The lack of defilement in the passage is a lack of illicit relationships during earthly life, and virginity is spiritual: they belong to the Lord. We might say further that the lack of defilement has its spiritual side, too, for a relationship with idols and false gods is seen in the Scriptures as spiritual adultery (James 4.4 and many Old Testament passages dealing with the unfaithfulness of Israel to God, especially Hosea, of which this matter is the theme).

            These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Where did the Lord go? First of all, to the cross, and we see in Mark 8.34-35 that the Lord himself said, just after telling the disciples that he himself would go to the cross, “If anyone wishes to follow after me, let him deny himself and take his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

The overcomers give their lives in principle for the Lord, living not for themselves but for him, and indeed many have died physically as martyrs for the Lord. After that following to the cross of giving up one’s life for the Lord, these follow him wherever his will may lead them during their lives on earth. They obey him, doing the will of God.

             We have already seen that these were purchased, purchased with precious blood (1 Peter 1.18-19). Now we have the added statement that they are firstfruits. What is the meaning of this term? During the days of the Bible, the Jews sowed their grain crops in the fall. After the winter, the barley ripened and was ready for harvest in the late spring. This barley was the firstfruits, and one of the annual Jewish festivals commanded by God in the Old Testament was the Festival of Firstfruits. The firstfruits of the barley were brought as an offering to God to recognize that he was the giver of the harvest and to thank him. Then the long hot summer ripened and dried the wheat, which was harvested in the fall. This was the full harvest. The Festival of Tabernacles was celebrated at this time, and was originally a harvest festival, thanking God for the full harvest and praying for the early rains, those fall rains that would start the next crop on its way to fruition. In just the same way as the firstfruits were harvested in the spring, then came the long hot summer, and finally the full harvest, so those who are matured early by their full submission to the Lord, their obedience to him, their faithfulness to him in trial, recognizing it as his dealings designed for their maturity, as the end approaches are raptured before the long hot summer of the Great Tribulation. They are the firstfruits in Heaven with the Lord. Those Christians who are not submissive and obedient to the Lord and who are perhaps neglectful of their spiritual life, will not be ready to be harvested in the spring, before the Tribulation, but will be left here to be ripened by that searing heat, and then will be raptured to the Lord in the air after the Tribulation, if indeed they do not become martyrs during that period. They are the full harvest. The overcomers raptured before the Great Tribulation are the firstfruits.

            A further statement as to their character is that no lie was found in their mouth. The matter of the word is one of the very great themes of the Bible. We read hundreds of times in the Old Testament that “God said.” He is a speaking God, and what he says is utterly true without the least mixture of deceit. So important is this matter of the word that the Lord Jesus himself is called the Word at the beginning of John’s gospel. He is the ultimate expression of what God is saying to man. And faith itself at its root is simply believing what God says (Rom. 10.17), and not just intellectual agreement with a statement, though that is included, but belief in the person of God that is such that the believer is committed to obey God. There is only two things that the Bible says that almighty God cannot do: lie (Titus 1.2, Heb. 6.18) and tempt or be tempted (James 1.13). This matter of truthfulness is so important to God that he identifies it as one of the character traits of the overcomers. Ps. 5 tells us that the one who may dwell in God’s tent and on his holy hill is the one who speaks truth in his heart (not deceiving himself) and swears to his own hurt and does not change (not deceiving others).

            We read in Eph. 5.27 that Christ will “present to himself a glorious church, not having a spot or a wrinkle or any such thing, but that she may be holy and without blemish.” We are told here in Revelation that these overcomers on Mount Zion with the Lord are without blemish, the same word. It is one of the miracles of God that he can take such disfigured people as we are, disfigured by sin and its consequences, and change us into a bride so beautiful that she is not called beautiful, but glorious.

            So we have two pictures of the overcomers raptured before the Great Tribulation, the male child caught up to the throne and the one hundred and forty-four thousand of the firstfruits standing on Mount Zion with their Lord.

12.13-17a

            We return now to chapter 12 where we see in vs. 13-17 the devil’s response to having been cast out of Heaven and down to the earth.

¹³And when the dragon saw that he had been cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male.

            The woman, as noted above in our consideration of 12.1-12, is the church as a whole. When Satan sees that he has not been able to devour the overcoming body in the church, but indeed that they have been lost by him to Heaven, with the result that he himself has been cast down to the earth, he turns to the only objects of his fury left to him, the rest of the church and the Jews, with the church being considered in this passage. He cannot devour the child, so he goes for the mother. His intention, as in the case of the child, is to devour the mother. Satan wants to destroy the church. We will see some of the particulars of his persecution of the church as we continue in Revelation.

¹⁴And the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, that she might fly into the desert to her place, where she was fed a time and times and half a time from the face of the snake.

            What are the two wings of the great eagle? In Ex. 19.4, God says to the Israelites, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself.” The Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt and from the pursuing army of Egypt as they were leaving by way of the Red Sea. This deliverance was accomplished by God, and is pictured by the symbol of the great wings of eagles taking them above and beyond the danger. The meaning in Revelation is the same. God protects not only ancient Israel, but the church. Satan may be able to bring about the death of many Christians, under the sovereignty of God, but he will never be able to destroy the church. Members, yes; the whole, no. And of course, those who are martyred go to Heaven, so Satan still loses.

            The desert is, of course, the world, the barren place where Christians must live out their days of witness and maturing until God sees fit to call them home. But just as he fed Israel in the desert of old, so he feeds his church today in the desert of this world, and so he feeds the church during the Great Tribulation, sustaining her when it is illegal for her to buy and sell (Rev. 13.17), and thus to obtain food. “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” (Ps. 78.19) Yes, proclaim his followers all through the long centuries of this desert existence.

            The woman, the church, was fed a time, times, and half a time, that is, for the three and one-half years of the Great Tribulation. And she is fed from the face of the snake. That is, her feeding takes place away from the presence of Satan, in that secret place known only to those intimate with the Lord. As Ps. 27.5 puts it, “For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; in the secret place of his tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.” Satan cannot penetrate there, even during the day of trouble known as the Great Tribulation.

¹⁵And the snake cast out from his mouth after the woman water like a river, that he might make her to be carried away by the river.

            Water in the Scriptures often symbolizes difficulties, and specifically, death. The great flood of Gen. 7 is the most obvious example, when everything not in the ark died. Ps. 107.23-30 tells of the terror produced by a great storm at sea, a storm likened to trouble and distress. The stilling of storms by the Lord Jesus in the gospels shows the fear of the sea latent in the disciples. Perhaps the most telling statement is in this book of Revelation, where we read in 21.1, “And the sea is not any more,” in the new heaven and new earth. That symbol of danger and death will be done away with in the end. Danger and death will be no more. Baptism shows us specifically that waters picture death, for that is exactly what baptism is, a picture of a person going into the grave of death to the old man and rising up to the new life of Christ within. Thus in this passage in revelation, we see the snake, Satan, pouring out waters of tribulation trying to destroy the church.

¹⁶And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon cast out from his mouth.

            Ps. 24 begins, “The earth is the Lord’s, and its fullness….” We are not told exactly how the church is delivered from these attempts of Satan to destroy her, but we are shown that God can use anything and everything for the good of his own. The earth is his, so he can use it. The people living on the earth are his, even if they do not know him, and he can use them. Satan’s drowning waters are thwarted by the Lord.

¹⁷And the dragon was angry at the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

            When Satan sees that he cannot destroy the church, he goes off to make war with individual members of the church. Many of these he will indeed be able to put to death, as through history, so in the Great Tribulation. There will be Christians who are left here to go through the Tribulation who will realize, when that moment comes, that they have heard the message of following the Lamb wherever he goes, but have not done so. They will realize that they have heard the call for submission to the Lordship of Christ, but have tried only to be saved without making full surrender. Now they see that they must make that commitment, and as they do so, there are those in the Great Tribulation who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus. They become overcomers. It is a terrible thing to have to be faced with the Great Tribulation before deciding to follow Christ wholly, but it is indeed better late than never. These will enjoy all the rewards of the overcomers.

14.6-7

            Chapter 14 of Revelation is actually an outline of the entire book from the beginning of the rapture of the overcomers to Armageddon. Vs. 1-5, just considered, tell us of the rapture of the firstfruits, the overcomers, before the Great Tribulation. Vs. 6-7, to be studied now, announce the beginning of the end. Thus we learn from this sequence that the rapture of the overcomers will occur shortly before the events of the end that begin with Antichrist asserting himself as God, events that will be studied in due course. V. 8 tells of the fall of Babylon, vs. 9-13, of the Great Tribulation, and vs. 14-20, of the coming of the Lord Jesus in blessing for his own and judgment for the wicked. Let us turn now to vs. 6-7.

⁶And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those sitting on the earth and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people,

            We saw in chapters 4 and 5 that the heavenly court was about to go into session to announce the judgments of the end and to begin pouring them out on the earth. Now John sees an angel flying in mid-heaven, the space between Heaven and earth, and announcing the decisions of the heavenly court. This angel has an eternal gospel. Some try to distinguish between this eternal gospel and some other gospel such as the gospel of the kingdom (Matt. 4.23), the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mark 1.1), and the gospel of God (Mark 1.14), but the gospel is the gospel, and it seems best to take these various expressions as different ways of looking at the good news (the meaning of the word “gospel” in Greek). In this particular case, the gospel is seen as eternal. It is not something that God came up with after man fell so as to redeem the fallen situation. God never changes. He has always been the God of grace who intends only good for his creation. This gospel was preached to Adam and Eve in Gen. 3.15. It was revealed all through the Old Testament, with Isaiah 52.13-53.12 probably being the highest expression of it in the Old Testament. And Rev. 13.8 tells us that the Lord Jesus was the Lamb slaughtered before the foundation of the world.

            This gospel is to be preached generally to those sitting on the earth, that is, those dwelling there, and specifically, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people. That is, it will not be just broadcast hit and miss, but will go to everyone, none being left out. It is difficult for us to imagine an angel actually flying visibly in the sky and preaching audibly to all those dwelling on earth. This may happen literally as described, or it may be that the angel will lead the people of God to carry out this mission. Dan. 4.26 tells us that the heavens rule the earth, that is, that unseen spirit beings, good and evil, control the affairs of men, and Dan. 10.13 and 20 even name two of the evil ones, the princes of Persia and Greece. Dan. 12.1 names Michael as the great prince who guards Israel. What men see on earth is done by men, but they do not see the spirit beings who are controlling things.

⁷saying with a great voice, “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship the one who made the sky and the earth and sea and springs of water.”

            It is of great interest that John sees an angel with the gospel, the good news, to preach, then hears the content of that gospel, judgment. We usually think of good news in terms of salvation, deliverance, and so forth, but certainly not as judgment. But for those who love God and are grieved by the evil of this world, judgment on that evil is good news. The terrible scourge of sin and evil is about to be brought to an end. That is good news! Since judgment is about to fall, it is necessary to fear God and give him glory and worship him so as to avoid the judgment. The angel says specifically that men should recognize God as the Creator of the sky, the earth and sea and springs of water, for in the judgments to be poured out, these realms of God’s creation are to be affected. This announcement by the angel brings us right up to the beginning of the end. Antichrist is about to come on the scene in all his evil glory.

ANTICHRIST

6.1-8, 12.17b-13.6

            We saw in our study of chapter 5 that at the session of the court of Heaven in which judgment was pronounced on the evil world, there was a sealed scroll with no one found worthy to open it until the Lion of the tribe of Judah presented himself. He was worthy to open the scroll because he had overcome. When John looked to see this Lion, he saw a little Lamb standing as if slaughtered, yet he was alive. Thus he saw the eternal nature of our Lord, who ever lays down his life for his people. The scroll which John saw had seven seals, and only the opening of those seals could bring about the judgment and end of evil and the establishment of the eternal reign of righteousness of the Lamb. Now we turn to those seals.

6.1-8

6. ¹And I saw when the little Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living beings saying like a voice of thunder, “Come.” ²And I saw, and look, a white horse and the one sitting on him, having a bow, and a wreath was given to him, and he went out overcoming and that he might overcome.

            When the Lamb opens the first seal, John hears one of the four living beings cry, “Come,” and then he sees a white horse with a rider going out overcoming and to overcome. Many take this rider to be the Lord Jesus, since he comes on a white horse in Rev. 19, he wears a wreath of victory, and he overcomes. However, we have seen more than once that Satan counterfeits what is of God, and we believe that this vision shows us Antichrist beginning his rise to power. Antichrist is Satan’s false christ, but he is also God’s instrument of judgment on the wicked and of purification of his own people. Nothing happens outside the sovereignty of God. Before God begins to pour out the judgments of the end, he brings to power the one who will terrorize the whole earth.

            We believe that this rider on a white horse is Antichrist because this event occurs at the beginning of the events of Revelation, while Christ is still in Heaven, seated on the throne with his Father, awaiting the time for him to return to earth after the Great Tribulation, and in the meantime, interceding for the saints (Rom. 8.34, Heb. 7.25). Some believe that this verse deals with the entire period of the church age from the ascension of Christ up to the beginning of the end, but Christ after his ascension did not go forth from Heaven riding a white horse, carrying a bow, wearing a wreath, and overcoming. He is seated in Heaven even now, as he has been since he left this earth, interceding for the saints. It is Antichrist who will go forth to overcome, to conquer, just as the spirit of Antichrist (1 John 4.1-3) has always led his followers to overcome and abuse people.

³And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living being saying, “Come.” ⁴And there went out another horse, red, and it was given to the one sitting on him to take peace from the earth and that they might slaughter one another, and a great sword was given to him.

            The rider on the horse of red, the color of blood, is war, taking peace from the earth and causing men to slaughter one another. One of the accompanying events of Antichrist’s rise to power will be war. As we will see later, he will arise among a ten-nation confederacy, then will displace the rulers of three of those nations and rise to control of the entire confederacy. From this position, he will consolidate his power as ruler of the world. He will fight his way to the top, using war as one of his instruments of advancement. How true it has ever been of men who desired power that they have no regard for the misery they cause others in mutilation, death, and loss of loved ones. It is the spirit of Antichrist at work even now that will come to its full intensification in the end.

⁵And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living being saying, “Come.” And I saw, and look, a black horse and the one sitting on him, having a scale in his hand. ⁶

And I heard something like a voice in the midst of the four living beings saying, “A choinix of wheat for a denarius and three choinixes of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine.”

            The rider on the black horse is famine. A regular accompaniment of war is famine with the destruction of fields of produce, the destruction of the men who work them, and the interruption of the regular cycles of life. The scale in his hand shows that food is rationed in a time of scarcity. A denarius was a unit of measurement of money and was the usual day’s pay for a laborer (see Matt. 20.2). During the time of famine, a day’s pay will buy a choinix, approximately a quart or a litre, about four cups, of wheat, and three times as much barley. It takes about five cups of flour to make a loaf of bread such as we use today. If one has to support a family on what would make only one wheat loaf or three barley loaves a day, we see from that how severe the famine will be. “Greek Testament, Volume Five, p. 390. Yet the Lord has the prophet
pray in Hab. 3.2 for him in wrath to remember mercy. Despite the scarcity of grain, the oil and wine, not planted like grain, but growing perennially on trees and vines, are not to be harmed. Nevertheless, the rise of Antichrist will bring the specter on hunger onto the world.

⁷And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living being saying, “Come.” ⁸And I saw, and look, a pale green horse and the one sitting on him, and a name to him, death, and hades followed with him, and authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword and by famine and by death and by the beasts of the earth.

            The fourth horse is a sickly, pale green color. His rider is death. Hades, the abode of the lost dead, follows death claiming his ghastly harvest. Prov. 27.20 says, “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied….” Sheol in the Old Testament is the same as hades in the New, and Abaddon means destruction and is used in Rev. 9.11 as the name of the angel of the abyss, hades. How true it is that death, always hungry for more, never claims enough victims. As Antichrist continues his campaign to gain rulership of the world, he will have no regard for the amount of suffering he causes, and his acts will unleash sword and famine, as we have seen with the first three riders, and death and wild beasts as well. The statement in v. 8 that this rider will kill by death probably refers to pestilence, disease, another result of war with its disruption of means of sanitation. Even the beasts of the earth, held in check by the abilities of man, will have greater freedom to claim human victims. Such will be Antichrist’s destruction of orderly society, and such will be his wholly self-centered rise to world domination.

            At the time of these four seals, it will not be realized who this man is, except perhaps by students of the prophecies of the word of God. He will seem to be just another man of the world trying to gain power at the expense of anyone who gets in his way. But he is not just another man. He is Satan’s chosen one. We will see more of his emergence and activities as we continue through Revelation.

            It is likely that this rise to power of Antichrist will occur before the rapture of the overcomers, but that their rapture will occur before his gaining of the full power that results in the Great Tribulation. We turn now to that event.

12.17b-13.6

12. ^17b And he stood on the sand of the sea.

            The “he” of 12.17b is the dragon, Satan. In 12.12, we read that when Satan had been cast down to the earth, he was furious, knowing that he had little time, and in 17a, that after he had seen that he could not destroy the church, he was angry and went to make war against individual members of the church. Then we find him here, standing on the seashore. The next verse, 13.1, shows us why he is standing in this particular location.

13. ¹And I saw a beast coming up from the sea, having ten horns and seven heads and on his horns ten diadems and on his heads names of blasphemy.

            In the Old Testament we read of sheol, and in the New, of hades. These are Hebrew and Greek names for the same place. It is the abode of those who die in their sins and are awaiting judgment. It is a place of torment, as we see in Luke 16.23-24, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. It is in addition the prison house of certain fallen angels who are also awaiting judgment, according to 2 Peter 2.4. The usual translation, “hell,” in 2 Peter 2.4, is incorrect, the correct one being tartarus, another name for hades. Hades and hell are not the same, hades being the preliminary abode of the lost dead, and hell their final judgment (see my booklet Hades, Hell, Paradise, and Heaven, available at no charge on my web site, tomadcox.com). Hades can sometimes refer to death or simply to the grave. Hades was the name of the mythological Greek god of the underworld dwelling-place of the dead.

            Yet another name for hades is “the abyss.” This word “abyss” literally means “bottomless,” not that the abyss is bottomless, but that it is so deep as to seem so. The verses of Scripture that show us that the tartarus of 2 Peter 2.4 is the same as hades are Luke 8.31 and Rom. 10.7. Rom. 10.7 clearly identifies the abyss with death, hades, and when the Lord Jesus encountered the man who had the legion of demons, in Luke 8.31 the demons begged him not to command them to go to the abyss. They did not want to be imprisoned before judgment, but to be allowed to remain free to do their evil deeds. The irony of this passage is that the demons asked the Lord to let them go into the herd of pigs feeding there, and by doing so, they consigned themselves to the abyss. He allowed them to do so, and the pigs rushed into the lake and drowned.

            The lake in this passage is seen as the doorway to the abyss. Job 26.5 says, “The departed spirits tremble under the waters and their inhabitants,” and v. 6 adds, “Naked is sheol before Him, and Abaddon has no covering.” Abaddon is found in Rev. 9.11 as the Hebrew name of the angel of the abyss. In Jonah 2.2, the reluctant prophet cries “for help from the depth of sheol,” and in v. 3, “For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas….” We noted Rom. 10.7 above as equating the abyss with hades. Rom. 10.7 is a quotation from Deut. 30.13, but in that passage, the word used is “sea,” not “abyss,” and the Old Testament verse says that the sea is crossed, not descended into, but Rom. 10.7 shows that the prophetic meaning of the statement in Deuteronomy has to do with the death of Christ and descent into hades.

            We return now to Satan’s fury as he stands on the seashore, and we see the significance of his standing in that particular place. He is standing at the doorway to the abyss. Because of his great fury toward God and his people, Jewish and Christian, Satan will unleash the greatest persecution of the people of God ever known in history. He does so by bringing one up from the sea, from the abyss (Rev. 11.7, 17.8), from hades, that is, back from the dead. This one is a man, but a man of such diabolical evil as to be called a beast. This beast-man is Satan’s counterfeit of Christ. He is Antichrist. He is Satan’s counterfeit of the resurrection. He comes from the abyss through the doorway of the abyss, the sea, as his evil lord, Satan, stands on the shore.

            The first fact John notices about him after seeing that he is a beast and that he comes from the sea is that he has ten horns and seven heads, and that on his horns he has ten diadems and on his heads, names of blasphemy. What can be meant by such a grotesque symbol?

            In the seventh chapter of Daniel, that prophet records his vision of four beasts that came up out of the sea. Our concern at this point is only with the fourth beast. Dan. 7.7-8 tells us that this fourth beast had ten horns, and that while Daniel was thinking about the horns, another little horn came up in the midst of the ten. Three of the ten horns were pulled out by the roots before the little horn. The little horn had “eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great” things. We will see this same speaking of great things in Rev. 13.5.

            Daniel asked an angel in his vision the meaning of the fourth beast and was told, in Dan. 7.24, that ten kings (the ten horns) would arise from one kingdom (the fourth beast), and another king would arise after them, would be different from them, and would subdue three of them. Then Dan. 7.25 reveals that he would wear down the saints for three and one-half years.

            We turn now to Rev. 17.3. Here John sees a vision of a woman sitting on a scarlet beast. The beast was full of blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns, as did the beast in Dan. 7. We will deal with the woman when we come to chapter 17. For now, we will examine what this passage tells us about the beast. We learn in v. 8 that at the time in which John saw this vision, this beast was and is not, and was about to come up out of the abyss. All those whose names are not written in the Lamb’s scroll of life will wonder when they see the beast because he was not and is. Vs. 9-10 say that the seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits, and that they are seven kings. Five of these kings have fallen, one is, and the other is not yet. Keep in mind that we are speaking of John’s time when he saw the vision. Then v. 11 says that the beast who was and is not is an eighth, but is of the seven.

            Putting together all of these passages, Rev. 13.1, Dan. 7, and Rev. 17, we see the following. Bible students are generally agreed that the fourth beast of Daniel is either the ancient Roman Empire or some sort of reviving of that empire in the last days. The ten horns are ten kings who will arise in the last days as a part of that revived empire. The seven heads lend great support to this belief, first because the city of Rome is built on seven hills, and Rev. 17.9 says that the seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits, and second, because Rev. 17.10 tells us that the seven hills are also seven kings, five having fallen, one is (when John was seeing the vision), and one had not yet come. These could well be Roman emperors, five of whom had died before John saw the vision, one of whom was reigning at that time, and one of whom who had not yet come. The beast has seven heads, seven kings, and he is also one of the kings come back to life. That is, the strength and evil of this eighth king embody all of the strength and evil of the others, and surpasses them.

            We are told in Rev. 13.1 that the beast’s ten horns had ten diadems. The diadem is the wreath of royalty. The ten horns are ten kings, wearing such wreaths of royalty. We believe also, incidentally, that they picture Antichrist’s attempt to usurp the place of the Lord Jesus, who is the only one entitled to wear such a wreath.  On the beast’s heads were blasphemous names. Of this we will see more in considering chapter 17.

            Our conclusion, then, is that the beast coming up out of the sea is the little horn, the one of the seven who was and is not, but who will come back from the dead as an eighth, released by the dragon from the abyss, hades, the abode of the dead, through its symbolic doorway, the sea, to unleash on the people of God the great fury of Satan. He is Antichrist, who will make his way into the ten-king confederation of the last days, displace three of those kings, and become the ruler of the empire.

²And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet like a bear’s and his mouth like a lion’s mouth.

            Returning to Daniel’s vision in chapter 7 of his prophecy, we read in vs. 4-6 that three of the four beasts he saw were like a lion, a bear, and a leopard respectively. Then v. 7 says that the fourth beast was different from the others, in strength and ability to terrify. And now in Rev. 13.2 we read of Antichrist that he is like a leopard, with feet like a bear’s and a mouth like a lion’s. That is, as with the seven heads of Rev. 17.10-11, Antichrist embodies all the evil of the other empires and rulers, and surpasses it. He is the culmination of Satan-inspired human evil.

And the dragon gave to him his power and his throne and great authority.

            Having brought him up from death, Satan gives him power – the ability to use force; his throne – the right to rule in his place; and great authority – the right to act in the name and power of another.

            Power is the actual strength one has, whether it be legal or not. One may be able to do what is wrong because no one is strong enough to stop him. Satan givers such brute force to Antichrist.

            The Lord Jesus himself said that Satan is the ruler of this world (John 12.31, 14.30, 16.11), and this ruler allows Antichrist to occupy his earthly throne, another counterfeit, this time of God’s plan for his Son to occupy the throne of earth. It is one of the mysteries of God’s grace that he will win the battle with Satan and restore his creation to his original purpose through man. He began with the man Adam, but he failed, and we all fail in Adam. He then brought in the last Adam and he succeeded, and we succeed in him by faith and obedience. The human Lord Jesus Christ and his human followers will overcome Satan in the end, and a man risen from the dead, Jesus, will rule on the throne of earth, along with all the men and women who overcome through him. Satan tries to usurp this place by putting his own man, risen from the dead,  on the throne of the world.

            Authority is not actual power, but the right to speak or act in the name of another. In addition to being able to wield the power of Satan (which is deceit, by the way, his power having been nullified by the Lord Jesus – Col. 2.15, Heb. 2.14, 1 John 3.8), Antichrist also has authority from Satan to act as his representative on earth. An ambassador to a foreign country represents his own government in that country. He does not have any power himself, being only one man in a country that has an army, but if he gets his orders from his government before speaking or acting and follows them, he has all the power of his government, its army and whatever other means of power it may have, behind him. Such is the case with the Lord’s people, who are his ambassadors on earth (2 Cor. 5.20), and such will be the case with Antichrist, whose evil words and works will be backed up by the dragon.

³And one of his heads was as wounded unto death, and his wound of death was healed. And the whole earth marveled after the beast ⁴and worshipped the dragon, for he gave the authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast saying, “Who is like the beast and who is able to make war with him?”

            We have already seen in v. 1 of this chapter that the beast comes up from the sea, and in 17.8 and 11 that he was and is not and is about to come up from the abyss. Now we have more specific information. One of his heads was wounded, fatally wounded. Yet this wound was healed. This one who died of a wound and went into hades will come back from death, from hades, and appear alive on the earth again. The whole earth will marvel after him because of this apparently miraculous healing and return from death. In addition, they will worship the dragon, Satan, because he will give his authority to the beast, and they will worship the beast. In Mark 13.22, the Lord Jesus himself says, “And there will be false christs and false prophets, and they will give signs and wonders to the deceiving, if possible, of the chosen.” If even the chosen can almost be deceived by the works of Antichrist, how much more the lost? He will be able to do such wonders that people will ask, “Who is like the beast?” And he will have come to his position by way of conquest, witness the three horns uprooted by him, so that they ask, “Who is able to make war with him?” As ever, the world is easily deceived by the master deceiver through his man. The world has always believed that some man would be its savior and has followed every scheme of every man except the Man. When one can do such things as Antichrist will do, they will be even more deceived by him, too, even to the point of worshipping him. We will see more of what is behind this worship in the next two verses.

⁵And a mouth speaking great and blasphemous things was given to him and authority was given to him to act for forty-two months. ⁶ And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his Tabernacle, those tabernacling in Heaven.

