Kay's Sunday School lesson on the book of Revelation.  The study is incomplete.  She was teaching this book of the Bible when she passed away.  Her class picked up where she left off - the beginning of Chapter 17:

STUDY ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Chapter 1

Revelation is the grand finale of the Bible story, the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ, the description of the New Heaven and the New Earth.

Joyce Meyer encourages us to focus on what we do understand and pray for increased understanding, but not to stumble over problematic passages.  The important message is in the end – Jesus wins!

This is the only book in the Bible that specifically promises that whoever reads it will be blessed.

John, the Apostle, a divisible of Jesus Christ, had a vision from God that expanded Jesus’ words.  I.e.  Matthew 24:1-44 (read), Mark 13, Luke 21: 5-36 (read).  John was a fisherman from Galilee, self-proclaimed as the one whom Jesus loved.  He and his brother James were called the Sons of Thunder by Jesus.  John and Peter were with Jesus at His transfiguration.  John promised Jesus on the cross he would care for Jesus’ mother Mary and he did so until her death.  He was one of the pillars of the newborn church and as far as we can tell, he outlived the entire original group of Jesus’ friends and companions.

Patmos is an island of Greece, still in use today with a monastery, Christian school, and several communities.  As John wrote of it, it was a small, rocky, barren island used by the Roman government as a place to banish criminals to work in the mines.  It was and is a small island with a white craggy shoreline and magnificent scenery in the midst of beautiful blue open sea.  In A.D.95, John was sent there for his witnessing of the Gospel.

Chapter 1

V.1      Angel or messenger of Jesus, see v. 11, Alpha and Omega

John – bondservant

V. 4     The 7 Spirits of God, (read Isaiah 11:2)

            1.        Wisdom

            2.        Understanding

            3.        Counsel

            4.        Might

            5.        Knowledge

            6.        Reverence

            7.        Obedient Fear of the Lord

V.6      A royal race, a new race born of the Seed of God of whom Jesus is the first, a race of new creations, a race of a new kind of creature  (Read Exodus 19:6 and Isaiah 61:6)

V. 7     Every eye will see him when he returns with the clouds.  It is now physically possible for this to happen through technology almost everywhere on earth.  We don’t know if it will be a physical sight or spiritual sight needed to see him.  He may circle the earth until all have seen him.  It doesn’t say that we will all see him at the same moment.  (Read Daniel 7:13.)  They who pierced him are those who sinned, it could’ve been us!  ALL the tribes or races of the earth will mourn, despite their religion and culture.  They will know who He is.  It will be a day of unbelievable distress for those who have rejected Jesus and a day of indescribably joy for those of us who love and serve Him.

V. 8     He is the beginning and the end of eternity, a never ending circle.  In a world where empires rise and fall, business are wildly successful and then suddenly fail, people are strong and powerful, then become weak and die, it is hard for us to grasp the changeless, timeless, eternal nature of God.  It is also hard to grasp that He promised us His own nature, to ultimately be changeless, timeless and eternal with Him.  Forever young, forever healthy, forever joyful – makes it all worthwhile – whatever we may have to face as Christians.

V. 9     John identifies himself as our brother and co-sharer with us in the tribulation (The Scriptures translation says “pressure”.) and in the patient endurance of being a Christian.  He says he was banished to Patmos because he spoke the Word of God and testified to Jesus being the Messiah.  He made clear in the first verse that he is not telling us what he thinks, but has recorded a message straight from God.  Revelation is a direct message from God delivered by Jesus through John to us.

It’s interesting that John was released from Patmos about a year after this and returned to Ephesus where he actually wrote this book.  This reminds us that there will be times when we are where we do not want to be and it feels like a prison to us, but God has not imprisoned us.  He is doing a work in and through us and will release us when He is done.  We can praise and thank Him even when our natural self wants to complain and ask, “Why, God?”  It’s important to remember to consider Him who saves us rather than our circumstances.  We must trust His love and His reason for whatever He is doing, especially when we do not know what it is.  One disclaimer – this does not include a situation where we are being harmed, such as an abusive relationship, but it does include the possibility that God could call us to a potentially dangerous situation.  In fact, when John was penning this book, Christians were being martyred as torches in the royal gardens.  The Church at this time was 66 years old and suffering terrible persecution.

There were three major persecutions of the church, beginning with Nero’s effort to destroy it.  He not only used them as torches, but threw them to lions and crucified them for entertainment.  The second persecution was by Emperor Domitian, who was responsible for John being on Patmos. In just a few years, over 40,000 Christians were tortured and killed because of him.  The third persecution by Trajan was an all-out effort by Rome to destroy the Church.  If ever the Church needed a really special message from God, this was the time.  John lived through all three persecutions.  

There are a number of doctrines that have grown out of the study of Revelation, each one grasping a particular layer of the message, i.e. history, a prophetic view of the church from John’s time through the end of the age, and a view of the end times only.  If you will keep and open heart and mind as you study, you’ll be able to see that all of these perspectives come into play and the message can be understood in layers.  You’ll particularly notice this when we discuss the 7 churches John addresses in Chapter 2.  It is very likely that John did not understand all that he was shown either, so don’t be discouraged when it doesn’t make sense to you.  Prophecy is always mysterious and for the most part cannot be entirely understood until it is fulfilled.  One message stands out clearly though:  God loves His people and will deliver us into His eternal kingdom to be with Him.  Revelation will reveal the wrath of God and the everlasting love of God at the same time.

You will notice that the number 7 is a constant throughout the book.  In fact, it is built around a system of 7s, as you will see.  The number 7 is conspicuous throughout the entire Bible, beginning with creation.  There are 7 days in the week, 7 music notes, and 7 colors in a rainbow.   I believe music and color and a major part of Heaven’s beauty.  Symbolically, 7 is thought to be the number of completeness.  Also, Revelation contains 7 “blesseds” which we will see as we study.   The number 3 is the numerical signature of God.  The number 4 is the numerical signature of creation.  Add 3 and 4 and you have 7.  Combine God and creation and you have completion.  If you multiply 3 times 4, you have 12, which is the numerical signature of God’s people:  12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples.  When you see the number 10 in Revelation, you’ll be looking at worldly power.

V. 10  John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day – actually first day of the week to the Jews.  The Sabbath or Shabbat, 7^th day, was the day commemorating the miracle of creation and God’s command to rest.  The first day of the week was set aside as a day of worship of the resurrected Christ.  This explains why we do not have Church on Saturday, but meet on Sunday.  Messianic Jews worship on both days, Jews worship on Saturday (as do 7^th Day Adventists) and Christians for the most part worship on SUNday, the day God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  We can also say we worship on SONday, because we worship the Son of God.

V. 11  Over and over throughout Revelation, John is told to write.  At this point he is told to write what he sees in a book and send it to the 7 churches.  It is encouraging to me how Jesus made His wishes, His instructions very clear.  John didn’t have to guess what he was supposed to do.  There wasn’t any doubt.  And Jesus begins by revealing Himself to John.  Imagine the two standing face to face in those few moments, the disciple whom Jesus loved and the Jesus who loved John, now in His glorified body, so glorious that John could not stand and look upon Him.  What an amazing sight!  Seven golden lampstands, representing the 7 churches and in the midst, Jesus, described as appearing as a being made of light.  (Read Daniel 7:9-10 and 10:6).  He held 7 stars, which are the 7 messengers of the 7 churches.  The two-edged sword is the Word of God.  (Read Hebrews 4:12.)  The use of His right hand shows acceptance, as Scripture often refers to the right hand of God, the goats who are on His left and the sheep who are on His right, etc.  Jesus reassures John who was obviously terrified at such a show of glory and power.  He said, “John, it’s Me.  I died, but am alive forevermore and I own the keys of death and the realm of the dead.”  Hereafter reveals that what He is about to reveal to John has nothing to do with the past, but begins with present time as John knew it and continues into the future.

Chapter 2

V. 1     John is instructed to write to the messengers of the 7 churches.  This is a mystery.  We tend to assume he wrote to the churches, but the instructions were to write to the angel or the messenger of each church.  This generates questions: Does every church have an angel or messenger?  Does our church have one?  Can you lose your angel?  Can our angel be revealed to us?  Isn’t it likely that He speaks of the Holy Spirit?  Here’s where we have to start accepting the Word for what it says and not get bogged down in trying to understand what God has not as yet revealed to us.

            The 7 Churches in Revelation were connected by a great triangular shaped highway and they are addressed in geographical order.  What is referred to as Asia is what we know as Asia Minor, now part of Turkey, and these were churches under John’s pastoral care.  However, we need to remember that the message of Revelation is multi-layered.  This message could also be for 7 different denominations of the Church, for specific churches today or even for individual Christians.  Keep that in mind as we study these 7 churches.

            Ephesus even at that time was an ancient city, inhabited by Asiatic people. It was on a major trade route, and during OT times, Athenians began to infiltrate Ephesus.  By 133 BC, it became part of the Roman Empire and prospered under Rome, with about half a million residents and the seat of the Roman government for that area.  Its citizens for the most part worshipped Diana, the goddess of beauty and pleasure, hunting, dancing, playing etc.  The Greeks called her Artemis.  She was also referred to as the goddess of light by night or the goddess of the moon.  They believed that Diana held all animals sacred and she was the mother-goddess, especially to young girls.  The Temple of Diana was one of the 7 Wonders of the World.  This gives us an idea of what the Church at Ephesus was in the midst of.  Paul founded the Church at Ephesus and wrote his famous letter to the Ephesians, the Church at Ephesus.   Timothy was the Bishop of the Church of Ephesus.

            Let’s look at Jesus’ word to the Messenger of the Church at Ephesus.  It was both encouraging and discouraging.

V. 2-7 The good news:  This church is hard working, active, patient, tireless, and cannot tolerate wicked people, especially those who claim to be speaking for God, but who are not and the Nicolaitans or idolaters who want no part of Yahweh (God).

The bad news:  They are not doing all this out of passionate love for Christ, but out of duty.

The good news:  They can repent and change.

The bad news:  If they don’t, He will remove their messenger from them and they will no longer hear from God.

            Then He spoke a word to everyone who reads or hears this revelation.  “He will grant to eat of the fruit of the tree of life, which is in God’s paradise to anyone who overcomes.”  Notice the term “He who is able to hear, let him listen to and give heed to what the Spirit says to the churches.”  Who is able to hear?  He who has the Spirit of God.

V.8-11 Smyrna as an ancient city was one of the finest in Asia and was called the Ornament or Jewel of Asia.  It is now a modern city of a million and a half people, located in southwest Turkey.  At the time of John’s Revelation, it was a rich and prosperous port city, about 40 miles north of Ephesus at the mouth of the River Meles.  It had a well-protected natural harbor that created a terminal for a great inland trade route.  It was famous for science, medicine, and its majestic buildings.  In fact, one of the structures that made it famous was a circle of beautiful buildings on top of Mount Pagos that formed what was called a “crown of porticoes.”  You’ll notice that this identification with a crown was noted by Jesus as He spoke to John a message for the Church at Smyrna.  Another famous building at that time was a temple built to Rome since there was a strong Caesar cult there.

            The Church at Smyrna was still faithful and the Lord spoke no word of reproach against her.  Instead He spoke encouragement and affirmation, that He saw her distress and affliction and poverty, but reminded her to consider herself rich.  He said he saw how the church was abused and reviled and slandered by some self-proclaimed Jews who were actually of the church of satan.  The Lord commands the church to not fear – fear being an open door to the enemy – concerning what was coming.  He didn’t mince words about what was to occur – prison, testing, affliction – but told the church to continue to be faithful even unto death.  This would earn them the crown of life.  In scripture, the crown symbolizes victory, and as noted before, it referred to the city’s famous crown.  The church would have her own crown given to her by God, instead of one produced by man.  Not long after this was written there was a period of terrible persecution there, then later there was a period known as the time of the Ten Imperial Persecutions which occurred because the church wouldn’t worship the emperor and were so declared an illegal group.  You’ll recognize the name Domitian who banished John to Patmos.  He was the first persecutor, 95-98 A.D., followed by Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximin, Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian, tormenting the church up to about 305 A.D.

            Again, Jesus speaks to him who will hear and assures the church at Smyrna that if they overcome, they (and we) will not be injured by the second death – the death after death of being banished from God’s presence.

V 12-17 Pergamum or Pergamos was bequeathed by the last of its kings to Rome and joined Smyrna in a Caesar cult by building a temple to Rome.  At the highest place near Pergamum, a throne to Zeus was built, inscribed “Zeus the savior,” much to the horror of Christians at that time.  Politics and paganism were closely allied, so it was natural that the people were also Nicolaitans – idolaters.   Pergamum had an amazing library of over 200,000 volumes which were moved to Egypt by Anthony as a gift for Cleopatra.  Parchment was invented there, because Egypt jealously banned the export papyrus.  It was a very cultured city of much splendor.  It was a sort of combined pagan cathedral city, university town and royal residence.

            The words to this church were from “Him Who has and wields the sharp, two-edged sword.”  Do you remember what a two-edged sword is?  Scripture says the Word of God is a two-edged sword, dividing even the soul and the spirit (Eph. 6:17).  So this one who wields the sword of the Spirit is Jesus.  We can also use that sword and if what we share is scripture, our words will be powerful, even when we don’t know it.

            Jesus told the church at Pergamum that He was aware of where they were – situated where satan sits enthroned – in the midst of idolatry.  He saw that they were holding onto His name and won’t deny faith in Him, even when Antipas was martyred there.  Christians who would not worship at the altar to the emperor, or to Jupiter or Zeus or to Esculapius who was clearly satan himself, were martyred.  Pergamum was a notorious center of heathenism and wickedness. 

            However, He reproves them for the ones involved in the church who tried to get believers to accept that eating food sacrificed to idols and giving themselves up to wanton sexuality is really ok, as long as it’s done to one of their “gods.”  And some of the people believed like the Nicolaitans – corrupting Christians with idol worship.  It sounds similar to what was going on in Ephesus at the time, but the church at Ephesus stood solidly against idolaters – hated the Nicolaitans – while at Pergamum, the church not only allowed them amongst themselves, they also accepted some of their practices and  the church there was becoming paganized.  Jesus admonishes them to repent and repent fast or they will have to face Him when He comes.  In Rev. 19:15 it says He will come back with a sharp sword coming out of His mouth and he will smite the nations.  He made it clear He does not tolerate sinful indulgence, especially when using idolatry to make it permissible. 

            To him who overcomes – who didn’t eat the bread of idols – he will give manna – heaven’s food that is hidden to us.  Those who didn’t satisfy their flesh with the bread of idols and with sexual sin, will be satisfied with something we can’t begin to understand – the bread of heaven.  It will satisfy ever need and longing and hunger we have.   Jesus also said He would give to him who overcomes a white stone with a new name engraved on it and no one except the person who receives it will know or understand that new name.  Were you ever called a pet name or nickname by someone who loves you?  Remember how much that meant or means to you?  How would you feel if you heard that person use your special name for someone else?  It’s special because it holds the love or affection of the person who used it for you.  Jesus has a pet name for each of us – one that perfectly describes His love for us – a perfect name that specifically describes us individually.  Can you imagine what it will be like to stand before Him some day and have Him look you in the eye and call you His pet name for you?  I think of Mercy Me’s song “I Can Only Imagine.”  This is something worth setting aside to meditate.  Just sit and think of what Jesus may call you some day.  Actually He already has the name picked out.  All we have to do to hear it is overcome.  There is some speculation that this new name has to do with a new form of existence which we will take on.

V18-29          Thyatira was barely even mentioned by ancient writers and not a lot is known about it from this time, except that it had a magnificent temple to the false goddess Artemis.  Lydia, the Apostle Paul’s first convert in Philippi, the woman who was a seller of purple cloth, was from Thyatira.  The waters of that area supposedly are well adapted for dying cloth and madder root, which produced a deep red color, was readily available in that area.   In that period, there was nowhere else to obtain scarlet colored dye as brilliant as there.  The principle deity of Thyatira was Apollo, the sun-god, but they called him Tyrimnas.   Thyatira is now the modern city of Akhisar, Turkey, with a population of about 50,000.  Nothing of the ancient city remains, but there are ruins of a Byzantine church, marking the time the gospel came to this city.

            As Jesus speaks to John the message for this church, He reveals Himself as the One who has eyes that flash like a flame of fire and Whose feet glow like white-hot bronze.  To this church, He says He knows what a loving, faithful, serving, patient church they are and they are growing even more so.  However, He has one thing against them.  He sees them as the compromising church.  They tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess – or one who is inspired – and is leading them astray into sexual vice and food sacrificed to idols.  The name Jezebel means without a husband.  The Jezebel of the Old Testament was the daughter of a king who was a priest to the false goddess Astarte.  She married King Ahab, an evil king, and she played him like a fiddle.  She used his weaknesses to get him to do what she wanted.  Jezebel introduced worship of Astarte to the Israelites, teaching them how to combine sex and worship.  The name Jezebel has become symbolic of a woman who uses her sexuality to get power.

It is believed that a powerful, wealthy woman of Thyatira was strongly devoted to Artemis, the goddess of beauty and pleasure, also known as the many-breasted one – the one who would both sustain you and give you pleasure.  The name Artemis ties back to Ashtoreth or Astarte, the Canaanite goddess of fertility, that very false goddess that Jezebel’s father was a priest to.

In this case, it also refers to a spirit of Jezebel, or a demonic control that works the same way.  This church was allowing this spirit to work among them, combining Christianity with worship of Artemis.  Not all the Christian leaders in Thyatira accepted her beliefs, but their liberal thinking caused them to recognize her as a fellow leader, thinking that her followers would be exposed to the gospel.  Compromise never works for Christians.  The gospel cannot be watered down.

            Jesus made it clear that he had given Jezebel time to change her ways, but she wouldn’t; that covers the Jezebel married to Ahab who was a constant threat to the Prophet Elijah and to anyone who identifies with this false goddess.  Their future is bleak.  He calls them to turn their minds (v.22).  People mistakenly believe that sexual sin starts in the body, is entirely physical, but scripture is clear that it begins in the mind.   Desire finds its birth in the thoughts of a person, not just in the body.  Unlike animals, it is unnatural for humans to react physically without first processing it through their minds, unless they have given themselves up to doing this as a habit. 

V. 23  Jesus tells what is coming for her followers and it will be an example for the churches to understand that He searches their minds, He knows their thoughts and how they entertain evil thinking.  He is clear that the wages of their sin is death – the second death – if they continue to be involved in the deep things of satan.

V. 24-29        Jesus’ message to those who do not follow the teachings of Jezebel is in stark contrast.  He will reward their faithfulness and will not allow any other burden to come on them.  He promises them great power and authority such as His own.  Through their faithfulness they will attain to true leadership.  He will also give them the Morning Star and that is He will give them Himself.

Chapter 3

V. 1-6      Sardis was a city famous for its arts and crafts, such as textile manufacturing and jewelry.  It was famous for the deep red stone used in much of the jewelry made there, the Sardis stone – aptly named, also known as sardonyx or sardine, a type of onyx.  The Sardis Stone was used in the shoulder clasps of the priest’s robes of the Old Testament with six names of Israel’s tribes inscribed in one and six in the other.  This stone is mentioned again later in Revelation as a layer of stone in the walls of New Jerusalem that comes down out of Heaven.

Sardis was the first to mint gold and silver into coins.  It was about 50 miles east of Smyrna on an important east/west commercial route.  In earlier times, it was an ancient, wealthy city – one that had been fought for and captured a number of times over the centuries.  At the time of this writing though, Sardis was in a pitiful state.  There was an earthquake in 17 A.D., 78 years before, that ruined Sardis physically and financially.  The Romans had poured money into its rebuilding, but the city never recovered.  Archeological excavation in the past century has unearthed the great temple of – guess who - Artemis.  They also unearthed a huge Byzantine church.

            Jesus identified Himself as the One who has the 7 Spirits of God (Chapter 1) and who hold the 7 stars or messengers.  In other words, He said He was still in charge!  He called Sardis the dead church, one that no longer even tried to obey the words of God.  They weren’t even making an effort.  He warned them to wake up and remember what they once had learned and obey God.  If they were not continually faithful, they would never see Him coming when He returned.  Jesus said there still a few who were holding to their faith and they, he promised, would walk with Him in white, symbolizing purity.  This is synonymous with the robe of righteousness which Jesus gives to those who wear it by faith.  He who conquers the flesh and walks in the Spirit will wear white garments.  In Chapter 1, Jesus was clad in white and he was described as appearing to be made of light.  This could be our future, as well.  Along with the number seven, we will find references to “white” throughout Revelation as we study it.

V. 7-11 Philadelphia – does actually mean brotherly love when taken from the Greek.  The original Philadelphia, however, was names after Artalus II Philadelphus who built the city about 28 miles southwest of Sardis.  It is no longer called Philadelphia, but Alusehir, City of God.  It was and is an unimportant town.  The only thing left that ties the city to the early church is a section of wall and a couple of brick pillars of the Church of St. John dating back to the 11^th century.  Make note that there are pillars left after all this time.  The city is located exactly above a fault line and has suffered countless earthquakes over the centuries.  It now has a population of around 15,000 with a strong Christian presence there, despite the strong Muslim influence.

            Jesus speaks to the church at Philadelphia as the Holy One, the True One, the One who has the key of David, Who opens and no one shall shut, Who shut and no one shall open.  His emphasis on holy and true reminds us that He is looking for both right doctrine (truth) and right living (holiness).  This prefaces His words about setting a door wide open before them which no one is able to shut.  I can’t explain the term, but I have experienced the feeling of His opening a door before me.  At the end of my first Walk to Emmaus, I had a strong sense of God opening a door before me and it’s been open for me ever since.

            Philadelphia was a humble but faithful church.  This wasn’t a church with the opulence of Ephesus or Sardis, but a simple, poor church that loved God’s Word and was intent on keeping it.  Jesus encouraged the church to not lose their hope, that He sees them and is aware of their condition.  He also promised to turn things around for them by causing the idolaters/satan worshipers to come bow before them and learn how Jesus has loved this church.

V. 10 He also promised to keep them safe from the hour of trial that was to come upon the whole world because of their patient endurance.  Since this particular church is no longer in existence, to whom then is Jesus speaking?  We can see that the message obviously has another layer since He is speaking to someone – whether an individual or a church or a denomination or even a nation.   Accepting this as a word to the church at large, we can see that the church that keeps both right doctrine and right living will be spared at the end of the age.  This supports a pre-trib doctrine or the belief that the true church will be raptured before the tribulation.  Another reference to a pre-trib rapture of the church is in I Thessalonians 5:9:  For God has not appointed us to incur His wrath, but that we might obtain His salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah. 

Again He makes a promise – that He will come quickly or soon.  A more accurate translation of this word is suddenly.  We read in the Gospels how He would come like a thief in the night.  Obviously we don’t understand quickly in the way that He uses the term.  But scripture does say that to the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.

            Jesus warns them to hold fast to what they have so that no one can rob them of their crown.  There are two kinds of crowns for us as believers.  One is the diadem of victory, often a crown of laurel leaves, given to the one who wins the race.  It is a crown of endurance and determination, of perseverance, confidence and faith.  Scripture promises this crown to all of us who endure run this race to finish it.  Another kind of crown belongs to royalty and Scripture tells us we are a royal priesthood, that we as believers are kings and priests.  Because of our relationship to God through Jesus Christ, we will receive crowns as those who rule and reign.  So this message could be addressed either way – to not give up, but run the race with confidence, or to remember whose we are, sons and daughters of the Most High God, worthy through Jesus Christ to wear the crown that will be given to us.  Jesus warns us not to let anyone rob of us that.