            We saw in Dan. 7.8 that the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision had a mouth uttering great things, and now we see the same thing here in Rev. 13. If a man is empowered by Satan to the point that he is worshipped by other men, blasphemy against God will not be found difficult by him. The pride of man is such that he seeks praise as it is, and when one such as Antichrist finds himself able to do virtually anything, and an object of worship as well, his words match his actions of accepting worship and he blasphemes God. In addition, he makes great boasts. But his time for doing these things is limited. He has forty-two months, the three and one-half years of the Great Tribulation. This time limit is not given him by Satan, but by God who is sovereign over all and is only allowing Satan and his dupe to bring evil to its fullness (Gen. 15.16) that he might pronounce final judgment and bring his Son to the throne of a kingdom that will never end.

            The book of Hebrews teaches us that the Tabernacle on earth was actually only a copy of the real one in Heaven (Heb. 9.11, 23-24). The Temple, of course, was the permanent building that replaced the Tabernacle, a tent, when the Israelites had settled in their land. Now we read in Rev. 13.6 that Antichrist blasphemes God and the Tabernacle in Heaven. What is meant by this statement?

            We saw in our introduction to Revelation that the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Thess. 2.4 that Antichrist is the one “who opposes and rises in pride against everything that is called God or an object of worship, so that he sits in the Sanctuary of God, showing himself forth that he is God.” This is blaspheming of God and the Tabernacle in Heaven in general, but it is also specifically this occasion when Antichrist sits in the Sanctuary, in the very Holy of Holies, claiming to be God. It is not just an earthly act, but is against God and Heaven. This is the abomination of desolation of Dan. 9.27, 11.31, and 12.11, and Matt. 24.15 (paralleled by Mark 13.14). This desecration of the Temple is an abomination to God. The concept of an abomination in the Old Testament has to do primarily with idolatry, and Antichrist setting himself up in the Temple as the rightful object of the worship of that Temple is idolatry in the extreme, an abomination to God. It is an abomination that makes desolate, for it renders the Jewish Temple unclean and thus unfit for their use, leaving them desolate.

            This act by Antichrist will begin, indeed, precipitate, the Great Tribulation, for God will pour out terrible judgments on such an abomination, and while God is judging evil, Satan will use his man to launch great persecution of God’s people. It will be a time of double tribulation, the judgment of God on evil and the persecution of those faithful to God. Referring again to our introduction, we saw there that the Lord Jesus himself said that when this abomination of desolation occurs, there will be “great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will be” (Matt. 24.21). And in Rev. 13.5, we noted that Antichrist has his authority from this point for forty-two months, three and one-half years, the period of the Great Tribulation.   

            There are further events connected with this proclamation of himself as God by Antichrist that we will see in our next chapter.

FALLEN, FALLEN IS BABYLON THE GREAT

14.8, 17.1-18

14.8

            We saw earlier that Rev. 14 is actually an outline of events in Revelation from the rapture of the overcomers to the battle of Armageddon. V. 8 tells us of an event that will be treated fully in Rev. 17.

14. ⁸And another angel, a second, followed saying, “Fell, fell Babylon the great who from the wine of the passion of her immorality has given to all the nations to drink.”

            We need not spend time explaining this verse, for it is the summary statement of what happens in chapter 17, to which we turn.

17.1-18

17. ¹And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls and he spoke with me saying, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, ²with whom the kings of the earth committed immorality, and those dwelling on the earth were made drunk from the wine of her immorality.”

            We saw in our consideration of Rev. 13.1-7 that Antichrist appeared to John as a beast with seven heads and ten horns. While studying that passage, we referred to the current passage, Rev. 17, to help explain it, for we find the same symbols here. There is, however, the addition that a woman is sitting on the beast. The woman is called a great harlot, and she also sits on many waters, and she is to be judged. The beast here in Rev. 17 is Antichrist. Who is the woman?

            The first answer is given to us in v. 5. She is “a mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of those who practice immorality and the abominations of the earth.” The woman is Babylon. But what does this mean, for Babylon is a city, not a woman?

            The Bible might well be subtitled, A Tale of Two Cities. As the Bible unfolds, it becomes clear that two cities embody everything it is about. Those two cities are Jerusalem and Babylon. Jerusalem, the city of peace (salem = Hebrew shalom), represents all that is of God and that God intends to bring about. Babylon, the city of confusion, babble, stands for everything that is opposed to God, religious, secular, of any sort. It is inspired by Satan and secretly ruled by him, and sums up all that is of man without God. The history of man is the history of the struggle of these two cities for domination of the world. In the end, God will judge and destroy Babylon, and the new Jerusalem will be seen coming down out of Heaven from God. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

            Rev. 17 and 18 both deal with the destruction of Babylon, but the two chapters are concerned with two different aspects of Babylon. Chapter 18 deals with what we might call political or commercial or secular Babylon, but here in chapter 17 we are concerned with religious Babylon. The great harlot is man’s religion, secretly inspired by Satan, as opposed to what is revealed by God. It is man’s religion in any form, pagan, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant. God is not the God of religion. Religion is of Satan and of man. God is the God of a living relationship with himself through Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. Man will have a priesthood between himself and God. God desires a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19.6). Man will earn his salvation by his own works. He will deserve salvation. He will save himself. God saves only by grace through faith in the finished work of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Man will have religious rites he can observe and thus be counted acceptable to God regardless of his daily living. God has no rites, but desires a people who know him and walk with him continually, always seeking to do his will and to honor him by their lives and words. In Rev. 17, we see religious Babylon, and she is a harlot.

            One of the great figures of the Bible dealing with the relationship between God and man is marriage. In the Old Testament we find that Israel is the wife of God. In the New, we see that the church is to be the bride of Christ. When Israel is unfaithful to God, she is called a harlot. We are told in James 4.4 that friendship with the world makes us spiritual adulteresses, Christians who are unfaithful to the Lord Jesus. The book of Hosea teaches that in the end, Israel’s harlotry will end and she will be the faithful wife of the God who will take her back in grace. And here in the book of Revelation, we will see that the story ends (really, begins!) with the new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God as a bride adorned for her husband. Throughout eternity there will be purity of relationship between God and his people that is symbolized by a faithful marriage. But religious Babylon is a harlot.

            Man’s religion claims to be of God, but embraces every evil. The kings of the earth commit immorality with her and those dwelling on the earth are made drunk from the wine of her immorality. Recall the letters to the seven churches in Rev. 2 and 3. We saw there in the letter to Ephesus and especially to Pergamum that physical immorality, temple prostitution, was often a part of pagan worship, and that in addition to this, God considers idolatry on the part of his people to be spiritual adultery against himself. It would be a rare Christian who would admit to idolatry, claiming that he did not bow down to an idol of wood or stone or metal, but God considers friendship with the world to be idolatry. Anything that holds the place of God in our lives, including self, is an idol, and thus anything that we put before him is an idol. The figure of the kings of the earth committing immorality with the harlot symbolizes the kings of the earth embracing religion, using it for their own purposes, and it symbolizes the harlot embracing the kings, using them for her purposes. This mixing of the secular and religious for mutual gain is spiritually immoral, and in fact, it also leads to physical immorality on the part of its adherents.

            Not only were the kings of the earth committing immorality with the harlot, but “those dwelling on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.” Those dwelling on the earth are people who are not the Lord’s (Rev. 3.10, 8.13, 11.10, 13.8, 14, 17.2, 8). His people are seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2.6). The kings hold forth to their people a religious system that is opposed to God, and the people love it and embrace it, willingly deceived by it. They get drunk on it. Do not be drunk with wine, Paul wrote, but be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5.18). One can get spiritually drunk as well as physically drunk. False religion intoxicates and dulls the senses and deludes.

³And he bore me away to a desert in the Spirit. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

            John was taken to a desert, the desert of this world without God. There he saw this woman, this harlot, sitting on the beast. This picture shows us that man’s religion is of the world, the desert, and it shows us the close cooperation between the political world and religion, each helping the other to advance their interests. The harlot is carried by the state, and the state holds forth the harlot as a religious support for its claims on people.

⁴And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stone and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the uncleannesses of her immorality,

            Purple and scarlet are colors of royalty. These colors of her clothing along with the gold, precious stone and pearls show the wealth of this worldly religious system. The Lord Jesus had nowhere to lay his head, and he told his followers that if someone took their garments to give up their cloaks as well. Yet the religion symbolized by the harlot is wealthy, but with all her outward appearance of splendor, the cup of gold that she holds in her hand is full of abominations and immorality. Abomination in the Bible has to do with idolatry. Even though this religion claims to be of God, and may even claim to be Christian in some cases, it is full of idolatry. It professes to worship God, but in truth it worships anything except God. And her immorality is both spiritual and physical.

            In the Scriptures, gold, silver, and precious stones as they relate to God’s people have to do with the development of godly character in ways that are symbolized by these objects of value. Gold and silver are refined by going through the fire, and precious stones are developed through long centuries in darkness under great pressure. Thus do the people of God gain the gold, silver, and precious stone of eternal spiritual value, but the harlot, spurning this costly way of the cross, instead displays the outward, material gold, precious stone, and pearls that will not survive this world. It is ironic. Both the true people of God and the harlot have these objects of great value, but with the one it is material opulence that is of no real and lasting value, while with the other, it is the preciousness of character developed by God that will last forever.

⁵and on her forehead a name written, a mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of those who practice immorality and of the abominations of the earth.

            The harlot has this identification, “a mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of those who practice immorality and the abominations of the earth.” In the Bible, a mystery is not a secret that is difficult for a person to solve, though he may possibly do so if he has enough clues and has a good deductive mind. A mystery in the Bible is impossible for man to solve. But that is not the point. A mystery is a secret known only by God, but revealed by him at the proper time. Matt. 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8 speak of the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and truths about the kingdom are revealed in those chapters that had not been revealed before. Man would never have guessed these truths. Man did not even know that these mysteries existed. They became known only as God revealed them. Christ is called God’s mystery in Col. 2.2. The inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God is called Christ’s mystery in Eph. 3.3-6. There are several other such mysteries in the New Testament (see my article, “Mystery” in the New Testament on my web site, tomadcox.com). Here we find that the harlot is a mystery. She is a mystery, Babylon the great. That is, God is about to reveal something about religion that had not been known before. It is that religion, even when it claims to be Christian and outwardly does many works that appear good, is in fact a harlot. It is Babylon, the city that opposes God. It is the mother of those who practice immorality and idolatry. We may not always be able to recognize the falsity of religion, but when John saw his vision, he saw her true name clearly stamped on her forehead.

⁶And I saw the woman drunk from the blood of the saints and from the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.

            Not only is this woman a harlot and an idolater, she is also what is behind the persecution of the people of God. If one studies the history of persecution, he will be amazed to find that in virtually all cases, it is religion that persecutes. Even if it is the state doing the persecuting, there is very often a religious motive. In the Old Testament, those in Israel faithful to God were persecuted by fellow-Israelites who were idolatrous, immoral, and unjust. The Lord Jesus, God himself in the flesh come to his people, was opposed by the leaders of the Jews, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and was put to death by the people of God. The first persecution of Christians was done by Jews. The Roman persecutions of Jews and Christians was in part based on their refusal to worship the Roman gods and the emperor. The Catholics persecuted those faithful to God all through the history of that unscriptural system, putting many of them to death. Protestants cannot point any fingers, for they in turn persecuted Catholics in the name of Christ. Much blood has been shed by the people of God because they are the people of God, and in the end it will be seen that all of it can be traced to a woman drunk on this blood, a harlot who claims to represent God but who in fact stands against what is really of God in every way.

And I marveled when I saw this great marvel. ⁷And the angel said to me, “Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast carrying her, the one having the seven heads and the ten horns.

            It is only natural that John would marvel upon seeing such a vision, a woman sitting “on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed immorality, and those dwelling on the earth were made drunk from the wine of her immorality,” and “sitting on a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” What a sight! Yet the angel asked him why he marveled, and told him he would explain the mystery.

⁸The beast which you saw was and is not and is about to come up from the abyss and go to destruction, and those dwelling on the earth will marvel, whose name is not written in the scroll of life from the foundation of the world, seeing the beast that he was and is not and will come.

            We saw in Rev. 13.3 that one of the heads of the beast had a mortal wound, but that the wound was healed, causing the whole earth to marvel. Now the angel explains more fully that the beast, Antichrist, who is one of the heads, was and is not. That is, he lived in the past and died. But he is also about to come: he will come back from the dead. He will come up out of the abyss, hades, the place of the dead, but in the end he will go to destruction, that is, not back to hades, but to eternal hell. But before he goes to destruction, he will have a spectacular career, beginning with those on the earth marveling at him because he came back from the dead. They will not believe in the resurrection of Christ because they cannot see him with their eyes and have no faith, but they will be deceived by this one back from the dead because they can see him. Seeing is believing, the world says. Believing is seeing, the Lord’s people say. Those dwelling on the earth, not seated with Christ in the heavenlies, not having their names written in the scroll of life (Ex. 32.32-33, Ps. 69.28, Dan. 12.1, Phil. 4.3) from the foundation of the world, will marvel because this one has come back from the dead and they can see him with their own eyes.

⁹Here is the mind that has wisdom.

            Does this statement apply to v. 8, to vs. 9-14, or to both? Probably to both, for it takes the wisdom from above (James 3.17) to understand the things of God, and these symbols are beyond the unaided human mind. As we study Revelation, and indeed all the Bible, and as we live in the world, let us pray for the wisdom from above that we may know the things of God and how to live by them. It is only the mind that has such wisdom that will understand the revelations in Revelation.

The seven heads are seven hills, where the woman sits on them. And they are seven kings.

            These are the words that cause some Bible students to believe that Antichrist has to do with Rome, for Rome is the city built on seven hills. The prophecy of Daniel says that there will be four great Gentile empires ruling the known world, the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Greek, and one other, which must, by historical fact, be the Roman, though it is not named. But it also indicates that at the time of the end, there will be another empire, something of a revival of the fourth, at least in character if not in exact geographical location. Since the fourth empire was the Roman, and this empire will know a revival at the end, and the beast has seven heads which are seven hills, it is logical that the city in question is Rome. Yet she is named here in Rev. 17.5 as Babylon.

            Some believe that the literal physical city of Babylon in present-day Iraq is meant. Others believe that Rome is meant. Others would take the symbol as showing the spiritual character of the beast – he is Babylonian, opposed to God. It seems that the city of Rome is meant because of the reference to seven hills, and the thought would be that the spiritual system symbolized by Babylon and that began on earth in the historical city of Babylon had had its center transferred to Rome when John saw his visions, and that would also be the case at the time of the end. There is no question that Rome was Babylonian in character during the time of the New Testament and of the early church, and of course, Rome was ruling the world when John saw his visions and was responsible for his exile on Patmos, so the city of Rome does seem to be in view.

            But in all likelihood, whether it is Rome or not, the primary focus is on the spiritual character of the beast. John writes in 1 John 4.3 of the spirit of Antichrist which was already operating in the world when he wrote that epistle in the first century, and that spirit is everywhere in the world. But the spiritual character does have primary physical locations in the world. It began with Babylon, and it spread throughout the world, including Rome, and we believe that Rome is a part of the angel’s interpretation, but no matter what one may believe about the physical cities involved, there is no doubt that what Babylon symbolizes is involved in this vision seen by John.

            The seven heads are also seven kings. There is no conflict between this statement and the view that the city referred to is Rome, for Rome had kings in John’s day, though they were called Caesars, emperors.

¹⁰Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain a short time.

            Five of these kings, Roman emperors if we are right, had fallen, died, when John saw his vision. One was ruling in John’s day. One had not yet come to the throne. We do not know who these seven emperors were, and there were more than seven Roman emperors, but keep in mind that seven is a number of completeness in the Bible. Just as seven churches in Asia, which had many more than seven churches, represent the whole in completeness, and seven seals, trumpets, and bowls show the completeness of judgment, so these seven emperors embody all that was the Roman Empire. When the seventh came, he would remain for a short time.

¹¹And the beast who was and is not is also himself an eighth and is from the seven, and goes to destruction.

            The beast, Antichrist, is an eighth emperor of this empire, but he is also of the seven, one of them come back to life. Five of the emperors lived and died before the time of John’s vision, and we do not know when the seventh would come, whether near to John’s day or some time later. We do know that Antichrist, the eighth who is of the seven will come at the end times. We need to note once again that the beast with seven heads and ten horns is separate from six of the heads (six, not seven, because he is one of the seven come back) and the ten kings, yet he is also all of these emperors and kings. His evil is of such greatness that he embodies all that the others were and will be, so that he is both one of the heads and the little horn of Dan. 7, and also the beast that is made up of all of them. And he himself will go to destruction.

¹²And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom but they receive authority as kings for one hour with the beast.

            The ten horns are ten kings who will also arise at the end times. They had not yet received a kingdom when John saw his vision, but we are clearly told that they would do so at the time of the beast, which is at the end. The duration of the “one hour” is not spelled out, but it would seem to indicate that it would not be for a lengthy time and that it would be determined by God, who is sovereign over all that will happen.

¹³These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.

            All of these ten kings will unite under the headship of the beast, joining in his purpose to rule the world and allowing him to use their power and authority for his purposes.

¹⁴These will make war with the little Lamb, and the little Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him, called and chosen and faithful.”

            The vision jumps ahead to the end by reporting that these kings, with the beast, will make war with the Lamb. We take this statement to refer to the battle of Armageddon when the kings of the earth, under Antichrist, will gather in Israel to destroy the Jewish people and oppose Christ at his return. John gives away the end of the story by telling us that the Lamb will overcome them! He also indicates that there will be those who are with him when he overcomes this army. They are called and chosen and faithful. Of these we will see more later when we deal with chapter 19.

¹⁵And he said to me, “The waters which you saw on which the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

            Now the angel returns to what John saw in the first verse, the woman sitting on many waters. He explains that these waters are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. That is, just as the waters, rivers, lakes, oceans, are constantly in motion, never at rest but always tossing about, the ocean in particular, so are the nations, restless without the rest that is Christ. The woman sits on the nations. She is all the religions of the world accepted by man without God. The nations of the world support this false system that opposes God.

¹⁶And the ten horns which you saw and the beast, these will hate the harlot and they will make her desolate and naked and they will consume her flesh and they will burn her with fire.

            The angel now tells John that the ten kings and the beast will hate the harlot and destroy her. We saw in the previous chapter, in dealing with the abomination of desolation, that Antichrist would desecrate the Jewish Temple by setting himself up in the Temple as God, showing himself forth to be God. Up to this point, Antichrist will be allied with the religions of the world. He will even make a covenant with the Jews, as Dan. 9.27 tells us. No doubt many so-called Christian groups will work with him, even as many so-called Christian groups today support causes that are anathema to God. Antichrist will use the religions of the world for his own purposes, taking their help in gaining his position of world domination. But when he has consolidated his power and has no effective opposition, he will reveal his true character. Not only will he want to rule the world, but, under Satan’s inspiration, he will want to be worshipped as God. He will not only break his covenant with the Jews and desecrate their Temple, the abomination of desolation, the ultimate idolatry, but he will outlaw and destroy all other religions in the world. It will be illegal to be Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, and on and on. The only legal religion will be the worship of Antichrist. Thus the harlot, satanic, human, Babylonian religion that has for millenniums held itself forth as speaking for God, will come to her end, an end of desolation. The abomination of desolation desolates not only the Jewish Temple and Jewish hearts, but also all the other religions of the world.

            It is of the essence of the character of Satan that while he lures people with promises of pleasure and happiness, his true end is to destroy his followers, and in the end he does so. So it will be with the beast. The very religious system that Satan uses to control virtually all the people of the world and that is unknowingly loyal to him, will in the end be destroyed by his agent, Antichrist.

¹⁷For God has given into their hearts to do his purpose and to do one purpose and to give their kingdom to the beast until the words of God reach perfect fulfillment.

            It is quite important, though, that we see that this act of destroying the harlot, world religion, is not just the act of Satan and Antichrist. It is above all God’s act. God has ever intended to destroy Babylon, Satan and man opposed to him and his ways, even in religion, and in the end he will put it into the hearts of those with whom the harlot has been closely allied all through history for mutual benefit, to hate her and destroy her. When she is no longer useful, she will be eliminated. And keep in mind that these are people. Yes, it is world religion, but what is religion but people acting together? Satan, using Antichrist, will destroy his own people, yet it will over all be God’s judgment of evil. The kings think they are acting of their own volition, little realizing that they are helping to bring about God’s ultimate purpose. All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to purpose (Rom. 8.28). The concentrated evil of the world’s rulers in the last days will accomplish the will of God. In having one purpose and in giving their sovereignty to the beast, they will help cause the words of God to reach perfect fulfillment. “O the depth of the wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unfathomable are his judgments and untraceable his ways!”

¹⁸And the woman whom you saw is the great city which has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.”

            The angel reiterates to John that the woman is the great city which has a kingdom, a spiritual, religious kingdom, over the kings of the earth. Again, Rome could be meant, for the Rome of John’s time ruled the known world both secularly and religiously, and all the kings of that world were kings at the pleasure of Rome, or Babylon could be meant, literally or figuratively, as the symbol of all that opposes God.

            Thus we see that God will use Antichrist to destroy religious Babylon as a natural concomitant of the abomination of desolation. Three factors have converged at this point that will bring on the end of this age in the Great Tribulation: Satan will have been cast down to earth and so will be in such a fury that he will use Antichrist to launch history’s greatest persecution of the people of God; Antichrist himself will be attempting to destroy all worship except that of himself and so will persecute the people of God who refuse him worship, and this will be a carrying out of Satan’s fury; and God, seeing the ultimate abomination, the ultimate idolatry, the one that makes everything desolate, will pour out judgment on such evil and on the people who willingly follow it. There will be a time in which those on the earth will be caught in the middle of a cosmic crossfire, with Satan and Antichrist pouring out persecution from below and God pouring out judgment from above. “For there will then be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will be.” The stage is set for the Great Tribulation.

THE GREAT TRIBULATION

14.9-13, 13.7-18, 6.9-11, 8.6-11.14, 15.1-16.16

            We return now to chapter 14, the outline of Revelation from the rapture of the overcomers to the battle of Armageddon, to see the result of the three factors with which we closed the last chapter, the casting down of Satan to earth, the megalomania of Antichrist, and the judgment of God in response.

14.9-13

14. ⁹And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰ he also will drink of the wine of the fury of God which is mixed full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented in fire and brimstone before holy angels and before the little Lamb. ¹¹And the smoke of their torment will go up to ages of ages, and they will not have rest day and night, those worshipping the beast and his image, and if anyone takes the mark of his name.

            This third angel follows the first two, of vs. 6 and 8. The first announced the hour of judgment and called for repentance. The second announced the destruction of religious Babylon by Antichrist. Now the third gives a brief summary of the Great Tribulation. We will not comment at length on these verses, for we will see the matters brought up here in more detail in other passages of Revelation, but will just take note of them.

            We have already seen the beast, Antichrist, and we will learn of his image in the next section, 13.7-18. During the Great Tribulation, if anyone worships these or receives their mark, he will know the judgments of God, without rest, during the Great Tribulation and forever.

¹²Here is the perseverance of the saints, those keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

            This verse makes it quite clear that there will be people of God, saints, on earth and going through this time. It will require great perseverance for them to endure it faithful to God. The Lord Jesus himself said, “And if those days were not cut short, no flesh would be saved, but because of the chosen, those days will be cut short” (Matt. 24.22).

¹³And I heard a voice from Heaven saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now.’ “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they might rest from their labors, for their works follow with them.”

            There will be martyrs for the Lord, Jewish and Christian, we believe, during the Tribulation, and a voice from Heaven says that they are blessed, happy, and the Holy Spirit seconds this statement, explaining that they will be happy first because they have rest from their labors, and second, because their works follow with them. The Lord’s people will be judged by their works, not for salvation but for reward, and the works of these who have died for the Lord will be approved by God, making them happy before him.

13.7-18

⁷And it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them,

            We left Antichrist in Rev. 13.6 blaspheming God and his name and his Tabernacle in Heaven. Those statements by him are a part of his abomination of desolation that helps bring on the Great Tribulation. Now v. 7 shows his first acts of persecution that make this a time of tribulation. He makes war with the saints, the people of God. The abomination of desolation begins with the desecration of the Jewish Temple, so those Jews who are faithful to God and do not worship the beast will be persecuted. This will be a terrible time for Jews as well as Christians. In fact, in Jer. 30.7, the Great Tribulation is called the time of Jacob’s distress. The saints who are persecuted will also include Christians who will not worship the beast. Not only will Antichrist make war with them, but he will overcome them. The last half of this verse tells us why.

and authority was given to him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.

            There will be nowhere to hide, for Satan will have authority over all the people of the earth. His rule will be universal on the earth. The saints may flee to deserts or mountains or wherever, and some will escape, but the authority of Antichrist will extend to whatever place they go.

⁸And all those dwelling on the earth will worship him, whose name is not written in the scroll of life of the little Lamb slaughtered from the foundation of the world.

            Those dwelling on the earth, the earthbound, will worship the beast. Those who are the Lord’s dwell on the earth in body, as do those who are not, but they are not earthbound.  They are also seated with Christ in the heavenlies in spirit (Eph. 2.6), so they are able to take a view from eternity of what is happening on earth. Those dwelling on the earth see only the saving of their physical lives as important, for they do not see the eternal consequences. Those who are seated with Christ in the heavenlies realize that what they do on earth will have eternal consequences, and so they sacrifice their earthly lives for eternal reward.

            Those who will worship the beast will be those whose names are not written in the scroll of life of the Lamb (Ex. 32.32-33, Ps. 69.28, Dan. 12.1, Phil. 4.3). The Lord Jesus said that he was able to keep his own (John 10.28-29, 17.12), and he will do so at the most difficult time of all to do so. Those who are not his will follow the beast to destruction.

            John then adds one of those statements in the Bible that transcend their context and teach us a great truth. This Lamb who has a scroll of life is the Lamb slaughtered from the foundation of the world. Two thoughts emerge from these words. First, the Lamb who has a scroll of life is a Lamb who was slaughtered. This statement appears to be a contradiction. How could a slaughtered Lamb have a scroll of life? The answer is that the life referred to is life from the dead, resurrection life, eternal life for the Lamb and the people of God. The Lamb who was slaughtered has risen from the grave with life that can never end again, and he gives that life to his own. Antichrist has come back from the dead, but his coming back is a false resurrection. It is not a resurrection, a rising to a new kind of life with a glorified body. It is a rising back to physical life, and he will die again, the second death, in the lake of fire.

            Second, this Lamb is slaughtered from the foundation of the world. We saw in Rev. 5.6 that the Lord Jesus who will reign on the throne forever as the mighty Lion of Judah is the little Lamb, standing as though slaughtered. That is, his nature is not to use his people for himself, but to use himself for them, to give himself eternally. Now we learn that this giving nature, this dying to self, of our Lord extends backward into eternity past. He has always been the slaughtered Lamb. He died to himself in eternity past, submitting himself as the obedient Son to the Father. And yet that statement is not accurate, for he did not actually die to himself at some point in past eternity, but he has always existed, being God, and has always had that nature. He did not change when he came to earth to die for his people, and he will not change when he takes the throne of the universe. A famous historian said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That may be true of fallen man, but it is not and will not be true of our Lord. Absolute power would make him more giving than he now is, were that possible. How worthy indeed is our wonderful Lord and Savior of all thanks and praise and worship and honor and glory and power!

⁹If anyone has an ear let him hear. ¹⁰If anyone is for captivity, to captivity he goes. If anyone is to be killed with a sword, he is to be killed with a sword. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.