V. 12 Here we find the word pillar – as Jesus promises to make those who are victorious a permanent fixture in the sanctuary of God, one that holds up the structure of the sanctuary.  Again we see His play on words as He speaks of a pillar standing that nothing can bring down and addressing it to a church built on a fault line that suffered earthquake after earthquake.  Can you think of anyone you know who fits the description of being the kind of person who is a pillar in the house of the Lord?  Jesus said He will put His name and address on that pillar, as well.  While those who do not follow Him will take the mark of the beast, we believers will have the name and address of our God, marking us as citizens in the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.

V 13.  Something we have not noted at the end of each message is that Jesus uses the phrase, “what the Spirit says to the churches.”  This confirms that these messages were to more than just the one church named in that verse.

V. 14  Laodicea, about 90 miles east of Ephesus, was named after Laodice, wife of the ruler who rebuilt the city 266-241 B.C. after an earthquake destroyed it.  It was again destroyed by an earthquake after the writing of Revelation and was never rebuilt.  Many Jews lived there during apostolic times and there was a large church there, but it had many false doctrines.  When Paul wrote to the Colossians warning them of false doctrines, he instructed that the letter be read to the church at Laodicea, as well.  Laodicea was a banking center, a city of great wealth and proud of it.  We’ll find Jesus’ reference to gold in this passage.  It also had a medical school where a treatment for eye problems was made.  Jesus also refers to eye salve.  Another of the city’s famous products was a fine black wool fabric, and again, we find Jesus referring to white clothes.  In v. 18 he has a contradictive promise for each of Laodicea’s reasons for wealth.

            Jesus addresses this church as being the Amen – the last word, the affirmation of God.  To say “Amen” is to say “True.”  It is a personal affirmation of what has been said.   Jesus said He is God’s last word on the subject.  God sent Jesus and now He says, Amen, what you heard from Him is true.  He stresses truth, because the church at Laodicea had not held onto the truth.  He speaks as the true and faithful witness to the church that was neither true nor faithful.

 V. 13 Read Daniel 7:13-14 and 10:5-6

V. 14  Read Daniel 7:9

V. 15  Read Daniel 10:6

V . 17 Read Isaiah 44:6

              The church at Laodicea was the lukewarm church.  It was not hot with spiritual fervor or cold from lack of relationship at all.  It was like someone who was legally married, but had no feelings for their spouse.  They stayed with them but had not real commitment to the relationship.  This church was established for Christ and maintained some of its original religiosity, but the most of the people didn’t live in a way pleasing to God.  Jesus said He would rather it was hot or cold – on fire for God or like Paul before his conversion on the Road to Damascus, blindly doing what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do, while having no relationship with God whatsoever.  All religion – no relationship.  Scripture warns us against have a form of godliness but denying the power of true godliness.

The church at Laodicea had the lukewarmness that will prevail at the end of the age.  It was rich, it was cultured, it was religiously ritualistic, and it was self-satisfied.  Christ was not welcomed by the church corporately, only by individuals.  This church had everything it wanted – and so had no need for God.  This is the danger of wealth and position and power – to be self-satisfied and not see a need for God.  Have you had a period in your life when you were just getting by?  Did you depend on God more then or when you were flush?

            Jesus was disgusted by their lack of love, faith, good works, or anything else to commend them.  He said he spewed them out of his mouth.  Think about a time when you took a drink of something really vile and you couldn’t get it out of your mouth fast enough.  That’s Jesus description of what He felt about the condition of this church.

            Jesus tells them they don’t even realize they are wretched, poor, blind and naked and what they need is the currency of God, the gold of gift of faith, purified by testing.  They also need the white clothes He offers to cover their shame and nakedness – the white robe of righteousness that Jesus bought with His own blood.  They need eye salve, too, to put on their blind eyes – blinded by wealth and power.

            Even as bad as this bunch was, Jesus told them that He loves them.  He reminds them that he disciplines the ones He loves.  Sometimes we find ourselves in testing but don’t realize that’s what’s going on.  We start crying, “Why, God, why?”  We should be asking, “What, God, what?”  What is it I need to learn from this?  What are You trying to teach me, show me?  Help me to see Your message in this.  Thank You for loving me enough to not leave me the way I was, but for trying to change me more and more into Your image. 

            He doesn’t say you are lukewarm and you need to get heated up, pump up your enthusiasm, get yourself all excited.  Often churches fall into that trap – of thinking they just need to create some excitement, some enthusiasm and that will bring about great revival.  Jesus didn’t call for that.  He called for repentance.  The great revivals of history have all begun with repentance, starting with John the Baptist’s call for repentance.  Over and over throughout church history, the Spirit of God began to deal with a person or a group and they began to draw away from everything in order to get before God in deep repentance.  After a period of prayer and often fasting as well, the Holy Spirit fell on these people and mighty works were done, manifesting the presence and power of God.

V. 20  Jesus told them that He stood at the door and knocked.  He had been left out.  He was no longer welcome in that church, but He hadn’t given up on them.  He was still knocking on the door asking to be let in.  There are many different famous paintings of Jesus standing at a door knocking which you’ve probably seen.  My favorite is the one which shows a door with no door knob, handle or key hole.  It can only be opened from the inside.  Also, the way the vines grow over the door and the way the shadows fall on the door creates the shape of a heart, so that Jesus appears to be knocking on a heart.  The picture illustrates Jesus’ faithfulness, longsuffering, mercy and grace to not give up on us or anyone He loves.  He keeps knocking at the door of our hearts, asking for permission to come in.  Keep this image of our faithful, loving savior in your heart when you think of or pray for someone who has grown away from Him.  He says, “If anyone hears and listens and heeds My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him and he with Me.”  He doesn’t come into our hearts and start bossing us around or treating us like slaves.  He comes in and sits down and breaks bread with us.  He’s the kind of friend who we welcome in and He immediately goes to the kitchen table to sit and eat and talk with you, friend to friend, over a good meal.

            What promises Jesus offers to those who leave the lukewarmness behind and repent!  He even says they will be allowed to sit beside Him on His throne! 

            We are about to enter a whole new part of this amazing prophecy, in which God deals in sevens and twelves, stars are symbols, and any heavenly body except the sun and moon are princes, rulers, and nobles of the earth.

Chapter 4

            As we delve into the “mysterious” part of the Revelation, let’s keep in mind that Genesis and Revelation are not only the first and last books of the Bible, but are also like bookends:  Genesis telling of the original sin of man and Revelation telling of the final victory over sin. Genesis reports the rebellion of angels in Heaven and Revelation tells of the final end of the rebellious angels.  Genesis presents the beginning of human history and civilization as we know it.  Revelation tells of the end of it.  In the Garden we see the beginning of God’s judgment of mankind.  In Revelation we see the awesome result of it.

            We know that the Revelation is an apokalupsis, Greek for “unveiling.”  We know that it came from the Triune God through Jesus, who tells us He as part of the Godhead is the “I AM.”  This phrase in the Hebrew contains ALL the tenses of this use of the word ‘am’ – he was, he is, he is to come.

            Three is an important and reoccurring number in Revelation.  Three always symbolizes God.  We see this in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Another 3: Jesus reveals Himself in Revelation in 3 ways:

1.     The Truth-Teller

2.     The Life-Giver

3.     The King of Kings.

He also identifies Himself as the firstborn from the dead.  We know that others, such as Lazarus, were brought back to life in scripture, but they were all brought back to the same life they had before.  Jesus is the first to die and enter into Glory or Heaven to live an eternal life.

            Three again - there are 3 themes in Revelation:

                        1. He loves us.

                        2. He freed us from our sins by His blood.

                        3. He has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father.

            There are also 3 divisions in Revelation, identified as Jesus spoke to John at the first.  He told him to write down the following things:

1.     What you see,

2.     What is now,

3.     What will take place in the future.

            We have completed our study of the first and second of these three divisions with Chapter 1-3 and also of the first and second 7’s of the 7’s of Revelation.  The number seven is symbolic of completion and perfection throughout scripture and is a constant throughout the book.  In fact, the prophecy is built around a system of 7s, as you will see.  The number 7 is conspicuous throughout the entire Bible, beginning with creation.  There are 7 days in the week, 7 music notes, and 7 colors in a rainbow.  We’ve learned that there were 7 stars in Jesus’ right hand and there was a golden lampstand with seven branches.  It’s interesting that the menorah that God directed Moses to create, which is the still lampstand that Jews use today, has 7 branches.  God is very specific about the number 7.

            The number 3 is the numerical signature of God and 4 is the numerical signature of creation.  Add 3 and 4 and you have 7.  Combine God and creation and you have completion.  If you multiply 3 times 4, you have 12, which is the numerical signature of God’s people:  12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples.  When you see the number 10 in Revelation, you’ll be looking at worldly power.

            We are now moving into the third and last of the divisions of the Revelation – the future.   The future is big news these days.  Turn on the news and chances are you won’t have to watch long before you see some “expert” giving his predictions for the future.  You may see a scientist interviewed about future developments in technology or space; then a diplomat may be asked for his predictions on the future of the Middle East.  And of course, there will be pundits abounding to tell us all about the coming elections.  Then comes the biggest prophecy of all – the weather forecast.

            The future is also big business.  Despite the fact that we live in the most scientifically sophisticated age in human history, the occult prophecy business is booming.  Look through the Houston Yellow Pages at the ads for palm readers, tarot card readers, astrologers, psychics and all that mess.  You can discover your future in the astrology column of the newspaper.  You can actually discover as many different futures as you want to buy papers.

            We already been warned of the end of the world twice in the past 23 years and we were sure that Y2K was going to get us.  Books by Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce and Jean Dixon continue to sell and every supermarket tabloid has news for us about the future.  But the most accurate source of information about the future is for the most part ignored by people in general.   That’s the Book of Revelation, authored by Jesus Christ and published by John the Apostle.

V. 1 This starts out with a most innocuous phrase: “after this.”  Some translations also end this verse with the same phrase.  The striking thing about that phrase is, according to many Bible scholars, that the church is not mentioned again from the point on.  The first 3 chapters are all about the church, but beginning with the fourth chapter, you will only find the word “saints,” until the last chapter when we learn about Jesus and His bride.  This supports the theory that the church will be taken out of the earth prior to this point.  We will find as we study that there will be those who come to Christ during the Tribulation, but the church as we know it is not mentioned again.  Revelation is not about the rapture of the church.  Those who are referred to as saints later on will be saved Israelites and saved Gentiles, clearly not the church, because scripture is very specific about Jews and Gentiles being one in Christ.  The very fact that their racial background is specified clearly indicates that it’s not the church.  The church is the Body of Christ and in Him there is neither Jew nor Greek.   

            This chapter starts with John seeing a door opened into Heaven and he catches his first glimpse.  He is not the first prophet to have the privilege of standing on earth and looking into Heaven.   The Old Testament prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel did, too, but John is the only one who was summoned into Heaven.  This may be because at this point, the church is removed from the world and taken into Heaven and a new era of human history has begun.  In his vision John may have been representative of the church at the end of the Laodicean Age.

            We just studied the church at Laodicea and what do we remember about it?  It was rich, cultured, religiously ritualistic, and self-satisfied.  Christ was not welcomed by the church corporately, only by a few individuals.  The church had everything it wanted – and so had no need for God.  Jesus called it lukewarm – neither hot nor cold.  Are we living in a time when the church at large is similar to the Laodicean church?  That is the Laodicean Age and that is the period when what we are about to read takes place.

            You see, the 7 churches were also told in the pattern of the church throughout history.   The earliest church was hard working, active, patient, tireless, and couldn’t tolerate wicked people.  Then the church entered into a period in history when it was truly persecuted and tormented.  This is the second church Revelation describes, that Jesus saw in distress and affliction and poverty, but He reminded her to consider herself rich.  He saw how the church was abused and reviled and slandered by some self-proclaimed Jews who were actually of the church of satan.

The third church lines up with the church in history, holding onto His name, not denying faith in Jesus, but some of the people were being corrupted with idol worship.  This leads to the fourth church and another stage in church history: the compromising church.  We know that there was a period in church history when pagan practices were incorporated into the church’s traditions, many of which are still observed by the church today.  The fifth church was the dead church, one that no longer even tried to obey the words of God.  Sounds very much like the Dark Ages.  Jesus warned them to wake up and remember what they once had learned and obey God or they would never see Him coming when He returned.

The sixth church was a humble but faithful church that loved God’s Word and was intent on keeping it.  Jesus encouraged the church to not lose their hope, that He would turn things around for them by causing the idolaters/satan worshipers to come bow before them and learn how Jesus has loved this church.  This sounds like the last 200 or so years.  Then we come to the lukewarm church.  Is this now or in the future?

As we study John’s vision of Heaven, we need to lay aside all our preconceived notions of what Heaven will be like.  It isn’t a bunch of fluffy clouds with angels playing harps; neither is it an endless golf course on which you can drive a ball for miles.  It is not the central fountain of all perfect chocolate.  Heaven is a very real dimension and not one of the future.  Heaven is in eternity and that includes now.   It is a reality just beyond the reach of our senses. The biblical perspective of Heaven is a dimension that is present at all times, from which all the visible affairs of the earth are governed.  Scripture also refers to this place in another dimension where God dwells as the third heaven – the first being our atmosphere, which we can see, and the second being space, which we can also see to a degree.  Paul said he was once caught up into the third Heaven – whether in the body or out of the body he did not know.

We must also not impose our preconceived notions about time on our study, but remember that with God there is no time as we know it on earth.  We must prepare our hearts to hear what the Word of God says about Heaven in Revelation and keep in mind that the events we will read about will not be reported in chronological order, but rather in a pattern determined by Jesus.

V.2      John found himself instantly in Heaven, actually in the supreme headquarters of Heaven, staring at a throne and the One seated on it.  We’ll find the word throne in almost every chapter of this book.  The idea of a sovereign God on the throne of the universe goes directly against the spirit and thinking of this age.  Modern man doesn’t like doesn’t like the idea of a throne or cosmic authority, because that would mean there are absolutes which cannot be changed or bent to suit their agendas.  People of our age want to be their own moral authority, deciding for themselves what is right and wrong.  We see this in attitudes toward abortion, brazen sexuality, doing business with whatever rules suit the business person, broken marriages and families, new religions which aren’t new at all.  People are even reinventing God to suit them.

Despite the thinking of this age, the operation of God’s moral law can no more be changed or altered than the law of gravity or the laws of physics.  It is what it is, really.  God is not winking at us when we live how we want to and choose to believe that it really is OK with Him.

Back to John.  The first time we read this verse, we may have hoped that finally, we will know what God looks like!  As John saw Him, he was a being of dazzling light and color.  But it’s not just a single being John saw on the throne.  He saw a three-part being, one with 3 appearances: as a jasper, which is a diamond – clear, brilliant, fracturing light and color in every direction, a prophetic picture of God; as a carnelian or sardius, that beautiful, glowing, blood red stone we learned about, which depicts Jesus who shed His blood for us; and the third a rainbow of emerald in a circle around the throne.  You know, we only see half a rainbow when we see them. They really are a circle of prismatic color.  From a plane you can see the whole beautiful circle.  This rainbow was shades of brilliant greens, the color of nature, the color God gave to creation.  He also gave the Holy Spirit to His creation to be the liaison between God and man.

There is much more to those specific stones though.  In the Old Testament, each of the 12 Tribes of Israel had a representative stone and the high priest had a breastplate over his priestly garments that bore one of each of those representative stones.  The first one was a jasper, which represented the first tribe of Israel, the Tribe of Reuben, the firstborn of Jacob’s 12 sons.  The name Reuben means “Behold, a Son.”  The last stone was a carnelian or sardius, which represented the last tribe of Israel, the Tribe of Benjamin, the youngest of Jacob’s 12 sons.  The name Benjamin means “The Son of My Right Hand.”  So we can see Jesus, God’s firstborn Son and Jesus, the Son who sits at His right hand, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega.

V. 4  John sees 24 thrones, where 24 elders were seated, each wearing a white robe and a golden crown.  The white robe is symbolic of righteousness in scripture.  The crown is the type of crown that is given for a victory – a stephanos – which is earned in sport or battle or achievement, rather than a diadem, which is the crown of a ruler.  Some translations call these elders the Heavenly Sanhedrin, after the ruling council of the Jews.  Who these 24 elders are is not known for sure, but I found several interpretations.  The majority of scholars believe this group is formed of the heads of the 12 Tribes of Israel and the 12 Apostles.  This is certainly reasonable, but has one issue:  if these are the Apostles, is John seeing himself?

Another group of scholars believe these are all from the Old Testament and represent Israel.  The priesthood of the Jews in the OT had 24 orders of priests – 24 different groups of priests responsible for a variety of services to God and the people of God.  Remember Zechariah, the father of John the Baptizer, who reported the lot fell to him to serve in the Holy of Holies.  That was his order’s duty.  The 24 orders of priests altogether represented all the people of Israel.

Yet another group of scholars believe that these are ruling angels who have earned their gold crowns in battle with satan and his minions and wear white robes because they did not rebel with satan when he was the angel Lucifer.

If this is immediately following the rapture of the church, as many believe, the timing is slightly off for this to be angels since they are judged later.  Israel as a nation is also judged at the end of the tribulation.  Allowing for that, one would think the elders are all representative of the church and are saints who have already gone before us.

v. 5  John saw lightning flashing out of the throne of God and heard thunder and he saw 7 blazing torches in front of the throne, which he recognized as the 7 sprits of God – the sevenfold Holy Spirit.  We cannot grasp or understand God so to reveal Himself to us He has used symbols or pictures that we do understand.  We associate lightning and thunder with raw power beyond description.  It appears He is telling us what He is like as He sits upon His throne of judgment as the Tribulation begins.  When God came to Moses on Mount Sinai to give him the 10 commandments, He appeared in a similar way.  The mountain was covered by dark clouds and lit by flashes of lightning and the earth shook constantly with great thundering rumbles.  It was such an awesome, fearful experience, the Israelites were terrified.  At Jesus’ baptism, God spoke and people thought it thundered.  At Jesus’ crucifixion, there was darkness and an earthquake.  God shows Himself through moments of raw power in the earth.  At this point in Revelation, we find ourselves leaving the period of Grace and entering the period of God’s judgment.  For centuries God has warned people of what would ultimately befall those who turn from Him.  He even sent His own Son to show the world how much He loves us.  But as He has promised, this time does come to an end and He does ultimately judge the world.  This is the beginning of that time of judgment.

            Throughout Revelation we will hear about lightning, rumblings and thunder and each time it will be a reference to the judgment of God.  There’s another symbolism to help as we continue to study. 

            V 6  Next John saw a crystal (or glassy) sea.  Crystal represents purity and holiness.  It appears that no one can come to the throne of God without coming through purity and holiness.  In the OT, there are references to washstands that the priests were instructed to use for their ceremonial cleansing or washing and the basins were referred to as seas.  Other than that we only have the understanding that is in our spirits of the crystal sea.

           

We rarely know of the Holy Spirit making an appearance of any kind.  He is always invisible, working in and through us as the Body of Christ, but here He is again appearing as fire as He did at Pentecost.  Instead of tongues of fire touching individual people, he is before the throne of God expressing God’s passion and power and the seven aspects or characteristics of the Holy Spirit that we studied earlier:  the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Might, the Spirit of Knowledge, the Spirit of Reverence, and the Spirit of Obedient Fear of the Lord.  These taken all together are an expression or manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

            At this point, John is occupied with the incredible 4 living creatures he saw.  They are full of eyes and each of them has 6 wings.  However, the use of the word “creature” is not very accurate.  The Greek word is zoon which means “living ones.”  If it had said therion, it would have meant a creature, such as an animal.  There’s been a lot of speculation about who the living ones are and what they do.  Some scholars say they represent the attributes or qualities of God.  As the Holy Spirit is represented by the 7 torches, God may be represented by these 4 living ones.  Scholars get this interpretation from the fact that the living ones are full of eyes, which sounds like the omniscience and omnipresence of God who knows all and sees all.

            The living things are expressed as a lion, a calf, a man and an eagle, which are considered different aspects of divine majesty.  The lion is the king of beasts.  The calf or ox represents labor.  Man is the greatest of God’s creatures and the eagle is the greatest among birds.  Comparison has also been made to the 4 Gospels, which present Christ in 4 aspects: the Lion of the tribe of Judah in Matthew, the calf or ox, Servant of Jehovah as in Mark, the human Jesus, presented in Luke, and the eagle, divine son of God in the Gospel of John.

            Again, God is showing us what we can handle in symbolism and showing John what he could grasp, as well.  Altogether, it is a scene of majestic revelation.

            If we go back to the book of Ezekiel, we find that this OT prophet saw similar living beings, reported in chapter 1, and he referred to them as cherubim.  He described them as each having the face of a man and on the right side the face of a lion and on the left the face of an ox.  Each also had the face of an eagle.  Their wings were spread out upward.  Each had 2 wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side and two wings covering its body also.

In Isaiah we find such creatures again and Isaiah calls them seraphim, which means burning ones.  Sometimes they have 6 wings, sometimes 4.  The number 4 symbolizes government, so in some way, these creatures have to do with the governing of human affairs from Heaven, or God’s government.  They are also similar to the creatures of Revelation in that their sole function is to worship God

The many eyes symbolize discernment and knowledge to some scholars and the wings describe strength and speed of movement.  The lion to some speaks of power, the ox of patience, the eagle of swiftness and the man of intelligence.

When we reach chapter 6, we will find these weird but wonderful creatures summoning the 4 horsemen to action, but in this chapter and verse, their sole job is to worship God.

V. 9-11 We already know that the living creatures do not rest in their praise of God’s holiness, but apparently they give special glory and honor and thanks to God at times.  When this occurs, the 24 elders join them in worship and fall down before God on His throne.  They cast their victors’ crowns before him, declaring that God alone is the victor and worthy of glory and honor and power, that all things have been created by and held together by Him.

This indicates that the living beings were made to worship God, as angels are, but the elders choose to do so since they have a particular focus in recognizing not only God, but also His wondrous works.  By casting their crowns before Him they testify that if it had not been for God’s grace, salvation and goodness, they could not have had victory over sin and death.

All people benefit from God’s goodness and live as His created beings in His created universe, but so few actually give honor to Him.   We are given an example of true worship in this passage.

1.     True worship centers our attention on God.  True worship occurs when we no longer consider ourselves but only consider God and acknowledge that He is the source of all goodness and is Lord of all.

2.     True worship is inclusive; it joins us to others rather than isolates us.

3.     True worship reveals truth.  Revelation comes to us as we worship.  We gain a new perspective on ourselves, life and God Himself.

4.     True worship makes us sing.  Just like in Heaven, there is something about true worship that draws music from our souls.

5.     True worship affirms.  It draws from us that deep, heartfelt “Amen” to God and his will and plan.

This chapter of Revelation gives us a glimpse of what true worship really looks like.  Worship this pure should make us take a look at our own worship and relationship with the One who is worthy of all praise and worship.  Are we the Laodicean Church?  Or are we true worshipers of God?

Chapter 5

Ever since Adam & Eve were banished from the Garden, mankind has longed for it again.  There is something in us – something from or of God – that causes ALL people – Jews, Christians, non-Jews, non-Christians to yearn for Utopia.  Before Christ there was much literature written about Utopia.  Various world religions have taught of such places as Nirvana.  People who haven’t chosen to find their hope in Jesus Christ have sought Utopia in alcohol, drugs, sex, and power.  In the 1960s a whole movement of young people cried out, “Give peace a chance,” along with the Beatles who sang it.  Of course, they looked for a world made perfect by eliminating Christianity - Utopia, with no war, poverty, hunger, hatred or sorrow, but apart from God.  There never has been or ever will be such a place that is manmade.  Only God can offer such a place and it is a kingdom established over 2,000 years ago by our Lord Jesus Christ.  For all the wonderful advances we have made in technology, medicine and all the sciences, we can’t find Utopia.

We will see as we study that this age-old longing is to be fulfilled – not by any human effort – but by the sovereign authority and dominion of Jesus Christ.  In Chapter 5, John is still in Heaven, but  the theme changes from the central idea of God as supreme authority to One worthy of all worship and praise, to the worship of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

John first sees a scroll – a large rolled strip of parchment – sealed in such a way that it could not be opened and unrolled or read.  This scroll would reveal a series of momentous events which will shake the earth to its foundations.  This scroll will continue to unroll through chapters 7-10 and it is a book of mysteries, the mystery of God and His plan.

In this scroll is the story of how God will straighten out this mess that mankind has made of everything and fulfill His promise of a perfect existence, to open the door to a perfect place where there is no war, crime, hatred, poverty, disease or sorrow.

In a popular magazine, a writer described what she thought a perfect world would be.  She listed: no housework, no drug abuse, no prejudice, relationships that work, plenty of time with family, good education for all, clean air and water, birth control pills for men, a perfect car for families, health for everyone, happiness for everyone, and family-friendly workplaces.  Obviously she doesn’t expect God to do much to make a perfect world, but looks to society, medicine, car manufacturers, government, labor laws and science to take care of all our needs.

What is our image of a perfect world?  Is it a combination of material comfort and peace on earth?  Is God a part of our idea of a perfect world?  God has a perfect plan for a perfect world, and we are headed there, but this world is going to see some tough times before seeing it.  At the center of this perfect plan is Jesus, our Redeemer.

            Note: The scroll has writing on both sides – a very rare occurrence.  Scrolls were smooth on one side and rough and uneven on the other.  One with writing on both sides is symbolic of a full, complete, important message.  The fact that God’s plan is written in the form of a scroll rather than revealed by a voice is very significant.  A written scroll is symbolic of a permanent, indelible truth: the plan of God cannot be changed.  The inscription that Pontius Pilate ordered hung over the cross of Christ was, “What is written is written.”  It is significant also that the scroll is in the right hand of God.  This makes it all-important, the center of all that is to come, all prophecy yet to be fulfilled.  During this time, wills were often sealed with 7 seals to reveal the importance of the document.   This scroll holds God’s will for the future and all His promises are tied up in it.

            Who is worthy to open the scroll?  This is the question the angel proclaimed to all Heaven.  Throughout history there has actually been those who consider themselves worthy of such of thing.

            Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar boasted of his wisdom and might and ended up eating grass like a beast of the field.

            Alexander the Great wept because he had no more worlds to conquer; then a year later, ate and drank himself to death at an extravagant banquet.

            Julius Caesar enforced the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, on the known world by force, but his perfect kingdom fell due to moral corruption.

            Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler – all sought to bring the world to his own version of Utopia.  Even in this generation, Saddam Hussein dreamed of an entire Muslim world, which he believed would be Utopia.  These have all been narcissistic, egocentric tyrants.  There “heaven” created a hell on earth for many.  Even the best the world has had to offer could not bring about Utopia; only Jesus Christ can do this.

            V.5  John wept because there was no one in Heaven, on earth or under the earth worthy to break the seal and open the scroll.  This was obviously a job that God left for someone else to do, knowing full well that neither man nor angel would ever qualify for the job.  God had provided for Himself and for us One who is worthy and the Heavenly Council of 24 elders know who it is.

            The Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Root of David are significant Jewish titles.  Old Testament prophecies predict One who would come from the Tribe of Judah and the family of David who would rule over the earth and put an end to the earth’s sorrows.  The King of Kings/King of the Jews alone went through death and suffering to conquer death and suffering and is the One destined to bring about God’s Kingdom on earth.

            Jesus is called the Lion, but John sees Him as a lamb!  The Lamb is standing in the middle of the throne of God in the midst of the 4 living beings and the 24 elders.  He has 7 horns and 7 eyes, which are the 7 Spirits of God.  The lamb is wounded to the point it looks like it is dead.  Daniel 7:13-14 gives a prophetic account of this.

            The use of the word ‘lamb’ here is in the diminutive form, which references the Passover Lamb.  Do you recall that the Jews marked their doorposts with the blood of a perfect sacrificed lamb before the death angel passed through Egypt before they were liberated.  The angel passed by the homes with the blood of the lamb on the doorposts.  Inside while this was going on, the Jews ate the first Passover Supper, called such because the angel of death passed over them.   Without question this is Jesus, crucified and risen, the perfect Lamb of God.  Remember when God required Abraham to take his only son, the son promised to him by God, up Mount Moriah and sacrifice him.  God required him to sacrifice his only begotten son, thereby obligating Himself to sacrifice His Only Begotten Son.  For Abraham and Isaac, God provided a ram.  For us He provided a Lamb.

            In our contemporary church worship we sing The Revelation Song.  The words are:

            Worthy is the Lamb who was slain; Holy, holy is He.

            Sing a new song to Him who sits on Heaven’s Mercy Seat.

                        Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty

                        Who was and is and is to come.

                        With all creation I sing, “Praise to the King of Kings!

                        You are my everything, and I will adore You.

Clothed in rainbows of living color, flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder.

Blessing and honor, strength and glory and power be

To You the Only Wise King.

Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder, at the mention of Your name.

            Jesus, Your name is power, breath and living water, such a marvelous mystery.

            In combining the pictures of the Lion and the Lamb, we see the unity of the two OT themes.  Lion = majesty, power, rule and authority.  Lamb = meekness, innocence and sacrifice.  Lions conquer; lambs submit.  Lions roar; lambs go to the slaughter.  Here is the One who conquers by submitting to God’s perfect plan, One who is worthy of power and authority by reason of His obedience, meekness, innocence and sacrifice.

            Here in the powerful overlapping image is the Lion/Lamb, the fulfillment of God’s earthly promise to Israel and His heavenly calling of the Church.  It’s a clear sign that Israel is coming back to center stage and the spotlight as the end of human history nears.  As the scroll begins to unroll, God is calling Israel to His fulfillment of all the promises He made to them.  Earth’s history is moving to a climax and Israel will be at the center of it.

            Israel – since it was called forth by God as a people – has been the key to understanding history.  Those who bless Israel are blessed.  Those who don’t – aren’t.  The earth itself cannot be blessed until Israel is blessed.  The time of Israel’s full restoration is coming, just as predicted by the OT prophets and as John describes in his revelation.  Have you read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis?  It’s a fantasy series about the great golden lion Aslan, a symbol of Christ, who rules in majesty and conquers evil, but his real triumph comes only after he submits to being executed by the White Witch.  When Aslan is resurrected, the kingdom of Narnia is freed from its bondage to eternal winter and the springtime of the world comes.   As the Lion of Judah, Jesus will rule the world with a rod of iron.  As the Lamb of God He is full of compassion and grace.  Those who are rebellious will find Jesus to be a Lion.  Those who are needy will find Him to be a Lamb.

            The Lamb of John’s revelation has 7 horns.  Animals’ horns speak in scripture of power and 7 is the number of fullness or completion, so the Lamb which was slain has full, complete power as a result of His death and resurrection.  In the book of Hebrews it says He can save completely or to the uttermost those who come to God through Him.

            The Lamb also has 7 eyes.  In scripture, eyes speak of full understanding, intelligence and discernment, so we see that Jesus’ understanding of the dynamics of human history is complete and perfect.  It also describes Jesus as having the 7 Spirits of God.

            Jesus is clearly qualified as worthy to take the scroll, remove the seals and disclose and execute God’s plan for the final stages of humanity.

            V. 7-8 And this is what He does, and when He does, all of Heaven falls down before Him in worship. 

            Imagine being surrounded with a sweeter fragrance that you’ve ever smelled before.  Once years ago we were invited to visit a farm in central Texas that had acres and acres of giant, pale blue bluebonnets.  I’ve never experienced anything like that before.  As far as we could see was a light blue ocean of flowers and the fragrance was so sweet and delicate it made us drunk.  I understood then what is meant by the term “heady fragrance.”  And yet this is nothing compared to the fragrance that came from the golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

The elders are lifting up the prayers of the saints to God and He receives them as a sweet fragrance.  This is a profound and exciting truth for us!  We the redeemed actually contribute to the work of redemption through our prayers!  Jesus uses our prayers to apply His redemptive work in the earth.  When you care about someone and bring that person before the throne of God in prayer, you become part of the process of God’s work being applied to that person’s heart.  You become a partner with God in changing and redeeming lives!

Imagine the heavenly sound of 24 harps being played with passion, all in harmony.  Harps as a stringed instrument make their beautiful sound from the vibration of their strings when touched.  This symbolizes what God wants of His creation – to touch it with His creative love and cause it to vibrate with beautiful music.  This most likely will take place at some point, when God will cause the whole of creation to vibrate in harmonious worship of God.  Have you ever been to a concert or listened to live music and felt the music capture you and hold you in its beauty or power?  It’s the vibration of the music that physically touches us.  This is why live music is so much more exciting to us than recorded music and why the technology industry keeps trying and trying to make equipment that will carry the vibration of live music.  This is part of the thrill of making music on an instrument, even when we aren’t so good at it.  The vibration runs through us and just as God intended, the music moves us in a way that nothing else can.   

            V 9-10           If live music moves us by its physical power, think about the way live music that is true worship of God moves us.  Think of how the words and the melody seem to gather us up into His presence – right before His very throne – as our hearts are lifted up in praise to Him.  Then imagine how this new song the elders and the living creatures sing sounds!  They sing of the Lamb’s worthiness to take the scroll and open it because the Lamb laid down His life and with His blood paid for the sin of people from every tribe (ethnicity) and every language and even nation (country, location).  Man made a deal with the devil when he chose to sin in the garden.  He wanted to be like God, just like satan does, and he sinned to try to achieve it.  Jesus literally bought us back from satan with His own blood.  He chose to die for us and it was literally the deal-breaker.  He purchased us for God and God made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve Him, and we will reign on the earth.  The Apostle Peter wrote, “It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

            The old song of Heaven has been sung by the angels and it is the Song of Creation.  This new song the elders sing is often referred to as the Song of the Redeemed.  And when Jesus steps up at this point in the history of mankind to take His place as our Redeemer, worthy to break the seals of the scroll of history, all heaven bursts forth in praise and worship.

V 11-14         Imagine the scene at this point.  The throne of God is at the center and in concentric circles the throne is surrounded by the emerald colored rainbow, then another circle of the 24 thrones with the 4 elders and the 4 living beings.  The music of the elders and the 4 living beings begins to swell and then millions upon millions of angels circle the throne of God and join in the new song.  They all voice their unending praise of Jesus and proclaim Him worthy to receive power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and praise – everything required to take the reins of all of history to complete God’s plan for mankind.  If you’ve ever listened to Handel’s Messiah, you probably recognized the words of this passage from “Worthy is the Lamb.” 

Interestingly, at this point creation itself begins to praise Him as every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea begin to sing the Song of Redemption.  What must that sound like?!  I once heard a donkey sing to the Lord.  (Insert story).  It was clear that he enjoyed the musical praise we offered up to God and he had to do the same.  Will the people of earth hear this earthly choir of creation singing to Jesus?   It must be a powerful hymn of praise since it causes the living beings to say ‘amen’ to their song and the elders to fall down and worship.  Notice the divisions mentioned: Heaven, earth and under the earth – throughout the entire extent of the universe there is the sound of praise and worship of Jesus the Redeeming Lamb of God.  If the majority of Bible scholars are right, we will be among those in Heaven who are singing praise to the Lamb of God.  Most scholars explain the term “those under the earth” as being those who have already died in unbelief or those in hell who must finally acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Someday this will all take place.  The seven-sealed scroll will be handed to Jesus by the Father and all creation will join in acknowledging Him as the Son of God and Redeemer of Mankind- - in fact of the whole earth.  This is the goal and the moment to which all of history is quickly rushing.  We watch the news and wonder what in the world is going on, but all of it is woven into an eternal plan and you and I are woven into that plan, too; thanks be to God and to Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord!

The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians:  Therefore God exalted Him (Jesus) to the highest place and gave Him the Name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Someday we will see this and hear this and we will be doing it, too.  There will be no exceptions.  It won’t matter anymore who has made the choice to not believe, because there will no longer be any question, any doubt.  Jesus IS Lord and all creation will worship Him.  People may make that choice today and every day, or wait until this moment when Jesus is revealed.  Those who choose now will have hearts filed with joy.  Those who wait to choose will have hearts filled with regret and shame.

            As we leave Chapter 5 and begin Chapter 6, we will see a drastic change.  The previous 2 chapters have revealed Heaven and the throne of God, the Lamb who sits on the throne, and the glorious worship will take place.  But as awesome a Savior as He is, Jesus is also a righteous judge of the wickedness of this earth and He is the one who has the authority to allow the terrible events of the tribulation to unfold.  The next chapter will take us into that terrible time for all humanity left on the earth.

Chapter 6

In one of the books I used for this study, which was written in 1991, the author speaks of the feeling you get right before a storm, when it’s eerily calm.  I thought of the eye of a hurricane as I read it.  At that time he saw time as being at that place in history – the calm before the storm, with a tentative peace between the East and the West and reduced tensions in the Mideast.  That was 10 years ago.  Now we are feeling the beginning of a storm, with a great deal of tension economically, politically, ecologically, with energy and weather crises – both here and abroad – and new clashes in the Mideast.  Kuwait had just been liberated at that time and since then we’ve seen much more.  The author said it was a time of false calm, with a sense of a storm on the horizon.  Shortly after his book was published, we watched the bombing of the twin towers.

            As the Revelation leads us toward Armageddon, we have to accept the fact that with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in the arsenals of the world, Armageddon is a very real possibility.  The condition of this world – with poverty, terrorism, hunger, AIDs, cancer and crime – appears to be ripe for change.  The world has long been moving toward a worldwide crisis and in Revelation 6, we begin to see what that crisis will look like.

            The Book of Daniel is inextricably woven into the fabric of the Book of Revelation.  It’s as if the Holy Spirit took John through the prophecies of Daniel into a new level of prophecy.  In Daniel 9, he describes a great calendar of events that span from his time through thousands of years into our future.  Marked out on the calendar is a period of 70 “weeks”.  These are known by Bible scholars to not be the typical week of 7 days, but weeks of years, or each week is a 7-year period.  This means that the 70 “weeks” x 7 years = 490 years.  The 490-year period that Daniel said would be fulfilled was from the building of the wall of Jerusalem in the days of Nehemiah up to the end of the age.

            Of those 490 years, 483 years would end on the day that the Messiah (or the Anointed One) would be presented to Israel as King.  Amazingly this timetable was first worked out in the early part of the 20^th century by the head of Britain’s Scotland Yard.  Sir Robert Anderson discovered in doing the calculations from the book of Daniel that on the precise day that the 483 years was completed, Jesus road on the back of a donkey down a dusty road leading from the Mount of Olives into the City of Jerusalem where He was presented to the people of Israel as their King.

            That was the very first Palm Sunday, and just a few days later, Jesus was rejected and crucified.  Daniel wrote in that same chapter that the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.  Following that, an undetermined period of time follows, according to the prophecy, and it will be a time of catastrophic upheaval.  “The end will come like a flood” the prophecy states.  “War will continue until the end and desolations have been decreed.”

            Just because this is an undetermined period of time doesn’t mean it’s not important.  In fact, it’s an amazing time in history.  During this time, the church was born on Pentecost and Jews and Gentiles were reconciled by God.  The church was tasked with taking the Gospel to the world and it has almost completed its task.  This is the age of the Church, the age of the Body of Christ in action, obeying its head, the Lord Jesus Christ.  When its work is done, the final week - or 7 year period – will come.

This period has been set aside by God in history.  Daniel told of other events which are to occur during that last week, and these have not yet occurred.  When they do they will be closely associated with the nation of Israel.

Before His crucifixion, Jesus spoke of these events, as reported in Matthew 24.  He told His disciples on the Mount of Olives about the end of the age.  He and Daniel tell of a fascinating and frightening series of events and if you explore the four Gospels, you’ll find that fully 1/3 of the reports are focused on the end of the age, which we are about to study.  We’ll see this 7-year period characterized by 3 series of events:

(1) The 7 seals

(2) The 7 trumpets, and

(3) The 7 bowls of wrath.

Each of these series has 4 distinct and recognizable events and 3 revelations of what is occurring behind the scenes, that is in the realm of the angels – both the Lord’s angels and the fallen ones.  Remember the meaning of 4?  The numerical signature of creation.  And 3?  The numerical signature of God.  Combine them and you have 7, which is the number of completion.

V 1-2 This chapter begins with the opening of the 7-sealed scroll, held by the Lamb who was slain.  (Read v. 1-2)  There was been a lot of disagreement about who this rider on the white horse might be.  Some say Jesus, because in Rev. 19, we will find Jesus appearing on a white horse, bringing an end to the series of terrible judgments upon the earth.  However, the contexts of Chapter 6 and Chapter 19 are entirely different and the two riders are described quite differently.  In this chapter, the rider is given a crown.  In Chapter 19, the Rider has many crowns.  Also, this rider is summoned by one of the living beings with a command.  For one of these beings to command the Lord of Lord and King of Kings to “COME” is unthinkable.

There are ways though that the two riders are alike, so it seems that the rider of this chapter is someone who is like Christ in some ways, but is not Christ.  There is a high probability that this is, in fact, the antichrist, who comes like Christ but comes in his own name.  This is the one who Jesus said to the Jews of His day, “I have come in my Father’s name and you do not accept me, but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.”

This rider is given a bow, but there is no mention of arrows.  This suggests that his conquest is a bloodless victory.  It suggests that the antichrist will conquer the world by overpowering the minds and wills of people with no war needed, by deceit and lies that mislead people and take control of them without any physical violence.  It’s not too hard to see that actually taking place when you look at the world today.  Our thinking – even ours – is being changed in many ways by media.  Imagine the minds of those who do not have the Holy Spirit within them to help them sort through what is true and what is not.  Don and I were just observing that the caliber of people who are entertained by most of what is currently being offered on television are capable of doing incredibly stupid things - in fact, already are!  Great masses of people of willing to be deceived – by drugs, alcohol, the false images of prosperity and power and sexuality.  Then there’s the unbelievable eruption of the occult – offering godlike powers to those who participate.  We clearly live in an age of runaway deception.

Again in Matthew 24, Jesus warns His disciples (us) to watch out so that no one deceives us and the chapter continues referring to the danger of demonic deception in the last days.  The appearance of this rider on a white horse is a sign that the worst deception yet is arriving.  In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 (read) the apostle Paul couldn’t make it any clearer.  The first conquest by evil in the last days is set in motion when God take all the restraints off of evil and lets people indulge in all the deception they want.

V 3-4  (Read) The 2^nd rider is easy to recognize; it’s war, but this form of war is not merely war between opposing armies.  It’s civil anarchy – raw, red slaughter – when social order breaks down and mobs of people take to the streets killing for the sake of killing.  We’ve seen this in other countries such as Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka and Korea, and we’ve seen it in our own country in the ghettos and barrios of L.A., D.C., Miami and New York.  But these are just a drop in the bucket compared to the massive destruction to come.  God had to show John an image he could understand and John would not have recognized weapons of mass destruction, so God showed him a large sword.  This large sword could be a representation of a nuclear bomb or even of a weapon which is yet to be revealed.

Ezekiel 38 and 39 gives a vivid account of warfare on a massive scale with armies coming from the north and pouring into the Holy Land.  These armies are destroyed by what appears to be radiation sickness.  In fact, we have only in the past 70 years had the weapons to do what is described in Ezekiel and Revelation.

V. 5-6 (Read)  Some Bible scholars believe that this horse and rider bring famine, because the cost of one day’s food for one person takes a day’s wages to buy.  A person cannot even earn enough to feed his family and oil and wine are so precious they couldn’t even be touched.  However, famine is specifically addressed in the fourth seal along with death by the sword, plague and wild beasts.  So another possible explanation is economic upheaval: inflation, recession and panic, with money rendered virtually useless.  After World War I, the Deutsche mark, the German monetary unit, had so little value that people would take a wheelbarrow full of these bills to the market just to buy a loaf of bread.  This is what runaway inflation looks like.  Inflation may well be what the antichrist uses to impose the rigid controls on buying and selling that we will see in Chapter 13.  At that point, the only way to buy or sell will be to take the mark of the beast or the number of his name.

V. 7-8 (Read) Most translations refer to this as a pale horse, but the Greek word used here – chloros – is where we get the word chlorine, so we see this horse as bleached out, possibly with a greenish cast; the Amplified Bible uses ashy for its color.  When we describe someone as being ashen, we mean that the color has drained from their face.  That’s what this horse will look like, like the life is gone from it, because this horse is carrying a rider named Death and Hell is following close behind him.  Death takes the body and Hell takes the soul.

There are 4 forms of death listed in this verse: murder, starvation, epidemic, and predators.  The first form of death, murder, occurs when there is lawlessness.  These will be desperate times and people will kill for almost no reason at all.  With so little food, I can imagine that some will kill just to reduce the population.  Famine and starvation is so horrible that I cannot look at a picture or tv clip showing it.  It is one of the most horrible, slow, painful deaths imaginable.

A plague is an epidemic, a rapidly spreading disease.  We’re talking about society crumbling, civilization falling apart, so man’s defenses against disease will also be at risk.  I would expect that water will not be safe, sanitation will be only a memory of luxury, food will be so scarce that people will eat almost anything.  Diseases like cholera, typhoid and dysentery would spread like wildfire, and moral decay at this point could spread AIDS and all kinds of STDs.  Even worse, the diseases prophesied here may be linked to biological warfare, the unleashing of deadly viruses.  Some of the disaster movies that look so ridiculous to us now may pale in comparison to what these days will look like.  If humans are struggling to eat, then animals will be struggling even more.  There won’t be food for pets.  Pets may become food – if not for people, then certainly for wild animals.  Humans will also become prey to wild animals.  I don’t know how you feel about gun control, but it appears to me that the antichrist will take guns away from people and this is proof of it.  Not only are these wild animals not hunted for food, but people cannot even defend themselves against them.

Verse 8 says a fourth of the earth will die through these means.  We don’t know if this means a geographical fourth or a fourth of the earth’s population.  Either way, the loss of life would be staggering.  Imagine one in four people you know or encounter each day dying.  It hurts our hearts when one person dies and grieves us deeply when several do.  If a fourth of today’s world population died, that would be one fourth of 6.94 billion – the estimated world population in 2010 – that would be more than 1.7 billion people.  The estimated population of the U.S. and China combined as of last year is just over 1.6 billion.   That would mean a loss of people comparable to all of the U.S. and all of China combined.