            Seven times in Rev. 2 and 3 we read the words, “Let the one having an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Now we read again the same warning. The word is explicit: the Great Tribulation deserves its name. It will be a terrible time. Many of the Lord’s people will go into captivity under the authority of the beast because they will not worship him. Many will be put to death by him. If that is the plan of God for certain of his people, that is what will happen. It takes perseverance and absolute belief in the truth of the words of God, his promises of eternal reward, to endure this terrible time. When one is faced with captivity or death, he will not be able to remain true to the Lord if he does not have perseverance worked into him by the Lord and if he does not have faith. This is true in principle now when we know the dealings of God, and it will be true then. Let us pray for the Lord so to work in us that we may be faithful, and obedient unto him now and in any tribulation he may allow us to experience.

¹¹And I saw another beast coming up from the earth, and he had two horns as a little lamb and he was speaking as a dragon.

            John had already seen one beast coming up from the sea, Antichrist coming back from the abyss. Now he sees a second beast, this one coming up from the earth. Some believe that this beast is also alive from the dead, first, because he comes from the earth, thus possibly from the grave or from hades, which is beneath the earth, and second, because in the end he is thrown alive into the lake of fire, the thought being that since he had already died once, he could not die again before entering the lake of fire. It cannot be determined with certainty whether or not this second beast was also alive from the dead. It is made quite clear in the case of the first beast, but it is not so clear with the second. It is not really a matter of importance, or the Lord would have made it plain. We leave that question to the opinion of the reader. One thing does seem to be sure. The fact that he comes up from the earth indicates that he is a man of this world.

            What is important is that the second beast had two horns as a lamb and spoke as a dragon. The two horns liken him to the Lord Jesus. That is, outwardly he tries to appear as good, kind, gentle, as one representing God. But his speaking as a dragon reveals his true nature. He will be a wolf, a dragon, in sheep’s clothing. He will try to seduce the Lord’s people with his lamb-like appearance, but he will then deal with them as a dragon when they do not worship the beast.

¹²And he exercises all the authority of the first beast before him, and he does the earth and those dwelling on it that they might worship the first beast, whose wound of his death was healed.

            We learn in this verse the office of the second beast. His purpose is to make those dwelling on the earth worship the beast. He is in charge of enforcing the world’s only legal religion. In carrying out this task, he has all the authority of the first beast, and he exercises it before the first beast, that is, with his direct knowledge and approval. Rev. 19.20 tells us that he is the false prophet, and thus we see his connection with the worship of Antichrist.

            We have translated very literally, “he does the earth,” to show that the second beast does not at first use force to compel worship of the beast, but he does things that will cause those dwelling on the earth to worship the beast voluntarily. Of course, he is greatly aided in this endeavor by the fact that the first beast was healed of a mortal wound. What the second beast does to cause worship of Antichrist is revealed in the next verse.

¹³And he does great signs, so that he even makes fire from the sky to come down to the earth before men, ¹⁴and he deceives those dwelling on the earth through the signs which it is given to him to do before the beast, saying to those dwelling on the earth to make an image of the beast, who has the wound of the sword and lives.

            The second beast brings about his purpose by great signs, by apparently miraculous works. We have already seen a number of Satan’s counterfeits of what God does, and now we see another. The Lord Jesus did seven signs in John, and he worked numerous miracles in the other gospels. Satan enables the second beast to do the same. Just as fire came down from Heaven for Elijah on Mount Carmel, so fire comes down from the sky for the beast. The Lord Jesus refused to give a sign to unbelievers to make them believe, but the second beast dazzles men into believing in his false christ. The signs and miracles of the Lord Jesus were used to help the needy and to develop faith in those who believed in him, but the second beast uses them to deceive. Satan is a liar and the father of lies, and we see that truth worked out here.

            At the instigation of the second beast, those dwelling on the earth make an image of the beast. The fact that he had died from a wound and come back from death are the primary reason for this act. It is like man to build monuments and edifices and images to their heroes. Many great buildings have been built to honor the Lord. Their value is another matter. Now Antichrist has his monument built, an image of himself.

¹⁵And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast that the image of the beast might even speak and make as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

            One of the miraculous works of the second beast is to make the image of the first to have breath and to speak. Then the image itself calls for the worship of Antichrist and orders the death of those who refuse.

¹⁶And he does all, the small and the great, and the wealthy and the poor, and the free and the slaves, that a mark should be given to them on their right hand or on their forehead, ¹⁷and that no one should be able to buy or sell except the one having the mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name.

            Again we translate quite literally, “And he does all,” to show that the second beast does not force his way on people, but that he works in such a way that they do it themselves. The universal rule of Antichrist is enforced by requiring every person in the world to accept his mark on the right hand or the forehead, showing that they have submitted to him, and we would think that this includes worshipping him, too, since that is one of his primary desires. The requirement to have this mark is itself in turn enforced by the inability of anyone to buy or sell without the mark, thus preventing those who do not have it from gaining the necessities of life, such as food, by the usual means. We could speculate about all sorts of ways in which this inability to buy and sell is enforced, but the Scriptures do not elaborate on that, so neither will we. Suffice it to say that it certainly seems possible in this day.

            This mark is the number of the beast or the number of his name. In both Hebrew and Greek in biblical days, numerals such as we use were not used, but the letters of the alphabet were used for numbers. If we did the same in English, we might have a=1, b=2, c=3, and so forth. Thus a name had a numerical value. In English, John would be j=10 + o=15 + h=8 + n=14, total, 47. Some might have the name of Antichrist on the right hand or forehead, but others might have the number of his name.

¹⁸Here is wisdom. The one having a mind, let him figure out the number of the beast, for the number is of a man, and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.

            The number of the name of Antichrist is six hundred and sixty-six. That is, if the numerical values of each of the letters of his name are added together, they equal six hundred and sixty-six. John says that it takes wisdom to figure out the name from the number. This name has been one of the great speculations of prophetic history. If one were to read a hundred commentaries on this verse today, he might find a hundred different names put forth as Antichrist. We simply do not know what this name is, and we probably will not until the man appears on the scene. Nor is the speculation profitable, for that is not the point of prophecy. The point of prophecy is that we be ready at all times for its events to begin. One student of Scripture points out that six is the number of man in the Bible, man having been created on the sixth day, and that the number of Antichrist, being 666, is six at the beginning, six in the middle, and six at the end. What happens is all of man. There is certainly truth in that, but what happens is also of Satan since Antichrist is his false Christ, and no doubt the number is the numerical value of some man’s name, but only time will tell what it is.

            We have noted from time to time Satan’s counterfeits of the things of God. In this chapter 13 of Revelation, we have Satan’s evil trinity: Satan, Antichrist, false prophet.

6.9-11

            We continue now with the seven seals of chapter 6, dealing with the fifth and sixth at this point. The seventh seal comes in chapter 8.

⁹And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had.

            As we read of the sixth seal, we see the results of Antichrist’s persecution of those who will not submit to him or worship him or receive his mark. We see under the altar the souls of those slaughtered by him because they were faithful to the word of God and to their testimony. We see martyrs of the Great Tribulation. It is possible that these martyrs come from all history, as well as from the Tribulation, for, as we have seen, the spirit of Antichrist has ever been at work.

            It is of interest that we see souls under the altar.  The soul (Greek psyche) is the psychological aspect of man, his personality. Gen. 2.7 tells us that man is a soul, that is, a physical body with physical life, the soul being the life. The most common meaning of the word “soul” in both Hebrew and Greek in the Bible is physical life. Man also has a spirit, and it is the spirit that we would expect to see in Heaven before the resurrection of the body, but here we see souls. Why? It is because these are martyrs, those who have lost their physical lives for the Lord. That life is precious to the Lord, as Ps. 116.15 tells us, and this statement in Revelation underlines that concern.

¹⁰And they cried with a great voice saying, “How long, holy and true Sovereign, will you not judge and avenge our blood from those dwelling on the earth?”

            These martyred ones cry for revenge, yet it is not the evil desire for revenge that men normally feel, but the deep desire for evil to be judged and done away with and righteousness and the rights of God to be established. In our current battle against the flesh we are tempted to want revenge when we are wronged. Praise God, we will be free from this flesh in Heaven. “How long?” has been the cry of countless saints all through the ages. How many times did David utter that cry in the psalms? How many times have we uttered it? It does seem a long time, yet we have the sure promise of our God that evil will end and righteousness will reign.

¹¹And a white robe was given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest yet a little time, until their fellow-slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed, as they also, were also fulfilled.

            White robes appear several times in Revelation. Here in 6.11 and in 7.9, 13, and 14, they go to martyrs from the Great Tribulation, and in 3.4, 5, and 18, to overcomers. This latter would be a wider application including the martyrs, but others as well who overcome but do not lose their lives as martyrs. These white garments are the wedding garments of Matt. 22.11-12 and Rev. 19.8. Since we are told plainly in 19.8 that the white garments are the righteous deeds of the saints, we must say that righteousness is the primary significance of the white garments. This understanding is reinforced by 19.14, where we see the armies of Heaven clothed in white coming back with the Lord Jesus when he comes to judge the world in righteousness. An important aspect of that righteousness is purity, an obvious significance of white. Matt. 5.8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” and Rev. 14.4 tells us that one reason the overcomers who are raptured before the Great Tribulation are so raptured is that they “are those who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins.”

            These who are given white robes are told to rest a bit longer, and thus we see that in Heaven they have rest from their labors and from their tribulations, as promised by the Lord in, for example, Heb. 4.1, 6, 9, and10. This rest is to last till the remainder of their brothers who are to be martyred for the Lord are so martyred, and the word “fulfilled” is used. If we read Rom. 11.25, we learn that there is a fullness of the Gentiles, that is, a certain number to be saved. That is one thought here. We do not fully understand the mind of God in such matters, but there is a number that means fullness to him, and then he acts. There is such a number with martyrs, and when that number is reached, judgment on evil will fall. There is also a second meaning. These who are to die for the Lord will be fulfilled by so doing. Martyrdom is the will of God for them, and they will not be fulfilled in the will of God until they are martyred.

8.6-13

⁶And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them.

            We come now to the seven trumpets. One of the questions we need to address in studying Revelation is the relationship among the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls. Do they come one after another, or do they cover the same time? We have seen that the seven seals bring us right up to the end, to the very return of Christ. It is difficult to see how seven trumpet judgments and seven bowl judgments could occur between the last seal and the appearing of the Lord. In addition, there are similarities in the three groups that will be noted as we go through each. Thus we believe that the last three seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls all cover the same time period, the time of the Great Tribulation, with each showing differing and increasingly intense aspects of judgment.

⁷And the first sounded the trumpet, and there were hail and fire mixed with blood and cast to the earth, and a third of the earth was burned and a third of the trees were burned and all green grass was burned.

            The first trumpet judgment affects the earth’s vegetation. Hail and fire mixed with blood and cast to the earth cause the burning of a third of the earth, a third of the trees, and all the green grass. Each of the first four trumpet judgments affects the earth in some way that interferes with man’s food supply. Vegetation is the basis of all food on this earth, and here a third and more of it is destroyed.

⁸And the second angel sounded the trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood ⁹and a third of the creatures which are in the sea, those having souls, died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

            When the second trumpet is sounded, it is the sea, the source of food to billions on earth, that is affected. A third of it becomes blood so that a third of the creatures in the sea die. In addition to this diminution of the food supply, a third of the ships, which harvest the fruit of the sea and transport it to man, are destroyed. The statement that the creatures in the sea have souls shows, just as Genesis does, that animals and man have physical life in a physical body, with personality, in common.

¹⁰And the third angel sounded the trumpet, and a great star burning like a torch fell from the sky and fell onto a third of the rivers and onto the springs of waters, ¹¹and the name of the star is called Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the men died from the waters that became bitter.

            Water, of course, is absolutely vital to the life of man, both in itself and in its use for watering crops. This bitter star that makes the waters bitter may well be a demonic spirit, for he is given a name. The result of this occurrence is the death of many.  

¹²And the fourth angel sounded the trumpet, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck that a third of them might be darkened, and the day might not shine for a third of it, and the night likewise.

            It takes a certain amount of sunlight to grow crops, and now we see the amount of light reduced by the judgment of the fourth trumpet. At the end, the sun will become black and the moon, blood, and the stars will fall. Here, they are only partially affected, but the damage will be done. In addition to the failure of daylight, there will also be more darkness at night.

¹³And I looked, and I heard one eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a great voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those dwelling on the earth from the remaining sounds of the trumpet of the three angels who are about the sound the trumpet.”

            After these first four trumpets, John sees an eagle flying in mid-heaven and announcing that if the first four trumpets seemed bad, the last three would be woes in comparison, that is, much worse. The eagle was symbolic of God’s means of delivering Israel from Egypt in Ex. 19.4, which we referred to in dealing with Rev. 12.14, and is one of the birds of prey that will feast at the great supper of God, the battle of Armageddon, as we will see later. In addition, one of the four living beings of Rev. 4.7 is like a flying eagle. Finally, the word translated “eagle” can also mean “vulture.” Thus we have two or three possible interpretations for this flying bird. He could be one of the four living beings sent by God to announce these woes. He could be another angel appearing as a bird. He could be the symbol of God’s deliverance of his people by means of these judgments, as they prayed in Rev. 6.10. He could be one of the birds of the great supper of God, striking terror into the hearts of sinners by appearing as one who would devour their flesh in the end.  That would certainly bring a feeling of woe! Whatever the exact meaning of the bird, the important point is his announcement. The final three trumpets will bring great woe to those dwelling on the earth.

9. ¹And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star having fallen from the sky to the earth,

            The fifth trumpet sound brings the first woe, and the first woe begins with a star that has fallen from the sky. We have seen that sometimes stars in the Bible are actually angels, and this is the case now, for this star is given a key with which he opens the abyss. There is debate as to who this star is. It could well be Satan, as many believe. The Lord Jesus said in Luke 10.18 that he saw Satan fall from Heaven. This could be a reference to his original fall when he first rebelled against God, or to Rev. 12.7-9, his casting down to the earth after the rapture of the overcomers. If this star is Satan, the second possibility may be more likely since the star here in Rev. 9.1 had fallen to the earth. It is also possible that the star is some other angel than Satan, one of his lieutenants. There can be no doubt that this angel is a fallen angel, since he had fallen to the earth.

and the key of the shaft of the abyss was given to him

            The abyss is hades, the prison house of certain fallen angels (e.g., Luke 8.31) and of the lost dead. There can be no escape from this prison, for it is locked from the outside.

²and he opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke went up from the shaft like smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened from the smoke of the shaft.

            The parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.19-31 tells us that after the rich man died, he was in hades, and that he was in torment in the flame. Hades is a place of the fires of judgment, and when it is opened, smoke fills the air, so much so that the sun and the air are darkened.

³And from the smoke there came out locusts to the earth, and authority was given to them such as the scorpions of the earth have authority. ⁴And it was said to them that they should not harm the grass of the earth, nor any green thing nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on the foreheads.

            Out of this smoke come locusts, but these are no ordinary locusts. They are probably demonic spirits who have been held in this prison, and now are released to perform their final acts of torment on men. They have authority like that of scorpions, that is, to sting, as we will see momentarily. They cannot harm vegetation, as we would expect of locusts, but only men who are not the Lord’s, as evidenced by his seal on the forehead.

⁵And it was given to them that they might not kill them, but that they might torment for five months, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. ⁶And in those days men will seek death and will not find it, and they will want to die and death flees from them.

            Their purpose is not to kill, but to torment by stinging as a scorpion, and this torment lasts for five months. So terrible will it be that men will seek death, but they will not be able to die. Death will flee from them as part of their torment.

⁷And the likenesses of the locusts were like horses prepared for war, and on their heads something like wreaths like gold, and their faces like the faces of men, ⁸and they had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions. ⁹And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots of horses running into battle, ¹⁰and they have tails like scorpions and stings, and in their tails is their authority to harm men for five months. ¹¹They have over them a king, the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has a name, Apollyon.

            The description of these creatures is enough to strike terror into the heart. In general they look like warhorses, but closer inspection reveals the faces of men, long hair flowing behind them as they gallop or fly, teeth like those of lions, and breastplates like iron. Coupled with this sight is the furious sound of many horses drawing chariots into battle. The tails of this evil horde are like scorpions, with stings. It is with them that they harm men, tormenting them with stings for the five months.

            Over these locusts is a king whose name means, in either Hebrew or Greek, Destroyer. The Hebrew name Abaddon occurs six times in the Old Testament. In Job 26.6 we learn that God sees into Abaddon, the name of the angel being used as a synonym of the place over which he rules, hades, the place of spiritual destruction. Nothing is hidden from God.  In this verse, Abaddon is used as a synonym of sheol, the Old Testament word for hades. Job 28.22 tells us that Abaddon has heard of wisdom in a passage dealing with the difficulty of finding wisdom. It is used with Death in this verse to show again the nature of the destruction indicated by this name, spiritual death. We see this same truth in Job 31.12 where adultery is described as a fire that consumes to Abaddon.

            Psalm 88.11 once again equates Abaddon with death and the grave. Prov. 15.11 underlines the truth of Job 26.6 that nothing is hidden from God. Prov. 27.20 says that sheol, hades, and Abaddon, the angel of sheol, are never satisfied, that is, they never get enough of the death of men in their sins.

            The Greek name Apollyon is used only here in Rev. 9.11. The Greek mythological religion had a god named Hades who was the god of the underworld, the place of the dead. There were, of course, no such gods, for there is only one God, but there were demons in place of these gods who drew the worship of men away from the only God to false gods, and thus to Satan (1 Cor. 8.4-6, 10.20).

            This evil angel of death, the ruler over hades, is king of the tormenting locusts who are unleashed on sinful men as a judgment from God at the time of the end.

¹²The first woe has passed. Look, two woes still come after these things.

            The locusts are the first woe. If they are not terrible enough, there are two woes yet to come.

¹³And the sixth angel sounded the trumpet, and I heard one voice from the horns of the altar of gold which is before God ¹⁴saying to the sixth angel, the one having the trumpet, “Loose the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

            The fact that when the sixth trumpet is sounded the voice comes from the altar of gold which is before God reminds us that these judgments are coming in response to the prayers of the Lord’s persecuted people, and that they are coming from Heaven. God is in control of the events of the Great Tribulation. He is pouring out judgment on evil. When this trumpet is sounded, a voice from the horns of this altar of prayer mixed with the fragrance of Christ tells the angel who sounds the sixth trumpet to loose the four angels bound at the Euphrates River. This great river is a barrier between the middle east and the far east. Now the barrier is about to be passed. Again these angels are fallen angels, for they are bound. Once again we see God using the forces of evil to carry out his own purpose.

¹⁵And the four angels were loosed who were prepared for the hour and day and month and year that they might kill a third of men.

            The specification of the time in such detail shows the sovereignty of God. The events of the Great Tribulation do not occur by chance or in chaotic fashion, though they may appear that way to those who go through them.  God has matters under control, not just in general, seeing that things happen in a certain year, or even month or day, but down to the hour. The mission of these angels is to bring about the death of a third of men.

¹⁶And the number of the soldiers of the horsemen was two hundred million. I heard their number.

            They accomplish this task by releasing an army of two hundred million horsemen across the Euphrates. This mighty killing machine will kill a third of the men on the earth. Revelation does not identify this army, but as we realize in our day that it is very possible for an army of such size to come from the east, we see once more the reliability of the Scriptures. When John saw this vision about nineteen hundred years ago, such a number would have been inconceivable, but today it is possible.

¹⁷And so I saw the horses in the vision and those sitting on them, having breastplates the color of fire and the color of hyacinth and the color of brimstone, and the heads of the horses were like heads of lions, and out of their mouths go forth fire and smoke and brimstone. ¹⁸From these three plagues a third of men died, from the fire and the smoke and the brimstone that go forth from their mouths. ¹⁹For the authority of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like snakes, having heads, and with them they harm.

            The appearance of these horses and their riders is very much like the locusts of the first part of this chapter of Revelation. Their very appearance brings fear and dread: breastplates of fiery red, blue or purple, and yellow, horses with heads like those of lions, with fire and smoke and brimstone pouring from their mouths. A third of men die from this attack, being burned or choked by the fire and smoke and brimstone.  Just as the locusts had authority in their tails to sting and torment, so these horses have authority in both their mouths and their tails. The mouths spit forth fire, smoke, and brimstone, and the tails are like snakes. They have heads, and they bite with fatal venom.

²⁰And the rest of men, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent from the works of their hands, that they might not worship the demons and the idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which are able neither to see nor to hear nor to walk, ²¹and they did not repent from their murders nor from their sorceries nor from their immorality nor from their thefts.

            One would think that such an outpouring of wrath from Heaven would cause men to call on God for mercy, but such is not the case. So evil is the heart of man that those who survive these two woes of locusts and horsemen do not repent, but continue their worship of idols. These idols are either images of Antichrist or they are illegal, showing the power of religion over men who will risk their lives for their religion. The words about the idols reminds us of Isaiah’s mockery of idols in Is. 44. A man makes the idol, rather than the idol making the man, and then bows down to it. The idol ought to worship its maker, the man.  It is nothing but a block of wood or stone or other material that cannot see or hear or walk. Yet man worships it. How utterly foolish! The sins that bring judgment go right on, murder, sorcery, immorality, theft.

10. ¹And I saw another angel, a strong one, coming down out of Heaven clothed in a cloud, and the rainbow over his head and his face as the sun and his feet as pillars of fire, ²and having in his hand a little scroll opened.

            Between the sixth and seventh trumpets there occurs a rather long interval recorded in chapters 10 and 11. The next thing John saw after the army of two hundred million killing a third of men was another angel, a strong one. Many take this angel to be the Lord Jesus because of the description of him. However, most of these descriptive features can also be found applied to angels, and since the Lord Jesus is clearly identified many times in Revelation, and angels are angels in other passages, we see no reason to think that this angel is the Lord. When John sees him he has a little scroll opened in his hand. We are not told exactly what its contents are at this point, but that will become clear as we go along in this chapter.

And he put his right foot on the sea, but the left on the land, ³and cried with a great voice as a lion roars.

            The placing of the feet on sea and land indicates the sovereignty of the Lord whom this angel represents over all creation, especially when we add the note of v. 5 that he raised his right hand to Heaven and the statement in v. 6 that God created everything in the sky, on the earth, and in the sea. Taking this position, the angel cries out as a lion roars.

And when he cried, the seven thunders spoke their voices. ⁴And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from Heaven saying, “Seal the things which the seven thunders spoke and do not write them.”

            This cry brings forth the seven thunders. When John was about to write what the seven thunders said, he was told not to do so, but to seal these things. So in Revelation, we have seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, and seven thunders. Were the seven thunders seven more judgments like the other three sets, or did they speak something else? We do not know and only the time will reveal it, for God has sealed it for that time. We have been told all that we need to know by God, but we have not been told everything. Dt. 29.29 says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” God still has his secrets, but what we do know obligates us. We are to observe all that he has revealed to us.

⁵And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to Heaven ⁶and swore by the one who lives into the ages of the ages, who created the sky and the things in it and the earth and the things on it and the sea and the things in it, that there is no more time, ⁷but in the days of the sound of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound the trumpet, even the mystery of God is completed, as he evangelized his slaves the prophets.

            Again we see what we noted above as to the sovereignty of God, and then we learn something of this angel’s purpose. He says literally, “Time is no more,” meaning that time has run out on this present evil age. God will delay the end no longer. Just as the sixth seal led right up to the end, so has the sixth trumpet. It is almost the moment of the Lord’s appearing. When the seventh trumpet sounds, the last trumpet, the mystery of God will be complete. Incidentally, this statement that the seventh trumpet will bring the end is further proof of our belief that the seals, trumpets, and bowls all cover roughly the same time period, that of the Great Tribulation. If the seventh trumpet brings the end, and yet there are still seven bowl judgments to come in revelation, these bowls must go back and cover some of the same ground as the trumpets. But let us return to the mystery of God.

            A mystery in the Bible is some truth of God that man cannot come to know by his own efforts, by research and reason and so forth. It is something God intends for man to know, but it can be known only by revelation. When the right time comes, God reveals it. There are several mysteries in the New Testament, those of the kingdom, of God, of Christ, and others. These mysteries were revealed to the prophets, Old and New Testament, at God’s time. They involved the way in which the kingdom of God would develop and come into sovereignty on the earth, the sufferings of Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church, the temporary rejection of the Jews. These things that God revealed are known, at least in part, by us now because they are recorded in the Bible. But they have not been completed. The kingdom has not yet taken rule over all the earth. The full number of the Gentiles has not yet come in. Israel has not yet owned her Messiah and come back into the favor of God. But the completing of all these things was given as good news to the prophets. That is why we have translated literally, “as he evangelized his slaves the prophets.” “Evangelized” comes directly from the Greek word that means “to preach good news.” We normally use it of preaching salvation to the lost, but the Bible uses it both in that way and of announcing good news to his own people. The prophets were evangelized. They received good news. That good news was the contents of the mysteries, that in the end, all God’s purposes would be fulfilled, evil would cease to exist, and the eternal reign of righteousness of his Son would come in. The specific mystery referred to in this passage is the mystery of God. We are told in Col. 2.2 that God’s mystery is Christ. We believe that the strong angel whom John sees in this vision refers to all the mysteries of God coming to completion, but the fact is that everything of God is summed up in Christ, so that the mystery of God, Christ, includes all.

⁸And the voice which I heard from Heaven was again speaking with me and said, “Go take the opened scroll in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land.” ⁹And I went to the angel saying to him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take it and eat it, and it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” ¹⁰And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it, and it was in my mouth as honey, sweet, and when I ate it, my stomach was made bitter. ¹¹And they said to me, “It is necessary for you again to prophesy to many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.”

            Now the voice from Heaven which John heard telling him to seal the seven thunders speaks to him again. John is to take the little scroll from the angel and eat it. It will taste sweet, but it will make his stomach bitter. What is the meaning of this picture? John was told that he must again prophesy. The purpose of the strong angel standing on sea and land is to announce the imminence of the end. But then John is shown that there are other things that he must prophesy before the seventh trumpet sounds and the end comes. There are other visions for him to see, those of the rest of the book of Revelation. Keep in mind that we are not dealing with John’s visions in the order in which he saw them, as the book itself does, but in chronological order as nearly as we can determine it.

            These things that John will yet prophesy are recorded on a little scroll that he is to eat. That order shows that the message must become a part of the messenger. He is not just a delivery man who takes a message from one person and gives it to another. The messenger of God must be so dealt with by God that he himself embodies the message. It comes out of his own life. John must consume the message that he is told by God to deliver. And in a sense the message consumes him. It is like the fire in Jeremiah’s bones.

            The message will taste sweet, showing the pleasure of knowing that Jesus will reign, but it will make his stomach bitter, for there are yet many judgments to be poured out for John to see, much suffering on the part of the Lord’s people as well as that of the people of the world. In the end all will be sweet, but there is much bitterness along the way.

            So the strong angel and the voice from Heaven show John that the end will occur with the seventh trumpet, but that there is still much for him to see before the conclusion of his visions.

            At this point in Revelation we come to a passage that is quite difficult to interpret in some ways. It begins as follows:

11. ¹And a reed, like a staff, was given to me, saying, “Rise and measure the Sanctuary of God and the altar and those worshipping in it. ²And the courtyard outside the Sanctuary cast outside and do not measure it, for it is given to the Gentiles, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.