These forces -  murder, starvation, epidemic and wild beasts – are all present in the world today, but they are held back by the hand of a merciful God.  But this time, in Rev. 6, is a time when God has allowed people to commit all the evil they want to commit and operate without restraint until they see what they have brought upon themselves.  In Romans 1, we read that God gave them over to their own evil passions and allows sin to manifest its consequences in the lives of evil people.  To those who want to believe a lie in order to have what they want, God will send a powerful delusion of the antichrist.  If people do not want God in any part of their lives, He will make it happen.  If people demand more and more luxury and gratification of their lusts, God will give them economic upheaval until their money is worthless.  If people want total immorality, God will give them an epidemic of disease.  If people want to live like animals, God will put them at the mercy of wild beasts.

V. 9-ll (Read) The first four judgments had horses with riders with results in natural disasters.  The last three judgments do not have horses or riders and are more supernatural in nature.  For the first time, an altar appears, and it stands over the souls of the slain.  If you read Exodus 34-40, you’ll see that Moses saw a heavenly temple when he stood on Mount Sinai – the great temple of Heaven.  God told Moses to build this temple that he saw in Heaven on earth and he did.  There were 3 divisions – the rectangular Outer Court with its great brass altar for burnt offerings and brass bowl for the cleansing of the priests; Beyond that was the Holy Place with the table of showbread, golden candlestick and altar of incense; then through a veil of fine linen in a perfect square was the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the tabernacle which housed the Ark of the Covenant.  The NT teaches us that this temple, which was the dwelling place of God with the Jews, is a symbol of the dwelling place of God now – in US!  WE are the tabernacle of God!  We are the dwelling place of His Spirit!  Our spirit is the ark of His Covenant.

Think about it.  The Outer Court is the body.  The Holy Place is the soul and the Holy of Holies is the spirit.  A study of the tabernacle that Moses built compared to the Christian as the tabernacle of God would be very interesting!

The martyrs in this passage will appear again in Rev. 7:9 – a great multitude which no man can number, robed in white, representing every tribe, nation and language of the earth.  These martyrs are a part of that great multitude.  They are already given their white robes and they are told to wait for the rest of those who will die for their faith in Jesus Christ.  Notice that their cry is for vengeance!  Isn’t that surprising?  We know that we’ve been instructed by Jesus to love our enemies and forgive those who do us harm and He even prayed on the cross for the Father to forgive those who crucified Him.  Why then do these martyrs not show this same forgiving spirit?  They no longer live in a time and place when God patiently endures the injustices of people.  This is a time of judgment – not a time of grace.  These are days when sinners are called to account for their crimes.  These courageous ones who died for their faith are in agreement with God’s plan for the last days of this earth.  They are praying for the fulfillment of God’s will during the last days.

Did you notice that they are waiting on more martyrs to join them?  This means that during this terrible time, there will be those who turn to Christ to save them – not from the terrible times, but from themselves.  The only escape they will find from earth and its judgment will be in death.

V. 12-14  (Read)  This is a vivid and disturbing picture of nature in complete chaos.  The whole natural world goes on a rampage.  We find a very similar description of the last days in Matthew 24:29-30.  (Read)  This could be a description of nuclear winter or it could be from a disturbance in the cosmos, such as the sun changing, the earth being bumped out of its orbit, or any number of things beyond our understanding.  Whatever the cause, there will be a greater earthquake than this world has ever seen.  The sun and moon will either be darkened or will appear darkened from something in the atmosphere surrounding us.  Either the stars will not be visible or there will some phenomenon such as showers of huge meteorites.  There is suggestion of the moon being out of alignment with the earth since the seas will be chaotic, as we read in Luke 21:25-27.  (Read) 

V. 15-17  (Read)  It will be a time of terror and anguish – so horrible that the people in power – in government, military, politics and economy – along with everyone else will try to hide in caves and will even want to die because of their fear.  No one can stand.  It is the end of civilization.  Isaiah described it Chapters 2 and 26.  Those who still refuse to believe in Christ will be subject to these catastrophic events.  This leads us to believe that people are continually given the opportunity to turn from their wickedness and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who do not are left to experience the judgment loosed by the next seal.    It appears that some will come to their senses when the economy of the world fails and the antichrist takes control.  Some will wake up when murder, starvation, disease and wild animals bring death to ¼ of the earth.  The ones that are left will suffer the greatest horrors of all and because they still do not believe, they are deceived into thinking that death will save them from these horrors.  What they do not realize is the horror of hell awaits them and it’s much worse and lasts much longer.  It is a common belief among unbelievers that death leads only to oblivion.  They couldn’t be more wrong.

The question at this point is: if the Church is NOT a part of these events, if this will not affect us or other members of the Body of Christ, why did Jesus reveal it to John and instruct him to write it down?  Don and I had a conversation about this as I worked on this lesson.  If this is not about to happen right now, why do we need to understand Revelation.  We cannot know for sure when it is going to take place and if it is far into the future, what good does it do us to study it?  We must read and understand Revelation as much as God will reveal it to us and teach it to our children so that as the day approaches, we will be prepared and not HAVE to go through these terrible times.  Also, just reading it inspires our witness to the world and especially to our families and friends and neighbors.  Can you imagine one of them going through this and asking, “Why didn’t they tell me about this?  Why did they leave me ignorant to go through this hell on earth?”

Revelation also encourages us so that as we see the times become more and more evil, we know how everything ends up.  Also we learn to recognize evil and be prepared to stand against it.  God wants us to be able to judge and discern what is right from those things that just SEEM right.

It also reveals how great is the grace of God to us – how awesome and amazing is His gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.  The terrible sin that will cover the earth – that was ALSO in that cup that Jesus said to the Father, “If it be Your will, take this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.”  That cup held all the awful sins of the past and it also will hold all the horrors of the sin of the future, along with your sin and my sin.  If the love that held Jesus to the Cross does not humble a person, then God will humble them.  Willingly or not, “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

We often only hear of a very weak witness of Christianity.  It has been watered down with pride, with desires for things other than God, with what people have chosen to believe that does not agree with God’s word.  It is important to remember that God will not always strive with man.  There will be a day, in fact there will be 7 years, of reckoning and there will be a judgment.  People can choose to believe that isn’t so, but that doesn’t change it a bit.

If we examine our hearts and know that we do not have within us a heart of unbelief, then we won’t have to fear the shaking of the earth or any other catastrophe.  On that day, by the grace of God, we will be able to stand secure in Him.

Chapter 7

We will find as we read this chapter that it is about the Jew and the Gentile.  In 1936, prior to the beginning of World War II, Nazism was already a powerful force in Germany.  The mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, was put in a very awkward situation.  A very high-ranking Nazi was visiting NYC and he was supposed to provide protection for him since the anti-Nazi sentiment was strong in that city and he himself also was repulsed by it.  He had a moment of great inspiration – most likely from God – and he handpicked the guard detail for the Nazi from the ranks of the NYCPD.  The delicious irony was – every single one of them were Jews!  This Nazi, whose very life was in danger in NYC, owed his well being and his life to the very Jews he hated. 

We must not forget that we owe our eternal lives to the Jews.  Remember Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well.  He said, “Salvation is from the Jews.”  The entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation records the past and future history of the world primarily as it relates to the nation of Israel.  Israel is, of course, the exclusive focus of the OT.  In the NT, the concept of the Church is introduced and even though Gentiles are blended into the Church by faith, it is Israel who has center stage.  We can see this throughout NT scriptures – when Jesus told His disciples to go preach and heal in His name to the lost sheep of Israel, but not to the Gentiles.  Paul focuses on the place of Israel in God’s eternal plan in Romans 9-1.

Ever since Israel was reestablished as a nation in 1948, it has been the focus of worldwide attention.  When you think about it, isn’t it remarkable that such a small, insignificant country would be such a big deal?  The population is only 7,746,000, with about 75% of those actually being Jewish.  That’s because whether people want to acknowledge it or not, whether consciously  or subconsciously, the nations of the world KNOW who Israel is – the chosen people of God.  They also KNOW who the Church is – the chosen people of God.  And they hate both of us.  Jealousy does that.  When there is a favored child in a family, the other kids may grow to hate them.  Look at the story of Joseph, the baby of the family by a different mother.  His brothers hated him, wanted to kill him, and finally left him to be a slave.  Israel is the firstborn, favored child.  We fit in more like a stepchild, but we are the favored stepchild.  The rest of the world wants the position, favor, power and blessing that come to us and to Israel, but they don’t want to be one of us to get it.

Another reason for Israel continuing to be center stage is that they hold the central place in God’s plan for the future.  It is to the church’s discredit that we have had such a tendency to think everything is about us and that Israel no longer holds a special place in the plan of God.  Revelation proves this is wrong.  God continues to offer His grace to Israel.

This is the other point in the Revelation where many Bible scholars believe the church will be raptured – not only those who are in the world at that time, but also the Christian saints who have died.  We can find reference to what we call the Rapture, but some translations of scripture use the term “caught away” in I Thessalonians 4.  (Read) It’s just an incredible thought – that millions of people throughout the world will just disappear – instantaneously, without a trace.  Imagine being one of those who did not disappear and how it would appear to you.  Sadly, at this point, God has extended His wake-up call to the earth and those who have not responded will face His judgment and the nation of Israel will be at the center of it.

We’ve studied the six seals of judgment and now as we come to Chapter 7, we’ll find there is a pause between those six seals and the seventh seal, sort of like an intermission.  God affords us in this vision of John’s a kind of flashback, which supplies a missing piece of the Revelation puzzle.  We are taken back to the beginning of the judgments of the 7-year tribulation period to see God working out His plan from a different vantage point.  This is a look at a select group of Jews who will be given a special mission during the last days.  One author called this group “Christ’s Commandos.”

V1-3  As best we can tell, there is a blending of literal events and symbols throughout Revelation, or it may all be literal but told from John’s limited understanding appears to be symbolic, such as angels holding back the winds.  There are winds that have a great deal to do with our climate, such as the Gulf Stream.  The Gulf Stream actually runs close enough to New England that the coast of Maine has very little freezing weather.  Snow is rare there.  Then there’s the Jet Stream which moves high pressure systems.  Perhaps John saw these atmospheric conditions as “winds” and perhaps there angels powerful enough to hold them back.  With all the devastating conditions occurring during this time, we don’t know how that might affect these systems.  Or perhaps cataclysmic weather conditions are created by whatever is happening to the earth.  A shift in the earth’s orbit or axis could certainly cause problems that we can’t begin to imagine.  This could loose tornadoes, hurricanes, high winds and this may be what the angels are holding back.  However it may come about, these four angels are depicted as restraining the devastating power of natural forces.

In the OT, when you see a reference to “the land,” you are likely reading about the Land of Israel.  That is likely what we are seeing here, as well.  Strangely, there are references to “the sea” throughout scripture that refer to Gentiles.  Trees are often used as symbols of influential, powerful men and women, people of authority.  These four angels who hold back the winds are the first four of seven angels who sound their trumpets in the following chapters and they are commanded to restrain the winds until a very important group of people have been sealed by God.  The angel who seals this group is described as coming up from the east or from the rising of the sun.  This is from the prophecy of Malachi, the last book of the OT. Malachi predicts for those who revere the name of God – “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.”  This is understood by scholars as a poetic description of the coming of Jesus Christ in glory and power, and so at His coming, those who revere the name of the Lord will be marked in their foreheads with the seal of God’s ownership or fatherhood.  Paul tells us, “Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.”  The presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit is the unmistakable mark of God’s ownership of our spirit or adoption of us.  The same Holy Spirit who has sealed us will also seal this chosen group described in Chapter 7.  These will then be Spirit-filled, Spirit-led people with a mark on their foreheads that indicates the Spirit rules over their minds, their thoughts and their will.  They will not be subject to the soul problems that we struggle with.  They will truly be captured by the Holy Spirit for God’s use, given over to God for whatever He calls them to do.

V 4-8  We see that 12,000 Jews from each of the Tribes of Israel will be selected, totaling 144,000 to complete this group.  This detailing of how many from each tribe, rather than just saying 144,000 Jews, tells us there is no question that these will be Israelites and only Israel will be in center stage in this time.  You can twist and turn this verse into whatever you like to make it sound like it’s the Christians of today or Jehovah’s Witnesses or whoever, but the scripture couldn’t be more clear who these people are.  When the JWs established their doctrine that they and only they would make up the 144,000, they ran into a problem – what to do with all the ones who came along after reaching the magic number, so they adjusted their doctrine to be 144,000 in their heavenly band and another 144,000 in their earthly band.  Then they reached 288,000 in membership and had a new problem, so they readjusted their doctrine to include a servant band.  If you join today, you must come in at the servant level.  Wonder what’s next.

The list of Tribes is actually a little complicated.  If you noticed that the Tribe of Levi was not included in the OT list, it’s because this tribe was called especially to be a priestly tribe, separate from the rest, but it is included in this list.  Also, because of Joseph’s role in preserving Jacob’s tribe during the famine of Egypt, his sons Manasseh and Ephraim were adopted by Jacob.  That would’ve made 13 tribes, but actually, Ephraim is included in Joseph’s tribe and Manasseh stands alone as a tribe.  The Tribe of Dan is also missing, and that’s the tribe believed to have introduced apostasy into the nation of Israel, which you can read about in Judges.  The father of the tribes, Jacob, said on his deathbed that Dan would be a serpent by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider tumbles backward.  This describes the treachery of Dan later on.

Some scholars believe that the passage in Matthew 24 where Jesus says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come,” applies to what this group of 144,000 Jews will do in these last days, after the Church is taken out of the earth.  It may be like 144,000 Apostle Pauls turned loose in the earth.

Matthew 10:13-15 is an interesting passage.  Jesus sends out His 12 disciples and then abruptly skips over centuries and talks about the last days.  This makes what he said to the 12 disciples (12 tribes?) possibly prophetic of how the Holy Spirit will direct the 144,000 in the last days.  (Read)  When Jesus says they won’t finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.  He had already come at that time and when his disciples went out, they returned to Him.  This refers to His 2^nd coming.

V9-14 John is given a glimpse of the end of the 7-year tribulation when the 144,000 and all their martyred converts have been gathered home to God.  Some scholars believe that these are people who have only just heard the gospel for the first time; that those who already heard the gospel and rejected it have hardened their hearts against God.  But those who hear it fresh and new receive it with joy.  At the darkest hour in human history, Heaven welcomes the greatest harvest of human souls ever and they are wearing white robes, waving palm branches and worshiping God.  Notice the palm branches – when did we last read in scripture of people waving palm branches?  Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was pronounced King of the Jews.  Remember how people stood beside the road, waving their branches and proclaiming Him King?  Does this sound like what we just read in Revelation?  Could this be the 2^nd coming of the King with his saints praising Him as he goes?

We will read more about these martyrs in Chapter 20, after the antichrist decrees that all must take his mark.  We’ll read about the martyrs who will be beheaded for their faith and resurrected to serve God during the Millennium.

V 15-17  Remember in Chapter 3, Jesus told the Laodicean Church,
To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne.  This clearly speaks of 2 thrones – one for God the Father and another for Jesus the Lamb.  The throne of Jesus was promised in the annunciation to Mary at Jesus’ birth.  “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.”  Also, there is reference to day and night in this passage and there is no day and night in Heaven, so this is also referring to an earthly temple, possibly the one to be built in the New Millennium.  A description of this temple can be found in Ezekiel.  This is the temple where the nations will come to worship in the days when Jesus Christ rules over the earth for 1,000 years.  In the prophecy of Micah, there is a beautiful description of this temple from which God’s government, justice and peace will flow out into all the world.  It reads In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills and people will stream to it.  Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.  He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.  The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.  He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.  They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.  Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.  Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.

In closing Chapter 7, we can see that Gentile and Jew are reconciled by God.  In John 10:16, Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.  I must bring them in also.  They too will listen to my voice and there will be one flock and one shepherd.”  Intermission is over and the final seal will be broken.  A hush falls over Heaven as great and terrible events begin to unfold, as other angels go forth, this time angels of doom.

CHAPTER 8

            This chapter could be called the “Hallelujah Chorus Chapter.”  Have you ever heard a production of Handel’s musical composition “Messiah”?  It is probably the most powerful, moving musical composition ever written and taken from it, the famous “Hallelujah Chorus” is the most powerful part.  When this famous spiritual musical first premiered in London in 1743, King George II was seated in his box.  As the musicians sang and played the “Hallelujah Chorus,” the king was so moved by the power and majesty of it, that he stood with his eyes glistening with emotion.  When the rest of the audience saw that the king was standing, they stood, too, some out of respect for the king, some from their own hearts being moved by the music.  Since that day, it is traditional for the audience to stand as this chorus is performed.

            At the end of the chorus, the choir and orchestra bring forth wave after wave of powerful hallelujahs that just seem to envelop and capture you as you listen.  You may find your heart pounding and your eyes filling with tears.  And then … silence.  Not one note is sung or played.  Not a single tiny sound is made by anyone.  The ringing and roaring of the hallelujahs fade from your mind.  The silence is overwhelming.  And yet you know that it’s not over yet.  It’s like everyone is holding his breath, waiting for what comes next - whatever that may be.  Suddenly the silence is shattered by the triumphant blast of the last HALLELUJAH!  This symbolizes well the climactic pause between Revelation 7 and Revelation 8.

            V. 1-2 Habakkuk, a minor prophet of the OT, understood this pause and described the power and holiness of it when he wrote, “the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.”  Up to this point we’ve been listening to powerful praises and heavenly hymns coming from the 24 elders, the four living beings, and the saints of God.  Heaven has been full of continuous sound.  But now it’s as if God as the great universal conductor has brought his baton to a sudden stop and all sound ceases.  But everyone and everything is watching and waiting with complete attention for the slightest move of His heavenly baton and the breaking of this mysterious silence.  Everyone freeze frames, waiting for the opening of the 7^th seal.

            Then the 7 angels who stand before God are given 7 trumpets.  These aren’t just your everyday angels, if there could even be such a thing.  These are THE 7 angels who stand before God.  We know that one of them is Gabriel.  Remember the story of John the Baptist’s father Zechariah who was a priest doing temple duties when an angel appeared before him to tell him of the child Elizabeth would bear.  Zechariah questioned the angel, “How can I be sure of this?” and the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel.  I stand in the presence of God.
  Gabriel makes another appearance not long after this one, to a young girl named Mary, who would bear the Christ Child.  Another angel in this group would be Michael whom we read about in the book of Daniel.  There is an ancient writing that lists the names of the archangels, but no one knows how these names were obtained.    Not as a point of fact, but only one of interest, the angels named are Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sarakiel, Gabriel, and Phanuel.  Did you notice that all these names end in ‘el’?  El is short for Elohim, one of the names of God.

            These angels are of the highest order of angels – the archangels – and the task they are given is extremely important – the blowing of the 7 trumpets.  But just before they do so, John records a dramatic scene.

            V 3-5 Theology becomes a little confusing here in that some scholars believe that this angel is the incarnate Christ or Jesus Himself.  I have trouble grasping this, since we know that Jesus is the Lamb of God who is on the throne of God already.  However, there is nothing that says He cannot reveal Himself in some other way at this point.  Their thinking comes from OT studies where an angel referred to as “the Angel of the Lord” led the Israel through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  A more accurate translation would be “the Angel of Jehovah” or of YHWH which is Hebrew, pronounced ‘Yahweh,’ from which we get our term Yehovah or Jehovah.  It does make sense that Jesus would again step up to lead Israel through this last days wilderness into the Promised Land of the Millennium. 

            A censor is a bowl-like container used to burn incense and it is a symbol of a priestly function.  Throughout the NT, especially in Hebrews, we are told that Jesus is our High Priest.  Paul says Jesus is our High Priest, continually at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.  Clearly this is a picture of a priest taking fire from the altar and offering up the incense and the prayers of the saints to the Father.  Remember when we read of fire falling in the NT?  What was that fire symbolic of?  The Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the birth of the Church.  So perhaps we see here the fire of the Holy Spirit lighting up the prayers of all the saints of all time with His mighty consuming power and it becomes a sweet fragrance to God.

Sometimes we feel our prayers go unanswered or even seem like God hasn’t heard them.  The ones we struggle with the most are the prayers we pray for those we love, our intercessory prayers.  But these very prayers are a sweet fragrance to the Father. These are mingled with the priestly prayers of our Great High Priest.  It seems significant that these prayers and the incense are mixed with the fire or power of the Holy Spirit and hurled to earth by this angel.  It seems to be a picture of the many prayers of God’s people over the centuries and the prayers of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit all coming together to bring about some powerful event upon the earth.   This would be a picture of answered prayer.  And look what results – thunder, lightning, earthquakes – sounds which mark the end of the age of mankind on the earth and the beginning of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Did you notice that the 7^th angel has not sounded his trumpet yet?  This will happen in Chapter 11 and when it does, the angel will announce that the kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ and He will reign forever and ever.

These cataclysmic sounds mark the end of each series of seven – the seven seals, the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath.  At the opening of the 7^th seal, when the angel casts fire upon the earth, we find that God is about to fully and finally answer the prayers of his people.

There is one simple prayer that God’s people have prayed throughout the ages.  Adam probably prayed it when he found himself banished from the Garden.  Noah, too, when he set foot on dry ground that had been washed clean of the filth of mankind’s sin.  Abraham would have found the words of this prayer as he left everything he knew in search of a land he knew not of.  Moses must have uttered it as he led God’s people out of slavery through the wilderness in search of the Promised Land.  We know King David prayed it, because it is recorded in the Psalms that he wrote.  We know that the Disciples and Paul prayed it and it still permeates worship services today as we pray as Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.  It’s been prayed millions of times.  How many times have you prayed it?  And yet it remains unanswered.  We do not see God’s Kingdom visibly come on the earth yet.  We are aware of it in an invisible form in the church.  We see its influence over the affairs of mankind, but we clearly see the will of mankind, especially the sinful human will at work.  We also see the demonic will working.  But we are reading now of the time when this ages old prayer is about to be answered once and for all.  God’s Kingdom is about to come and His will is about to be done on earth – just as it is in Heaven!

The 7^th trumpet appears to usher in the final time of the Great Tribulation, which Jesus described in Matthew 24 as a time of great distress UNEQUALED from the beginning of the world until now and never to be equaled again. 

This next passage is one of the most difficult sections of the book to interpret.

V. 6 The sevenfold judgment is about to begin.  Bible scholars are divided as to whether the 7 trumpets reveal something literal or something symbolic, perhaps of something even worse that what is pictured in scripture.  Then some scholars believe that scripture has combined both literal and symbolic pictures here and this is frequently how God works.  Especially with John during this time, He may be picturing a mixture of the literal and symbolic in such a way that John can grasp.  For instance we know that fire is literally a force that we both use and fear, but in scripture it can be a picture of the Holy Spirit Himself. In the book of Joel, we read of an invading host of locusts, but as we read on, we find that the locusts represent the invading forces of an army.  So scripture often merges the literal and symbolic in order to give us understanding, not to confuse us.  We can picture the swarming of locusts devastating everything in its path and this helps us to picture what the invading army did when it came – leaving nothing behind and it forced and fought its way through. 

Looking at the trumpets themselves, we know from scripture and from history, that Israel has used a trumpet or shofar to announce to the people that the time has come to pay attention and listen or watch for an event or an emergency, for instructions on what to do next, to gather together for an important reason.    As these 7 trumpets are sounded, we hear that God is warning and announcing His final judgment of the sin of mankind.  This takes place in the midst of all kinds of chaos and catastrophes, and yet even though God is essentially shouting, mankind turns a deaf ear to Him.  We see plagues in the earth right now, but for the most part, mankind is not seeing them as plagues.  Drug abuse has robbed us of many of so our young people, not just in our country, but around the world.  Drugs are ruining millions of lives.  They destroy the mind, burn out the body, consume the soul, drain the economy, and transform humans into something worse than animals.  Clearly this plague of drugs is a catastrophe, the consequence of sinful self-indulgence, the search for pleasure or numbness without any consideration of the consequences or effect on other people.  It is a plague of self-centeredness and irresponsibility.  Remember when Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they could interpret signs of changes in the weather, but couldn’t interpret the signs of the times?  People are much like the Pharisees today or they would take notice of the plagues we are seeing, plagues which are signs of the times.

I recently read an article on Alzheimer’s that said research currently shows how many environmental and life-style influences cause a person to be more susceptible to Alzheimer’s.  Research is showing it is not a genetic disease, but one that is caused by our choices and environment.  That’s a terrible disease that kills the soul and leaves the body alive; sounds like a plague to me.  And what else can we call cancer? 

Abortion is another epidemic – the murder of 1.6 million innocent unborn lives every year in America alone, 98% of which are not because of rape or a threat to the mother’s health, but simple for convenience.  We see young people foundering in hopelessness, turning to sex and drugs and alcohol, because they see the signs of the times.  But people in general have become numb to it.

Back to our Revelation angels – V 8:7 – the first angel.  If you choose to take this verse symbolically, we can refer to historic records of “red rain” falling on the earth.  There are reports written as far back as 1744 of such an occurrence in Europe.  People thought it was raining blood and they were terrified, but scientists back then concluded that it was vapor tinted with red chalk.  They did not, however, know how it came to be.  There are reports of such rain event in recent years, but scientists today haven’t come up with an explanation yet.  If you take this verse literally, then we are talking about an act of God, causing blood to fall on the earth.  Hail, fire and blood would be devastating to our environment.  This verse says that it will burn up 1/3 of the earth and 1/3 of the trees and all the green grass.  Imagine what that will do to our oxygen supply and the balance between humans and plants!  This 1/3 is measured according to land mass, not including the ocean, so think of the continents: North and South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica and Europe.  Imagine those land masses joined and 1/3 of them being burned up.  This is an unimaginably devastating time.

V. 8-9 – the second angel – and another judgment.  The first trumpet judgment assaulted the earth.  The second attacks the sea.  We are again working with how John perceived what he saw in his vision so we may be talking about the worst volcano that ever erupted on earth or we may be looking at a huge meteor falling to earth.  I was reminded of the shifting of the tectonic plates that are called the Pacific Ocean Ring of Fire.  Scientists have watched this area for years with expectations of something catastrophic taking place.  This would involve oceanic volcanoes and earthquakes.  There are also several volcanoes that scientists are watching, including Mount Etna is Sicily which is primed to explode and they expect it to be extremely devastating, worse than Mount Saint Helens and in an much more populated area, too.  Whatever it is that falls into the ocean will cause 1/3 of the water to turn to blood.  We don’t know which sea this refers to – if it is in fact one of the oceans or the larger seas or maybe the Sea of Galilee.  So a third is a relative amount to our understanding without more information on the sea.  If it’s the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean, a third of marine life and ships will be huge, but if it’s Galilee or the Mediterranean or such, the number would be much smaller.  We just don’t know.

Now let’s look at it from the angle of symbolism.  Some scholars believe this mountain-like object symbolizes the revived Roman Empire –the 10-kingdom coalition of Western European and Western allied nations that will be prominent under the leadership of the antichrist, which we will be reading about soon.  The sea is often used in scripture to symbolize the Gentile nations of the earth.  This would suggest that an antichrist-led coalition of nations will take over the world, conquering the Gentile nations of the world and destroying many lives.

We will continue to see the use of 1/3 throughout the seven trumpet judgments.  Remember the seals of judgment caused losses of ¼.  Think back to the symbolism of numbers in scripture.  Four is the number of creation and three is the divine number.  This suggests that humans will bring about the destruction through the seven seals and God will supernaturally bring about the destruction through the seven trumpets. 

V. 10-11 – the third angel.  This great, blazing star sounds like a comet or something similar, which breaks up when it enters the atmosphere and scatters pieces all over the earth.  The pieces that fall into watercourses poison the water.  The most obvious type of poison would be radiation.  Remember we are not likely talking about something manmade causing this catastrophe because we are dealing with God’s actions in the trumpet judgments.  BUT do you remember the meltdown at the Soviet nuclear power plant called Chernobyl years back?  Did you know that the Russian word Chernobyl literally translated is “wormwood?”  That looks like a warning to me!  Again, signs of the times that people are ignoring.

Another possibility, if you take scripture’s symbolism and apply it here would be that the ‘star’ is a great leader.  Remember Jesus saying he saw satan fall from Heaven like a star?  And satan or Lucifer was known as the morning star in Heaven before he fell.  Or it could be a great leader on earth at the time with the watercourses representing people in motion, or great groups of people moving together with a single mindset.  If this was the case, then a person who is widely recognized as a great leader will suddenly reverse his policy and will  in essence fall, causing people to be embittered and disillusioned.  This struggle could lead to a great moral and spiritual decline and that is the scene described later in Revelation under the rule of the antichrist.

V. 12 - The judgment brought about by the fourth angel and the fourth trumpet deals with God’s judgment being revealed in the sky.  We’ve seen the first three trumpet judgments deal with the trees and grass, the sea, and the rivers and streams.  Now we will look at destruction in the sky.  If anyone could ignore those first three judgments, God will show them one so huge that it affects the sky.

First let’s compare this verse with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Luke 21.  (Read v. 25) This reads like the length of time that the earth receives light from the sun and time that the moon is visible will be cut short by 1/3 – again the third indicating this is at the hand of God and not man.  I cannot imagine and I didn’t find an explanation for what would make a third of sun, moon and stars to be darkened and it’s hard to tell if this means we will see a darkening on them when we look at them or if 1/3 of the light we are accustomed to seeing will be gone.  To me the second scenario seems to be more likely.  Either way, this is a literal event that will be visible and it’s also a symbolic one.

The sun, moon and stars are used in various places in Scripture to symbolize earthly authorities.  The highest ones – kings, prime ministers, dictators and presidents – are portrayed as the sun.  Lesser authorities are portrayed as the moon and the stars.  So if we look at this symbolically, we see a hierarchy of civil authority, which is somehow eclipsed under the judgment of the fourth trumpet.  They will be morally darkened; the light of truth and reason will be gone from them.  Instead of displaying sound moral judgment, their judgment will be darkened and evil, without ethical restraint, compassion or justice.  Under their governing, people will experience deceit, cruelty, treachery, oppression and exploitation.  By the grace of God this is limited to a third.

V. 13 An eagle warns of three woes to come.  KJV uses the term ‘angel’ but study Bibles that go back to the original Greek use the word ‘eagle’ here.  This eagle brings the message, “If you think the first three trumpet judgments were bad, wait until you see the next three.”  Another correction is needed in this verse.  Some translations use the phrase, “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth,” but the more accurate translation is, “Woe to those who make their home on earth.”  This may seem like a small difference, but it’s actually huge!  Think of the new converts, those new redeemed followers of Christ, those who have taken God’s loud and clear message to heart and given themselves to Christ.  They – like us – will no longer consider this earth their real home.  They will be looking forward to Heaven and consider their real citizenship there.  They are those “who do NOT make their home on earth.” They will live and act as though they no longer belong here, but belong with their Father and their Savior and Lord.

On the other hand, those who DO make their home on earth are people who live only for the present life on earth and care nothing for the things of God or the life to come.  These are people who still – with all the tragedy they have seen during this time – still live for what makes their flesh happy.  They are completely self-centered and they consume whatever they can get upon themselves.  They have no consideration of others and their only purpose in life or meaning for existence is “me, myself and I” – the unholy trinity.

The eagle warns of a terrible doom for all these people.  You’d think the first four trumpets would’ve been enough to wake them up, but no.  Now we will see three more trumpets that bring unimaginable woe upon those who live only for the moment and self.

Before we move on to the last three trumpets, let’s look back at the structure of the judgments.  In each series of seven judgments we saw that they were divided into four and three.  The first four seals were represented by four horsemen.  The last three seals gave us insight into what was going on behind the scenes of the seals judgments.  In the trumpet judgments, we hear four separate trumpets sound, then we hear the eagle warning of the next three judgments.  This pattern seems to suggest degrees of trouble – such as not good, bad, worse, and worst, a steady increase of God’s wrath progressing toward a fearsome climax.  And when we reach the seven bowls of judgment we will see this again – four distinct events and three perspectives from the angels’ point of view.  We will also see that each set of judgments is worse than the one before – as if God is peeling off layer after layer of security for people who do not put their trust in Him.  While the phrase ‘wrath of God’ is used over and over, we must also consider the mercy of God, who over and over causes circumstances to get worse and worse, calling people to repent, turn from their selfishness and turn to Him.  The idea of God’s wrath makes most people very uncomfortable – even pastors.  You can tell this by the fact that they do not like to preach about God’s wrath.  We all like messages on God’s love and grace and forgiveness, but talking about His justice and holiness makes us squirm a bit.  It is part of our fallen nature to not want to face the fact that sin has consequences and that righteousness and justice are not to be taken lightly.  Our God is holy and He cannot, will not allow sin to continue increasing unchecked on this earth.  People often challenge the existence of God because they ask why He allows all the evil that happens and doesn’t do anything about it.  They are right to a degree.  If He continued to allow mankind to sin more and more and He turned away from it, He would also be turning away from His people and He could not be considered holy or just.  He will not hold back His wrath forever.  And it will be interesting to see someday how often He protected us from the consequences or the sin of this world and even from some of the consequences of our own sin.  I don’t know about you, but speaking for myself, I know that I have not received the punishment I deserved for some of the things I have done in my life.  I’ve experienced God’s judgment being held back from my life many times.  Some people call that the grace of God.  I don’t.  I call it mercy and forgiveness.  He actually protects us from ourselves, doesn’t He?

Actually, the judgments we are seeing in Revelation aren’t entirely new to this earth – only the degree of the judgments has been ramped up.  God has been sending judgments throughout history as He acts to turn the hearts of mankind to Him.  Our problem is in recognizing and understanding them.  We would rather say that some things just happen and God just lets it happen, but down in our hearts we question this belief.  God does judge nations and societies and cultures and He judges individuals.  Sometimes He allows nations as well as individuals to go through hardships and suffering to correct them.  This is not to say that every hardship people experience is the judgment of God.  We know this because we have seen some truly godly people go through hard things.  Part of the hard things that occur are the result of living in a fallen world.  Some are the result of other people’s sin and some are consequences of people’s actions that were not wise.  But some are from the hand of our loving and just God.  He loves us all just as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way.

Judgment does five things and it’s interesting that the number five represents God’s mercy.  First, judgment frightens us and that’s because it’s supposed to – in order to get our attention.  Like children watching a horror movie, we are fascinated by the horror of judgment and at the same time, we don’t want to see it at all.  Think about why you wanted to study Revelation!

Second, judgment sobers us.  It forces us to reassess the way we live and changes our priorities.  It makes us realize that we need to understand what it is.

Third, judgment corrects us.  It makes us face the unpleasant truth about ourselves.  We don’t like that either.  We don’t want to hear about our imperfections and sinfulness, but judgment makes us look into God’s mirror of a realistic view of ourselves.  Judgment makes us see more clearly and accurately so that we can plan more carefully, live more thoughtfully and to think the thoughts of God.

And fourth, judgment humbles us.  It makes us recognize that we are not in control of our circumstances. We are not even equipped to totally run our lives.  We are not the masters of our own fate – no matter how much money, education, power or beauty we have.  This is the great deception.  This is what satan held out to Adam and Eve in the Garden.  When we have been stripped of our own delusions of self-godhood, we are at last able to see and seek God’s control and guidance for our lives.

And finally, judgment reassures us.  Didn’t expect that one, did you?  It is one of the beautiful paradoxes of God’s Word.  Habakkuk prayed, “Lord, in wrath remember mercy.”  God probably would really rather not have to bring judgment on anyone, don’t you think?  He would SO rather we just realize how good our lives would be if we just obeyed Him.  Have you noticed in Scripture how God always sends warning before His judgment begins?  It’s like He is saying, “PLEASE stop!  PLEASE turn away from that!  PLEASE turn to Me!”  God is slow to anger and rich in mercy.  Just as He gave the evil city of Nineveh the chance to change by sending the prophet Jonah, He continually gives us and the entire world the chance to wake up, pay attention, turn back before our sin gets out of hand.

Some people look at the judgment of God throughout history and say, “Don’t tell me about your Loving God!” But it is His love that makes Him a judge.  What if we made rules for our children’s well being and safety, but never enforced them?  How loving would that be?  Thank God that even in the severity of His judgments He remembers mercy! Thank God that He doesn’t always give us what we deserve, but He won’t let us continue in our rebellious ways.  And thank God that we can hear what He is saying to us through this Revelation.

Now we will listen for the trumpet blasts of the last three angels.

Chapter 9

V. 1-6 Throughout history we’ve read of instances when normal, everyday people – a whole nation of them – people from all walks of life – students, shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, bankers – are induced to take up weapon and uniform and march blindly into the fires of all-out war.  The Mongols followed Genghis Khan throughout China, India, the Middle East and Europe, leaving more than 40 million dead.  The French followed Napoleon on a binge of conquest that killed 5 million and kept Europe in turmoil for two decades.

In our own period of history, Germans followed Hitler to unimaginable depths of butchery and inhumanity.  When we see clips on TV of him giving his frenzied speeches, we wonder how anyone could’ve believed or followed him.  But the worst is yet to come.  A day is coming when a powerful leader will rise up and draw millions to a fiery doom. 

You’ve heard the term ‘all hell breaks loose’?  Chapter 9 is a description of just that, beginning with the fifth angel and the fifth trumpet and the first of the three woes of this judgment.  This star could be a meteor that falls to the earth, but it is most certainly a ‘someone’ who had at some time fallen to the earth from the sky and it sounds like it is a fallen angel.  In Luke 10:18, Jesus said He saw Lucifer fall from Heaven.  We will be reading in Chapter 12 about the warfare in Heaven during which satan fell from Heaven.  Remember that the timeline of all the events of Revelation overlay each other, as if we are looking at the same scene from different angles but the same time.

Some translations say a star and some say an angel was given the key to the shaft of the abyss.  Remember the report in Luke 8 when Jesus cast the host of demons named Legion out of a man by the Sea of Galilee and the demons “begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss”?  The same Greek word is used in Luke as here in Revelation 9.  Obviously demons have an intense dread of being cast into the great Abyss.  In other passages, such as Jude 6, we read that there are angels, i.e. fallen angels, kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.”  Whoever this is that fell to earth from the sky – probably satan himself - will take the key to the Abyss and open it.  This will clearly be a demonic event.

Out of the Abyss will come great billowing clouds of smoke, so dense it will darken the daytime sky, and then hordes of locusts, so thick and numerous that they look like clouds.  One author described actually experiencing a horde of locusts during his boyhood in Minnesota.  He said he could still clearly remember the image and the sound of them.  He wrote, “Millions and millions of locusts, swarming like billowing clouds – they descended onto the fields of standing grain with the sound of a hailstorm.  As they munched on the vegetation, they sounded like a rushing river.  They destroyed everything in their path, leaving nothing behind but bare earth, stubble and disillusionment.“  He added that as horrible as that was, it was just a shadow of what John witnessed when the abyss was opened, and these locusts bite so severely it feels like scorpion stings.  This being a demonic event, it is most likely that these locusts are actually demons, again pictured in a way that John could grasp.  Actual locusts were used by God as a vehicle of judgment in the OT and John would’ve known this.   When Egypt was struck by locusts that ate every bite of everything in sight, Pharaoh begged Moses to “take this death from me!”  It must be a horrible, terrifying event.  Imagine that horrible, terrifying event being from demons!

In this passage it is clearer that it is a being that is being described as falling to earth like a meteor and given this terrible power, while the previous star or meteor sounded symbolic in description but is likely a person as well.  Later we will read an account of a great war in Heaven at the end of which satan is cast to the earth.  In 2 Thessalonians, Paul refers to this being as the Man of Sin, a crucially important person who arises in the last days.  This man sits in the temple of God and claims the worship of Israel and the entire world.  He is already quite famous, even though we don’t know his name.  He is possibly alive and well somewhere on the earth right now.  He is the antichrist.

We’ve read in previous chapters of destruction caused by people, destruction caused by God, and now we are reading of destruction caused by satan and his demons.  As this horde of demons come out of the abyss or the bottomless pit, they are constrained (told by who? – God? satan?) to not eat the grass or plants or trees as a normal locust would, but being demonic they are sent to torment – to sting like a scorpion.  Again they are constrained to torment only those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.   At this point, we do not have reference to the seal of God on foreheads.  Scripture does tell us that as Christians we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, but it is not specific to the forehead.  Some believe this is the 144,000 Jews that remain to evangelize the world.  The unbelievers who are tormented by these locust demons are not destroyed, but are made to suffer for 5 months.  This time period is consistent with the normal life cycle of a locust: May – September.

One author told of a confrontation with a scorpion when he was in Vietnam.  It came into his room and actually faced off with him.  It was about 6” long.  He asked a Vietnamese pastor what would’ve happened to him if it had stung him and he was told it causes pain all over the body so severe that there is no painkiller that can alleviate the pain and in fact the venom reacts with most painkillers to exacerbate the pain.  Along with the pain comes temporary paralysis and fever.  The only thing a person can do if stung if to endure the suffering for a period of time.  What we do not know for sure is – will the demons physically torment or torment in some other way?  We do know they will be coming after unbelievers.

Demonic torment is a horrible thing.  One author told of an instance when he was leading a Bible study and a woman in the group sought his help.  She and a friend had – just for fun – gotten a Ouija board and spent some time “playing” with it.  They were ignorant of the fact that they were opening a channel of communication with demons and saw it as harmless entertainment.  After a while, the woman was awakened during the night with voices inside her head telling her to get up and write obscenities on a piece of paper.  She resisted, but the voices threatened her that she would not be allowed to sleep until she did it.  So she got up and wrote a page full of the terrible things she was being told to write.  This happened night after night and soon she was up most of the night writing obscenities.  Her anguish and fear were becoming unendurable.  She suffered physically, emotionally and physically from the torment.  The author, a pastor, used scripture to help her get free of the tormenting demons and the problem did not reoccur.

All this woman did was act in ignorance and use a Ouija board.  Imagine what unbelievers will be doing in those last days and doing them deliberately.  They will be tormented from those things for a period of 5 months.  They will be executing divine judgment.  We have been warned by Scripture not to entertain demons, not to dabble with the occult.  These people have ignore the warning and turned from God and judgment for their choices falls on them.  It will be so severe that they will want to die, but Scripture says death will elude them.  Remember in the Gospels how people with demons behaved?  One continually convulsed and threw himself into the fire.  The demonic of the Gederenes beat himself with his own chains.  These people were tormented but could not die.

V. 7-11 John’s description of the locusts is really bizarre, but remember the four living beings around the throne of God?  Each had the face of a lion, a bear, an eagle, and a man.  This very likely could be satan’s way of mocking God by making his demons appear like horses ready for battle with something like gold crowns on their heads, their faces like humans and their hair like women’s hair.  They had teeth like a lion and breastplates of iron.  The sound of their wings like the thundering of many horses and chariots.  On the other hand, what would some of the helicopters now used in battle look like to John? 

Then there is another take on the locusts.  One scholar claims the locusts represent  delusions that will be sent against people.  The crown suggests authority, the human face suggests intelligence, the hair suggests attractiveness.  The antichrist will be authoritative, intelligent and attractive and this will make him believable to people who are looking to that type of leader.  Look at politics today.  What do people vote for?  A strong leader?  A smart person?  An attractive person?  This will make his propaganda very palatable.  But it will also be like lions’ teeth – biting, penetrating, frightening.  When it’s too late many will realize his teachings are deadly, from which there is no escape.  The iron breastplate speaks of a hard heart, coldness, without pity or mercy.  The overpowering sound speaks to the power of the antichrist’s messages.   Remember how Hitler’s demonic power sucked in most of the German people.  He is obviously telling them what they want to hear, but as unbelievers they are wanting to hear the wrong things.  This will, however, make his message powerful and overpowering to each person.  Then we are back to the stings – the torment inflicted by demonic powers on those who open up to their oppression.

Next we learn that these locusts have a king – the angel of the Abyss whose name is Abaddon (Hebrew) and Apollyon (Greek) which both mean destroyer.  This is satan himself.

We see today how the forces of satan are at work trying to break through into our world and are enjoying some success, but they are clearly restrained by God.  When the restraints are removed, then all hell really will break loose.

V. 12-16 The first woe is followed by the 6^th angel blowing the 6^th trumpet. John hears a voice that comes from the horns of the golden altar.  Remember when we read of this altar in chapter 8?  This is the altar of incense on which was offered the prayers of the saints.  They prayed “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until You judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”  The 6^th trumpet and the 2^nd woe are God’s answer to their prayer.

A third of mankind are about to die at the hand of four fallen angels.  We know they are fallen angels because the Scripture says they have been bound and kept ready for this time right down to the hour.  They are not released to do as they wish though.  God still restrains them to do only what He allows.

Notice that this is linked with the Euphrates River, the ancient boundary between the east and west.  The Euphrates flows out of the mountains of Armenia, down through the present day lands of Iraq and Iran into the Persian Gulf.  The Euphrates was strategically important during the 1991 Gulf War which liberated Kuwait.  Then in the 100-hour ground campaign, our Army trapped the elite Republican Guard of Iraq with its back pinned against the Euphrates and they couldn’t escape.  We won one of the most lopsided victories in recorded history.

It is to this very ancient and historic river that four evil beings are somehow bound at this very moment, waiting for the very hour, day, month and year that God has foreordained their release.  Verse 16 describes a 200 million man army.  Some scholars claim that this army is made up of soldiers taken from the vast populations of Asian nations, such as China, India, Japan, and Indochina.  This verse does suggest that a barrier has been removed so that the armies from the east can cross into the west.  But notice there are 4 angels and 4 is the number of human government.  They also represent the north, south, east and west.  This suggests they will come not from one country or one race or one area, but from every direction.

It would be virtually impossible for any one nation or coalition of nations to field such a vast army.  Using the 1991 Gulf War as a yardstick of comparison, the armies of the 30-nation U.N. coalition and the opposing army of Iraq added up to a combined total of about 1 million men and women in uniform – ½ of 1% of this army in Revelation.  The largest army in the world is that of the Soviet Union with a little over 3 million, followed by China with 2.3 million.  For any one nation to field an army of 200 million would be logistically impossible.

This 200 million man army will gather in one place, which we will learn more about in chapter 16 and it is a name which has become associated with the end of the world.  Can you guess the name?  Armageddon – the Hebrew word for the Mount of Megiddo, a place in northern Israel less than 20 miles SE of the modern port of Haifa.  This is our first glimpse of the terrible forces of death and destruction that will gather in the plain of Megiddo, a 200 million man army that will fight the last and bloodiest war of all human history.