            These statements are usually taken to refer to the Jewish Temple that the Bible indicates will be in existence during the end days. This is the place, for example, where Antichrist will set up the abomination of desolation and declare himself to be God. The measuring of the Sanctuary, that is, the Holy of Holies, indicates God’s renewed interest in it, meaning that the time has almost arrived for the Jews to recognize their Messiah and experience again the favor of God. The trampling down of the courtyard outside by the Gentiles refers, it is thought, perhaps to all of the history of the Temple since the days of Jesus, or possibly to the events of the end before the return of Christ. It was literally trampled down in A.D. 70 when the Romans destroyed it, and its site has been trampled down by Gentiles ever since. In the end, it will be trampled down by Antichrist.

            But just here is where the problem arises. It is true that the outer court will be trampled down by Antichrist, but so will the Sanctuary. It is in the Holy of Holies that Antichrist will set himself up as God, as we learn from 2 Thess. 2.4, where the same Greek word is used for the Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, as is used here in Revelation. So we cannot say that the Sanctuary will be kept undefiled while the court is trampled underfoot by Gentiles. It is all trampled underfoot. Thus we must look elsewhere for the meaning of this vision.

            Since the literal Temple, all of it, is trampled underfoot by Gentiles, but this passage indicates that the Holy of Holies will not be trampled whereas the courtyard will, there must be a more spiritual interpretation, and that, we think, is the case. The passage indicates that at the time of the end, there will be an overcoming group among Christians, a remnant among Jews, who will be faithful to God no matter what Antichrist and his forces may do. They will be faithful in persecution, even unto death. These are spiritually in the Holy of Holies, in the very presence of God. There have always been those among both Jews and Christians who have been the Lord’s in name only, and not in reality. When times of severe testing come, such as at the end, there will be those who fall away. These call themselves by the name Jew or Christian, but they are not in fact in the Holy of Holies with the Lord. They are outside in the courtyard. The day will reveal it. It will also reveal the faithful witnesses who will hold to their testimony even unto death.

            There follows this picture of those living spiritually in the presence of God the description of two such faithful witnesses. They are unlike other witnesses in that they bear their testimony for the entire period of the Great Tribulation and are able to destroy their enemies during that time, but in the end they are killed by Antichrist. This passage is perhaps the most difficult in Revelation to interpret. First, the identity of the two witnesses has puzzled students of the Bible from the beginning, and second, it is not easy to understand representatives of God breathing fire from their mouths that destroys their enemies. Let us proceed with the passage.

³And I will give to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days, dressed in sackcloth. ⁴These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands who are standing before the Lord of the earth.

            The one thousand two hundred and sixty days make three and one-half years, the duration of the Great Tribulation. We believe this to be the time indicated in this passage, particularly since its narrative is given between the sixth and seventh trumpets, which occur without doubt during the Tribulation. These two will testify with faithfulness in the most difficult time of all to do so. They wear sackcloth, the traditional garb of the prophet who is expressing grief at the spiritual condition of the Lord’s people or at their experience of judgment.

            They are the two olive trees and the lampstands, an obvious reference to Zech. 4, except that in that passage, there is only one lampstand, and the lampstand in Zech. 4 is in turn a picture of the lampstand in the Tabernacle of Exodus. The Tabernacle was the place where God dwelt among his people. Thus it was a picture of the Lord Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. Jesus Christ is where God dwells among his people. John 1.14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, showing the Lord as the fulfillment of all that the Tabernacle stood for. Every item of the Tabernacle was a symbol of the Lord Jesus. So it was with the lampstand. It was all of gold, showing the divine source of the light that he, the Light of the world, bore. It had seven lamps, showing the perfection of the light. They were fueled by oil, a symbol of the Holy Spirit, even as the Lord himself operated in the fullness and power of the Spirit.

            In Zech. 4, the lampstand stands for this same testimony. The prophet Zechariah was seeing two things, a truth for his own day, that the work of maintaining the testimony of God would be accomplished not by might, nor by power, but by his Spirit, and a vision of the end when the same Spirit would bring about the testimony of Jesus among his people during days of great tribulation. It would be the same Light of the world, burning in his people by his Spirit. Zech. 4.14 tells us that the two olive trees “are the two sons of fresh oil who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth.” That is, in that context they were Joshua (Zech. 3) the priest and Zerubbabel the governor (in place of the king, the kingship having been abolished for the time by the Babylonians). These two led the people of Judah back from exile to the rebuilding of their city and Temple. They were maintaining the testimony of the Lord in a dark time. They were also prophetic of the priestly and kingly offices of the Lord Jesus who would reign forever as the Priest and King of his people. We will return to these thoughts momentarily as we gain more information as to the identity of these two.

⁵And if anyone wishes to harm them, fire goes forth from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone should wish to harm them, thus it is necessary for him to die. ⁶These have the authority to shut up the sky that it might not rain for the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague whenever they might wish.

            We noted above this ability to destroy their enemies by fire from their mouths. Anyone who wishes to harm them will suffer such an end. In Jer 5.14 we read, “Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, ‘Because you have spoken this word, look, I am making My words in your mouth fire and this people wood, and it will consume them.’” Keep this thought in mind along with the statements above on the olive trees and lampstand.

            The indication that these two would be able to shut up the sky so that it might not rain for the days of their prophesying, three and one-half years, calls to our minds Elijah, the prophet who did just the same thing for the same period of time. Their authority to turn the waters into blood recalls Moses, who did the same thing in Egypt. He also struck the earth with plagues under the direction of God. Thus it is tempting to think that these two are Elijah and Moses returned, just as they returned to appear with the Lord on the mount of transfiguration, but this thought is complicated by the next verse.

⁷And when they have completed their testimony, the beast who comes up from the abyss will make war with them and overcome them and kill them.

            Just at the end of the Great Tribulation, Antichrist is allowed to kill the two witnesses. Since these appear to be two Old Testament figures who have come back, many think they are Enoch and Elijah, the two Old Testament saints who did not die, but were caught up to the Lord. Heb. 9.27 says that “it is appointed to men once to die, but after this judgment.” Man is supposed to die once, and since Enoch and Elijah did not die the first time they were here, they will come back and do so. That leaves Moses out because he died the first time and cannot die again since it is appointed to man to die once, not twice.

            Which pair do we choose, the two who can keep it from raining, turn the waters into blood, and bring plagues, or the two who did not die? I do not believe it is possible for us to identify these two at this time. They may or may not be Old Testament men come back. They may be two new figures who embody the faithfulness and authority of Enoch, Moses, and Elijah. If we decide for one pair or the other, or for some other explanation, all we have done is speculate. We cannot prove our position or know that we are right. The day will reveal it.

            It is possible that these two are not two actual men at all, but symbols of the maintaining of the Lord’s testimony in a dark time by his people in general. We saw in our introduction that the testimony of Jesus is a key theme in Revelation. Here it is borne by the Lord’s faithful in the most difficult time of all. The symbol uses two witnesses because of the Old Testament principle that a matter cannot be established on the evidence of one witness. There must be two or three witnesses (Dt. 17.6, 19.15). Joshua (Zech. 3) and Zerubbabel maintained the testimony in Zech. 4. Just as the lampstand in Zechariah was the testimony of the Lord shining in a dark place and the two olive trees were the Lord Jesus maintaining that testimony in his priestly and kingly offices by his Spirit, so here in Rev. 11 the two witnesses embody faithful testimony to the Lord during the darkest time of human history, and they do so by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. They are sons of fresh oil, filled with the Spirit, anointed by the Spirit. If they are not actual men, they are symbolic of the testimony of Jesus maintained by the Holy Spirit in the people of God. We see this faithfulness unto death in holding to the testimony of Jesus in Rev. 6.9 and 12.11 and 17.

            The fire from their mouths may be symbolic, as was the fire from Jeremiah’s mouth. Jeremiah did not actually breathe fire that destroyed those to whom he was prophesying judgment, but his words were the words of God, and thus they will not return empty, but will accomplish their purpose, for they are living words. In the case of Jeremiah, they were words of judgment, symbolized by fire, and they did come into reality with the destruction of Judah by Babylon. The announcements of judgment in Revelation are just such words of fire and they will accomplish their purpose. Indeed, the Great Tribulation is, from God’s side, a pouring out of judgment on evil men, just as it is from Satan’s side a persecution of the Lord’s people. Those who hold to the testimony of Jesus breathe out words of fire, of judgment, by doing so. Those who refuse to repent at the proclamation of those words will find them a fire of judgment in the end, not the killing of the evil ones by God’s people, but the judgment of God poured out on the evil ones just as those words prophesied, as we see in Jeremiah’s case, and as we see in Revelation in the seals, trumpets, and bowls. Whatever else may be true of the identity of the two witnesses, they certainly stand for the testimony of Jesus maintained during the Great Tribulation.

            There will come a time when this testimony will seem to have been extinguished, as when Antichrist kills these two. But that is not the end of the story, as we will see momentarily.

⁸And their body will lie in the street of the great city which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. ⁹And they from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their body three and one-half days, and they will not permit their bodies to be placed in a tomb. ¹⁰And those dwelling on the earth will rejoice over them and be glad, and they will send gifts to one another, for these two prophets tormented those dwelling on the earth.

            So great is the hatred of the world under Satan and Antichrist for God, his people, and his testimony that they will cause these two dead bodies to lie in the street without burial. The extent of the depths of evil to which even people who claim the name of God can go is shown by the fact that these two are killed in Jerusalem, a city that has become so evil that it is called Sodom and Egypt, just as it was that city that crucified the Son of God, its Messiah. The bodies will lie in the street for three and one-half days, and no one will be allowed to bury them. So great is the hatred of the world under Satan and Antichrist for God, his people, and his testimony that those dwelling on the earth will rejoice. They will send gifts to one another. They will be enjoying sweet revenge on these two prophets who tormented them by exposing their guilt and consuming them with the fire of their mouths.

¹¹And after the three and one-half days, breath of life from God entered into them and they stood on their feet and great fear fell on those who saw them. ¹²And they heard a great voice from Heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they went up to Heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them.

            Just as the visible appearing of the Lord is about to occur, the armies of Satan and Antichrist will be on the verge of complete victory over the people of God. We read in Zech. 14.2, “For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.” Perhaps the killing of the two witnesses by Antichrist is a picture of this apparent total victory. The testimony of Jesus seems to have been extinguished from the earth. It has been faithfully maintained for three and one-half years of great tribulation, but now it is all but gone. Has Antichrist won the day for his evil lord?

            Just as that appears to be the case, breath from God enters these two dead bodies. They stand on their feet again. Naturally, great fear falls on those watching. Then a voice from Heaven calls out, “Come up here,” and the two witnesses go up to Heaven in a cloud even as their enemies watch. The trumpet sounds. The dead in Christ rise from their graves. Those who are alive are caught up with them to meet the Lord in the air. The testimony of Jesus is not dead. Those who have held to it all through the horrors of the book of Revelation will always be with their Lord.

¹³And in that hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell, and there were killed in the earthquake seven thousand names of men, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of Heaven.

            We have already seen that there are earthquakes at the time of the end when the sixth seal is opened in Rev. 6.12 and when the censer filled with fire from the altar is cast to earth in 8.5. We are at the very end in Rev. 11.13. The Lord’s appearing is perhaps only seconds away. This earthquake kills seven thousand in the great city. The identity of this city, the great city, is in dispute. It would appear to be Jerusalem, since that is where the two witnesses testify, but some think it is Rome or Babylon. That point is not important for the understanding of this passage, and it is another of those questions that we cannot answer. When the earthquake kills the seven thousand, the rest of men “were terrified and gave glory to the God of Heaven.” We do not know whether or not this means they repented, or simply that they recognized that what had happened was God’s doing. We read in Rev. 16.9, 11, and 21 that men will not repent but will blaspheme God even when they know that judgments are his doing.

¹⁴The second woe is past. Look, the third woe comes quickly.”

            We were told in Rev. 8.13 that the last three trumpets would bring three woes that would go beyond anything seen before. The first was the plague of demonic locusts from the abyss. The second was the army of two hundred million killing a third of men. The judgments associated with the two witnesses seem to be included in one or both of these, for they are described in chapter 11 before the statement is made that the second woe is past. The third woe does indeed come quickly. It is the very next event. It is the appearing of the Lord Jesus in power and great glory, great joy for his own, but the greatest of woes for his enemies. To them it is Armageddon.

15.1-16.16

15. ¹And I saw another sign in Heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having seven plagues, the last, for in them the fury of God is finished.

            John now sees seven more angels in Heaven, and he tells us that these have the seven last plagues. This might indicate that the seven judgments about to be seen by John at this point will occur after those of the trumpets, but we have already seen that both the seals and the trumpets lead right to the end, to the coming of the Lord, and we will see the same with these judgments, so we conclude that by “last” John means not occurring later, but being the most intense judgments and thus, as he says, finishing the fury of God.

²And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those overcoming from the beast and from his image and from the number of his name standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God.

            We first saw the sea of glass in Rev. 4.6, where it was described simply as a sea of glass like crystal. Now we have added that it was mixed with fire. In chapter 4, the emphasis is on the worship of God, and the sea of glass symbolizes his entire otherness from anything created. Even though he dwells in the midst of his creation, his angels and people in particular, he is utterly different from them. The purity of the glass seen in its appearance as crystal stresses the purity of God as part of his otherness from creation. Here in chapter 15, the emphasis is on judgment. The last, most intense, judgments are about to be poured out. The fury of God is about to be finished. Since fire is the primary symbol of judgment in the Bible, we see it here mixed with the sea of glass. That which separates God from his creation, not in presence but in essence, is full of judgment toward evil.

            The overcomers who have died in the Great Tribulation are seen standing on the sea of glass. They have already been through the fires of purification, the evil in them having been purged by God through their trials and submission to him in them, so the fire does them no harm. Fire consumes evil. There is no evil in these to consume at this point as they stand before God in Heaven. We know that they are Tribulation martyrs because it is specifically said that they overcame the beast and his image and the number of his name.

            As they stand before God, they have harps of God. They are preparing to join in the heavenly worship.

³And they sing the song of Moses the slave of God and the song of the little Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God almighty, righteous and true are your ways, O King of the Gentiles. ⁴Who would not fear, Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy, for all the Gentiles will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed.”

            They do so by singing the song of Moses and the song of the little Lamb. The song of Moses is recorded in Dt. 32. The words sung here before the throne are not a quotation of one Old Testament passage, but they contain allusions to several: Dt. 32.3-4, Ps. 86.9, Jer. 10.7, and perhaps others. We are not given specifics of the song of the little Lamb, but Rev. 5.9-10, and 12-13 record the songs sung to the Lamb in Heaven before the judgments begin. Perhaps those were the same as the words sung in Rev. 15.

            With the emphasis on judgment in this passage, the overcomers sing of the righteousness and truth of God’s ways, showing that his judgment on the evil ones is not wrong, but right. He is the King of those who have disobeyed him, so he has every right to punish them. Indeed all the Gentiles will worship before him in the end, voluntarily or involuntarily. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2.10-11). What God is about to do is just.

⁵And after these things I looked, and the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle of the testimony was opened in Heaven,

            We have seen that the testimony of Jesus is one of the major themes in Revelation. Now, just before the last judgments, we see the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle of the testimony opened in Heaven. The Sanctuary is the Holy of Holies. The Tabernacle on earth was a tent with such a Sanctuary, and Hebrews 9.11 and 24 tell us that it was a copy of the true Tabernacle in Heaven. The Tabernacle on earth was a Tabernacle of testimony. The ark, which was the throne of God, was called the ark of the testimony. It contained the two tablets with the Ten Commandments, the golden jar of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, all constituents of the testimony of God on earth through Israel. He was the God who spoke to his people, fed them, and gave them life out of death, an impressive testimony indeed. The testimony on earth, the earthly counterpart of the testimony in Heaven, is maintained in the Great Tribulation by the overcomers. That testimony and the overcomers were opposed on earth by Satan and Antichrist and their forces. Now the testimony in Heaven is revealed as Heaven’s amen to what the overcomers have done and as the basis of the judgment about to be poured out. The testimony held to on earth will be ratified by the testimony of Heaven.

⁶and there went out the seven angels having the seven plagues from the Sanctuary, clothed in linen, clean, bright, and belted around the chest with a golden belt, ⁷and one of the four living beings gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the fury of God who lives to the ages of the ages.

            Out of this Holy of Holies in Heaven where the heavenly testimony is maintained go forth the seven angels who will pour out the seven last plagues. They are clothed in linen, another sign of the purity in righteousness of their work, and belted with gold, symbolic of the fact that God is behind and in what they are doing. One of the four living beings, those who cover the glory of God so that it can be revealed to many in a way that will not destroy them, gives the angels seven golden bowls, again showing the divine nature of these judgments, and showing that these judgments are revelations of the glory of God. We might just note here as well that the number seven is a number of completeness, showing that all the judgments, seals, trumpets, and bowls, are complete, nothing lacking. They are all the judgment deserved, no more and no less. God’s work is perfect, in judgment as in everything else. These bowls are full of the fury of God. What a sobering, terrifying thought. What woe indeed to those who oppose God.

⁸And the Sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one was able to enter into the Sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.

            We noted above that these judgments are revelations of the glory of God. Here John says that the smoke that filled the Holy of Holies came from the glory of God. His glory is going forth in judgment, and so great is that glory, so burning with fury against evil, that no one is able to enter the Holy of Holies until these seven last plagues are finished. Such was the case when the glory of God filled the Tabernacle in Ex. 40.34-35 and the Temple in 1 Kings 8.10-11. So will it be when God arises in the judgments of the seven bowls. But when the glory of God fills the millennial Temple of Ezek. 43.1-5, there is no mention of inability to enter the Sanctuary, for then the Lord’s people will all be in Christ, free of sin and guilt, pure and perfect, able to behold the glory of God filling the Holy of Holies. Hasten that day, Lord Jesus!

16. ¹And I heard a great voice from the Sanctuary saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour the seven bowls of the fury of God onto the earth.” ²And the first went and poured his bowl onto the earth, and there came a bad and evil sore on the men who had the mark of the beast and who worshipped his image.

            The moment has come for the seven last plagues to be poured out. In studying the seven trumpet judgments, we noted that the first four affected man’s means of maintaining physical life. Affected were vegetation, the sea, the rivers and springs, and sunlight, moonlight, and starlight. Now with the first bowl, we see man’s body affected directly. A sore, not just bad, but also evil, comes on men who had the mark of the beast and worshipped his image.

³And the second poured his bowl into the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man, and every soul of life died which was in the sea.

            The second bowl is much like the second trumpet. With the latter, a third of the sea became blood, a third of the sea creatures died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. With the bowl, all the sea becomes like the blood of a dead man and every living creature in the sea dies. The judgment is intensified from trumpet to bowl.

⁴And the third poured his bowl into the rivers and the springs of the waters, and they became blood. ⁵And I heard the angel of the waters saying, “Righteous are you, the one being and the one having been, the holy one, for you judged these things, ⁶for they poured out blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They are worthy.” ⁷And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God almighty, true and righteous are your judgments.”

            The similarity with intensification continues with the third bowl. At the third trumpet, a third of the waters of the rivers and springs became bitter. With the third bowl, all the fresh waters become blood. The response of the angel of the waters is that this is a righteous judgment. Since evil men poured out the blood of saints and prophets, it is only right that they have blood to drink in place of water. The angel cries out, “They are worthy,” a literal translation of the Greek, meaning that they deserve what they are getting. From the altar comes agreement that what God is doing is true and righteous.

⁸And the fourth poured out his bowl onto the sun, and it was given to it to burn men with fire. ⁹And men were burned with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has the authority over these plagues, and they did not repent to give glory to him.

            With the fourth trumpet, the light of a third of the sun, moon, and stars was affected so that there was not the usual sufficient amount of light on earth. With the fourth bowl, the sun is also affected, but the result is different. Now there is too much sunlight, so that men are burned with great heat. Their response to this plague is not repentance, but blasphemy. They know God is sending this judgment, but instead of repenting and giving him glory, they blaspheme his holy name.

¹⁰And the fifth poured out his bowl onto the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened, and they were gnawing their tongues from the pain, ¹¹and they blasphemed the God of Heaven from their pains and from their sores, and they did not repent from their works.

            We are told in Rev. 9.2 that when the abyss was opened for the demonic locusts to be released, there was so much smoke that the sun and the air were darkened. There is also darkness with the fifth bowl, that judgment being poured directly onto the throne of Antichrist and making his kingdom dark. In this darkness men gnaw their tongues because of their pains and sores. Apparently the sores of the first bowl are still afflicting them, and now the pain is intensified by the darkness. Everyone is familiar with how pain is increased at night. If there is sickness or something causing pain, it is always worse at night. This fifth bowl brings about that same deepening of pain even during the day as darkness prevails. The result is the same as with the fourth bowl: instead of repenting before the God they know is sending the darkness, they again blaspheme him.

¹²And the sixth poured out his bowl onto the great river Euphrates, and its water dried up, that a way might be prepared for the kings who are from the rising of the sun. ¹³And I saw from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet three unclean spirits like frogs, ¹⁴for they are spirits of demons doing signs, who go out to the kings of the whole inhabited earth to gather them to the war of the great day of God the almighty. ¹⁵“Look, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is the one who is awake and keeps his garments, so that he should not walk naked and they see his shame.” ¹⁶And he gathered them to the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.

            The sixth trumpet released the army of two hundred million from the east. The sixth bowl dries up the water of the Euphrates so that the kings from the east may cross it. With this barrier removed, three unclean spirits like frogs come from the mouths of Satan, Antichrist, and the false prophet. Their purpose is to use signs to entice the kings from the east to cross the Euphrates to the Holy Land, and all the kings of the inhabited earth to gather there. God is behind this work of the unclean spirits, using them to draw the evil men of the earth to the place of the war of the great day of God.

            All history before the cross led to the cross. All history since the cross has been leading to the day of God. What we have been reading in Rev. 16 thus far has come from the pen of John, but now, with this approach of the day of God, the Lord Jesus himself speaks up to interject a solemn warning to those who await this day: “Look, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is the one who is awake and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.” The Lord “will suddenly come to His temple,” says Mal. 3.1-2. “But who can endure the day of his coming?”  Man has been given warning of the coming of Christ in glory and judgment since Old Testament days, yet when he does come, it will be suddenly and without warning. Who can endure the day of his coming? Only those who are awake spiritually and clothed with Christ. How timely is the warning and admonition of Paul in Rom. 13.11-14:

And this, knowing the time, that the hour already is for you to arise from sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far gone, but the day has come near. Put off therefore the works of the darkness. Be clothed with the weapons of the light. As in the day, let us walk properly, not in carousing and drunkennesses, not in sexual impurities and indecencies, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.

The day has come near, the great day of God. Be awake. Be clothed with Christ so that your spiritual nakedness will not be seen to your shame.

            These three unclean spirits like frogs lure the kings of the earth to join in the final battle for the destruction of the people of God in his land. They draw them to the place called in Hebrew Armageddon, but Revelation says that it is God who is gathering them there. His purposes will be fulfilled, even by his enemies.

            So ends the Great Tribulation. The next event to occur is that for which the people of God have prayed for nearly two thousand years.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE GREAT TRIBULATION

6.12-17, 8.1-5, 14.14-16, 19.1-10

6.12-17

6. ¹²And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun was black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon was as blood, ¹³and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind, ¹⁴and the sky was split open as a scroll when rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved from their places.

            There are certain events in prophecy that we can use to arrive at a reasonable understanding of the order of prophetic happenings. One of these is the disturbances of the heavenly bodies. This event is prophesied in the Old Testament in Is. 13.10 and Joel 2.31 and 3.15. The Lord Jesus refers to it in Matt. 24.29, and it is he who tells us when this event will occur: “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” The Lord tells us in Matt. 24.30-31 that he will then return and will gather his chosen ones. Thus we see that the sixth seal brings us right up to the end, almost to the moment of the Lord’s visible return. In addition to the heavenly occurrences, there will be a great earthquake. V. 14, the splitting and rolling up of the sky, is prophesied in Is. 34.1-4. In addition to these events prophesied in the Old Testament, we learn in this verse that the mountains and islands will be moved.

            All of this recalls to our minds the prophecy of Haggai 2.6 and 21, referred to in Heb. 12.26-28, that in the end everything will be shaken that can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken will remain. That will be the kingdom of God, ruled over by the Lord Jesus Christ. May that day hasten!

¹⁵And the kings of the earth and the great ones and the rulers of thousands and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains ¹⁶and said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne and from the anger of the little Lamb,” ¹⁷for the great day of their anger has come, and who is able to stand?

            The hiding and crying to be hidden are also prophesied in the Old Testament, in Is. 2.10 and 19 (which latter verse also mentions the shaking of those days), and Hos. 10.8 (which actually refers to the destruction of Israel by Assyria in the Old Testament days, but gives us an example of what is yet to be). “The anger of the little Lamb” is a striking phrase. One would not think of such a thing, but when the evil of the earth realize who the Lamb is, the Lion of Judah, the righteous Judge, they will know sheer terror.  We would expect the last verse to read, “the great day of his anger,” that is, God’s, but it says, “their anger.” Apparently the meaning is that the day has come for them to receive the anger of God stored up against them all through the millenniums of his patience. There is an end to the patience of God.

8.1-5

8. ¹And when he opened the seventh seal there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour.

            After the events of the first six seals, we would expect a spectacular display when the last is opened, but instead we have silence, a half-hour’s silence. The seals bring us right up to the end, to the disturbances in the sky, with the words of the Lord himself that the next event would be his visible appearing (Matt. 24.30-31). After this we see this great silence. What could be its meaning? This silence is the silence of anticipation. It is as though God the Father has been sitting on his throne through all that has been going on in the Great Tribulation. Now it is time for the visible return of his Son to earth, and he rises to give the order. When God rises, everyone takes note. Every voice is hushed. Some even hold their breath. The moment that all of God’s angels and people have so long awaited has come. All Heaven is in silence to hear what God might say, and to see the beginning of the journey back to earth of its rejected Messiah, this time in power and great glory.

²And I saw the seven angels who stood before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.

             At the same time as he sees the silence, John also sees seven angels being given seven trumpets. Before anything happens with the trumpets, though, the silence is broken and one last vision appears to John before the sounding of the trumpets.

³And another angel came and stood at the altar having a golden censer, and many incenses were given to him that he might give to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which is before the throne. ⁴And the smoke of the incenses with the prayers of the saints went up from the hand of the angel before God.

            In Rev. 5.8, the incense is the prayers of the saints. Here, it is mixed with the prayers of the saints. Incense in the Bible usually refers to that about Christ which is pleasing to God the Father. Everything in the Tabernacle of the Old Testament was a picture of Christ in some aspect. The golden altar burned incense that gave a sweet aroma to God. That sweet smell was the attributes of his Son that delighted him. We see this truth in the New Testament in 2 Cor. 2.14-15, where we read that we, being in Christ, have his sweet aroma manifested through us, and in Eph. 5.2, where we see Christ as the offering to God that is a good smell to him. By reading Rev. 5.8 and this verse together, we see that what makes our prayers acceptable to God is Christ. When we are in him and he in us, our prayers are mixed with his acceptability to God and take on an aroma pleasing to him.

⁵And the angel took the censer and filled it from the fire of the altar and cast it to the earth, and there were thunders and sounds and lightnings and an earthquake.

            The prayers of the saints in Revelation are primarily for the judging of evil and the avenging of the blood of the Lord’s people, not, as noted earlier, the sinful desire for revenge by men, but the holy desire for what is right. We saw these prayers in Rev. 6.10, when the martyrs under the altar cried out for the avenging of their blood. All the prayers of God’s people during this present evil age for the Lord’s return are stored up before God until this moment. Now we see a part of the answer. This censer of prayer and incense is filled with fire from the altar and cast to the earth. The result is thunders, sounds, lightnings, and an earthquake, some of the events of the end.

14.14-16

14. ¹⁴And I saw, and look, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one like a son of man, having on his head a golden wreath and in his hand a sharp sickle. ¹⁵And another angel came out from the Sanctuary crying with a great voice to the one sitting on the cloud, “Send your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is dry.” ¹⁶And the one sitting on the cloud cast his sickle to the earth and the earth was reaped.

            We saw above that the Lord said in Matt. 24.30-31 that after the heavenly disturbances he would return and gather his chosen ones. That is the harvest depicted in Rev. 14.14-16. After the heavenly disturbances, the Lord will descend from Heaven to the clouds, but before he descends to earth, the trumpet will sound, the dead in Christ will rise, and those alive in Christ at that time will be caught up with the resurrected saints to meet the Lord in the air. This is that great passage, 1 Thess. 4.13-18. In his vision, John sees this event as beginning with one like a son of man, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, siting on a cloud. He is wearing a golden wreath, not the diadem of royalty, but the wreath of victory. He defeated Satan at the cross and won complete victory, and that victory is now seen in his ability to descend to the air, the domain of Satan, as we saw earlier, and to gather his chosen ones to himself there.

            In addition to the golden wreath, he has in his hand a sharp sickle, the instrument of harvest. And angel comes from the Holy of Holies in Heaven and tells him to send his sickle and reap, for the hour of reaping has come, the harvest being dry, that is, ripe. And so the Son of Man casts his sickle to the earth and reaps. He harvests all those who are his, those who have died in him and are resurrected, and those who are alive at his coming. In addition, there will be the overcomers already raptured to Heaven before the Great Tribulation who will come back from Heaven with the Lord. We will see this in chapter 19.

            Revelation does not record the judgment seat of Christ of 2 Cor. 5.10, but we believe that it will take place at this point. It may well be that each person who has died in the Lord will be judged at the time of death rather than at the end, for some may ask how it will be possible for so many millions to be judged by their works for their rewards in such a short time. The Lord is fully capable of doing anything he chooses to do in whatever amount of time he chooses to do it, and time is of no consequence to him, for he is eternal. but it may be that only those who are alive at the Lord’s return will be judged at this point, those having died having already been judged. In that case, the conclusion of the judgment seat of Christ will take place at this time. We believe this judgment takes place at this time because the next event is the marriage supper of the Lamb, and not all Christians will be invited to the marriage supper, but those who have gained that reward by their faith and obedience in this life. We turn now to that great event.

19.1-10

19. ¹After these things I heard something like a great voice of a large crowd in Heaven saying, “Hallelujah! The salvation and the glory and the power are our God’s, ²for true and righteous are his judgments, for he judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth by her immorality, and he avenged the blood of his slaves from her hand.” ³And a second time they said, “Hallelujah! And her smoke goes up to the ages of the ages.” ⁴And the twenty-four elders and the four living beings also worshipped God who was sitting on the throne, saying, “Amen! Hallelujah!” ⁵And a voice went out from the throne saying, “Praise our God, all his slaves and those who fear him, the small and the great.”

            After the harvesting of the Lord’s chosen ones and the judgment seat of Christ, we hear a great voice from Heaven shouting the first of four Hallelujahs. Hallelujah is a Hebrew word meaning simply, “Praise the LORD.” Why is this great crowd praising the Lord? Because the salvation and glory and power are his. These great attributes are seen in the fact that his judgments are true and righteous. That is, no one can find fault with God for his judgments on evil men, for they deserve it because of their evil deeds and their refusal to repent and submit to God. The truth and righteousness of his judgments are seen in the fact that he judged the great harlot of Rev. 17. Her physical and spiritual immorality and her persecution of the Lord’s people in his very name have been avenged. As the smoke of her judgment rises, a second Hallelujah is heard. Then the twenty-four elders and the four living beings join in with their Hallelujah. Finally, a voice from the throne calls for all the slaves of God, and those who fear him, small and great, to join the praise.

⁶And I heard something like a voice of a large crowd and something like a voice of many waters and something like a voice of strong thunders saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the almighty reigned. ⁷Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him, for the marriage of the little Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready, ⁸and it was given to her that she might be clothed in fine linen, shining, clean, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

            When John hears the fourth Hallelujah, it comes with one of the great passages of Scripture. So great is the shout that it sounds to John like a large crowd, many waters, and strong thunders. These worshippers are shouting praise because of the reign of God. Our translations usually say, “The Lord our God the almighty reigns,” but the Greek says literally, “reigned.” We do not believe the Holy Spirit inspired mistakes. The past tense is there for a reason. When this great event occurs, it will be seen that God has reigned all along, just as his faithful people have always believed. The people of God have ever been called to live by faith, not by sight. Never was this more true than when a man who came as the insignificant son of a poor carpenter and ended his life on a Roman cross, executed as a blasphemer against God and a traitor against the emperor, asked his followers to lay down their lives for him, believing that he was the Son of God, their Messiah, and that he would come again for them one day. Yet millions have believed, and millions believe today when unbelief has reached its zenith. The Lord our God the almighty reigned, and he reigns, and he will always reign. Hallelujah!

            A further reason for rejoicing and being glad and giving the glory to him is that the marriage of the Lamb has come. The Lord has met his people in the air and rewarded those who are to be his bride. At this point, his wife has made herself ready. Because she has made herself ready, she is allowed to wear fine linen, bright, clean fine linen. This beautiful garment is the righteous deeds of the saints. How does the wife make herself ready? How does she come to the place of being allowed to appear in fine linen before her Lord and heavenly Bridegroom?

            Marriage is one of the great symbols in the Bible. It shows the very nature of God. In Gen. 1.26-27, we find that God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness…. God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” God created man male and female in his own image! Does this mean that God is a man and a woman? No, it means that the very nature and essence of God is relationship, fellowship, love. When God said, “Let Us,” with whom was he talking? Not the angels. This was a conversation taking place within the triune God, and it reveals his nature.

            In several places in the Old Testament we see Israel as the wife of God. In Jer. 2.2 we read these words of God to Israel, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness, through a land not sown.” When God first brought his bride into being as a people and led them out of Egypt, her love for him was like that of a bride and she was willing to follow him anywhere.  In Hosea we see Israel as the unfaithful wife, the harlot who has gone after other gods, but we also see God’s promise that in the end she will be his faithful wife. We see this promise fulfilled in Is. 62.4-5, as we also noted in our remarks on the church at Pergamum in chapter 2 of Revelation:

            It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,”

            Nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”;

            But you will be called, “My delight is in her,”

            And your land, “Married”;

            For the Lord delights in you,

            And to Him your land will be married.

            For as a young man marries a virgin,

            So your sons will marry you;

            And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

            So your God will rejoice over you.

            This theme is continued in the New Testament, with its teaching that the church is to be the bride of Christ. One of the great passages on this picture is Eph. 5.22-33, where Paul tells us plainly that his words about human marriage are about Christ and the church. That is, a human marriage is intended by God to show what he is like, submission and self-giving love in the relationship. And then we come to this wonderful passage in Rev. 19 when the marriage of the Lamb has come. It is no longer a hope. It is a reality.

            We return to our questions as to how the wife makes herself ready and gains the privilege of wearing the fine linen. John tells us here in Rev. 19.8, of course. The fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. All those who have been born again have assurance of their eternal salvation. But in addition, they have the challenge of living lives of faith and obedience to God. Those who do so are all through their lives weaving a wedding garment. Seemingly insignificant acts are acts of obedience and so they add a strand to the garment. Great trials are endured in faith and add to the garment. Obedience is rendered in God’s calls to life’s work, and the garment is being woven.

            In Matt. 22.1-14 we read a parable of the kingdom of the heavens, the parable of the wedding feast. Those who were initially invited (the Jews) would not come, so the king sent his slaves to invite any who would (the Gentiles) to come. When the wedding hall was filled with guests (overcoming Christians), the king saw one present who was not dressed in a wedding garment. He asked the man, “How did you enter here not having a wedding garment?” The man was speechless and could not answer. The king said, “Binding him feet and hands, cast him into the outer darkness.” The Lord concludes the story, “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.” And it is the chosen who will be at the marriage of the Lamb (Matt. 24.31). All Christians are called by God to the wedding supper, but only those with wedding garments will be chosen. Only those who have used this life to weave a garment of righteous deeds will be invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

            As you read these words, let me urge you not to take them lightly. Do not be misled by those who teach that the entire church will be raptured before the Great Tribulation and live happily ever after in heaven. Just as there will be Christians who are not ready to meet their Lord at the first rapture, that of the overcomers, before the Tribulation and who will be left behind to go through those most terrible of days, so will there be Christians at the judgment seat of Christ after the Great Tribulation who will not have woven a wedding garment and will not be allowed to attend the marriage supper of the Lamb as a part of the bride of Christ. Their salvation is not at issue. They will have eternal life and will eventually be brought into all that God has for them, but they can miss this reward of the joy of being in the bride of Christ at his marriage. I urge you, I plead with you, make yourself ready. Weave your wedding garment now while you can by doing the righteous deeds that are the will of God for you.

⁹And he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the little Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”

            It is indeed a blessed thing to be invited to the marriage supper, and it is indeed a great loss not to be so invited. The angel underlines the importance of this fact by saying, “These are true words of God.”

¹⁰And I fell before his feet to worship him. And he said to me, “Look, no. I am a fellow slave of yours and of your brothers who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.”

            So awed by this spectacle is John that he falls before the angel to worship him, but the angel quickly stops him, tells him that he is a fellow slave like John, and points him to the only one worthy of worship, to God. Then he adds a strange word: “For the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.” What does he mean by this statement?

            We saw in our introductory chapter that the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, on one hand, and the overcomers on the other, are key themes in the book of Revelation. The bride of Christ is made up of the overcomers, those who have maintained the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. The angel who is speaking to John tells him that he, the angel, also is one who holds the testimony of Jesus, just as John and those in the vision are. He is a worshipper, not one to be worshipped. Further, when one who is the Lord’s perceives the testimony of Jesus being maintained, he should be aware that it is the Holy Spirit who is enabling the testimony. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prophecy, the one who inspired all the prophets of the Old and New Testaments, and the one who inspired the prophecy of Revelation as John wrote down what he saw. The primary focus of prophecy is Jesus Christ. Prophecy ultimately is not about events, but about Christ. It is not designed just to give us information, but to challenge us to be ready to meet Christ. So the Spirit of prophecy is naturally going to bear witness to Jesus, to maintain the testimony of Jesus in his people. When John sees the invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb being given, he is seeing the heavenly revelation of those who have maintained the testimony of Jesus on earth. That should inspire worship, not of a fellow worshipper, glorious though he may be as an angel, but of the God who is over all.

ARMAGEDDON

14.17-20, 11.15-19, 16.17-21, 19.11-21, 18.1-24, 20.1-3

14.17-20

¹⁷And another angel went out from the Sanctuary which is in Heaven having himself also a sharp sickle. ¹⁸And another angel, the one having authority over fire, went out from the altar, and he voiced with a great voice to the one having the sharp sickle saying, “Send your sharp sickle and gather the bunches of the vineyard of the earth, for her grapes have become ripe.” ¹⁹And the angel cast his sickle to the earth and gathered the vineyard of the earth and cast into the great wine press of the fury of God. ²⁰And the wine press was trampled outside the city, and blood went out from the wine press up to the bridles of the horses for sixteen hundred stadia [about 183 miles].

            We noted earlier that Rev. 14 outlines the entire book from the rapture of the overcomers to the destruction of the wicked at Armageddon. We come now to the final passage of that chapter, vs. 17-20. After the harvesting of the Lord’s people still on earth, a second sharp sickle is sent to the earth, but this one has a different purpose. Just as the first sickle accomplishes the harvest of the Lord’s people, the second sickle accomplishes the vintage of the vineyard of the earth. Because when the grapes are crushed to make wine there is a great flow of juice, the vintage is used to symbolize the flow of blood when the evil armies gathered in the Holy Land to make war with the Lord and his people are destroyed. The angel who gives the command in v. 18 to send in the sickle of judgment is the angel who has authority over fire, another symbol of judgment. The grapes are ripe for the vintage. Evil has reached fullness for judgment. In Gen. 15.16 we read of a biblical principle in the words, “for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” God is patient (2 Pt. 3.9) and will not judge evil before the time, but there is a fullness of evil which, when reached, will bring forth the judgment of God in great fury. When the grapes are ripe, that time will have come, and we see it here in prophetic vision. Evil is complete. Judgment falls.

            The wine press into which these grapes are cast is the fury of God. It is not just the anger of God, but something stronger. The word used for fury conveys the idea of passion. God is passionate in his love of what is right, and he is passionate in his hatred of what is wrong. He hates no man, but if men finally refuse to repent and submit to him, they will be consumed by the fury which is poured out on their evil hearts and deeds. Jer. 30.23-24 shows this passion:

            Look, the tempest of the Lord!

            Wrath has gone forth,

            A sweeping tempest;

            It will burst on the head of the wicked.

            The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back

            Until He has performed and until he has accomplished

            The intent of His heart;

            In the latter days you will understand this.

It is the intent of God to destroy evil and establish righteousness on the earth. He will do it, and he will do so in the latter days referred to by Jeremiah and dealt with in the passages of Revelation under consideration.

            V. 20 describes the flow of blood from the destruction of the armies gathered at Armageddon. The blood will be as deep as horses’ bridles for a distance of about 183 miles. This picture of the vintage of the wicked fulfills the prophecy of Joel 3.9-16:

            Proclaim this among the nations:

            Prepare a war; rouse the mighty men!

            Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up!

            Beat your plowshares into swords

            And your pruning hooks into spears;

            Let the weak say, “I am a mighty man.”

            Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations,

            And gather yourselves there.

            Bring down, O Lord, Your mighty ones.

            Let the nations be aroused

            And come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat,

            For there I will sit to judge

            All the surrounding nations.

            Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.

            Come, tread, for the wine press is full;

            The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.

            Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!

            For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

            The sun and moon grow dark

            And the stars lose their brightness.

            The Lord roars from Zion

            And utters His voice from Jerusalem,

            And the heavens and the earth tremble.

            But the Lord is a refuge for His people

            And a stronghold to the sons of Israel.

            The multitudes will be gathered in the valley of decision, the valley of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat means “The Lord judges.” It is the valley in Jerusalem between Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives. Just as in Zech. 6.1 we see the chariots of God’s judgment riding out from between two bronze mountains, bronze being a symbol of judgment in the Bible, the same mountains, Zion and Olivet, in the valley of Jehoshaphat, so we see the same scene of judgment here in Revelation. As the armies of Antichrist are about to destroy the people of God once for all in Jerusalem (Zech. 14.2), God will pour out the judgment pictured in Joel 3 and here in Revelation.

11.15-19

            Having seen the picture of Armageddon given in Revelation’s outline chapter, we turn now to the other accounts of this last battle of this age that give us varying perspectives on it. The first is the seventh trumpet.

¹⁵And the seventh angel sounded the trumpet, and there was a great voice in Heaven saying, “The kingdom of the world has become our Lord’s and his Christ’s, and they will reign into the ages of the ages.”

            John does not actually see the Lord’s visible return at this point in his visions, nor does he see Armageddon here. These will be seen as we approach the end of the book. But what he does see presupposes that those events have taken place. He saw and heard the seventh angel blowing his trumpet and heard the announcement from Heaven that the kingdom of the world was now the Lord’s and his Christ’s and that they would reign forever. This will occur after the Lord’s return to earth.

¹⁶And the twenty-four elders sitting before God on their thrones fell onto their faces and worshipped God, ¹⁷saying, “We thank you, Lord God almighty, who is and who was, for you took your great power and reigned. ¹⁸And the Gentiles were angry, and your anger came and the time to judge the dead and to give the reward to your slaves the prophets and to the saints and to those who fear your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroyed the earth.”

            The twenty-four elders of Heaven burst into spontaneous worship at this announcement, falling from their thrones onto their faces and thanking God. They refer to Ps. 2.1-3:

            Why are the Gentiles in an uproar

            And the peoples devising a vain thing?

            The kings of the earth take their stand

            And the rulers take counsel together

            Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,

            “Let us tear their fetters apart

            And cast away their cords from us!”

Then they note that God’s anger arose as well, and the time for judgment and reward came. These judgments and rewards have already taken place at the scene which John is seeing, for he sees the Lord reigning after his return to earth.

¹⁹And the Sanctuary of God which is in Heaven was opened and the ark of his covenant appeared in his Sanctuary, and there were lightnings and sounds and thunders and an earthquake and great hail.

            The last appearance in this vision is of the Sanctuary of God in Heaven.  John sees it opened and the Ark of the Covenant appearing, and when he does so, there are the usual signs accompanying the coming of the end, lightnings, sounds, thunders, earthquake, hail. Thus is John made to realize that what he has just seen of the reigning Lord has not actually occurred yet, but is only revealed to him in a vision. First the events of the end must actually happen, as indicated by the signs.

            So we see that just as the seven seals lead right up to the end, to the appearing of the Lord Jesus in glory, so do the seven trumpets. With the seventh seal, there is the silence in Heaven of the anticipation of the Lord’s return. With the seventh trumpet there is the rejoicing in Heaven at the accomplished fact of the Lord’s return. Thus do we learn that the seals, at least the last three, and the trumpets cover roughly the same time period, that of the Great Tribulation and the impending end.

            Before we leave the seventh trumpet, let us reiterate what was dealt with at more length earlier, that this seventh trumpet is the last trumpet. Matt. 24.31 tells us that after the Lord’s return, introduced by the seventh and last trumpet, he will send forth his angels to gather his chosen ones. The seventh trumpet does not indicate a moment of time, but a period, probably a short period, so that the coming of the Lord and the gathering of the chosen afterwards all come under the seventh trumpet, as do Armageddon and the beginning of the Lord’s reign. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15.51-52 that at the last trumpet, the dead will be raised and those living at that time will be changed in a moment, in the blink of an eye. That passage of great comfort to those who lose loved ones to death, 1 Thess. 4.13-18, reveals that the Lord Jesus “will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with a trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and those living at that time will be caught up with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will always be with the Lord.” All of these trumpets are the same, the last trumpet, the seventh trumpet, that is sounded at the end of history as we know it, after the Great Tribulation and just at the coming of the Lord to earth. May that day hasten! Amen, come, Lord Jesus.

            This seventh trumpet is the third woe, for it means the destruction with the breath of the Lord’s mouth of all the evil ones of the earth gathered to do battle with the returning Lord. It is irreversible judgment, leading to hades and then the lake of fire. Woe indeed is it to those who oppose the Lord and his anointed.

16.17-21

¹⁷And the seventh poured out his bowl onto the air, and there went out a great voice from the Sanctuary, from the throne, saying, “It is done!”

            The seventh trumpet brought us to the reign of Christ. So does the seventh bowl. When it is poured out, there is “a great voice from the Sanctuary, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’” The judgments have been completed and the rightful Heir of the throne of the universe has come to his place of sovereignty.

            It is of no little importance that we are told that the seventh bowl was poured onto the air. In Eph. 2.2, we are told that Satan is “the ruler of the authority of the air.” Those who lived in the first century pictured the earth as flat, with Heaven above and hades beneath. The air, the space between Heaven and earth, was under the control of Satan, and thus man had no way of getting to Heaven. All of this symbolizes man’s separation from God because of sin. One of the great encouragements of the Bible is recorded in Heb. 4.14, where we learn that we have a High Priest who has passed through the skies, that is, through the air from earth to Heaven, at his ascension. Our Lord Jesus has made the way to Heaven, having lived a sinless life and died a sacrificial death that took away sins. He was able to pass through the realm of Satan to Heaven unhindered. Then we are told in 1 Thess. 4.17 that those who are raised from the dead and those who are the Lord’s at his coming will be caught up together to meet him in the air. And he will have brought with him from Heaven all those who were raptured before the Great Tribulation. The very place of Satan’s rule will be the gathering place of the Lord and his own at his appearing. Satan has been utterly defeated. The Lord Jesus has won utter victory. That defeat and that victory will be manifested in the air at the end. The pouring out of the bowl onto the air that results in the end, “It is done!” probably corresponds with 1 Thess. 4.17. The bowl poured onto the air brings the end of Satan’s activity on the earth during this age, and it brings the meeting of the Lord and his people in the air. Praise the Lord!

¹⁸And there were lightnings and sounds and thunders and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were on the earth, so great was the earthquake. ¹⁹And the great city went into three parts and the cities of the Gentiles fell. And Babylon the great was remembered before God to give to her the cup of the wine of the fury of his anger. ²⁰And every island fled and mountains were not found. ²¹And great hail, about a talent, came down from the sky onto men, and the men blasphemed God from the plague of the hail, for very great is this plague.

            The seals and the trumpets brought us to the end with an earthquake, disturbances of the heavenly bodies and the splitting of the sky, lightning, sounds, thunder, hail. We see these same phenomena here at the seventh bowl in this summary of the battle of Armageddon. We are not told the identity of the great city. It is probably not Babylon since it is mentioned in the next verse. It could be Rome, the capital of the empire of John’s day, the pattern of the final empire. In Rev. 11.8, Jerusalem is called the great city. Zech. 4 says that when Christ again stands on the Mount of Olives it will be split in the middle from east to west, but here the great city is split into three parts, so it is not certain what city is referred to. Along with the destruction of the armies assembled in Israel to oppose the Lord and destroy the Jews comes the judgment of the city of Babylon. We saw the destruction of religious Babylon by Antichrist before the Great Tribulation in Rev. 17. The Lord himself will destroy the city. This event is described in detail in Rev. 18, still to be considered in this writing. Babylon is given the cup of the wine of the fury of God’s anger. This piling up of descriptive words shows the depth of the hatred of God for the evil embodied in this city that has ever been the center of opposition to him on earth.

            So great is the fury of God poured out at the seventh bowl that even the mountains and islands flee. There is great hail. And still, the men of the earth refuse to repent before the God who would still have mercy on them if only they would do so. They blaspheme him for a last time before they taste and smell the smoke of the fires of eternal judgment.

            We have endeavored to show that the seals (at least numbers five, six, and seven), trumpets, and bowls all deal with the period of the Great Tribulation and the events immediately following, and cover more or less the same time period. All three groups of judgments lead right up to the return of Christ. These three groups of judgments show us with increasing intensity the judgments of God to be poured out on Antichrist and his followers during the Great Tribulation. It is good for us to think once again at this point about the purpose of the book of Revelation. These terrifying pictures are not meant to entertain us or to scare us. They are telling us what we can escape if we overcome. We return to Rev. 3.10: he will keep us from the hour if we keep the word of his perseverance. Those who are alive at the time of these events and who are awake and keep their garments will be raptured to the throne of God before they happen, and thus will escape them. Those who are not, including Christians, will be left here to endure this most terrible time in history, a time so terrible that even those chosen by God would not be saved if it were not shortened by God. Take heed, dear reader. Be awake. Be faithful to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Escape that hour!

19.11-21

¹¹And I saw Heaven opened, and look, a white horse, and the one sitting on him called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war, ¹²and his eyes like a flame of fire, and on his head many diadems, having a name written which no one knows but himself, ¹³and clothed in a garment dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. ¹⁴And the armies in Heaven were following him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white, clean.

            Now a great moment comes. John actually sees the Lord ride out of Heaven on a great white horse. He is beginning his return to the air and to the earth. We saw in Rev. 6.2 that Antichrist will try to imitate Christ and usurp his place by riding on a white horse, feigning righteousness, and wearing the wreath of victory. He will indeed be victorious for a brief time, but in the end he will lose his white horse and his wreath of victory. One will come who deserves to ride the white horse and wear the wreath because he is faithful and true. Once again Revelation stresses that the judgment and war about to be carried out are righteous because the one doing so is pure himself and is dealing with pure evil. No fault can be found with the Lord for destroying people who refuse to turn from evil, especially in light of all the opportunities they have been given to repent.

            In Rev. 1.14 and again in 2.18 we saw the eyes of the Lord as a flame of fire, and now we see them so again. No unrepentant sinner will be able to escape those eyes, and they will see not just the outward deeds, but the inward evil of the heart (Heb. 4.13).  We noted just above the wreath of victory worn by Antichrist and the fact that only the Lord deserves to wear it. However, it was in Rev. 14.14 that we saw him wearing the wreath of victory. Here in this passage we see him wearing many diadems, the wreaths of royalty. Christ is not coming now as the victorious one to gather his people, for that issue has been settled, but as the King of kings, symbolized by the many diadems, to execute judgment on the earth and take his rightful throne to rule on earth.

            He has a name written which no one knows but himself. That is, there are things about the Lord not to be revealed until evil is dealt with. It will take all eternity for the greatness of our Lord to unfold, but people who do not love him will not be permitted to know certain things about him that are reserved only for his own. Names in the Bible are often symbolic of character. The fullness of that character will be revealed to his bride by the heavenly Bridegroom when he takes his throne to reign with her at his side.

            He is clothed in a garment dipped in blood. There are two possible understandings of this statement. In Is. 63.3-4 we read, “Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? ‘I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all my raiment.’”  This picture of judgment is so much like that presented in Revelation that it likely is the background of the thought here. However, the judgment has not yet occurred when this sight is seen, so it may be that the thought is of the Lord’s own blood. Because he shed his blood for us, he is worthy to come and take the throne of the earth.

            In addition to being called faithful and true, he has a name, the Word of God. How much meaning is bound up in that name! The entire Bible is the word of God, and Revelation in particular is, and now we see all the words of the Bible being fulfilled in the person who is its Subject. In addition, he will destroy the wicked with the sword that goes forth from his mouth, and we know that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. The Word will destroy his enemies with a word.

            This great King who comes from Heaven on a horse symbolizing by its color the righteousness of his deeds is followed by heavenly armies also on white horses, showing that in him they, too, are righteous. Not only do they ride white horses. They are also clothed in fine linen, white, clean. Who are those who make up these armies? In Rev. 4.4 we see the twenty-four angelic elders of Heaven wearing white garments. In Rev. 3.4,5,18, 6.11, 7.9,13, and 19.8, these garments are worn by the overcomers. It is possible that the army contains angels, since the elders are so clothed and since the angels are called the armies (hosts) of Heaven many times in the Old Testament. It is probable that they include the overcomers who will be raptured before the Great Tribulation.

¹⁵And from his mouth there goes out a sharp sword, that with it he might strike the Gentiles, and he himself will shepherd them with a rod of iron, and he himself will trample the wine press of the wine of the fury of the anger of God almighty, ¹⁶and he has on the garment and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

            We noted above that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God, and now we see the Lord Jesus riding the white horse to battle with this great sword, the sword of the word that created everything out of nothing, sustains it by the word of his power Heb. 1.3), and will put an end to evil. With this sword he will strike the Gentiles, destroying them with a word. He will shepherd them with a rod of iron. What a picture! Shepherds are gentle and use a wooden crook, but in this case the Lord shepherds with a rod of iron. That is, he will herd the Gentiles by force into the wine press. There he will trample the grapes with the fury of the anger of God almighty. As he does so, the name on his garment and on his thigh will appear, King of kings and Lord of lords. The King is reigning, the Lord is exercising dominion, in judgment.