V. 17-19 – The Monstrous Slaughter

All John could do is describe his impressions of future warriors, future weaponry, future armor, all far beyond his ability to imagine.  In fact, as far as we know, all of this is still in the future and is beyond our ability to comprehend or even imagine, as well.

He seems to be describing tanks, troop carriers, missile launchers, rocket batteries, artillery pieces and aircraft bearing the identifying colors of their nations of origin.  Since there will be many nations represented, it stands to reason they would retain their identity through clearly marking their war material with their national color or colors.

The lions’ mouths suggest cannons, mortars, rocket launchers and even missiles which kill with fire, radiation and poison gases.  The fact that 1/3 of the remainder of the human race is destroyed in this conflict suggests that weapons of mass destruction – even nuclear weapons – will be used.

Another interesting image – the horses’ tails like snakes with heads that injure could apply to helicopter gunships with rotors mounted on long tail assemblies or perhaps missiles which leave a snake-like trail of smoke and inflict injury with their warheads.  Then again, these may be weapons which have not yet been invented.  When Don and I ride across the family land in his 4-wheel drive truck with its backup camera and gps, using our smart phones, spotting scope and binoculars and listening to the radio or cd player, even taking pictures with our phones, we’ve laughed about how our ancestors who first settle there would react if they were dropped into that truck with us from the past.  They might think they were on another planet.  How would they described the experience when they returned?  Then take John in 95 A.D. and put him into this futuristic setting.  He did the best he could and regardless of what these details actually mean, the overall picture is one of an unbelievable scene of bloody slaughter.  We will see this picture more clearly as we continue to study.

V. 20-21 The unrepentant human race.  It seems impossible that anyone, even after all these catastrophes and upheavals, whether natural, man-made or divine, that anyone would continue to turn his back on God.  Notice that the first and foremost sin listed here is demon worship.  This explains why mankind is so irrational and delusional and self-destructive that they could continue in their sinful way.  They have completely yielded themselves to a powerful satanic delusion.  They have fallen under the spell of the The Powerful Delusion that Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:11.  (Read)  By their own choice they have rendered themselves incapable of repentance, even with the fire of holy judgment all around them .  The worship of demons may begin with simply a curiosity about the supernatural, like the woman who played with a Ouija board and like many who dabble in astrology.  It’s easy to say that I’m just playing around, I’m not serious about horoscopes or spirit hunts, etc.  Too bad, the demons don’t care if you are serious or not, because they are and they  know you can be trapped easily.  It may just be a flirtation with demonic things, but satan considers it a permanent relationship whether you do or not.  People seek guidance from spirit beings, Tarot cards, palm reading, a channeler, or medium or they may keep a crystal or amulet or charm that they think has some spiritual power.  It doesn’t matter how foolish it may  seem; it is still idolatry and the source of this guidance or power comes from satan himself.

John tells us that the hardened, unrepentant unbelievers of the last days will continue their murders – likely abortions, probably euthanasia of the elderly and very ill and even ones they consider defective. 

He says people will not repent of their magic arts which using the original Greek is pharmakeia, the word from which we get pharmacy, pharmaceutical.  This refers to the use of drugs – mind-altering and mood altering drugs, which is already an epidemic in our own culture.  Not that long ago, people were embarrassed to admit they were taking such drugs, but today it is so common that it is an normal topic of conversation.  Drugs have the power to  alter life for us.   They change the way people perceive and experience reality.  It is already a common sorcery or magic art of our day and I don’t expect it to get any better.

The people of that time will engage in sexual immorality and theft and abuse beyond what we already see today, which is hard to imagine.  The extent and brazenness of such sin will increase greatly.  On the brink of judgment and on the brink of destruction, people will accelerate the pace of their sinning.  Even today, we see so much trouble in the world, and many choose to numb themselves with drugs and fill their lives with the temporary pleasures of sex and perversity.   Historically, during a war, people tend to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.   Many have that frame of mind that I’ll probably die tomorrow, so I better live it up today.  Think what people have been thru up to this point – the catastrophes, the destruction, at least 1/3 of the people of the earth are dead.  There will likely be a sense of futility, of hopelessness and that leads to a life without perimeters.  People will be living as if nuclear war is just over the horizon and they must get all the sinning done they possibly can.  One author called it spiritual mass insanity.

We mustn’t forget the purpose of the judgment that is happening during this 7 year period of the Great Tribulation.  Remember that we’ve read in Revelation that a great multitude which no man can number from every tribe and nation and language have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Untold millions will give themselves to Christ during this Great Tribulation.  These people DID get it.  They understood the judgment of God on this world.  They DIDN’T turn to drugs and sex to comfort themselves.  They turned to God.  God’s judgment is not to condemn but to make people stop and think, to re-evaluate their lives, to look for better than they have known before.  Scripture says that Jesus Christ came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  This is the heart of God.  And when people are faced with His great loving heart, their hearts will either break or harden.  They will either draw near to God or turn away.  They either see themselves for the poor, wretched sinners that they are or they see themselves as without need of God.

Chapter 10

            V. 1-4 When Billy Graham was still in his 30s, he had already gained great notoriety as an evangelist and often preached at Wembley Stadium in London.  One time when he was there, he was summoned to Number 10 Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister of England.  He was introduced to weary but still sharp Winston Churchill.  Churchill looked Billy Graham over and said, ‘Young man, I’ve heard a great deal about these crusades you’ve been having up at Wembley and I want to ask you a question.  You know the troubled shape this world is in.  Personally, I don’t think the world has much longer to go.  Can you give an old man any hope?”  Rev. Graham pulled out his little pocket New Testament that he always carried and explained how the Bible offers hope not only for the world, but also for a tired, discouraged man.  It is not known if Churchill ever made a commitment to Christ, but the question he asked Billy Graham so long ago is the same question on the hearts and minds of many people in this world today:  is there any hope for this world?  As troubled as this world is, do we have much longer to go?  Why doesn’t God intervene in human affairs?  Is the world plunging toward destruction?  These are the questions confronted in this chapter.

            As we’ve already observed, in each series of judgments – the seals, the trumpets, the bowls of wrath – there is always a break or an intermission between the sixth and seventh judgments.  That’s what we will see occur again.

            Rev. 10 presents 3 mysteries: (1) the mystery of the mighty angel, (2) the mystery of God which the angel proclaims, and (3) the mystery of the little scroll which is held in the angel’s hand.  Let’s look at the clues which help us solve the first mystery and identify the mighty angel.  Throughout the OT, there is a great angel called the Angel of Yahweh or the Angel of the Lord who appeared to Israel at key points in Israel’s history.  I.e. this angel accompanied them as they wandered the wilderness with Moses.  At this point in Revelation, Israel again is at center stage and the great angel appears again.  He comes robed in a cloud which is symbolic of a divine being.  As the Israelites followed Moses, they were lead by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  When the first tabernacle was completed, a cloud filled with fiery glory filled the Holy of Holies.  The term for God’s glory in that form is the Shekinah, the cloud of glory, and that was how God made Himself known to the people of Israel.  This Angel of the Lord has been identified by some as Jesus Himself and by others as the Holy Spirit.  Remember the rainbow that circled the throne of God?  It represented the Holy Spirit.  However, the fact that this angel’s face has the shining appearance of the sun and his legs are like fiery pillars sounds like the description of Jesus at the beginning of Revelation when he told John to write to the churches.  Also he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion.  Remember that Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, according to Scripture so this is another indication that Israel is returned to prominence during the last days.

            This angel’s description definitely overrides the politically correct concept of angels as being effeminate, dreamy creatures who sit on clouds playing harps.  One writer described angels as “vast, fiery, sea-striding creatures with hell in their nostrils and heaven in their eyes.”

            This great angel roars and got a response in the form of 7 thunders – not chaotic crashes of sound but a momentous message.  Remember when Jesus was baptized by John and the Father said, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”  Many of the people there said, “It thundered.”  When Paul heard the voice of the Risen Christ on the Road to Damascus, others thought it thundered.  Here sits John the apostle, hearing and understanding what the thunder of God is saying and from the start, he has been told to write this all down.  Now suddenly he is told to NOT write it down and to seal up what the 7 thunders said.  One author said he had studied every Bible commentary he could find and NO one he could find has ventured even a guess at what the 7 thunders said.  John gives no clue, no explanation; he just did what he was told to do.  So this mystery remains a mystery.  This is not the first time this has happened.  Let’s read II Corinthians 12 about the Apostle Paul who was caught up to the third heaven.  (Read v. 1-4)  It is our job to not speculate what might have been said, but to study and strive to understand the things that God has said so clearly to us.

            V. 5-7 The Second Mystery – the mystery of God Himself.  I can’t imagine anything more exciting than this moment in history.  The mystery of God is about to be revealed!  The angel standing on the sea and the land raises his right hand.  What does that look like to you?  When does one raise his right hand to Heaven and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?  Most people don’t realize that this courtroom procedure began right here in Scripture.  If this is Jesus, there is the question of God the Son swearing by God the Father.  Would God swear on Himself?  In fact, yes, he does.  We can read in Hebrews the account of God swearing an oath to Abraham to keep His promises and God said He swore on Himself because there was none greater to swear on.

            Not a century of the past 2,000 years has gone by without the people of that time believing that Jesus would return in that century.  The people of the Church of Acts expected Him any minute.  The Apostle Paul believed Jesus would return in his lifetime.  Looking at the world we live in, it’s easy to believe that Jesus will return in our lifetime or at least in this century.  This mystery is still a mystery, too.

            Interestingly, God gets blamed for everything that people don’t like, but He has not yet taken His reign over the earth.  He gave authority to rule the earth to Adam and Eve and they blew it and gave away much of their authority to the devil.  God is sovereign King of the Universe, king over both Heaven and earth.  He has ruled, overruled and intervened on the earth, but He has done so from a distance.  He appears to be remote and unconcerned to many because he never uses His absolute power to bring about an end to demonic evil and human rebellion.  He has all authority, but has chosen to not yet exercise that authority.  That time will come in the next chapter.

            V. 8-11 The Third Mystery – the little scroll.  Back in the 1800s, there was an emperor of Ethiopia who did great things to move his country forward.  He did, however, have one eccentricity: when he was ill he believed the cure was to eat a page or two of the Bible.  It didn’t do him any harm, it is said, but it didn’t do him any good either.  At the end of his life, he began to have a series of strokes and instructed his servants to feed him the entire book of I Kings.  He made it to the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba before he died.

            The symbolism of eating the Word of God is a way of indicating that it becomes a part of the one who eats it.  You are what you eat, so to speak, and what John ate became a part of him and he was changed by it, too.  The prophet Ezekiel had a similar experience.  He was given a scroll to eat that was written on both sides with words of lament and mourning and woe.  He ate it and it tasted sweet as honey.  Later in the same chapter, Ezekiel was sent to deliver a message to Israel. 

            The Word of God is also called the Bread of Life, which suggests that we eat the Word, that we feast on it.  As we all know, the Word can be sweet to our ears but when we begin to apply it to our lives, sometimes it doesn’t feel so sweet.  Sometimes it’s hard and it upsets us, challenges us.  God loves us just as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us this way.  There is pain in change.  There is sometimes a price to be paid in order to follow God.  His conviction of our sins pierces our hearts.  When we look into the mirror of the Word, we may not like what we see.  If there is sin in our lives, it may just make us a little sick to our stomachs  to see ourselves as we really are.  As long as the Word of God is “out there,” it sounds sweet, but when it’s “in here,” maybe not so much.

            Just as Ezekiel was sent to Israel with a message after he ate a scroll, John is told to eat a scroll and he is sent out with a message to many peoples, nations, languages and kings – and us!  John is now qualified to deliver this message.  When we have been through a painful yet cleansing experience, we are then qualified to share the message of it.  There is a special beauty to the life that has been opened, searched, cleansed and made new by the transforming truth of God.

Chapter 11

            V.1-2 The Measure of the Temple -      From this point on we will find a change of scene and perspective.  It’s like John is being sent back to the terrible scenes of judgment to bring us detailed, magnified highlights of the judgments of the last days, which involve many peoples, nations, languages and kings.  Have you ever read a book, perhaps one required in school, and got very little out of it, then you saw the play or the movie and – Wow!  The story came alive with amazing detail?  That is how we will move forward in Revelation.  Up to now the events are so vast in scope and it almost seems impersonal.  We’ve been looking through a wide-angle lens, but now we are going to look at the remainder of Revelation with a zoom lens.

            In these first 2 verses, John is given a symbolic task to perform.  The act of measuring an area is a symbolic action and it appears in the OT prophecies of Ezekiel and Zechariah.  These measurements symbolize God’s ownership and God is staking His claim on the worshipers by having John measure the temple and the altar and count the worshipers.

            We use measurements the same way.  If you have a dispute with your neighbor over a property line or want to avoid a dispute when you purchase property, you hire a surveyor  who measures thee property, sets monuments in the ground, establishes boundaries and prepares a written document that certifies your  ownership.  In a similar way, God gave John a measuring rod and instructed him to measure the temple and altar and to count the worshipers but to exclude the outer court of the temple.

            It appears that the temple John is to measure is an earthly temple rather than the heavenly temple we read about in Chapter 6, the one that was shown to Moses that he was told to copy when he built the tabernacle in the wilderness.   Scripture tells us that we are the temple of God , yet because of the term ‘holy city’ used here, we know that the earthly temple John is to measure is located in Jerusalem.  At this time, however, there is no temple standing in Jerusalem.

            The last temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Roman forces in 70 A.D.  There was a Jewish uprising against Roman rule that began in 66 A.D., engulfing the entire region of Judea.  Over a million Jews died by Roman swords.  Remember when Jesus said, “The time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” The Romans leveled the city and demolished the temple on the Temple Mount, thus fulfilled Jesus’ prophecy.

            Today on the Temple Mount, the site of the original temple of Solomon and the Temple destroyed by the Romans, two non-Jewish structures stand and both are sacred to Muslims.  One is the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the other and far more prominent structure is the Dome of the Rock, built around 690 by the Arabs.  It is a pilgrimage shrine that dominates the skyline of Jerusalem.  These have been a real problem for the Jews who have wanted to rebuild the Temple.  Even after 1967, when the Jews recaptured the old city of Jerusalem, only Muslims have been allowed to worship on the Temple Mount.  Neither Jews nor Christians are allowed to worship there.  Muslims believe the site of the Dome is where their prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven.  The Muslims have guards all around the site who will stop anyone from reading scripture, praying or doing anything to worship God.  Most Jews like the idea of tearing down the Dome of the Rock to rebuild the Jewish Temple.

            In recent years, a godly Jewish engineer named Asher Kauffman has done exhaustive work locating the exact site of the original ancient temple.  He’s convinced and has convinced many others that the Dome of the Rock is not built exactly on the original site of the Temple.  He has determined that the original site is slightly north of the Dome and is an area of open ground on which a single small shrine, the Dome of the Spirits, now stands.  If he’s right, it would be possible for the Jewish Temple to be reconstructed on its original site without disturbing the Muslims’ 3^rd most sacred site.

            The really interesting part is if he is right, the outer court of the temple would encompass the Dome of the Rock.  Many scholars believe that John was told to not measure the outer court because the Gentiles it is being trampled by are the Muslims.  It’s an interesting possibility.  Somehow, someday, the temple will be rebuilt and some non-Jewish people will control a portion of the Temple Mount for 42 months.

            Numbers are always significant.  Divide 42 months by 12 and you get 3 ½ years – exactly half of the seven-year Tribulation Period.  This marks the middle of the period, but does it fall at the beginning or the end of the 42 months?  Some clues in Revelation suggest it’s the first half of the 7 years.  This would allow for the construction of a restored Jewish Temple.  The preparations for the fulfillment of this prophecy have already begun.  There are several organizations in Israel committed to building the Temple on Mount Moriah.  One organization is training a great number of young men the ancient Levitical rituals so they can serve as priests.  Priestly garments are being made by hand.  The Jews are definitely moving forward with their intentions to rebuild the ancient temple.  Imagine what this will stir up in the Arab world when they actually do start building!  We do not know if the church will be raptured before this begins or later.  The eyes of the world will be totally focused on the Temple Mount when that happens.  When Jesus returns Scripture says every eye will behold Him.  This would certainly contribute to that possibility.

            As we read the next verses (3-14), John zooms in for a close up of 2 extremely important characters in this drama – the two witnesses.  They just suddenly appear at center stage.

            v. 3-14 the Two Witnesses – two men in burlap, which was the traditional garb of the prophet when God sent them to warn His people of impending judgment.  The two appear so because their calling is to strip away the delusions, lies and satanic propaganda that the antichrist has been pushing as truth at that time.

            Jesus said that the sign of the last days would be when the abomination that causes desolation stands in the holy place, that is the temple in Jerusalem, and the abomination of desolation prophesied by the prophet Daniel reads as the actions and person of the antichrist.  Paul also wrote, “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

            Scripture is clear, whether in the words of the prophets, the apostles or Jesus Himself, that a temple will be built on Mount Mariah and will be occupied by the one that John dubbed the antichrist in 1 John 2:18.  There will be more about him in Chapter 13, but we know that the spirit of antichrist is already at work in the world.  We can see it in the humanism, that exalts man above his maker, in the New Age movement which isn’t new at all, in the self-fulfillment movements that make self the all important person over everyone and everything else.  We see it in the false religions that teach that each man is his own god.  Hollywood has run rampant with this insanity for years now and it won’t be too big a leap for the antichrist to raise this philosophy to the degree that the world will follow him.  It will all come to fruition in the antichrist as he commands the world to bow to him, but God will still have two witnesses who won’t bow to anyone but God Himself.

            For a period of 1,260 days, again we see the 3 ½ year period, half of the Time of Tribulation, the two witnesses will testify of God before a world that has sold itself and its allegiance to satan and his antichrist.  During the first half we read that the Gentile nations will trample the holy city.  It is during this second half of the tribulation that scripture says a time is coming of such trouble as the world has never seen.  The Nazi Holocaust won’t begin to compare to it.

            The big question here is who are these two witnesses?  We’re given some clues in that they are “the two olive trees and two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.”  We find these symbols in the OT prophecies of Zechariah.  In Zechariah 4, he writes of two olive trees that drip their oil into two lampstands as a witness to Israel during his own day.  It’s in the context of this passage that the often-quoted phrase is written, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.”   These 2 men as lampstands are giving light in the midst of great darkness in the earth.  The olive oil represents the Spirit of God, so the lamps are fed by the oil dripping from the olive trees, or the witnesses are fed by the Holy Spirit and their witness cannot be extinguished.  They cannot be killed or removed in any way until they have completed the work God has given them to do.  They are human flamethrowers!  And they use the fire of their mouths to destroy their enemies.  This could be literal or it could mean that they speak the truth in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit and no man can stand against it.

            Scripture strongly suggests that one of these two men is actually the prophet Elijah.  The prophet Malachi predicts the reappearance of Elijah.  He wrote, “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.”  When we celebrate the Passover with a Seder Meal, we are imitating the Jews in that custom, and a place is always set for Elijah.  The Jews fully expect the return of Elijah.  Jesus told his disciples that Elijah will come and restore all things.  He added that Elijah had already come and the people didn’t recognize him and did to him whatever they wished.  The disciples mistakenly thought He meant John the Baptizer.

            Another clue is these two witnesses are able to suspend rain on the earth.  Elijah had the authority from God to do that and for 3 ½ years it did not rain in Israel until he prayed and asked God to restore the rain again.  Second, the two witnesses also have the power to turn the waters into blood and bring plagues among the people.  Who does that remind you of?  Moses, when he sought to free God’s people from Egyptian slavery.  So many Bible expositors see these two witnesses as Moses and Elijah reappearing, coming from Heaven but somehow appearing in the flesh, during these last days.  Remember that Moses and Elijah are the ones who appeared with Jesus in his transfiguration.  Peter wrote that that was a picture of the coming of Jesus in the last days. 

            Other Bible scholars say the two witnesses will be Elijah and Enoch, for they are the only two people in recorded history who did not suffer physical death, but were taken by God, caught up, without dying.  In some of the writings of the early church, there are references to Enoch and Elijah coming as the two witnesses.

            V. 7-10 An attack from the abyss – The witnesses fulfill their ministry on earth and no one was able to stop them until they finished.  But when their work was done, the beast from the Abyss attacks and kills them.  Remember in Chapter 9, v. 11 we read that the star fell from Heaven took the form of a living being and was given a key to open the Abyss and let loose a swarming plague of locusts.  Their king, Abaddon or destroyer, is satan himself.

            The man of sin or antichrist will be possessed by satan and he will be irritated beyond description by these two and can’t wait to get rid of them and shut their mouths.  They keep telling people the truth, which goes against the antichrist’s propaganda.  Finally he gets his way and the two are killed.  When that happens there is a global celebration.  The world goes crazy and takes a kind of ghoulish delight in their death.  They have one big worldwide party and it looks similar to Christmas with gift giving and celebrating.  Remember this is anti-christ and he wants everything in imitation of Christ but the opposite of Christ.  So it makes sense he would make a mockery of Christmas.

            Then the antichrist has their bodies put on display for all the world to see and they are left there for three and a half days – not three days like Jesus’ time in the tomb, but half a day longer.  CNN will be doing live coverage and all the world will be watching and partying.  This will take place in Jerusalem, which at this point is called Sodom and Egypt:  Sodom because of its corruption and Egypt because of its persecution.  It’s also identified here has “where also their Lord was crucified.”   The holy city is now officially the unholy city.

            V. 11-14 – the Second Woe – the party isn’t going to last long!  God always has the last word and we hear that word in these verses.   Like Jesus, the witnesses will be cruelly killed for the ‘crime’ of bearing witness to the truth of God.  Then they are resurrected 3 ½ days later and they ascend into Heaven, much to the shock of the partying world.  It struck terror in their hearts because they could no longer deny that God is all powerful and they cannot kill His witnesses.  When they see the resurrection power of God in these two men they are faced with the truth of their own defeat and doom.  If the Lord tarries, we will also face death AND resurrection!  If the Lord does not tarry, then we will be caught up with the church and we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye – a nanosecond – into our glorified bodies, the same bodies we would receive if we die and are resurrected.  Either way, we will be with the Lord forever in Heaven.  And despite the common conception of Heaven, we won’t be sitting around on clouds with pretty women who have wings and all we will be playing our harps.  God has much more in store for us than that!

            The resurrection and ascension of the witnesses kicks off the momentous events which signal the end of man’s reign on earth and the beginning of God’s reign.  Just as when Jesus was crucified and again at His resurrection, a massive earthquake strikes and its center is in Jerusalem.  A 10^th of the city collapses and 7,000 people die.  In Zechariah 14, he prophesies that the Messiah will stand upon the Mount of Olives and when His feet touch the mountain, it will separate in half.  Half will move north and the other half to the south, creating a giant valley between.  With a current population of about 800,000, we can estimate at least 8,000 people will die.  The largest fault line on earth runs just east of Jerusalem, down the valley of the River Jordan.  It’s called the Great Rift Valley and it extends under the Dead Sea and down into Africa.  You probably heard of Lake Victoria in Africa; it is located in that valley.  It’s the great geological fracture that divides the African continent from Asia.

            You’ve probably heard or read about the theory of continental drift and the movement of the vast subterranean tectonic plates which the continents rest upon.  So you can understand how fragile, geologically speaking, the internal structures of our land masses are.  The geological forces that will produce this mighty earthquake are already building up beneath Israel and beyond and have been for hundreds of years – I suspect since Jesus crucifixion.

            V. 15-19 the 7^th Angel and the 7^th Trumpet – or the FINAL angel and trumpet.  Again, we’re going to look at John’s close-up of the events of the Great Tribulation as it draws to a close.  The sights and sounds in these verses mark the end of the Tribulation period and the beginning of the Millennium, the Lord’s 1,000-year reign on the earth.  The 24 elders proclaim the advent of His Kingdom.  They worship Him because He has used His great power to become King of all the earth.

            We will study the Millennium more closely in Chapter 20, as well as what follows it.  We read of the brief satanic rebellion at the end of this 1,000-year reign of Jesus, followed by the new Heaven and the new earth, where Jesus will continue His reign forever and ever.  Verse 18 gives us a thumbnail sketch of the Tribulation period and millennial period.  It begins with the anger and rebellion of the nations, as described in Psalm 2 (read).  Then we see the judging and rewarding of God’s servants the prophets and His saints and all those who reverence His name.  That is generally read as the removal of God’s people from the earth or the Rapture.  Then comes the time of the end, the destruction of those who destroy the earth.  Later in Revelation we will read about the raising of the wicked dead who then stand before the Great White Throne to be judged.

            The Millennium is a time when the true servants of God will be rewarded.  In Matthew 25, Jesus said to His disciples, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate the people one form another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.”  Jesus was prophesying about the coming judgment of all those who claim to be believers and followers of Christ.  The sheep represent those who are yielded to God and to His will.  The goats are those who talk it but don’t walk it.  They claim to be Christians but live however they want.  And what was it that Jesus wanted?  Read Matthew 25: 34-46.  God will judge us according to how we react to the needs of the helpless, the hopeless, the homeless.  Does that make you a little uncomfortable?  It does me!  It makes me realized how much more I could do.  This takes place at the beginning of the Millennium.

            Finally, we read that God’s temple in heaven is opened and the ark of the covenant is revealed within it – but not a replay of The Raiders of the Lost Ark.  That movie may have been entertaining, but it was way off base on its facts.  Here’s what the Bible says about the ark of the covenant.

            It was a chest made of acacia wood, overlaid with pure gold.  It wasn’t very big – less than 4’ long and just over 2’ high and 2’ feet wide.  It contained the original tablets of the 10 Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, along with a pot of manna and the staff of Aaron.  It was ornamented with golden statues of 2 angels on either side of the mercy seat of God.  This joined together visually the law of God and the grace of God.  The ark was carried by the Jews during their 40-year wandering in the wilderness and it occupied the Holy of Holies in the tent-tabernacle in the wilderness.  Later it was in the tabernacle of David and the great Temple of Solomon.  The ark disappeared into the mists of history during the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon around 600 BC.  It had been on occasion captured by enemies and was rumored to have been destroyed by the Babylonians, along with the other temple treasures.  However, this ark was only a representation of the true ark which stands in heaven as a sign of God’s promise to Israel.  John sees the true ark in this passage, the ark which cannot be captured or destroyed, but stands outside the reach of time, a guarantee that God will never forget His people, Israel.

            In Chapters 12 through 14, we will again see Israel come into prominence as we take a close-up look at that period.  John’s vision will shift to a new angle, a new perspective on what we have already studied, the 7 seals of judgment and the 7 trumpets.  Remember that John’s vision is not linear or chronological or sequential for the most part.  It’s filled with shifts of perspective, flashbacks and OT allusions.

            We will find ourselves again retracing the last 3 ½ years of the Tribulation period until we come to Chapters 15 and 16, when we will take another look with another perspective on this great earthquake period we’ve just studied.  As confusing as it is, the 7 seals, the 7 trumpets and the 7 bowls are really three different views of the same events.

            Doesn’t the Millennium sound wonderful?  Jesus will be reigning over the earth and all will be righteousness and peace.  No more drug abuse, wars, terrorists, abortions, divorce, child abuse or any other kind of violence.  Crime will drop to zero.  God will be the major part of what our children are taught – not the part that people want to get out of education.  Scripture says, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”  It gives us courage to know with certainty that this time will surely come.

CHAPTER 12

            V. 1-6 The Woman and the Serpent – In this chapter we begin with three new symbols: the dragon, the woman and the male Child.  Two of the symbols are easy to recognize.  We’ll read in V. 9 that John reveals this is that ancient serpent called the devil or satan, who leads the whole world astray.  Remember the serpent of the Garden?  This is one and the same.  He is pictured as a great red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns.  Dragons commonly symbolize satanic worship in many cultures around the world.

            The male Child who is born to the woman is the other easy to recognize symbol.  We just read Psalm 2, which is a prophetic, messianic psalm, that the Messiah will rule with an iron scepter and here we find that very one who was prophesied.  Revelation comes out of the entire OT, but Psalm 2 is like an acorn from which the giant oak tree of Revelation has grown.   This iron scepter speaks of a strict justice, which will be in place in the Millennium.  It will be a time of worldwide blessing and prosperity when the curse of sin will be at least partly removed from the natural world.  Obviously there will still be a proclivity to sin or otherwise we would not need for Jesus to rule with an iron scepter.  He will no longer need to rule with an iron scepter after the Millennium because there will be a new heaven and a new earth and no evil, no sin can enter into them.  Think of the good Shepherd who uses His rod to protect His sheep when there is danger.  When the danger is gone, his rod only guides them.

            Now we come to the mystery woman and look at why she? is clothed with the sun with the moon at her feet and 12 stars in a crown over her head.  There are several theories as to who or what the mystery woman represents.  Catholic scholars of course believe this is Mary, Jesus’ mother.  In some ways this makes sense, but then how would Mary flee into a desert place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days?  It seems much more likely that the mystery woman represents not just one person, but a community of people.

            Some scholars say she symbolizes the church and is some substantiation for this view, in that the church is pictured at the close of Revelation as a woman, the Bride of Christ.  But this theory also has an insurmountable problem:  How could the church give birth to Jesus?  The church did not produce Jesus; Jesus produced the church!

            So let’s look at the clues we have.  She is clothed with the sun and the moon is under her feet and 12 stars comprise a crown for her head.  There is only one place in Scripture where you find these symbols clustered together in one place and that is in Genesis 37, in the story of Joseph the boy who dreamed God’s dreams.  Joseph dreamed one night that the sun, moon and 11 stars bowed down before him.  They represented his father, mother and 11 brothers.  We know his story, how his brothers sold him into slavery and he ended up 2^nd in command of all of Egypt, Pharaoh’s right-hand man.  He successfully lead Egypt through 7 years of famine and his dream came true, when his father (and in absentia) his mother along with his 11 brothers bowed down to him as Pharaoh to save them from starvation.  Joseph’s father was Jacob and from Jacob came the 12 tribes of Israel, hence all the people of Israel.  This gives us a picture of Israel itself as the mystery woman and Israel again being the central figure on earth in the last days, along with her male Child, the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

            We have to keep in mind as we study that John has been caught up into Heaven and he is looking down at events taking place on earth without a timeline as we would understand it.  We are shown WHAT happens, but not entirely WHEN it happens.  So when we look at the dragon, the woman and the male Child, it’s like we are almost looking at a silent movie, with a few single frames of the event.  We can imagine the great red dragon crouched with its fangs bared, eyes smoldering, drooling, as it watched Israel preparing to give birth to her long-promised Son.  Israel is crying out the pain of labor.  The dragon has every intention of snatching Jesus from her and devouring Him before He can make an appearance on earth.  If we give these symbols faces, we can take them from the time of Jesus’ birth, to the days of the Roman Empire with Israel in captivity.  King Herod the Great was a demon-filled cruel ruler who couldn’t tolerate even one obscure baby from Nazareth being called a king and he set about having ALL babies killed to take care of the problem.  This was undoubtedly the work of satan.  Remember how we have seen stars symbolizing leaders?  The dragon’s tail sweeps 1/3 of the stars or leader from the heaven suggests that 1/3 of the spiritual leaders are removed from their standing with God.  The prophet Isaiah used the term ‘tail’ to described prophets who are deceived and teach destructive lies from satan.  So we see that Israel has been deceived by lying prophets and hence by satan.

            The dragon of world power in Jesus’ day on earth was the Roman Empire with old Herod in power.  He was a cruel, jealous, paranoid despot.  He murdered his favorite of his 8 wives and several other family members.  Later he murdered his own firstborn son Antipas, so killing all the Jewish babies was nothing to him.  But God intervened by sending an angel to warn Joseph and they fled to Egypt beyond Herod’s reach. 

Then in V. 5, we take a leap in time when we jump from Jesus’ birth to what appears to be his ascension into Heaven, some 30 years later.  However, we can’t say that Jesus Himself was snatched up into Heaven.  He ascended.  He was drawn up by God and went of His own choice.  So why the phrase ‘snatched up’?  Just as the Christ Child represented Israel in His birth and in the escape to Egypt, now Jesus represents the Church, the BODY of Christ as it is snatched up from danger and the rage of the red dragon.

            Throughout the NT, the Lord and His church are regarded as one.  Remember how Saul was on the road to Damascus and Jesus spoke to him, asking him, “Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”?  Jesus has ascended long before this, so how could Saul be persecuting Him personally?  By persecuting His Body, the church, because they are one.  We are one.  We are His Body and we are one with Him.

            Later, Saul as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.”  He said the church is a body and the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts and though its parts are many, they form one body.  So it is with Christ.  So by accepting this truth, we can see that the church is snatched up from the world.  Read the two letters to the Thessalonians and you will understand this mystery better.  For many years, people have called this the Snatching Away of the Church.

            So we’ve moved through time from Jesus’ birth to the Rapture or snatching away of the church and next to what appears to be the beginning of the Tribulation Period.  In V. 6, the woman or Israel flees into a desert place prepared for her by God where she is taken care of for 1,260 days or 3 ½ years.  Many scholars believe that during the time of the 2 witnesses, Israel will have been under tremendous persecution and so this is when God sends them into desert exile for their protection and sends the 2 witnesses under His protection to speak truth to those remaining in Jerusalem and we believe to the world through media.  These events would take place in the first half of the Great Tribulation.  Thus we see a subtle shift in how we perceive the Mystery Woman.  While she appears to represent all of Israel as the Woman who gives birth to the male Child, as she flees into the desert, she represents that part of Israel who believes in the Jesus the Messiah and who have refused to submit to the rule of the antichrist.

            V. 7-9 War in Heaven As we consider these verses, there will be a number of things we have to keep in mind.  First let’s look at Michael.  He makes his first appearance in Scripture in the Book of Daniel.  He’s called “the great prince who protects your people,” that is, the people of Daniel.  So we know that Michael is the chief angel who protects the people of Israel and this reminds us that Israel is at stage center at this point in Revelation.  Another thing to consider is that satan has had – to a point – access to Heaven and to God.  In the book of Job, he appears before God to ask permission to torment Job.  In Zechariah, he’s pictured accusing the saints of God before God in Heaven.  And of course we know that he has access to earth.  Paul says it well in Ephesians 6, that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, or other people are not really our problem.  Our real opponent is the devil and his army of wicked spirits who manipulate people and events.  Paul also notes that these spiritual forces of evil are in the heavenly realms.  But here in these verses we find that there will be a time in the last days when God has had enough of that evil one and his army and sends Michael and a great force of angels to drive them out of heaven, hurling them to earth.  We read about this already in Rev. 9:1, when a great star fell from heaven onto the earth.  That star was given the key to the abyss, which when it was opened, loosed a horde of evil spirits upon the earth.  There are also accounts of satan’s fall in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14.

            V. 10-12 How to slay a dragon – It doesn’t look good for the earth and those who dwell there at this point – at least for a while.  Remember the martyrs in Chapter 6 who were given white robes and were under the altar calling out, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you avenge our blood?”  The loud voice from Heaven refers to “our brothers” and it appears that this is the voice of those martyrs or at least one of them.  They refer to their brothers who satan accuses before God day and night, the believing Jews, the remnant of Israel who are still on the earth.  These martyrs are pronouncing that the time has come for the Lord to reign over the kingdom long ago promised to Israel.

            A vital key to living a victorious Christian life is found in V 11.  It is a truth that applies to the past, present and future as far as dealing with the devil and his minions.  We are told that we can overcome the evil purposes and influence of the devil in his attempts to deceive us or misguide us, his efforts to neutralize our effectiveness for God and immobilize us with guilt.  There are three steps for defeating the attacks and accusations of satan.

1.     Trust in the blood of Christ.  Have you ever heard the enemy accuse you in your conscience or your emotions?  Has a little voice ever challenged you, “Who do you think you are?  What makes you think you’re a real Christian?  Look at your sins.  Look at what a failure you are.  Look at the mess you’ve made of things.  How could God ever love someone like you?  We find the answer here and in the Gospel of John where he wrote, “They overcame him (satan) by the blood of the Lamb.”  The first thing to do is admit you are a sinner and what you’re accused of is true.  Without Jesus Christ, without the Holy Spirit, we ARE a mess.  We are selfish, dishonest, impure, and more.  So first we must admit to ourselves and to God that it’s all true.  Then we remind ourselves and satan that by faith in Jesus Christ, we are covered with the blood of the perfect Lamb of God and when the Father looks at us, that’s what He sees – our sins washed clean and us left clean and pure before Him.  Jesus took all our sins upon Himself on the Cross and there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  I want to share a poem with you that describes these beautifully.

I sinned, and straightway, posthaste, satan flew

Before the presence of the Most High God,

And made a railing accusation there.

He said, “This soul, this thing of clay and sod,

Has sinned. It’s true that he has named Your Name,

But I demand his death, for You have said,

“The soul that sins, it shall die.”  Shall not

Your sentence be fulfilled?  Is Justice dead?

Send now this wretched sinner to him doom.

What other thing can righteous ruler do?”

And thus he did accuse me day and night.

And every word he spoke, O God, was true.

Then quickly One rose up from God’s right hand

Before Whose glory angels veiled their eyes.

He spoke, “Each jot and tittle of the Law

Must be fulfilled; the guilty sinner dies!

But wait! Suppose his guilt were all transferred

To Me, and that I paid his penalty.

Behold my hands, my side, my feet!  One day

I was made sin for him, and died that he

Might be presented faultless at Your throne.”

And satan few away.  Full well he knew

That he could not prevail against such love,

For every word my dear Lord spoke was true!

            To me that covers it.  There is no way to defend ourselves against the accusations of satan or avoid the guilt and shame of our sinfulness with complete reliance on the finished work at the Cross and the blood of the Lamb.  Jesus takes away all the charges against us and leaves satan with nothing to say but lies.

2.     Share your testimony.  Everywhere we go – work, home, school, business, recreation – there are people struggling under the heavy burden of sin and guilt and whether they will admit it or not, are living with constantly being accused by satan, unless their consciences are seared.  How do we help them?  By the word of our testimony.  Think of someone being in court, falsely accused, and you have the power through giving testimony as a witness to help them go free.  The difference is none of us is falsely accused until we come to Christ.  John also said that they overcame the devil by the word of their testimony.  It is not only our duty, but our joy to share with others the freedom we have through Christ, the forgiveness, the peace, the grace.  If you don’t believe that we are called to share our testimony, think about this:  what if no one felt they should share their testimony with you?  No friend, no family member, no teacher, no pastor, no one at a retreat.  Where would we be?

3.     Put everything you are and have on the altar of Jesus Christ.   This passage and the Gospel of John record, “they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”  In other words, they loved Jesus more than anything or anyone, even their own selves.  This is the final way we are told we can overcome satan.  How can he make us afraid if all that we are and all that we have belongs to God and we trust Him completely?  Threaten to take our possessions away?  They belong to God so he would be taking them from God and God is our provider.  He can give us back what we had or better or at least what we need.  Threaten to take our lives?  Our lives belong to God and to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  Besides, our lives are not his to take – only God’s.  We have the blood of the Lamb.  We have the word of our testimony.  We have the armor of God:  the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the shoes of peace.  We have faith, hope and love.   We don’t have to fear the dragon.

      V. 13-17 The victory over the dragon brings great rejoicing in Heaven but intensified horror and suffering on the earth.  It was bad enough before this, but now the devil is mad and he knows his time is short.  The only way to get back at God is to torment people – especially God’s people, Israel.

      The woman represents the believing remnant of the Jews.  Those Jews who are not part of this believing remnant will find themselves suffering what the OT prophets called the time of Jacob’s trouble.  The woman, or Israel, was given the two wings of an eagle to fly away.  In scripture “eagle” is used a number of ways.  It signifies strength and power.  It also was used in the context of a number of powerful kings throughout the OT, some of them quite evil.  It’s used as one face of the four living beings.  Many people want to read into this passage something about our country, since we are symbolized by an eagle.  But scripture also records God’s words of how He will bear us up on eagle’s wings.  In fact, this very word was used by God when Israel was led out of Egypt by Moses.  “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”  This is a picture of God’s loving protection and care for His people.

      Some people believe that the Jews will flee to the ancient city of Petra, south of the Dead Sea – a strangely beautiful city hewn out of the rock of the earth.  It is a popular tourist attraction and archeological site in the Holy Land.  At this time, it doesn’t seem like it would be a hideaway, but with all the earthquakes that are coming during the Tribulation, things could change.  In fact, earthquakes could produce a brand new site with caverns, water, soil, whatever the Jews would need.

      The river, according to some scholars, is the image of a vast host of soldiers sent by the antichrist to overtake and destroy this faithful remnant of Israel.  Generally in scripture, bodies of water do refer to bodies of people.  This verse reads like God sends yet another earthquake and it swallows up this vast army.  So satan’s attack was averted and enraged, he turns to another group to attack.  Scripture calls them the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.  Remember the 144,000 Jews in Rev. 7?  We called them Christ’s Commandos – a special band of believing Jews who move out into the four corner of the world preaching the gospel to all the nations.  Of course, the devil will want their powerful witness to stop.

      With his time growing shorter and shorter, the devil will get angrier and angrier and more and more desperate.  He will be backed into a corner and the pace of the events of this time is speeding up.  Does it seem that the events of the world are speeding up now?  The question is, in the midst of the declining moral condition of this world, how are we doing?  Are we relying daily on Jesus and His blood as the source of our righteousness?  Are we sharing our testimony with others?  Have we placed all that we are and all that we have on the altar of Jesus Christ?  Do we have our armor on?  Are we walking in faith, hope and love?

      The battle is raging – even now.  We must overcome now.

Chapter 13

V. 1-4 The Mark of the Beast – It has to be the most famous number in the world.  Have you ever been issued an account number or license number with 666 in it?  What runs through your mind when you see those three numbers in someone’s address or phone number?  It sends a shiver of unreasonable fear down your spine, doesn’t it?  Books and movies are based on the mystery of this sinister number.

      To some people it’s just a superstitious obsession, like the number 13.  But it has much greater significance.  In this chapter we will learn the significance of it and of the even stranger beasts associated with it. 

      In the previous chapter, John saw a great red dragon with 7 heads, 10 horns, and 7 crowns.  The dragon was clearly a symbol of satan.  In these first 4 verses, John sees further manifestation of this same ominous beast.  The sea, as we know from other scriptures, represents the gentile nations of the world.  We see here another manifestation of satan as a worldwide evil power on the earth.

      Daniel 7 has many parallels to this scene in Revelation.  Daniel too saw beasts rising up out of the sea.  He saw a beast like a lion, another like a bear, a third like a leopard and a fourth fantastic kind of creature with 10 horns.  In Daniel’s vision, these 4 beasts represented 4 great world empires of his day.  The lion represented Babylon, the bear – Medo-Persia, the leopard – Greece.  These are incorporated in the beast from the sea in John’s vision.   The 4^th beast of Daniel’s vision with its 10 horns and 7 heads is identifiable as the Roman Empire.  In this one strange beast, all the powers have been combined.  (The lion-like ferocity of Babylon, the bear-like power to crush and dismember like the Medo-Persian Empire, the leopard-like swiftness of the Greeks.

      To fully understand this passage and the meaning of the beast in Chapter 13, we need to look ahead a bit at Chapter 17, where this many-headed, many-horned beast appears again.  We’ll study that chapter in more detail later, but now we need to extract a few important features.  In Chapter 17, John sees a woman riding on a red beast – a beast with 7 heads and 10 horns.  An angel explains to John what these symbols mean.  (Read 17:7-12.)

      In both chapters, we read similar statements:  “The whole world was astonished and followed the beast,” and “All the inhabitants of the world will be astonished when they see the beast.”  Notice in Chapter 17, the phrase, “the beast once was, now is not, and yet will come.”  This sounds like Rev. 13:3 when one of the heads of the beast had a fatal wound, but it was healed.  Fatal is fatal, but not so in this case.  So it sounds like the beast was, wasn’t and was again.  Also notice how this mocks the truth of Christ, who was and is and is to come.

      Now: follow me down this trail.  Verse 9 tells us that those 7 heads are the 7 hills on which the woman sits.  Later in the chapter, the woman is identified as being the great city and the city famous for being the city of 7 hills is Rome.  We already know that the Roman Empire is part of this scenario.  This tells us that there will be a revived Roman Empire in the last days – the head of the beast that was, was not and was again.

      The rest of this passage in chapter 17 is about as clear as mud, but there are a few things we can identify.  We read that of the 7 kings, 5 have fallen, 1 is, the other has not yet come.  We have to look at history to figure this out.  Roman historians wrote that there were five forms of Roman government prior to around the time of Christ.  These 5 formed a kind of confederacy which fragmented and the consuls of those states were succeeded by dictators who took over by force.  Then these were overthrown and replaced by a council of 10 rulers.  But that form of government failed, too, and leaders were then elected by the people.  Those were the 5 forms of government that had ruled Rome and fallen.

      Then John is told in the Revelation that “One is.”  That would be the imperial form of government with the emperors of Rome, beginning with Julius Caesar and continuing in the 5^th century.  That would be the one is that was in place when John received the Revelation.  The angel then adds that a 7^th is to come and it will remain a little while.  Then the beast will appear.

      The beast is one of the 7 kings, who will ultimately die, but be revived and be the 8^th king.  This is what will astonish the whole world. This king will be dead, then alive.  Its deadly wound will be healed and the king will reappear in history.  In V. 12, we read about the 10 horns.  They are 10 kings who at that time had not received a kingdom, but who for 1 hour will receive authority as kings, along with the beast.

      Bible scholars talk about a revived Roman Empire to be made up of 10 nations which will give their authority and allegiance to a single leader.  This satanically controlled man will rule in the geographic area of the old Roman Empire.  That’s why Christians have taken serious note of the EC, the European Community.  Nations which were once fiercely nationalistic and individualistic have united into a kind of United States of Europe.  The EC started as a 10-nation union and that sure got our attention, but it has grown to 11, 12, then 13 nations.  The EC may or may not be the forerunner of the prophesied revived Roman Empire.  But we do know that it is similar to what we can expect this empire to look like.

      V. 5-6 OK, back to chapter 13 – Proud Words and Blasphemies.  We’re looking at the beast and in these verses we see the effect his actions have on the world.  We’ve talked about blasphemy before.  Blasphemy is not cursing.  To blaspheme is to deny the power of God, to claim one’s own power is godlike, to claim to be god, or to identify God Himself with lesser persons or objects.  Idolatry is blasphemy.  If a person worships an idol and calls it God, he is reducing God to the same level as that object.  Claiming to have godlike powers is also blasphemy – a sin which many leaders in the New Age and self-fulfillment movements have done, placing God and human beings on the same level. 