¹⁷And I saw one angel standing in the sun, and he cried out in a great voice saying to all the birds flying in midheaven, “Come, gather yourselves to the supper of the great God ¹⁸so that you may eat flesh of kings and flesh of commanders and flesh of mighty ones and flesh of horses and of the ones sitting on them and flesh of all, both free ones and slaves and small one and great ones.

These verses call to mind Ezek. 39.17-20, a passage also dealing with Armageddon:

As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord God, “Speak to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field, ‘Assemble and come, gather from every side to My sacrifice which I am going to sacrifice for you, as a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, as though they were rams, lambs, goats and bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. So you will eat fat until you are glutted, and drink blood until you are drunk, from My sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. You will be glutted at My table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all the men of war,’ declares the Lord God.”

            Just as there will be a marriage supper of the Lamb, so will there be a great supper of God. It will be the supper he serves the birds when he leaves the dead bodies of the wicked for the birds to eat. It does not matter whether one is strong or weak, rich or poor, slave or free. It is the condition of the heart and the relationship with God that will determine one’s destiny at this battle. Strength cannot defeat God. Money cannot buy him off. Freedom is not freedom from God. Weakness, poverty, and slavery cannot be used as excuses to play on the sympathies of God. His judgment is true and righteous.

¹⁹And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to make war with the one sitting on the horse and with his army. ²⁰And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who did the signs before him with which he deceived those receiving the mark of the beast and who worshipped his image. The two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone.

            Just before the evil armies of the earth are killed, Antichrist, who heads these armies, and his false prophet will be seized and thrown alive into the lake of fire, or hell. There are two matters of interest in this connection. First, Heb. 9.27 says that man is to die once, and after that, judgment. Antichrist will be one who has come back from death. We are not told that the false prophet will also be one who comes back from death, but it is a possibility. That is perhaps the reason these two are thrown alive into hell. They have already died physically once and cannot do so again.

            Second, these two are the first occupants of hell. The fallen angels and the lost dead among men who are being held in prison awaiting judgment are in hades, not in hell. There is no one in hell at this moment. Nor is hell under the rulership of Satan. We often hear of Satan’s powers as the powers of hell, but that is a misstatement. We often see cartoons of Satan stoking the fires of hell and tormenting the lost. Neither is this a true picture. Hell is not Satan’s kingdom. It is his judgment, his doom. He does not rule over hell. He dreads it. It is there burning today, waiting for the time to come when the one for whom it was created will be cast into it (Matt. 25.41), its smoke ever rising as a reminder to the evil one that he has an end.

²¹And the rest were killed with the sword which went out from his mouth of the one sitting on the horse, and all the birds were filled from their flesh.

            After Antichrist and the false holy spirit are vanquished by the true Christ, the armies will be killed with the sword of his mouth. There really is no battle of Armageddon. There are armies gathered there, but before they can do anything, they are destroyed by a word. When the Lord is the opponent, there is no fight. There is only certain defeat. As all these soldiers are destroyed in a moment, the birds gather for their supper, the great supper of God.

18.1-24

            We do not know the exact order of events at this time of the end, but a part of the acts of judgment will be the long-awaited destruction of Babylon. We have already studied the destruction of religious Babylon by Antichrist that makes the way for him to proclaim himself god and outlaw every other religion (Dan. 17.16). Religious Babylon is man’s religion, inspired by Satan, that is opposed to God’s way for man to relate to him. The ancient city of Babylon was the center of much of this religion, and it also symbolizes the world in its opposition to God. We might say that Rev. 18 deals with secular Babylon; we could say political or commercial Babylon. God himself will destroy the city and all that it stands for. Jer. 50 and 51 form a lengthy prophecy of the end that awaits Babylon and should be read in connection with this chapter.

18. ¹After these things I saw another angel coming down out of Heaven having great authority, and the earth was illuminated from his glory.

            Babylon is the great enemy of God. Because it is a great foe, an angel with great authority comes from Heaven to announce her doom. Babylon means “confusion” (babble), and all the world has lived in the confusion of her deception in opposition to God, but the angel enlightens. His glory illumines the earth.

²And he cried with a strong voice saying, “Fell, fell, Babylon the great, and it has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit and a prison of every unclean and hated bird, ³for from the wine of the fury of her immorality have all the nations drunk, and the kings of the earth committed immorality with her,  and the merchants of the earth became rich from the power of her sensuality.”

            The angel says literally, “Babylon fell, fell,” alluding to Is. 21.9 and Jer. 51.8-10. Rev. 14.8 uses the same words of religious Babylon in the announcement by the angel before the Great Tribulation, and Rev. 16.19 tells us that at the time of Armageddon, Babylon will be remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of God’s anger. Is. 13.21-22, Jer. 50.39-40, and 51.37 give us the Old Testament prophecy repeated here in v. 2 that Babylon will be the dwelling place not of kings and their courtiers, but of demons and unclean spirits and unclean and hated birds. It is the principle of Babylon, the world in opposition to God, that has been behind immorality and sensuality and the wealth to be gained from them. The thought is not primarily of physical immorality, though that is included, but of the spiritual immorality of involvement with false gods, including mammon (Matt. 6.24). Through the worship of material goods, the world has produced much wealth, and kings and merchants have gladly and willingly joined in, but God sees this wealth as the product of spiritual immorality. In addition, much wealth is the product of injustice, the strong oppressing the weak and taking all the riches for themselves. God sees this as spiritual immorality, the worship of the false god of money.

⁴And I heard another voice from Heaven saying, “Go out, my people, from her, that you might not be partakers in her sins, and that you might not receive of her plagues, ⁵for her sins have piled up to Heaven and God has remembered her wrongs.

            In 2 Cor. 6.14-18, Paul tells us to be separated from the world while we live here. That separation, of course, is not physical withdrawal from the world, but care in close associations and in activities. But in Rev. 18.4, the separation is physical. God tells his people who live in the physical city of Babylon to leave, for two reasons. Babylon is the capital of evil and evil reigns there. One of the best ways of avoiding sin is to avoid temptation. It is not wise for God’s people to put themselves in places of strong temptation outside his definite leading. With evil so strong in Babylon, it will be virtually impossible for the Lord’s people to avoid temptation. So he says to leave. The second reason is that judgment is about to fall. The city will be literally destroyed. Just as Lot’s family had to leave Sodom, so will the Lord’s people have to leave Babylon at the end. The first reason for leaving, the avoiding of temptation, is seen in Lot’s wife. Though she left the city physically, her heart was still there, as evidenced by her looking back, and she was judged by God for doing so (see Acts 7.39). If a Christian or a godly Jew stays in Babylon as evil reaches its zenith, he might have his heart stolen away by the attractiveness of sin and not be ready for the Lord’s coming. He will not lose his salvation, but he will certainly lose reward if his heart is in Babylon.

            In ancient Babylon, men attempted to build a tower that would reach to Heaven. They failed under the judgment of God. But in the end, Babylon will have constructed a tower of sin that will reach to Heaven. There will be so much sin that it will pile up to Heaven and God will remember her wrongs in judgment.

⁶Pay to her as also she herself has paid, and give her double according to her sins. In the cup in which she mixed, mix to her double.

            Why is Babylon given double for her sins? Is this not unjust? Nothing God does is unjust. We have noted several verses in Revelation that stress the righteousness of his judgments. Probably the reason for the double repayment is that Babylon’s sins are against both God and man. She has exalted herself in opposition to God, but she has also led men down the path of eternal destruction. God cares for his people and tries to bring them to glory. Satan hates his people and tries to destroy them. He uses one group of people who are his to destroy or oppress another group. Then he will turn on the first group. Every sin is against both God and man, so the judgment is doubled.

⁷As much as she glorified herself and lived in sensuality, give to her as much torment and mourning. For in her heart she says, ‘I sit a queen, and I am not a widow, and I will not see mourning.’ ⁸For this reason, in one hour her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and with fire she will be burned, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

            God says to give Babylon torment and mourning in the same amount as her self-glorification and sensuality. The reason for this is seen in the quotation from Is. 47.7-11, “I sit a queen, and I am not a widow, and I will not see mourning.” The key word in the quotation is “I,” and that shows the pride of Babylon. She does not give glory to her Creator who enabled her to achieve such a great place, but she glorifies herself. She does not make use of her wealth to serve her Creator, but she lives in sensuality, indulging every appetite. “Pride goes before destruction,” Prov. 16.18 says, and great is the pride of Babylon. God will be patient for centuries and millenniums (“The Lord is … slow to anger,” Ps. 103.8), but there will come a day when he will act suddenly, without warning: “For you yourselves know accurately that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. When they say, ‘Peace and safety,’ then sudden destruction comes on them as the birth pains on the pregnant one, and they will not escape” (1 Thess. 5.2-3). In one hour death, mourning, famine, and fire will come on her. This threat of suddenness and quickness alludes to the passage quoted in v. 7, Is. 47.7-11, which says in vs. 7 and 9, “I will be a queen forever…. I will not sit as a widow, nor know loss of children.” This threat is no idle boast, and there is no doubt that it will happen, for strong is the one who judges her. He can do it, and he can do it quickly.

⁹And the kings of the earth who committed immorality and lived in sensuality with her will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning,  standing at a distance because of fear of her torment, saying, ¹⁰‘Woe, woe the great city, Babylon the strong city, for in one hour your judgment came.’

            These verses begin a series of laments over the great city. The kings of the earth weep and lament because she was the source of their immorality and sensuality. We might wonder that these kings are able so to lament. Would they not have been killed at Armageddon? Rev. 16.14 says that the kings of the whole earth are gathered to Armageddon, but it does not say that every king will be so gathered. Also, as noted above, we do not know the exact order of events. This destruction of Babylon may precede Armageddon. There will be Gentiles left alive on the earth after Armageddon and the coming of the Lord (Matt. 25.31-46). Perhaps these will be among them, and they will realize that their days of pleasure are over. They keep their distance, fearing that her torment will come on them, thus giving away their guilty consciences. They have participated in her immorality and sensuality, and they will participate in judgment. They, too, notice that even though Babylon is strong, her judgment comes in one hour. Babylon may be strong. God is almighty.

¹¹And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their cargo any more, ¹²cargo of gold and silver and precious stone and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every citron wood and every ivory object and every object from costly wood and bronze and iron and marble, ¹³and cinnamon and spice and incenses and myrrh and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine wheat flour and grain and cattle and sheep, and of  horses and of carriages and of bodies and souls of men. ¹⁴The fruit of the desire of your soul has gone from you and all luxurious and splendid things are lost by you, and they will find these things no longer. ¹⁵The merchants of these things who became rich from them will stand at a distance because of fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, ¹⁶saying, ‘Woe, woe the great city, the one clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stone and pearl, ¹⁷for in one hour so much wealth is made desolate.’

            The merchants of the earth are the second group to lament. Their reason for mourning is equally as selfish as that of the kings. Babylon was the source of their wealth, buying their cargoes of every sort, including the bodies and souls of men, as v. 13 notes. The reference to bodies probably means slavery; that to souls may mean that lives were lost to greed, the word “soul” in the Bible often meaning the physical life (indeed, this is its most frequent use), showing that life is cheap to those who will stop at nothing to gain riches. As the kings, so will the merchants stand at a distance for fear, and they, too, will see that judgment came in only one hour to so great a city and one possessed of so much wealth.

And every captain and passenger and sailors and as many as work the sea stood at a distance ¹⁸and were crying, seeing the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’ ¹⁹And they threw dust onto their heads and they cried, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe the great city, in which all those who have ships on the sea became rich from her costliness, for in one hour she is made desolate.’

            The third group of lamenters consists of those who make their living by shipping. They haul the cargoes of the merchants, including the slaves. They mourn for the same reason as the merchants. Their source of wealth is gone. They, too, see that the great city is made desolate in only one hour.

²⁰Rejoice over her, Heaven, and the saints and the apostles and the prophets, for God has judged your judgment from her.”

            In addition to the three groups making lament, there is one group rejoicing, Heaven, saints, apostles, prophets. As noted earlier, these do not wish for revenge in the evil way that men often do. They are, like Lot, righteous men whose souls are tormented by the lawlessness around them. They long for righteousness to be established, but the only way it can be is for evil to be judged. Babylon stands for all that is evil in the world, and they rejoice at her judgment. The angel says, quite literally, “… God has judged your judgment from her,” meaning that Babylon will be repaid for judging the Lord’s people unjustly, persecuting and killing them.

²¹And one strong angel took a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea saying, “Thus with violence will Babylon the great city be thrown down, and it will be found no longer.

            We noted at the beginning of this chapter that Jer. 50 and 51 consist of a prophecy of the judgment to fall on Babylon. At the end of those chapters we read,

So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon. Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “As soon as you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words aloud, and say, ‘You, O Lord, have promised concerning this place to cut it off, so that there will be nothing dwelling in it, whether man or beast, but it will be a perpetual desolation.’ As soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates, and say, ‘Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again because of the calamity that I am going to bring upon her; and they will become exhausted.’’’

The angel reenacts this prophetic event to add the prophecy of the New Testament to that of the Old that Babylon will sink down, never to rise again.

²²And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute players and trumpet players will no longer be heard in you, and every craftsman of every craft will no longer be found in you, and the sound of a mill will no longer be heard in you, ²³and the light of a lamp will no longer shine in you, and the sound of bridegroom and bride will no longer be heard in you, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived, ²⁴and in her, blood of prophets and saints was found, and all those slaughtered on the earth.”

            These verses repeat some of the desolations prophesied in Jer. 50 and 51 and in Is. 13.20-22. In addition, they reiterate the reason for this judgment: the deceit of nations by sorcery, both literal through such things as astrology and the occult, and figuratively by the seduction of riches, the martyrdom of prophets and saints, and finally, the destruction of her own, “all those slaughtered on the earth.” Untold millions have been claimed by war throughout human history. It is estimated that somewhere between one and two hundred million have died in this century alone in wars and political killings. The overwhelming majority of these, virtually all of them, have been young boys and men cast to their deaths by the pride and greed and lust for power of men in high places, and civilians, including children. Does Satan have any concern for those who follow him, wittingly or unwittingly? His only concern for them is that he destroy them. Every person to die unjustly in this world is a victim of Babylon, whether that person be the Lord’s or not. The blood of all those slaughtered on the earth, all of them, will be found in Babylon, and she will suffer judgment for every one of them.

            Thus will the ancient enemy of God meet her end at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to judge and to make war, to redeem and to take his throne.

20.1-3

20. ¹And I saw an angel coming down out of Heaven having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. ²And he seized the dragon, the old snake, who is the devil and Satan, and he bound him for a thousand years, ³and he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, that he might not deceive the Gentiles any more until the thousand years are finished. After these things he must be released for a little while.

            After the casting of Antichrist and the false prophet into the lake of fire and the destruction of Babylon, another great event happens: the binding of Satan for a thousand years. Rev. 20.2,3,4,5,6, and 7 are the only verses in the Bible that mention the thousand years, and they are the source of the word “millennium,” a word derived from Latin that means “a thousand years.” We will return to the millennium presently. For now let us look at the binding and imprisonment of Satan.

            First, let us understand that he was thrown into the abyss. The abyss is not hell, but hades, the prison of fallen angels and the lost dead among men as they await final judgment and hell (Luke 8.31). The abyss is the bottomless pit of Rev. 9.1, the tartarus of 2 Peter 2.4. See also Jude 6. (Tartarus is wrongly translated as hell in our English versions.) This is made clear by Is. 14.15-17, a passage dealing with the fall of Satan through pride and his ultimate judgment:

            Nevertheless you will be thrust down to sheol,

            To the recesses of the pit.

            Those who see you will gaze at you ,

            They will ponder over you, saying,

            “Is this the man who made the earth tremble,

            Who shook kingdoms,

            Who made the world like a wilderness

            And overthrew its cities,

            Who did not allow his prisoners to go home?”

Satan will be cast into sheol, the Old Testament word for hades. The dragon, the old snake, the devil, Satan, will be cast into the same prison that he sent so many millions to, angels and men. He, too, will know the torments of being punished and of awaiting final judgment and then being cast into hell, the lake of fire.

            These names of Satan are of interest because they point out various aspects of his character and work. The dragon is the one who tries to destroy the overcomers, the male child, in Rev. 12. The old snake is the one who tempted Eve in the garden and first drew her away from God, plunging the entire creation into the fall. The devil is the slanderer of God and the accuser of the Lord’s people. Satan is the adversary.

            The primary purpose of this imprisonment of the devil is that he might not deceive the Gentiles for the thousand years. There will be Gentiles living on the earth during the millennium who are neither Christian nor Jew at the outset. These are the sheep of Matt. 25.31-46, the Gentiles whom the Lord will judge at his return and find worthy of the kingdom, and their descendants who will be born during the millennium. We will deal with it in more detail a bit later, but the millennium will be a time of testing of men, just as the ages of Law and grace are. Man failed under the Law, and he failed under grace, except for the remnant. Perhaps that is understandable in the evil world we live in. But the millennium will be the time of the righteous reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. Righteousness, not evil, will fill the earth. It will be the golden age of golden ages. Yet man is being tested during that time. At the end of it, Satan will be released for a short time to apply the test and see how man responds to a thousand years of perfection. Is man in a perfect environment any better than man in a fallen one?

THE MILLENNIUM, FINAL REBELLION, AND FINAL JUDGMENT

20.4-15

⁴And I saw thrones and they sat on them and judgment was given to them, and the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God and those who did not worship the beast or his image and did not receive the mark on their forehead and on their hand. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. ⁵The rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. ⁶Blessed and holy is the one who has part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death does not have authority, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

            We noted in the previous chapter that chapter 20 of Revelation contains the Bible’s only references to the thousand years, and that that is the origin of the word millennium, derived from Latin and meaning “a thousand years.” The taking of his throne by the Lord Jesus and the imprisonment of Satan, and thus the removal of temptation by him, ushers in the world’s greatest age, the thousand-year reign of righteousness of its rightful King.

The first millennial sight that John sees is thrones. He also says that they sat on them. He does not say who “they” are. Are they all saints, overcomers, apostles? Are they the elders of Rev. 4.4? Are these one and the same? We cannot say with certainty, but it would not be all saints, that is all Christians, for the book of Revelation, especially in chapters 2 and 3, has made it plain that not all Christians will reign with Christ in the millennium. It is the overcomers who will so reign. In Matt. 19.28 the Lord said to his disciples, “Amen I say to you that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on his throne of glory, you also will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” This statement would indicate that the thrones here are twelve thrones on which the twelve apostles will sit, though the regeneration, probably the millennium, may be eternity, not the millennium. However, in the letters to the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3, we are told in 2.26-27 that the overcomers will have authority over the nations and will shepherd them with a rod of iron, and in 3.21, that the overcomers will sit with Christ on his throne. These statements might be taken to mean that all the overcomers will sit on these thrones. We cannot settle the issue, but that is not really a problem. Whatever the exact meaning of these particular thrones, we know that the apostles will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel and that the overcomers will reign with Christ.

            Judgment was given to them. Is this a one-time judgment, such as Matt. 25.31-46, or is it an office lasting throughout the millennium? Again we cannot say with certainty. We have just noted the Lord telling the apostles that they would judge the twelve tribes of Israel, and in 1 Cor. 6.1-3, Paul says that the saints will judge the world and angels. We must draw the same conclusion as in the preceding paragraph.

            In addition to seeing the thrones and seeing some sit on them, John sees the souls of those who were beheaded for being faithful during the Great Tribulation. They maintained the testimony of Jesus and the word of God when it was illegal, on penalty of death, to do so, and they did not worship Antichrist or receive his mark. We have stressed the importance of the theme of the testimony of Jesus and the word of God in Revelation, and now we see the outcome of faithfulness to them. They are with the Lord forever.

            Why does John say that he saw the souls? We would think that he would see the spirits. We noted in our consideration of Rev. 6.9 that the most common meaning of “soul” in the Bible is physical life. When a body has breath it is, not has, a soul (Gen. 2.7). It is physically alive. John sees souls because these are martyrs, those who have lost their physical lives for the Lord. We also noted Ps. 116.15, the life of the saints poured out in death being precious to God. Just as in Rev. 6.9, that preciousness is emphasized here. That is why John sees souls.

            These martyred saints live and reign with Christ for the thousand years. In saying that they live, John seems to mean that their bodies were resurrected and their spirits again inhabited them, these saints thus again becoming living souls. This resurrection would actually have occurred just before the visible appearing of Christ when the dead in Christ will be raised and those alive at his coming will go with them to meet the Lord in the air. John confirms our belief that his saying that these martyrs lived refers to the resurrection by saying that the rest of the dead, those not the Lord’s, did not live until the thousand years were finished. Then he says, “This is the first resurrection.”

            Those who share in this resurrection will be holy, set apart for God, not just at that point, but during their lives here. The unholy cannot expect such a reward. The great blessedness of sharing in the first resurrection is twofold. First, the one who does so will have the thousand years with Christ, with the Father and the Spirit, and with his brothers and sisters and the angels. He will serve his High Priest as a priest, and he will reign with his King. Second, he will not be subject to the authority of the second death. The second death is hell, the lake of fire. No one who is raised before the millennium need fear hell. There are others who will be raised after the millennium who may or may not be subject to the authority of hell, as we will see later in this chapter of Revelation. It is blessed to know that that issue has been settled in one’s favor.

            It is of interest that this is all we are told about the millennium in Revelation. The overcomers serve as priests and reign with Christ for the thousand years. It is elsewhere in the Bible, especially in Isaiah, that we learn more about this period.

⁷And when the thousand years are finished, Satan will be released from his prison, ⁸and he will go out to deceive the nations that are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them to the war, whose number is as the sand of the sea.

            We raised the question at the end of the last chapter, “Is man in a perfect environment any better than man in a fallen one?” The release of Satan will answer this question. He will be allowed to go out to deceive the nations once more, and he will have access to all of them, to the four corners of the earth, God and Magog. We do not know exactly what Gog and Magog mean. The words are used only here in the New Testament, but they are used in the Old Testament more than once. In 1 Chron. 5.4, Gog is a descendant of Jacob’s son Reuben. In Gen. 10.2 and 1 Chron. 1.5, Magog is a son of Noah’s son Japheth. The rest of the occurrences are in Ezekiel’s account of Armageddon, before the millennium. There Gog is a prince, either prince of Rosh or chief prince of Meshech, depending on how one thinks the Hebrew should be translated. Either is possible, so neither can be certain. Magog is the land over which Gog is prince, Gog of the land of Magog. These words are used in Ezek. 38.2, 3, 14, 16, and 18, and 39.1, 6, and 11. Whatever the exact identity of Gog and Magog, Satan gathers them to the war, the final war, and their number is as the sand of the sea.

⁹And they went up on the breadth of the earth and encircled the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from Heaven and consumed them. ¹⁰And the devil who deceives them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where also the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night into the ages of the ages.

            They are indeed deceived by Satan, and gather in the Holy Land and at Jerusalem to attack the Lord and his people. Thus they answer our question. No, man in a perfect environment is no better than man in a fallen one. The problem is not the environment, but the heart. So deep is the sinful nature of man that even after a thousand years of virtual perfection on earth under the righteous rule of Christ, many will want to overthrow him. Perhaps they will not be satisfied with the equitable distribution of goods (whatever that may mean in the millennium) and will want the opportunity of enriching themselves at the expense of others. Perhaps, even though they will not have known Satan’s temptations for a thousand years, they will have been led astray by their own self-centeredness or lust. Whatever the reason, they will join Satan’s final rebellion. And they will experience his final judgment. They will be consumed by fire from Heaven. Then their deceiver, Satan, the adversary of all men and not just of the people of God, will be thrown into the lake of fire. This is why we said earlier that hell is not Satan’s kingdom. It is his judgment. He trembles at the thought of hell, knowing it to be his final abode forever. There he will join Antichrist and the false prophet in eternal torment. And there those whom he deceives will be with him.

¹¹And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it, from whose face the earth and the sky fled, and a place was not found for them.

            After the destruction of the enemy in earth’s final war and the throwing of Satan into hell, the great white throne will be seen with the Judge sitting on it for the last judgment. So awesome is the sight that the earth and the sky flee. This fleeing is probably the purging of the creation by fire of 2 Peter 3.7, 10-13, with the question of v. 11 showing us the purpose of prophecy: “Since all these things are to be destroyed thus, what kind of people is it necessary to be…?”

¹²And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened, and another scroll was opened, which is of life, and the dead were judged from the things written in the scrolls according to their works. ¹³And the sea gave the dead that were in it and death and hades gave the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his works.

            Before the great white throne of final judgment stand all the dead, those who had not been dealt with at the judgment seat of Christ of 2 Cor. 5.10 or at the judgment of the Gentiles of Matt. 25.31-46. Perhaps it would be helpful to review the judgments at this point. All those who have died in Christ up to his second coming will be raised at that time and will meet him in the air along with Christians living at that time, all these to be judged at the judgment seat of Christ by their works for reward, not for salvation, which is a settled issue. Then the Gentiles (neither Christian nor Jew) living on earth at that time will be judged after Armageddon when the Lord has returned to earth. This is the judgment recorded in Matt. 25.31-46. This judgment will be done in accordance with Rom. 2.12-16. Then we come to the great white throne judgment, the last judgment, after the millennium. Those judged here will be the lost dead, who have been held in hades until this time, and Gentiles like those Gentiles of Matt. 25.31-46 who had already died before that judgment. The Gentiles of Matt. 25.31-46 will be those still living when Christ returns. The Gentiles who had already died by that time will be judged at the great white throne in the same way, according to Rom. 2.12-16.

            John sees all the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Rank, wealth, privilege in this life will be of no account at the great white throne. The wealthy wicked cannot bribe God. The high achiever cannot plead his merit.  The poor and the weak cannot plead lack of opportunity. All will be judged alike, according to their works which are written in the scrolls (Ex. 32.32-33, Ps. 69.28, Dan. 12.1, Phil. 4.3). Just as there is no salvation by works, so there is no being lost by works. This judgment is a judgment by works for reward or punishment, not for being saved or lost. Just as there are degrees of reward for the Lord’s people, so there are degrees of punishment for the lost, depending on their works. In addition to the scrolls recording works, there is another scroll, the scroll of life. The names of Gentiles, those referred to in the previous paragraph, whose names are found here will be saved, but will also be judged by their works for reward. Those whose names are not found in the scroll of life will be lost, and will be punished according to their works. All the dead will be dealt with here who have not already been dealt with. The sea will give up those who have died there, and death and hades will release all their prisoners for this final judgment. No one will escape.

¹⁴And death and hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. ¹⁵And if anyone was not found written in the scroll of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

            V. 14 is one of the great statements of the Bible. Paul puts it this way in 1 Cor. 15.26: “The last enemy is destroyed, death.” Death has been the greatest fear and source of sorrow through all the history of man. Every happy life ends in death. Every good relationship ends in death. Every person will take loved ones to the grave, and will eventually go there himself. And there is no recourse. With illness or handicap, physical or mental, we might say that where there is life there is hope. Perhaps a cure will be found. With physical separation of loved ones, there is always the possibility of reunion. But with death, there is an end of everything. There is no hope. What a tragic end to all the good things of this life, and what a tragic end for all those whose names are not in the scroll of life, for their eternity will not make up for death. And yet, just as Paul said, so John saw in vision, “death and hades were thrown into the lake of fire.” The last enemy will be destroyed. Death will be no more. No longer will we say that all good things must end. They will not end. They will go on forever. Praise the Lord!

            But there is solemn warning along with the wonderful revelation. The lake of fire is the second death. From it there is no escape. As Henry Alford wrote on this verse more than a century ago, “As there is a second and higher life, so there is also a second and deeper death. And as after that life there is no more death, so after that death there is no more life.” The second death is a lake of fire, “and if anyone was not found written in the scroll of life (Ex. 32.32-33, Ps. 69.28, Dan. 12.1, Phil. 4.3), he was thrown into” that lake. Those who die in Christ will come back from the grave. There is no return from the second death. And this is not a death of nonexistence, but a spiritual death of eternal separation from God and all that is good and of eternal torment. I ask you, dear reader, is there any question in your mind as to your standing before God? Your eternal destiny depends on it. Will you at this moment submit to the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, have your name inscribed in the scroll of life, and settle the eternal question? If you have not done so, I plead with you to do so now.

HEAVEN

7.9-17, 21.1-22.5

7.9-17

            This passage actually seems to begin in the millennium, but it also seems to carry on into Heaven, so we consider it at this point.          

⁹After these things I saw and, look, a large crowd which no one was able to number, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the little Lamb clothed in white robes, and palm branches in their hands.

            After seeing the sealing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand Jews before the Great Tribulation in the first part of chapter 7, John now sees a vision of the millennium and Heaven after the Tribulation. He sees such a large crowd that no one is able to number it, and this crowd comes from every nation and from all tribes and peoples and tongues. The Lord Jesus said in Matt. 24.14 that the gospel of the kingdom would be preached in all the inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end would come, and we see here in Revelation that that preaching brought in converts from every nation and from every non-national group of people who have some distinguishing feature. Farther back, in Is. 42.6 and 49.6, it was revealed to Israel that the Messiah was to be a light to the nations and the Jews should have received him and furthered that light. Israel failed that purpose, but it was fulfilled in Christ working through his church. Not every group has yet heard, but the pace is quickening in our day.

            These whom John sees are standing before the throne and the little Lamb. What are they doing there? First, they are clothed in white robes and they have palm branches in their hands. All through Revelation, white robes are the wedding garments of the overcomers. We saw this especially in Rev. 3.5 and 19.8. In Rev. 6.11, white robes are the garments of the martyrs for the Lord. Thus this crowd standing before the throne and the Lamb are overcomers. When the Lord Jesus made what is called his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the crowd there spread palm branches in his path, thus acknowledging his kingship, so we see that here the crowd standing before the throne with palm branches in their hands are acknowledging that God is King of all and that his Son, the little Lamb, is his chosen King of kings and Lord of lords. This is a scene in Heaven of the Lord’s victorious people acknowledging him.

¹⁰And they cried with a great voice saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the little Lamb.”

            These have gained salvation, otherwise they would not be here, but they acknowledge that it is all of God and the Lamb. By saying, “Salvation to our God … and to the little Lamb,” they are saying that their salvation came from God and the Lamb, and thereby they praise him for his work of grace.

¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living beings and they fell before the throne onto their faces and worshipped God, ¹²saying, “Amen, the blessing and the glory and the wisdom and the thanksgiving and the honor and the power and the strength to our God into the ages of the ages. Amen.”

            This ascription of praise to God for salvation by the overcomers evokes a like response from the angels. As they stand around the throne and the elders and the four living beings, they fall onto their faces and ascribe every good thing they can think of to God. Heaven resounds with praise!

¹³And one of the elders answered saying to me, “Who are these who are clothed in white robes and where did they come from?” ¹⁴And I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are those who come from the Great Tribulation, and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the little Lamb.

            We said above that these who stand before the throne are overcomers, and now we see specifically that they are overcomers from the Great Tribulation. The elder does not say that they are martyrs, but only that they come from the Tribulation, so it is probable that the crowd includes both martyrs and those who lived faithful to God through the Tribulation until the Lord’s appearing. Their robes are white because of the blood of the Lamb. Rev. 12.11 tells us that the overcomers gain victory by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Because they knew the separation that the blood makes between themselves on one hand and their sins and Satan on the other, and because they availed themselves of the blood, they were able to overcome in the most difficult time of all to do so.

¹⁵Because of this they are before the throne of God and they serve him day and night in his Sanctuary, and the one who sits on the throne will tabernacle with them.

            In Rev. 3.12 we read that one of the promises to overcomers is that they will be made pillars in the Sanctuary of God and will not go out from the Sanctuary anymore. The Sanctuary is not the whole Temple complex, but the Holy of Holies. It is the very presence of God. Here in his presence these overcomers will serve God day and night. The word for service used here has to do with worship. It is not the service of going out to work among men, but the service to God of true worship, in Spirit and in truth, the Lord would say (Jn. 4.24). As if to underline the promise of the presence of God, the elder says that God will tabernacle with them. The Tabernacle in Exodus was the very symbol of the presence of God among his people. It was his dwelling-place among them. They all had their tents, and he had his. The Tabernacle is a detailed picture of the Lord Jesus. It could be called Immanuel, God with us. The Holy of Holies was the specific place where God dwelt among his people, and it is the Holy of Holies, the Sanctuary, where these overcomers will serve in the presence of God. It is at this point that the scene of these verses begins to pass from the millennium into Heaven, the statement that God will tabernacle with his people being a preview of 21.3.

¹⁶They will not hunger anymore or thirst anymore, nor will the sun beat on them, nor any heat, ¹⁷for the little Lamb who is in the middle of the throne will shepherd them, and he will lead them to springs of waters of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

            With these verses in particular this picture that begins in the millennium carries over specifically into eternity. The promise that they will not hunger reminds us of the tree of life in 22.2 bearing its twelve fruits; that they will not thirst, of the river of the water of life in 22.1. The heat of the sun and other heat are not mentioned in chapters 21 and 22, but we are told in 21.4 that there will be no more pain, and 21.23 and 22.5 say that there will be no need of the sun or moon because God is the light and the Lamb is the lamp. In addition, the Lamb will shepherd them, and he will lead them to places of rest. And 21.4 says that God will wipe every tear from the eyes of his people.

            What more precious promises could there be for those who have determined to live as the Lord’s people in this world of trouble, toil, and sorrow? Thus does John catch a glimpse early in his visions, in chapter 7 of Revelation, of the wonderful end of the story, which really has no end, that he might be prepared for the horrors he is to witness before that end comes.

21.1-22.5

21. ¹And I saw a new sky and a new earth, for the first sky and the first earth went away, and the sea is not anymore.

            We saw in 20.11 that the earth and the sky fled away from the presence of the great white throne of the last judgment after the millennium, and commented that that occurrence was probably the same as that of 2 Peter 3.7-13. Now John sees a great sight, the fulfillment of Is. 65.17, a new sky and a new earth, and Peter would add, “in which righteousness dwells.” All creation has been purified of anything having to do with sin and evil. John also sees that there is no sea on this new earth. What is the meaning of that feature?

            All through the Bible the sea is symbolic of evil. It is a place of danger, a place to be feared. The great flood of Genesis made the whole world a sea and killed every living being on earth. Waters flooding picture the overwhelming tide of trouble and evil. In the gospels, the Lord Jesus more than once stilled a storm at sea when the disciples thought they would lose their lives. And we have seen in our study of Revelation that the sea can symbolize the doorway to the abyss, hades, the prison-house of fallen angels and lost men. With the sea being such a great symbol of danger and evil, it is no wonder that in John’s vision, the new earth has no sea. There is no more danger. There is no more evil. There is no more possibility of slipping into the abyss. There is eternal Heaven.

²And the holy city, new Jerusalem, I saw coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

            John next sees a marvelous sight, but one that also raises questions. There before him are the new sky and the new earth, and down from Heaven comes the holy city, new Jerusalem. If the sentence stopped here, we would not have questions, but it does not. John sees this city as a bride adorned for her husband. How can a city be a bride?

            In Gen. 2 we read that God made Adam, and then in v. 18 God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper corresponding to him.” Then God made the beasts, but none of them were suitable to be man’s companion. So God put Adam to sleep, opened his side, took a rib, and made from it a woman, whom he presented to Adam. Adam then had a helper corresponding to him. Adam was the first Adam, and there is a last Adam. The first Adam was a picture of the last. Just as it was not good for the first Adam to be alone, so it is not good for the last Adam to be alone. God longs for a bride for his Son. As God caused a deep sleep to come on the first Adam, he caused the deep sleep of death to come on the last. As he opened the side of the first Adam, took something from it, and made with it a woman, so he caused to flow from the riven side of the last Adam the blood and water that gave life to the church. As the first Adam was raised from sleep to be presented with his wife, so was the last Adam raised from his sleep to resurrection life. But the last Adam has not yet been presented with his bride. She is a corporate bride, the church, and she is still in preparation at this writing. But the day will come when his bride is presented to him. We have already seen this in Rev. 19.7-9. Now in Rev. 21.2, John sees the bride as a city. Again we ask, how can a city be a bride?

            We noted just now that the bride of Christ is corporate. He is to be married to his people corporately, and they are to reign with him forever as his queen. Just as the statement in Gen. 1.26-27 shows the nature of God as love, fellowship, relationship, so the symbol of the corporate bride of Christ shows that this same concept will extend into eternity. There are many symbols of corporateness that could be used. Each of these emphasizes certain aspects of the matter. Paul and Peter say that the church is a building or house for God to dwell in, a corporate building made of many living stones, a picture in which the central point is that God dwells in his people. The concept of the bride shows the intimacy between Christ and his people. The city as the bride shows the functioning of the bride as the wife of Christ. Many things happen in a city. There is government. There is society. There is trade. There is culture. There is family life. There is play. There is worship. On and on we could go. When what we call eternity begins (actually eternity does not have a beginning, otherwise it would not be eternal), whatever it is that God had in mind for man before Adam fell will be put into motion. The Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, will rule over the enterprise, and his bride will reign with him. She, his corporate bride, his city, will carry out all his plans, his helper corresponding to him. All that goes on will be administered by the wife of the Lamb. Col. 3.11 says that Christ is all and is in all. The picture of the city tells us that nothing will go on there that is not Christ manifesting himself in some way. It will all be to his glory and the glory of his Father.

³And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, “Look, the tabernacle of God with men, and he will tabernacle with them, and they will be his people and God himself will be with them,

            This concept of intimacy between the Lord and his corporate people pictured by the bride as a city continues with this statement that God will tabernacle with his people. We noted this thought at the beginning of this chapter in Rev. 7.15. What began in Gen. 1 when God said, “Let us…,” thus revealing his nature of relationship, and went on through his creating man male and female in his image, his choosing of a nation to be his companion and wife (Jer. 2.2), his ordering of the Tabernacle to be built as a symbol of his presence with his people and as a type of his Son who would bring all into realization, his calling of a people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and his revelation that he desires a bride for his Son, now finds fulfillment in Heaven when the Son has his wife and God dwells among his people, not in a tent to separate him from them even though he is in the midst, but directly with them. This verse in Revelation is one of the great statements in the Bible. It shows the fulfillment of all that has been on God’s heart from eternity. Praise him!

⁴and he will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death will not be any more, and mourning and crying and pain will not be any more, for the former things have gone away.”

            We saw these thoughts as well in Rev. 7. Here are added the specific mentions of death and sorrow and pain.  We saw “the death of death” in Rev. 20.14. Man’s greatest enemy, the end of everything good in this life, the ultimate cause of sorrow, will have been done away with and will be no more. No longer will it be said that all good things must come to an end. They must not and they will not! All good things will go on forever. Neither will there be mourning or crying or pain. Those terrible results of the fall will exist no longer in God’s renewed creation, but will be replaced by joy, rejoicing, and utter well-being.

⁵And the one sitting on the throne said, “I make all things new,” and he said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”

            God made the creation at the first as he wanted it, and he had wonderful plans for man to carry out in it, but creation was marred by the fall and his plans had to be put on hold till he could accomplish redemption and the gathering of a people who would replace Adam and his descendants. We have the promise of God that he will indeed accomplish such a restoration, making all things new. There are two Greek words for “new.” One means simply later in time. The other refers more to the nature of things and means something of a different kind. It is the latter word that is used in this statement by God. He is not just bringing in an order of things that is later in time than what has gone before, but it is of a different kind. It will have not any slightest infection of sin and evil and the fall and the curse. It will be a perfect restoration of his initial creation to its unfallen state, and all the glorious plans of God that we really have no concept of will begin to unfold. What he makes new will be not just the creation, but all things, that is, what he does as well as what he has made. He will do things unlike anything we have experienced or thought of, and it is no use for us even to speculate what they might be, for God has concepts that are beyond our creative ability and belong only to his. We know some things that God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor. 2.9-10), but we do not know everything he has in mind. It will be one of the great adventures of eternity to see the ever-unfolding creativity of our God.

            Then God underlines the truth of what he has just said by telling John to write that these words are faithful and true. God does not need to say anything more than once for it to be taken as true. When he does say for the second time that something is true, he is emphasizing for us that this is important. It will take place. We do have a wholly new creation waiting for us one day, and a wholly new unveiling of the thoughts of God.

⁶And he said to me, “They are done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

            When he says, “They are done,” the Alpha, the Beginning, the one who started everything by his creative word, says that all that he has promised has come about and the Omega, the End, has been reached. He is fully able to complete what he starts, and he will do so. But with our God, there is no end. The end is a new beginning, the end of the fallen age and the beginning of the eternal ages.

I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life freely. ⁷ The one who overcomes will inherit these things and I will be to him God and he himself will be to me a son.

            We have stressed the corporate nature of the people of God, the city, the bride, yet one of the great truths of the Bible is that God’s people do not lose their identity in him. In some religions, the goal, what is considered “heaven,” is to be reabsorbed into God, who is himself not personal but is just all that exists, and in this reabsorption to lose identity and consciousness of oneself, but in the faith of the Bible, one does not lose his identity or self-consciousness in Heaven. He is indeed part of the corporate people of God, but he is still himself. He can enjoy being in the body because he is conscious. God emphasizes that truth in this verse by saying that the one who thirsts will be given the water of life freely and the one who overcomes will inherit, and God will be his God and he will be God’s son.

            The matter of inheritance is one of great importance in the Bible. It goes back to the Old Testament, to the promise to Abraham that he would give the land of Canaan to his seed (Gen. 12.7), and in 13.15, that he would give to him and his seed forever the land of promise and to the command of God when the land was conquered under Joshua that each family be given a lot in the land. That lot was inviolable. It could not be taken from its rightful owners. If they had to give it up through poverty, provision was made by God for them to regain it (Lev. 25). Then we have the concept that the Levites had no land, but their lot was God himself. We also have the statement that his people are God’s lot (Dt. 32.9), with its amplification in Eph. 1.18. It is the overcomer who will inherit all the promises of God. Those who overcome during this age and this life will inherit these things in the millennium and on into eternity. Christians who are not overcomers in this age will not inherit these things in the millennium, but will be disciplined in that age so as to be taught to overcome, and in eternity will, we believe, share in all the blessing of God. In the end (the new beginning) God will have his desire, a kingdom of priests, a people, all of whom are overcomers.

⁸But for the cowardly and the unfaithful and the detestable and murderers and the immoral and sorcerers and worshippers of idols and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

            There will be Christians in Heaven who have done all of the sins listed in this verse, but they will be people who have repented of these sins and been forgiven and cleansed, just as all of us in Heaven will have been sinners who have been forgiven and cleansed. Those who refuse to repent, who defy God, in the end will find themselves in the lake of fire, and this lake of fire is the second death, death that is not lack of existence and consciousness, but total separation from God and his people and from anything good. We cannot imagine or describe what that state will be like, but it will be a living death, or a dead living, an awareness of being spiritually dead eternally. Thank God he has provided deliverance from such an end for all who will receive it.

⁹And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls that were filled with the seven last plagues, and he spoke with me saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the little Lamb.” ¹⁰And he took me in spirit to a mountain great and high, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God, ¹¹having the glory of God (Its radiance was like a stone most precious, like a jasper stone bright as crystal.),

            The vision now returns to the bride. One of the angels who had the seven last plagues tells John to come and see the bride, the wife of the Lamb. From a great and high mountain John again sees the city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, and he gives us a description.  First of all, she is brilliant with the glory of God. She appears to John as a shining precious stone.

¹²having a wall great and high,

            The purpose of a city wall is to keep out anyone and anything not desired there and to protect the city from invasion by enemies. Evil having been done away with, there will be no need of such protection in eternity, but the wall is there nonetheless, showing us the safety of this city. Only what is of God will be there, and nothing else will be able to enter.

having twelve gates and at the gates twelve angels,

            The purpose of gates is very much the same as that of walls. The gates when opened permit the passage of those permitted to enter, and when closed, prevent passage, whether of those wanted in or not. Twelve is a number of completeness in the Bible, so we see in the twelve gates the perfect openness of the city, and at the same time its perfect defense. In addition to the twelve gates, there are twelve angels. We are not told their purpose, but it is surely to guard the gates and make certain that only what is of God is allowed into the city.

and names written, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel,

            On the gates are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Lord Jesus said that salvation is from the Jews (John 4.22), and here we see them as the gates permitting entry into eternal salvation manifested. The Jews all through history who have been the Lord’s are just as much a part of the people of God as are Christians. This is the holy city, the wife of the Lamb, and the Jews are its gates.

¹³from the rising three gates and from the north three gates and from the south three gates and from the west three gates,

            The “rising” is the rising of the sun, the east. Three gates each face in the four directions. There is entry into the city from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation.

¹⁴and the wall of the city having twelve foundation stones, and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the little Lamb.

            As the Jews are the gateway to life, humanly speaking (Jn. 4.22), so are the apostles of Christ the layers of its foundation (1 Cor. 3.10-11, Eph. 2.20)t, for it is they who carried the message of redemption through the blood of Christ into all the world of their day, and through their successors (Christians, not necessarily apostles), into all the world beyond.  The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation. Indeed, it is Christ himself who is the foundation, Christ as preached by the apostles and prophets. Thus we have God’s Old Testament people and his New Testament people joined together in eternity as the people of God, the wife of the Lamb.

¹⁵And the one speaking with me had a measure, a golden reed, that he might measure the city and its gates and its wall. ¹⁶And the city lies four-cornered, and its length is equal to the breadth. And he measured the city with the reed to twelve thousand stadia; its length and breadth and height are equal. ¹⁷And he measured its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits, measure of a man, which is of an angel (a cubit is about 1 and 1/2 feet).

            The purpose of the measuring is to show the perfection of the city. It is a perfect cube of about fifteen hundred miles, length, breadth, and height being equal. We have translated exactly, using the Greek measurements rather than the English, to show the continued use of the number twelve in the description of the city. It has twelve gates, twelve foundation stones, twelve thousand stadia, twelve times twelve cubits. All is perfection. The Holy of Holies in the Old Testament Tabernacle, the dwelling-place of God among his people, was a perfect cube. So is the dwelling-place of God among his people in eternity.

            V. 17 says that the wall is one hundred and forty-four cubits, about seventy-two yards, but we just read in v. 16 that the height is twelve thousand stadia. What is the meaning of this apparent contradiction? We cannot say with absolute certainty because the passage itself does not tell us, but it is probably that the height is twelve thousand stadia and the thickness is one hundred and forty-four cubits. This measurement is “measure of a man, which is of an angel.” What is the meaning of this strange statement? Again we must state the probable. It is likely that the meaning is that whereas now, in this fallen world, the standards of measurement of Heaven and earth do not agree, man valuing useless things above the eternally valuable, in eternity, when God has restored all things and made all things new, heavenly and earthly measurements will agree. The standard of measurement of all things is the beloved Son of God (Eph. 4.13). Nothing that does not conform to him will be found in the city.

¹⁸And the material of its wall was jasper and the city was pure gold like pure glass, ¹⁹the foundations of the wall of the city being adorned with every precious stone, the first foundation stone jasper, the second, sapphire, the third, chalcedony, the fourth, emerald, ²⁰the fifth, sardonyx, the sixth, sardius, the seventh, chrysolite, the eighth, beryl, the ninth, topaz, the tenth, chrysoprase, the eleventh, jacinth, the twelfth, amethyst, ²¹and the twelve gates twelve pearls: each one of the gates was from one pearl, and the street of the city pure gold, like transparent glass.

            Remember that the city is the wife of the Lamb. It is people, the people of God. When the Word of God tells us that the city was made of gold, precious stones, and pearls, it is teaching us one of the greatest lessons of Scripture. In the Scriptures, when it is used symbolically, gold refers to God. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 3.12 that it is possible for us to build on the foundation which is Christ with gold, silver, precious stones, or with worthless things. The way we build on the foundation with things of value is for us to have those things formed in us. We are the stones that make up God’s house (1 Peter 2.4-5). As we go through life, having yielded ourselves to God, we find that we go through many fiery trials. Often we wonder why. Why is our way so difficult when we want only to be the Lord’s? That is precisely why it is difficult. If we are the Lord’s, we have something of him in us. He dwells in us. Yet there is still so much of flesh in us. Probably in the beginning there is more flesh than God in us! It is sincerely to be hoped that as we progress through life, there will be less flesh and more God. As Paul puts it in Gal. 4.19, Christ is being formed in us. Gold is being deposited in us. But Peter tells us in his first epistle (1.6-7) that the gold must be refined. It is not that there is any impurity in the God who is in us, but that within us there is the mixture of God and flesh. The purpose of the fiery trials is the purification of the gold. As the flesh is consumed through our submission to God in trial, our willingness to let him accomplish his purifying work, we find a greater and greater deposit of gold, of God, within us.

            Precious stones are formed over long periods of time under great darkness and great heat. That is just the picture of the course our lives frequently take. We often feel that we are walking in darkness even though we are the Lord’s. We wonder what is happening to us and why we must have such a hard time. We feel the heat of trial, as with the refining of gold. It seems to go on for such a long time. When we experience this apparently never-ending darkness and heat, we can be sure that God is forming something of great value in us. He is giving us the treasures of darkness of Is. 45.3.

            A pearl is formed when an oyster gets a bit of sand or some other irritant into its shell. It secretes a substance that hardens around the irritant to gain relief. This secretion goes on until, layer upon layer, a pearl is formed. Something of great value emerges from a worthless irritant. We all have irritants in our lives, things that perhaps are not great trials but are constant annoyances. We wish we could just be rid of them. When we feel this way, it is certain that God is calling on us to turn to him with the problem. As we do so, we unknowingly secrete a bit of a substance that coats the irritant. God is forming something precious in us.

            When we look at the city, we see nothing there but gold, precious stones, pearls. How we despise our trials in this life, how we wish we could be rid of them, but it is they which form in us the very things that will gain us our place in the city. We cannot have gold without refining fires. We cannot have precious stones without darkness and heat. We cannot have pearls without irritations. We cannot have a place in the city without gold, precious stones, pearls being formed in us. O, let us submit to the hard dealings of God. They are perhaps one of his greatest expressions of love to us, for they enable us to enter his city.

²²And I did not see a Sanctuary in it, for the Lord God almighty and the little Lamb are its Sanctuary.

            The Sanctuary is the Holy of Holies, the dwelling-place of God. In the city, we will all dwell in the Holy of Holies, in the very presence of God. There will be no need of a building to house God, for he will live in and among his people. We are his house (Eph. 2.19-22, Heb. 3.6, 1 Peter 2.4-5).

²³And the city has no need of the sun or the moon that they might shine on it, for the glory of God illumines it, and its lamp is the little Lamb.

            “God is light and there is no darkness in him,” says 1 John 1.5. When we dwell in the very presence of that light, we will have no need of sun or moon. If they still exist at that point, they will not be seen, their light being lost in the light of the glory of God. Christ has ever been the full expression of God. In the city, he will be the lamp that expresses the glory of God. It is only in Christ that we can be in the presence of God, for it is in him that we have forgiveness of our sins and restoration to an innocent state. That will be true not just now, but eternally. It is the Lamb in whom we see the glory of God and in whom we live in his presence.

²⁴And the Gentiles will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory to it, ²⁵and its gates would not be shut by day, for there is not night there, ²⁶and they will bring the glory and the honor of the Gentiles to it.

            God told Israel in Is. 42.6 and 49.6 that he was meant by him to be a light to the Gentiles. Israel should have received her Messiah and carried on that light. In eternity, when Israel takes her place with the people of God, she will indeed be that lamp, helping to make up the city that, like the one set on a hill, which cannot be hidden. It appears from this and other passages of Scripture that there will be people living on the new earth who are not part of the city. We do not know precisely who these people are, but the indication here is that they will be Gentiles. The earth will be populated throughout eternity, and the heavenly city, new Jerusalem, the wife of the Lamb, will be the light of that world.

            The thought of the kings bringing their wealth to the city is an Old Testament theme.  We find it in Ps. 72.10-11, Is. 60.4-9, and Hag. 2.6-9. We will see its fulfillment in the eternal city. City gates are shut at night for protection, but there will be no night, no time of darkness for the concealing of evil and the prowling of danger, in that city, so the gates will ever be open to receive the glory and honor of the Gentiles. The glory and honor of the Gentiles may be material wealth, or it may be their giving of glory and honor to God, or it may be something else. We really do not know what eternity will be like, so we have little means of being exact about such details. The pictures we have are of things we know and understand. In all likelihood, the reality of eternity will transcend those pictures as God transcends us.

²⁷And every profane person and one doing abominable things and liar will not enter it, only those written in the scroll of life of the little Lamb.

            Again the purity and safety of the city are expressed. The word for “profane” is the word “common,” and refers to the person who has no respect for the things of God, but considers them as just common things, of no more value than, say, a single meal (Heb. 10.29). The word “abominable” is the same as the word “abomination” in the abomination of desolation, and has to do with idolatry. The seriousness of lying is seen in the fact that our God is a God who speaks and who is utterly truthful. He has given us a book which is his word, a book that is utterly truthful. His greatest expression, his Son, is called the Word, and he called himself the truth. These three sins, treating the things of God as common, idolatry, and untruthfulness, sum up much of what is opposed to God and is opposed by him. These will not be found in the city. There will be absolute respect for God, worship of him alone, and transparent truthfulness (the city is made partly of transparent gold).

            This negative reference to the profane, idolatrous, and untruthful gives way to the positive note that those in the city will be those whose names are in the Lamb’s scroll of life (Ex. 32.32-33, Ps. 69.28, Dan. 12.1, Phil. 4.3). The city will be a place of life, of abundant life, of God’s life expressed in his people.

22. ¹And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, going out from the throne of God and the little Lamb. ²In the middle of its street and of the river, from here and from there, a tree of life bearing twelve fruits, according to each month giving its fruit, and the leaves of the tree for healing of Gentiles.

            When reading these words, one cannot help being reminded of Ps. 46.4, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God…,” and of Ezek. 47.1-12, where we see the river flowing out from the Temple till it becomes deep enough to swim in, then goes on to heal, as the Hebrew says, the waters it flows into. V. 9 says it will be a place of life, and v. 12, that trees will grow along the banks whose fruit will be for food and whose leaves, for healing. We believe the Temple of Ezekiel to be millennial, but the river that is seen during the millennium goes on into eternity. The water of this river is the water of life. Surely this is a symbolic reference to the abundance of the Holy Spirit in Heaven, for the Lord himself said in John 7.37-39 that the rivers of water that will flow from his people are the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of God who supplies life to and maintains the life of the people of God. Not only will there not be, on the negative side, any death in eternity, but there will be, on the positive side, a veritable river of life. We do not really know what life is in the age to come, for we know only physical life very well, and that in a body of limitation, and spiritual life in only a small degree. We do know the life of God in us, but how constrained it is in us because of our poor ability to believe and to perceive spiritually. But there is a wonderful day coming when all those limitations will be removed and we will know a flood of the life of God that we cannot even conceive of now.

            V. 2 is difficult to translate literally into good English, so we have translated just as it is in Greek. The meaning seems to be that the tree of life is between the river and the street, the river on the one side, and the street on the other, bordering the space where the tree grows. This tree takes us all the way back to Gen. 2.9, 16-17. In the garden, knowledge of good and evil was the way of death, spiritually and physically. Knowledge of the Lord was the way of life. We believe that, just as the river is the Holy Spirit, the tree of life is the Lord Jesus himself, the one through whom the water of life is mediated to us. As he has ever been the bread of life, so in Heaven he is the tree bearing the fruit of our heavenly sustenance and the leaves of health. In Rev. 2.7, we read the promise to the overcomers, those who loved the Lord with first love, that they would eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. Here the promise is fulfilled.

³And every curse will not be any more.

            When Adam and Eve chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, God gave curses as a result. He cursed the snake Gen. 3.14-15, the woman in v. 16, and the man, through the ground, in vs. 17-19. The snake would slither on his stomach rather than walking on legs, would eat dust, and would be at enmity with man. (It is of interest that a scientist recently found fossil remains of what he believes to be a snake that had legs!) The woman would have pain in childbirth. The man would have difficulty eking out a living from cursed soil, and that soil from which he came and with which he contended all his life would ultimately claim him again in death.

            But in Heaven, there is no more curse of any kind. We have translated the Greek very literally to show not just that there will not be any curse, but that every curse will be done away with. There will be nothing but blessing there.

And the throne of God and of the little Lamb will be in it, and his slaves will serve him. ⁴And they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

            At the center of Heaven will be the throne of God and of the Lamb. God has ever been the Sovereign of the universe, but because of his will to make men and angels with free choice, and their choice to be their own gods, his sovereignty has been hidden for all these millennia. Satan is the ruler of this world and the god of this age (Jn. 12.31, 14.30, and 16.11, and 2 Cor. 4.4), though God is still Sovereign over him, and man appears to be in control of his own life. But such is not the case. Satan controls the man of the world and the worldly man’s life is out of his own control.  It is ironic that man has defied God in the name of freedom, freedom from the constraints of religion to be all that he can be, and yet he is a slave of sin and its consequences. In Heaven, where the throne will be at the center and all the universe will know who is sovereign, the people of God, who have chosen to be, not free from God, but his slaves, are the ones who are truly free. We will still be the slaves of God in Heaven, just as we are now, but that slavery will be freedom itself. Freedom from God is slavery. Slavery to God is freedom. Such is the difference between the thoughts of man and the thoughts of God.

            As we serve our King on his throne, we will see his face. In 1 Peter 1.8, we read of the Lord Jesus, “… whom not having seen you love, in whom now, not seeing, you believe, but you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory….” There are no words in human language to describe the experience that will come one day when those who have loved the Lord Jesus without seeing him and who have believed in him without seeing him will see him. Can you have any imagination of it? Of all the great blessings of Heaven, of which Rev. 21.1-22.5 is a list, no other will compare with this one blessing, the sight of our Savior’s face. With John and the twenty-four elders of Heaven and the four living beings and all the angels of Heaven we will fall down and worship him. So powerful will be the sight of the one who gave his life for us.

            And his name will be on our foreheads. In chapter 7, we see the one hundred and forty-four thousand faithful Jews sealed on their foreheads to designate them as the Lord’s through the Great Tribulation. In 13.16, we read that all who dwell on the earth during the days of Antichrist will be required to have his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. In 14.1, we have the Lord on Mount Zion with one hundred and forty-four thousand overcomers, who have his name and the name of his Father on their foreheads. It will be clear to all in eternity who are the Lord’s. It is another mark of the measureless grace of God that he would choose to associate his name with such as we. He gives his very name to us. We are his and he owns us as his.

⁵And night will not be any more, and they will not have need of light of a lamp and light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them,

            We saw in 21.23 that the glory of God is the light of the city and the Lamb is the mediating lamp. John again sees this truth in his visions, stressing once more that just as the Lord is our water, our food, our health, our blessing, so is he our light. He is our all indeed.

and they will reign to the ages of the ages.

            Again we are taken back to Gen. 1.26-30 where God gave man the responsibility of ruling over his creation. Man failed in that assignment, but it has never been taken from him. God’s purposes are never abandoned and they are always fulfilled. He made man to rule, and rule man will. The Lord Jesus succeeded where Adam, and all of us, failed. He lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father, and the results are seen in his mastery over the creation, he who could still storms, cast out demons, bring healing, turn water into wine, multiply a few loaves and fishes into food for five thousand, even raise the dead with only a word. And because of that perfect obedience, even unto death, God has exalted him and given him a name above every other name, that at his name every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He will reign forever and ever. God promised him in Ps. 2.6 that he would be King, and in v. 9, that he would rule the nations “with a rod of iron.” Then in Rev. 2.26-27 and 12.5, he makes the same promise to the overcomers. The Lord Jesus will have a bride who will reign with him. In the end, God’s purpose will have full realization. Man will rule.

Since all these things are to be, what sort of people ought we to be?

CONCLUSION

22.6-21

⁶And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true, and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his slaves the things which must quickly be.” ⁷“And look, I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this scroll.” ⁸And I, John, am the one hearing and seeing these things.

            John, in accordance with the Old Testament requirement of two or three witnesses (Dt. 17.6, 19.15), says first that the angel speaking to him said that the words of this prophecy are faithful and true, and then adds in v. 8 that he himself saw and heard these things. We will have another comment on this word in v. 8. Further reinforcement is given by the angel’s statement that the Lord is the God of the spirits of the prophets, and that Revelation is a prophecy, just as many of the Old Testament books are. They are accepted as true, and the same God who inspired them also inspired Revelation, the angel says.

            Then the angel adds a word that raises a question that we dealt with in our consideration of Rev. 1.1, the question as to the meaning of the word “quickly.” Does it mean “soon” or “suddenly when it does happen”? We saw in the first chapter that it probably means “soon.” The primary purpose is to admonish us to be always ready for the end. We must live as though the events described in Revelation could happen now. They certainly will happen suddenly when they do happen, but more important for us is that they could begin at any moment, including this one. Be awake!

            The last part of v. 7 repeats the thought of 1.3, the blessedness of the one keeping the words of the prophecy of this scroll. This note is added to the Lord’s word that he is coming quickly. The one who keeps the words of this prophecy by living as though the Lord might come at any moment will be ready, and thus will be blessed.

            We saw above that John attests that he, John, is the one hearing and seeing these things, thus adding his testimony to that of the angel and keeping the Old Testament requirement. We are also reminded of the same sort of conclusion in John’s gospel, in 21.24: “This is the disciple who is testifying concerning these things and who wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” John is concerned in both these writings of his to stress the truth of them. And it is John who records the Lord’s word, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8.32). He makes this emphasis on truth by stating that he is an eyewitness. This strong emphasis on the truth of Revelation just makes more serious our need to keep its words and be ready. The end will come for everyone, by death or by being alive when the events of Revelation occur. Either way, we cannot say it enough, be ready.

And when I heard and saw, I fell to worship before the feet of the angel who was showing me these things. ⁹And he said to me, “See, not. I am a fellow slave of yours and of your brothers the prophets and those who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God.”

            John tells us in Rev. 1.17 that when he saw his vision of the Lord, he fell at his feet like a dead man, and in 19.10, he fell at the feet of another angel to worship him. So overwhelming to John were the appearances of both the Lord and the angels. Both angels say the same thing. John is not to worship them, for they are fellow-slaves of God with him. He is to worship God. John can be excused for being so affected when we consider all that he saw in this revelation, and he is honest enough to admit his mistake. He learned from it and worshipped only God.

¹⁰And he said to me, “Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this scroll, for the time is near.

            The prophet was told in Dan. 12.4 to “conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time,” and in vs. 8-9, when he asked for understanding, he was told that the words of his prophecy were “concealed and sealed up until the end time.” It would be a long time till the events of Daniel came to a conclusion, for the first of the seventy weeks of Dan.  7.27-29 had not even begun when these words were spoken to him. But in contrast, John is told not to seal the words of his prophecy, “for the time is near.” Sixty-nine weeks have passed. There is only the seventieth week to go, the week of Antichrist and the Great Tribulation, climaxed by the visible appearing of the Lord!

¹¹Let the wrongdoer do wrong still and let the impure be impure still, and let the righteous one do righteousness still and let the holy one be holy still.”

            The nearness of the time is once again emphasized by these words of the angel. He is not saying that the wrongdoer and the impure should not repent or could not repent, but that we should live as though the time were so short that we would not have time to do so. When the end comes, there will not be time for the sinner to repent or for the righteous and holy to lapse. The whole context keeps underlining the necessity of readiness. The end could be here in a split-second, and we must live as though that were true, for it is true (Mt. 24.27, 1 Thess.5.2).

¹²“Look, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me to give to each one as his work is.

            The Lord Jesus now speaks and adds his agreement with what the angel has just said. He is coming quickly, soon and suddenly, and there will be no time at that moment for earning a reward. One’s reward, good or bad, will be with him when he comes, and it cannot then be changed. Be ready now!

¹³I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

            The one who began things will end them. What he purposed at the beginning he will have at the end. He has always been sovereign, regardless of appearances to the contrary, and when his time comes, the Alpha will be the Omega, the first will be the last, the beginner will be the ender. Satan may be the ruler of this world and the god of this age, but he is under the sovereignty of the triune God, and he will have his end. The Lord is the end, an end which is a new beginning.

¹⁴Blessed are those who wash their robes, that theirs will be the right to the tree of life and that they might enter by the gates into the city.

            We have seen the importance of our robes, our wedding garments, in several places in this book. Here the Lord himself shows the importance of weaving that wedding garment, and of washing it white. Rev. 7.14 tells us that they are washed white in the blood of the Lamb. All through the book of Revelation we have seen the importance of our work. We have eternal life as a free gift of grace, and there is no work we can do to earn it, but we must work for our rewards. We must weave our own wedding garments by our works. Yet here in the end, we see that it is all of grace. Everything comes back to the blood of the Lamb, the precious blood shed for our forgiveness and justification. Yes, we earn our rewards by our works, but the very fact that we work is of grace, not of us. We can claim no merit even in our good works. Though we work hard and earn a reward, we cannot say that God owes us anything. It is grace at the beginning, grace throughout, and grace at the end. No flesh will be able to boast before the Lord, now and forever.

            The reward of thus washing the robes will be the tree of life, promised to the overcomers in Rev. 2.7 and seen again in 22.2, and the right to enter by the gates into the city, into intimacy with the Lord Jesus.

¹⁵Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral and the murderers and the worshippers of idols and every lover and doer of falsehood.

            Once again the fact is stated that none who practice evil will be in the city. By this time, of course, they will be in the lake of fire. The Jews called Gentiles “dogs” as a term of derision toward their pagan religion and absence from the chosen people of God. Here the Lord Jesus uses it with the same meaning, not being of the people of God. The meanings of the other names are obvious.

¹⁶I, Jesus, sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star.”

            This verse brings us to a moment of great solemnity in the book of Revelation. The Lord Jesus himself now speaks and adds his witness to that of the angels and John. He says that the things that have been said originated with him, and were delivered by his angel at his command. They are truth, as true as the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, himself the living word.

            We would expect this statement to be addressed to John, but the word “you” is plural in Greek. The Lord speaks to the entire church and says that what John says to them in this book did indeed come from him.  How much more admonition do we need to motivate us to be ready. The Lord himself has told us that these things are true. We must pay heed.

            Then the Lord underlines two of his attributes already partially referred to in Revelation. He is the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star. In Rev. 5.5, we saw that the Lord Jesus is “the Lion who is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David.” The root is the origin. The Lord Jesus is the one from whom David came, not physically, of course, but spiritually. If this king raised up by God was greater, how much greater must be his root, the one who is his origin? Revelation does not refer to the “offspring of David” except in this verse, but we see here that the one who is the origin of Israel’s greatest king is also his offspring. There are two or three truths arising from this concept.

            First, the offspring of David who succeeded him in kingship was Solomon. Solomon was the king during Israel’s golden age. One should read through I Kings 4-10, especially chapter 10, to see the splendor of his reign. For example, 10.21 tells us that Solomon’s drinking vessels were all of gold, none being of silver, for silver was not considered anything in those days. As this king of Israel’s greatest age, Solomon is a type of the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. This offspring of David will bring another golden age to Israel, one that will far surpass the first, in his millennial reign. A greater than Solomon is here.

            Second, David was a man. If he was a man, his offspring must also be a man. Such was the Lord Jesus, the ultimate offspring of David typified by Solomon. It was God’s original purpose, revealed in Gen. 1-2, that man was to rule over creation for him. The first Adam, and all in him, failed of that purpose, but God does not fail of his purposes. He raised up another man, the last Adam (not second, but last, because there will not be a third), who did fulfill his plan, his only Son, the Lord Jesus. In the offspring of David, God has what he wanted, a man who would rule for him in perfect submission to his authority, and in so ruling, he recovered what the first man lost through sin.

            Finally, the word usually used for a descendant in the Bible is “seed,” but the word used here is a different word. It is genos, beginning, from which we get Genesis. It is a word having to do with birth, a word that can mean family, race, people, sort, any group that has something about birth in common, that is, born of the same parents or larger family or of the same nation, and so on. Thus we see by the use of this word by the Lord Jesus of himself that he is not just one descendant of David, the greater Solomon and the last Adam, but he is the one man who was all that God intended Israel to be, and in him, Israel herself will in the end be all that God made her to be. When she owns her Messiah, in him she will again be the great nation of the earth, but this time not in pride and a desire to be served by the nations, but in humility and service. All of God’s purposes for both Israel and the church will find their fulfillment in his beloved Son, the great Overcomer.

            This beloved Son also says that he is the bright morning star. We saw in Rev. 2.28, in the letter to the church in Thyatira, that the overcomer would be given the morning star, and we saw that that means that the overcomer will not be left to go through the Great Tribulation, but will be raptured beforehand if he is alive at that time. If it is anything, the book of Revelation is an admonition to the church to be spiritually alert and to live in such a way as to be ready for the events of this book. It says in plain language, despite confusing commentaries to the contrary, that the church can avoid the Great Tribulation, that many in the church will not, but that the overcomer in any church situation can do so. The Lord himself adds his testimony to the book of Revelation that this warning is genuine and that it is possible to be ready at the end and thus escape the darkest hour of human history. He himself says, “Be ready.”

¹⁷And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come,” and let the one who hears say, “Come,” and let the one who thirsts come; let the one wishing receive water of life freely.

            At this point, the visions which John saw have come to an end, and John is adding his own word, an inspired word, to his readers, and the time of these vs. 17-19 is John’s time and all time thereafter till the events of Revelation begin to unfold, the age of the church. The Holy Spirit, sent to earth to prepare a bride for the Son, desires that Son to come and receive his bride and calls out for that coming. So does the bride herself, beginning with the saints of John’s day, indeed having begun with the very first believers as the Lord left this earth for Heaven, and coming right down through the centuries to our own day when we, too, cry out to the Lord to come. How we long to see our heavenly Bridegroom!

            John says to his readers to join in the cry for the Lord’s return. Then he adds a word to the thirsty, perhaps for those who do not yet belong to the Lord, perhaps for Christians who have not known the supply of water of the Holy Spirit welling up within (John 7.37-39), perhaps to both, to come and receive the water of life freely, reminding us of Is. 55.1:

            Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

            And you who have no money come, buy and eat.

            Come, buy wine and milk

            Without money and without cost.

That water of life is still available today, and if someone of you who read these words does not know that water that quenches the thirst of the spirit because you have never come to the Lord, I join in the cry of Isaiah and of John and urge you to come. You receive that supply of water simply by believing the Lord’s word that it is available at  any time by asking for it. There is no cost. Life from God is a free gift to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are already a Christian but have never known the free flow of that life that is indeed there within, give yourself wholly to the Lord and ask him for that fullness of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus himself says in Luke 11.13 that if we ask the Father for the Spirit, he will give him. Ask in faith, and receive in faith.

¹⁸I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this scroll, ¹⁹and if anyone takes away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this scroll.

            After issuing an appeal to those who will to come to the Lord, John now adds a warning to those who add to or take away from the words of this prophecy. The book of Revelation begins with the words, “Blessed is the one who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things written in it, for the time is near,” and this blessing is repeated in Rev. 22.7. It is those who keep the words of the prophecy who are blessed. It is not enough just to read or hear. It is that keeping of the words that is important in the warning of Rev. 22.18-19. It is not just a warning against someone who might try actually to add text to the book or delete a portion of it, but more importantly, to the one who does not heed its warnings and follow its instructions in full. One may hear or read the book and add to it by making additional requirements, such as keeping the Old Testament Law, or take away from it by denying that some part of it is for today, and thereby not keep the words of the book. Or one may neglect the book completely. Those who do so add to or take away from this book, and will have its plagues added to them or their part in the tree of life and the holy city taken away, as the case may be. John’s warning recalls to our minds the warnings of Moses in Deuteronomy 4.2 and 12.32: “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.”

²⁰The one testifying these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen, come, Lord Jesus.

            We saw above on v. 16 that the Lord Jesus himself adds his own word of testimony to the truth of what John writes in this book. This one who gives divine testimony now speaks once more to close the book: “Yes, I come quickly.” For one final time, the absolute necessity of being ready is set forth. The events of the book may begin at any moment, or one may die at any moment, so the Lord adds one last admonition that he is coming quickly. There is no time for delay. Be ready now.

            And the heart cry of those who love the Lord Jesus, who long to see their heavenly Bridegroom coming to claim them as his bride, responds to his promise to come quickly, “Amen, come, Lord Jesus.” That is indeed our prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

            John’s last word to his readers is a prayer for grace, and we do not believe that this is nothing more than a formal closing of a letter or book. Grace is not a formality. It is essential. We have stressed heavily in these pages the necessity of overcoming, of gaining our reward by doing the work God has given us to do. Yet, as we saw above in considering v. 14 of this chapter, the very fact that we work is a manifestation of the grace of God. If it were not for his grace, we would not work. Thus one does not need to be anxious and fearful about the matter of overcoming and being ready for the events of this book. One does not need to go wondering if he will be spared the Great Tribulation by rapture or if he will be left behind to go through it, should he be alive when that time comes. It is all of grace. Just as surely as we are born again by grace through faith, and not by works, and thus can be sure of our new birth and our eternal destiny in Heaven, so we can be sure that we will gain the reward if only it is the desire of our heart and we live in the light of that desire. If we give ourselves to the Lord wholly and seek his grace to live a life that is faithful to him, he will take us through. He is the Alpha, the beginning, and the Omega, the end. What he began he will finish, and he promised through Paul that having begun a good work in you, he will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1.6). So do not let the stern warnings of Revelation, and of this book about Revelation, cause you distress. It is grace that brought you to the Lord on earth. It is grace that will take you to him in Heaven. And it is grace that will get you there in victory as an overcomer, if you do indeed keep the words of this book by his grace. And so I close with the same word for you as John gives, “Grace be with you.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

GENESIS AND REVELATION

            Genesis is the book of beginnings. Revelation is the book of consummations. In Genesis we find the will of God set forth. In Revelation we find the will of God accomplished. In Genesis God is the Alpha. In Revelation, God is the Omega. Without attempting to be exhaustive since that would take more space than can be allotted to it in such a volume as this, let us look at a few of the beginnings in Genesis that find their fulfillments in Revelation.

            Genesis starts, “In the beginning God….” It does not try to explain God or determine where he came from or how he got here. God is. That is enough. He is the fundamental fact of the universe. There is not one verse in Revelation that corresponds to this statement in Genesis. Rather the whole book corresponds to it. The great overriding fact of Revelation is God, God acting to draw history to a close and to begin a new age in which he reigns and righteousness dwells. The book of Revelation breathes the sovereignty of God. Whatever man may do, whatever Satan may do, God is over all and will prevail in the end. Genesis begins with, “In the beginning God.” We might close our thoughts on Revelation with, “In the end God….”

            The first fact of Genesis is that God is. Then there is what he did. He created the skies and the earth. He made them an ideal environment, but they did not stay that way. Because of the sin of man, the creation fell and ever since has been subjected to futility, as Rom. 8.20 has it. In Rev. 21.1 we see a new sky and a new earth, one fit for Heaven to descend to.

            In Gen. 1.3, God created light, and in 1.14-18, the sun, moon, and stars to give light. Yet those heavenly bodies will fail, as Rev. 6.12-13 say, but in the end there will be perfect light, for, as we read in Rev. 21.23 and 22.5, God himself will be the light

            God made man to rule over his creation, Gen. 1.26 informs us, but man’s sin gave the rulership to Satan. The Lord Jesus himself acknowledged this fact when he said in John 12.31, 14.30, and 16.11 that Satan is the ruler of this world, and 2 Cor. 4.4 says that he is the god of this age. But it is the purpose of God that man rule his creation, and that is what we see in Revelation, first with the man Christ Jesus ruling, as seen in 1.5, 5.6, 11.15, 17.14, 19.12, 15, 16, 20.4, and 6, and then with his corporate bride ruling with him in 2.26-27, 3.21, 12.5, 20.4, 6, and 22.5.

            The intimate fellowship between God and his human creatures is hinted at in Gen. 2.15-17 and 3.8. That fellowship was broken by sin. In Rev.21.3 we see that in the new Jerusalem, the Tabernacle of God is with men. He himself actually dwells among them. There are no more curtains and veils between God and men, but they know a new intimacy beyond even that of Adam and Eve.

            One of the great truths we have stressed in our analysis of Revelation is the fact that the Bible begins with a wedding and ends with a wedding. God saw, in Gen. 2.18, that it was not good for the man to be alone, so he made a helper suitable for him. We see the greater fulfillment of that first wedding in the bride, the wife of the Lamb, in Rev. 19.7-9, 21.2, 9-10.

            In Gen. 2.8-9 we have the tree of life in the garden, which God intended for man to eat, but again his failure in sin took away that blessing from him. Revelation shows the fulfillment in 2.7 and 22.2, the tree of life in the paradise of God.

            There was a river in the garden to water it, and from there it became four great rivers. Rivers do indeed water the earth even in its fallen condition, but they also run dry in drought and run over in flood and claim the lives of drowning victims. In Rev. 22.1-2 we see a river of water of life flowing from the throne of God and sustaining life for the tree of life that feeds the people of God.

            In Gen. 3.1 we have a snake rising up to call God a liar and to seduce his creatures. In Rev. 20.10 we see that snake thrown into the lake of fire.

            Gen. 3.14-19 records the curse on the creation because of sin. Rev. 22.3 says that there is and will be no more curse.

            We find the first prophecy of the coming of the Lord Jesus to earth as a man in Gen. 3.15, the seed of the woman who will be at enmity with the snake. The snake would bruise his heel, but he would bruise its head. In Rev. 5.6 we see the slaughtered Lamb alive again, his heel bruised, and, again in 20.10, we see the snake thrown into the lake of fire, his head mortally wounded.

            Gen. 3.21 tells us of the clothes that God made to cover the nakedness of his no-longer-innocent people, clothes requiring death, the death of an animal, the first physical death in history. Since then death with all its sorrow and misery has reigned. But we see the bride of Christ, full of resurrection life, given the blessing of wearing the wedding garment of Rev. 19.8.

            The cherubim of Gen. 3.24 guard the way to the tree of life that no one may gain access to it. The cherubim of Rev. 4.6 and many other verses rejoice all through Revelation at the work God is doing to bring his people into the new Jerusalem where the tree of life grows.

            In Gen. 4.8 there is the first human death, brought about by murder. In Rev. 20.14 there is the end of death. Death was never a part of God’s plan for man, and in the end it will itself die, and life will flow like a river.

            God promised Abraham in Gen. 12.3 that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in him. Because of his descendant according to the flesh, the Lord Jesus, that prophecy is fulfilled in Rev. 21.24.

            Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness in Gen. 15.6. He was a man who walked by faith. In Rev. 22.4 we see the ultimate and most glorious and most blessed outcome of the life of faith: “They will see his face.”

            Finally, we have in Genesis the story of Joseph, the man who, because he was victorious in all his severe trials, losing his mother at a tender age, being hated by his brothers, being sold into slavery by them, being unjustly cast into prison under a shameful accusation, and being forgotten there by one whom he had helped, came to the throne and is a picture of the overcomers, those who are challenged in the letters to the seven churches to attain the throne, not of Egypt, but of the universe. We have already noted Rev. 2.26-27, 3.21, and 12.5, where the overcomers reign with Christ because of their perseverance under trial. We also have Rev. 21.7, where the overcomer inherits all the blessings listed in the previous verses. What was typified in Joseph is fully realized in the Lord Jesus himself, the Overcomer, and in his people.

The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

SATAN’S COUNTERFEITS OF GOD’S REALITIES

            For many of God’s realities Satan has a counterfeit. He counterfeits the trinitarian nature of God himself. His evil trinity consists of Satan, Antichrist, and the false prophet.

            Antichrist is the counterfeit Christ.

            He counterfeits the resurrection of the Lord Jesus by the reviving of Antichrist. The latter’s return to life is not a resurrection. Resurrection is coming back from the dead with a new life and a transformed body that are no longer subject to death. Antichrist will be brought back with the usual physical body and will be hurt by the second death.

            The Lord Jesus did miracles to reveal the heart of God and to strengthen the faith of his followers. The false prophet will work miracles to deceive the world into worshipping the beast.

            The Lord Jesus has a bride, the church. Antichrist has a bride, the harlot, religion. The Lord Jesus is nourishing and purifying his bride so that she will be glorious and without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. In the end, Antichrist will turn on his bride and destroy her so that he himself may take her place as the only legal religion.

Copyright © 2021 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.

Scripture quotations from the Old Testament are the author’s updates of the American Standard Version. Quotations from the New Testament are the author’s translations.

Revelation, a Chronological Approach

An Index

Preface                                                                                      1

Introduction                                                                            2

The Abomination of Desolation                                           3

The Last Trumpet                                                                   5

Keys to Revelation                                                                  7

The Message of Revelation                                                   9

John’s Vision of the Lord Jesus Christ 1.1-20                    11

The Letters to the Seven Churches 2.1.-3.22                      31

The Scene in Heaven 4.1-5.14                                               69

Events Occurring Just Before the Great Tribulation

7.1-8, 12.1-12, 14.1-5, 12.13-17a, 14.6-7                                80

Antichrist 6.1-8, 12.17b-13.6                                                 97

Fallen, Fallen is Babylon the Great 14.8, 17.1-18             106

The Great Tribulation                                            

14.9-13, 13.7-18, 6.9-11, 8.6-11.14, 15.1-16.16                    115

Armageddon

14.17-20, 11.15-19, 16.17-21, 19.11-21, 18.1-24, 20.1-3      152

The Millennium, Final Rebellion, and final Judgment  169

Heaven 20.4-15                                                                     174

Conclusion 22.6-21                                                              189

Genesis and Revelation                                                      197

Satan’s Counterfeits and God’s Realities                         199

Copyright © 2018 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.

Old Testament quotations are the author’s update of the American Standard Version. New Testament translations are the author’s unless otherwise noted.