      V. 7-8 Beyond Space and Time – The beast, the leader of the revived Roman Empire, is given enormous power – including the power of life and death over every nation and culture in the world.  You can see why people will follow him.  This doesn’t mean he will directly rule every nation on earth, but his rule and influence will be so vast and far-reaching that every government will bend to his will.  Think how powerfully the United States as a superpower has influenced the world and you will begin to understand just how powerful the beast will be.  And in his case, there will be no other superpower to oppose him or restrain him.  He will be the ultimate conquering tyrant: more powerful than Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler and every other tyrant in history combined.

      All around the world, people will die by the thousands at his command.  There will be believers martyred for Christ in the final days of the Great Tribulation.  These are the martyrs that we read about in chapter 7, the great multitude which no man could number, coming out of the Tribulation from all nations, languages, tribes and people, those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white.  And they will pay the ultimate price for opposing the leader of the revived Roman Empire.

      In V. 8, there’s a reference to “All inhabitants of the earth.”  This is more accurately translated “All the earth dwellers will worship the beast.”  It is another reference not to just the people who live on earth, but those who live only for this world – the materialists and humanists who have no use for heavenly things or do not believe that there is any existence other than this one and that is what they live for.

      In contrast to these earth dwellers are those who tabernacle in Heaven, those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  And keep the perspective that although the reference to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world reveals to us that even though we see Jesus’ death on the cross as a singular time in the timeline of history, Heaven sees it as an eternal, timeless dimension of the cross of Christ – not a moment in time, but an event so much a part of God’s plan that it covers all time and will be real and fresh for all eternity.  It took place on a certain day, in a certain hour, finished at a certain moment on earth, but reckoned as an eternal event which has meaning for people who have lived ever since the beginning of time.  That’s why Abraham and other OT saints could live by grace through faith even then.  They were able to see with their eyes of faith that God had provided a perfect sacrifice for them, even though Jesus was yet to be born.  He showed it to Abraham when He called him to sacrifice Isaac.  He revealed His heart to the Jews throughout history.  The ones who thought all they could do was obey the law and sacrifice and animal did not live by faith.  The ones who saw beyond that and saw that the law was meant to reveal God’s better way for their lives and the sacrifice was just a substitute for what God would provide were trusting in God in the same way we do, just without as much understanding and without the indwelling Holy Spirit we have today.

      V. 9-10 The Law of Consequences – John picks up a phase used by Jesus repeatedly in His ministry and in His 7 letters to the 7 churches.  “He who has an ear, let him hear.”  Or “Listen to me!  This is important!”  If you are using the NIV, you’ll need a better translation here.  The real meaning from the original translation is:

      He who has an ear, let him hear.  If anyone leads others into captivity, into captivity he will go.  If anyone kills with the sword, he will be killed.  This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.

      These are words of encouragement to the saints of the last days.  While people all over the world are being imprisoned and killed, God encourages His people to not be discouraged.  He is saying, “Judgment is coming soon and those who have persecuted you will get what they gave.  Don’t let this hurt your faith.  Hang in there!  Keep the faith!  Endure for My sake!

      It will look for a while that evil has triumphed, but the law of consequences won’t be suspended forever.  God will bring judgment on those who defy Him.

      V. 11-12 A Second Beast – John sees a second beast but this one, instead of rising out  of the sea (the Gentiles), rises out of the earth, which is symbolic of Israel.  Most Biblical scholars believe that this beast represents a leader among the Jews.  He comes from Israel and has 2 horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon.  Remember that the dragon symbolizes the demonic.  This one is a dangerous fraud!  He’s a dragon in sheep’s clothing.  This is the antichrist, the one who blasphemously offers himself as though he were Christ.  Both of these beasts are anti-Christian, but this one is THE antichrist himself.

      This beast has 2 horns like a lamb.  Horns symbolize power so this man has 2 lamb-like powers: the power of a priest and the power of a prophet, in exact imitation of Christ and usurping His role as Christ.  Just as Jesus, our High Priest, leads us to true worship of the Father, the antichrist will lead the world to worship the first beast.

      Most Bible scholars call this part of Revelation the unveiling of the unholy trinity.  The first beast corresponds to the Father, the second to the Son, and the dragon, satan himself, plays the role of the invisible Holy Spirit.  Again, satan is mocking God by imitating Him.

      The second beast, the antichrist or false prophet/priest, accomplished his goal of seducing the world into worship of the first beast in a very graphic way.

      v. 13-15 – Here we see the second beast performing his satanic imitation of an OT prophet.  God allowed them to do supernatural acts or miracles to reveal His will and confirm His power in them, such as call fire down from heaven.

      In 2 Thessalonians 2:9 and 2 Corinthians 11:14, Paul warns us that the devil has the power to produce miracles and to not trust every miracle, assuming they are from God.  With this power, the false prophet/priest deceives the world.

      Most scholars believe that since the antichrist is a Jew he will have his headquarters in Jerusalem.  Some say he is the one the prophet Daniel identifies as making a covenant with the Jews for one “week” or 7 years.  With this false covenant, he will seem to resolve the centuries old riddle of the Middle East – the ancient hatred between the Arabs and the Jews.  This will clear the way for the rebuilding of the Jewish temple on Mount Moriah and it may, in fact, share the mount with the Muslim shrine, the temple of the mount.  During this 7-year period the Jews will be led to believe that the new temple is for the worship of the one true God, Jehovah, but Daniel predicts that this “prince who will come” will break the covenant in the middle of the week – that is after 3 ½ years – and he will enter the temple himself, exalt himself as God and receive the worship of the world.  Paul predicts the same thing in 2 Thessalonians.

      During this period, the political leader of the European coalition is in Rome and the religious leader is in Jerusalem, where he causes an image of the Roman leader to be erected in the temple for the world to worship.  John says the antichrist was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast so it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.  How does that happen?  If you’ve been to Disney World you’ve seen audio-animatronic figures, like Abraham Lincoln in the Hall of Presidents exhibit.  This is robotic technology that moves and speaks and gestures just like a human.  And the world does love technology, right?  This is one way the antichrist could do such a thing, or he could use illusion like David Copperfield or he could employ demonic magic.  However, the false prophet/priest will create an idol in the temple that will be so impressive, awe-inspiring, lifelike and convincing that he will be able to claim godlike powers for himself and the first beast and the world will rush to give him the worship and obedience he demands.

      V. 16-18 The Number of the Beast – Now we’ll look at the power of the antichrist over the world’s economic system.  This passage indicates that worldwide commerce will be rigidly controlled from a central headquarters.  It would be easy enough to do this right now with a credit card.  A person’s entire credit profile can be encoded on that little magnetic strip so that any merchant could know if you are credit-worthy or not.  We are rapidly becoming a cashless society.

      We are long past the days when transactions were carried out with real money.  Since the mid ‘80s and beginning of the ‘90s, the use of checks as purchasing instruments has declined more than 50%.  We are rapidly becoming a plastic society.

      The technology already exists that would let us miniaturize a person’s credit profile onto a tiny microchip that could be implanted in the hand or forehead.  A scanning device could take care of every purchase by simply passing your hand through it or by walking through it.  There would no longer be problems with lost stolen credit cards or identities.  They wouldn’t even have expiration dates.  Either you had money or you didn’t.  This would sure sell well when you think of how much theft would be stopped.  No more worries about our credit being ruined by someone else.

      Isn’t it amazing what a science fiction quality there is to this vision of John’s?  Most of what he saw was completely impossible at that time, but definitely possible now.  John couldn’t have imagined satellite TV, an electronic economy, and robotics.

      Satan won’t create good, but he is obsessed with producing hellishly distorted imitations of the real things of God.  Remember that God will put His seal on His people in the last days, so satan just has to put a mark on his people.  We read in Revelation 7 that 144,000 people from the tribes of Israel will be sealed on their foreheads by God, indicating His ownership of His people.  In these last days, people will be forced to publicly confess that the beast is lord or Jesus is Lord.  There will be no middle ground.  Actually there is no middle ground right now, but we don’t have to give a public profession of our choice.

      John says the mark will be either the name of the beast or the number of his name.  This refers to the first – not the second – beast.  Later the second beast will be called the false prophet and the first beast will be referred to as the beast.  The mark then is the name or number of the first beast.  His name is not given, but the number 666 is.

      Scholars believe it is a foolish waste of time to try to identify someone living today using a code of some sort.  The theory goes that if you substitute numbers for letters you can arrive at a numerical value that will add up to 666 and that will give you the name of the beast.  Many ancient languages used letters for numbers, such as Roman numerals.  The Greeks also had alpha-numerical equivalents.  So how come the English language is the one that has the answers?  Why all of a sudden do we use our alphabet to solve the mystery of the ages?  There’s a list of potential beasts identified by number crunches throughout the years as long as your arm.  Here’s a few.

      Caligula, the mad despot of Rome, was one of the first.  His name added up to 666 and he actually issued an order that his statue be erected in the Temple in Jerusalem, but he later withdrew the order.

      Nero was another.  He proclaimed himself god over many cultures that were under Roman rule, including the Jews.  His name – with some bending and twisting of numbers – also added up to 666.  Here are a few more:  Muhammad, John Knox, Martin Luther, a number of popes, Adolf Hitler, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev.

      Remember that John said this calls for wisdom and that the one who understands should calculate the number of the beast.  Well, I’m pretty sure I don’t understand all this, so I’m leaving the calculating to someone who actually does.  And there will be someone – whether an individual or a group – most likely during the time of the Tribulation, who does understand and who will calculate the number and it will reveal the name of the beast.  This number is a poor imitation of 777 – or divinity times three.  It’s dangerous to play with that number – bordering on the occult.   John says use wisdom.

      John’s urging to he who has an ear is addressed to anyone – not only in the future, but also the present – who is suffering persecution and oppression to endure faithfully.  God is faithful and ultimately He will not allow injustice to win.  John also urges all to be on guard, be discerning, test the spirits to see whether they are of God or of satan.  He gives us warning signs to look for – someone who promotes himself as like god or being god, demands obedience of him personally or his system, professes to have supernatural powers or an inside track with higher realms.  Compare this kind of talk to the humility of Jesus and you will see a fallen, limited, sinful, proud, arrogant man.  This is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing.

      We must refuse to follow anyone like this, but the real antichrist, the beast will be very dangerous.  He will persecute those who do not bow the knee to him, take their possessions, freedom, family and even life.  The ones who love not their lives unto death will be saved by God through eternal life.

CHAPTER 14

V. 1-5 (Read later) Christ’s Commandoes – The 144,000 Jews make a reappearance in this chapter.  Jesus has returned to Mount Zion and His commandoes return with Him.  Mount Zion is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  The 144,000 are clearly defined here as men, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, sealed by God for a special task – to evangelize the world in the last days.

      At this point, it’s easy to lose track of when this is all happening, since John’s revelation addresses the same events from different perspectives and becomes redundant when it does. 

The church has been raptured to Heaven, as Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4, and so shall we be always with the Lord.  There are the set-apart ones, the 144,000 to whom Jesus is appearing at certain times, then disappearing.  This sounds a lot like the 40 days after Jesus’ resurrection when he appeared to His disciples.  We are very familiar with the story of the disciples who were walking to the town of Emmaus.  It’s important to remember that Jesus is in another dimension – a spiritual dimension – and he can appear and disappear at will.

There are three central evil characters:  the dragon (satan), the beast (antichrist), and the 2^nd beast (false prophet/priest).  The 1^st beast or antichrist and the 2^nd beast or false prophet both rise out of the sea, which indicates they will come from the Gentiles; it may also mean they come from the Mediterranean area, possibly Europe, since parts of the original Roman Empire are still in place there.  One or both may very well come from Rome.  That would also be a mockery of the Catholic Church and the pope.  Once the true church is raptured, all those who want to continue with the superstitions of the Catholic Church without including Jesus in the equation would be likely to want a new pope, one who would cure all the world’s problems.  That is not fact, just a possibility.  However, we will read later in Revelation that there is an apostate or false church.  Many have believed over the years that the antichrist would be the pope, but they threw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.  They pronounced the entire Catholic Church as antichristian, even though there are multitudes of true, devout Christians in the Catholic Church.  Add to this cast of characters the image of the 1^st beast (hologram?) (Reread chapter 13 - thru 14:5 in The Scriptures.)

These 144,000 men – the set-apart ones - learn a new song which they hear from Heaven.  They hear the great choir of the redeemed – that would be us!  We will be singing with such power that it will sound to the 144,000 like thunder and they will be the only ones who can learn that song. 

These are very special men.  First of all, they are probably celibate.  They could be married and true to their wives, permitting no sexual sin, including pornography and such.  We know they have kept themselves apart from the world and are sexually pure.  They are dedicated to the Lord and the Lord alone.  The likelihood that they are celibate is no reflection on marriage or on sex in the context of marriage.  It is simply a calling for these special men to be so focused on following Jesus they can see nothing else.  God knows that if they are called into danger and they have a wife – especially a wife and children – their hearts will be divided.  While they want to do God’s will, they must always be thinking of being safe so they can return to or provide for their families.  Remember Paul speaking of being single as the better choice so one could devote himself entirely to God.  He added that this ability is not given to everyone, of course.

They also will be truthful and blameless before the Lord.  They will be Jews who are specially called and specially gifted to live without sin as Jesus did.

These 144,000 men will be kept safe throughout the Great Tribulation and will transition into the Millennium, the 1,000-year reign of Christ in the earth that follows the tribulation.  This special group are called the firstfruits to the Lord and this means that they are the first human beings to enter into this wonderful time in history. 

V. 6-7       The Gospel of Creation – Another angel – not one of the angels we have already read of – flies in mid-heaven with the eternal gospel.  The various translations I read used the terms mid-air, mid-heaven, the middle heaven, and in the midst of heaven.  We’ve touched on the levels of heaven before when we talked about Paul saying he was caught up to the third heaven and as we’ve talked about John the Revelator hearing the call to “come up here.”  This is beyond our understanding, but we have to consider that there is a heaven which we see – the sky, the sun, moon and stars, and there is a supernatural realm which we cannot see – a dimension we live in and occasionally experience, and the Heaven of God, that John and Paul went up to.  If an angel made an appearance so that all could see him, he could be in the sky in a bodily form or appearing in a more supernatural form in the spiritual dimension.  Having said all that, we still don’t know where the angel will actually fly. 

The important thing is that he brings the eternal gospel to the world.  If we were to be called on to bring the eternal gospel to the world, what would we say?  Jesus died for your sins and He will save you if you put your trust in Him.  That is the gospel as we know it, but the angel proclaims to the world to fear God and give Him glory because the hour of judgment has come – to worship Him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.  The angel brings the good news that despite what they have believed, God is the creator of all things and His Word is true.  He said He would bring judgment upon the earth and here it comes.  This gospel is the good news of the power and faithfulness of God – that He really is the great I AM, and if you have any sense at all you will fear and worship Him.  The time for reaching out with the grace of God through Jesus is passed.  The time of mercy and forgiveness is behind.  The time of God’s judgment is here. 

Paul wrote, “In Him we live and move and have our being.”  This joins us to the creation.  God has made us and not we ourselves.  He created all things, including us, and we are called to worship Him and understand that every breath we take, every moment we live is given to us by God.  Our existence and the existence of all things bears witness to God.  We cannot live without Him and we owe Him our worship.  In the great faith chapter of Hebrews, we read, “Anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”  That is the basis for judgment.  The question will be asked, “Did you worship Me.”

V. 8 Babylon crashes and burns – A second angel follows the first one announcing that Babylon is fallen.  We will be reading more about Babylon in chapters 17 and 18 when it is symbolized by a woman who rides the beast.  Babylon is considered to be the false church.  There is repetition of the word ‘fallen’ or ‘ruined’ in some translations and this may be due to the possibility that Babylon is more than one thing.  We know how the devil loves to imitate the things of God to mock Him and we know that Israel is the only three-fold people to ever exist – a race or nation or ethnos of people, a religion, and an actual place.  I didn’t find this in anything I read specifically, but from the various writings I came to think that Babylon – which has always glorified satan – will be the same.  Some scholars think that the ancient city of Babylon will be rebuilt on its original site or that another Babylon will be the seat of this final Roman Empire.  Some scholars write that Babylon will be a political system, and some expect it to be the apostate or false church during the Tribulation.  A site, a common group of people and a religion – that’s my conclusion.

V. 9-11 Warning Against the Beast -   A third angel will come along after the first two and this one will tell the world that if any of them took the mark of the beast, all their good times are over.  They are about to meet the wrath of God in a personal way, with torture through fire and sulphur forever.  All God has ever wanted is a relationship with His people, one in which we have respect for His power, adoration for His majesty, thankfulness for His gifts and grace, and love Him for being our faithful, kind Father.  The world is beyond that at this point.  They either do not yet believe in Him or do know He is real and do not want a relationship with Him.  Please understand that God has not withdrawn from these people.  They have withdrawn from God.

Some people want to deny the reality of hell and the idea of eternal punishment for those who reject Christ. Yet Jesus referred to hell (gehenna, the lake of fire) in 11 out of its 12 occurrences in the New Testament, and He made 12 out of the 19 references to hell fire. Jesus made more references to hell than any other person in the New Testament, so the theory that God is too kind, too merciful to REALLY send people to hell just doesn’t work.

God loves everyone, but His love cannot express itself to those who reject it.  Their torment is described as continuing forever, the strongest expression of eternity of which the Greek is capable. To emphasize the idea of continued suffering, they are declared to have no rest day or night. In describing the worshipers of the beast, the word ‘worship’ as well as the word ‘receive’ in verse 11 is in the present tense, emphasizing continued worship of the beast over a long period of time—the worshipers spurning the testimony of the godly remnant and plunging blindly to their doom. The same present tense is used in describing their torment. As the worship of the beast is not interrupted by repentance, so their torment is not interrupted when repentance is too late. How dangerous it is for people to trifle with false religions, which dishonor the Living Word and contradict the written Word.

V. 12-13 – The Blessing of the Saints - The stern warning addressed to all worshipers of the beast is also an encouragement to those who put their trust in Christ in the time of the great tribulation. Though some will face martyrdom and others will need to go into hiding, they are assured that their end is far better than the easy way out.  Can you imagine how difficult it will be to be a person of faith at this time?  Imagine being a Christian without the Church or Christian organizations or Christian music or any other Christian influence other than the 144,000 who go out preaching.  Imagine having to keep your faith a secret while aching to tell others of their doom with faith in Jesus Christ.  If we sometimes feel tired and overwhelmed, imagine how these new Christians will feel.  The promise of rest would be so encouraging.  And they must feel like they can do so little, but God says their deeds will follow them.  How often do we just yearn for a vacation – or even just a weekend away from it all and our lives are blessed beyond description?  How these folks will yearn and long with all their hearts for escape from this wretched place, while at the same time wanting to stay and win a few.

Verse 12 gives the proper link between works and faith so necessary in all ages, but especially in the great tribulation, which is that works do not save but are evidence of true salvation.

In verse 13, John hears a voice from heaven pronouncing a blessing on those who die in the Lord during this period as martyrs of the faith. Four times so far in the Revelation there is a record of a voice from heaven and now here and a couple more times later a voice is heard—a direct communication from God rather than through an angel. The implication is that this is unusually important and a direct divine pronouncement. The blessing is repeated, this time in the voice of none other than the Holy Spirit.

V. 14-16 The Harvest – The scene changes.  We’ve come to the time of the Harvest.  The 144,000 are the first fruits and now the rest of the harvest takes place.  There is no doubt that the one like a son of man with a crown of gold and a sharp sickle is Jesus Himself and He appears to be sitting, waiting for God the Father to give Him the word to begin the harvest.  Suddenly a messenger/angel comes out of the Heavenly Temple from the Presence of God the Father with His message for God the Son.  Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come; the harvest of the earth is ripe.

Some translations read ‘fully ripe,’ which suggests fruit that has just passed its prime, fruit that is on the edge of rotten, fruit that looks good until you pick it, then you find it’s too soft, mushy, or mealy.  That sounds a great deal like the world condition at that time.  Let’s read the passage in Matthew 13:36-50, when Jesus explains His parable about the different kinds of seeds that are sown.  This whole chapter for the most part is about the harvest of the Tribulation Period.  Jesus is our great judge and it is He who swings the sickle of judgment over the people of the earth.  We see from Matthew 13 that Jesus harvests the wheat and the weeds – the saved and the sinner, so this harvest is of people.

V. 17-20 The Harvest continues with an angel showing up with a sharp sickle and another one who had charge of the fire.  They are sent to harvest the grapes from earth’s vine.  Grapes suggest works.  We know that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches and by His power we bear good fruit.  In this case the fruit is not good fruit, so it appears to be the judging of the wicked deeds of the world.  It appears the wicked of the world are about to reap the reward of their fruits and it’s not a pretty sight.  The grapes are thrown into the winepress of God’s wrath.  This winepress is situated outside the city.  If you see this phrase in the OT, it usually indicates something that is sinful or unacceptable to God.  Instead of wine or grape juice, this winepress produces a flow of blood rising as high as horses’ bridles for about 180 to 200 miles – about the length of Israel.  This is a time of destruction of Israel predicted by several OT prophets, referred to as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble.

At this point, the writing changes from the vagueness of symbolism to the harshness of a news report.  This is beyond any killing fields in history, beyond the devastation of Hiroshima and the deaths of 125,000 at Iwo Jima, the Civil War of our nation which was a vast and terrible bloody war, beyond World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam combined.  There is a morning coming for Israel and the world, but first there is a long night during which the human race will grow even darker.

           

  

This chapter reminds us clearly that we are living in the Age of Grace.  God is withholding judgment to allow as many as will to come to Him by faith through grace.

Chapter 15

V. 1-2 – The Sign of the 7 Angels with Plagues – John says he sees another sign in Heaven.  That would be the third sign in Heaven, the first being the woman who represents Israel, the second being the great red dragon, which represents satan and the beast and the kingdom they build, and the third being the 7 angels with the last of the plagues, which represents God’s final judgment of satan, the beast and the whole evil empire.  This sign is described as great and amazing and these words in the Greek are only used here and in V. 3 together – nowhere else in the Bible except as separate terms.  These angels appear according to what I read to be a different group of angels than any previously mentioned.  In the Greek, the reference to the plagues says the angels have the “plagues, the last ones.”  So this is the final judgment of God and immediately precedes the second coming of Christ.  The use of the word finished if understood in the Greek describes the fulfillment of the divine purpose.  It’s the same word Jesus used on the Cross when He said, “It is finished.”

            The word wrath is worth thinking about.  In the Greek, two Greek words are used to produce the phrase “fury of His wrath.  It implies not attitude, but action, not emotion but motion to act.  It‘s like a heightening of the wrath of God coming to the point of doing something about it – judgment.

The sea of glass seems to be an allusion to the sea of glass like crystal of Rev. 4:6 which is before the throne of God.  The first sea of glass reflects God’s glory.  We’ve noted before that scripture uses bodies of water to symbolize groups of people, so if this is a group of people and they reflect the glory of God, that sounds like us – the church that has been raptured and is before the throne of God.  The 2^nd sea of glass has fire mixed in and it is present in the latter part of John’s revelation.  This suggests God’s righteous fury has filled the raptured church in Heaven.  Some translations say the martyrs of the tribulation period who had to go through the fire of the tribulation are standing on the sea of glass and some say standing beside it.  Best I can tell, the most accurate translation is standing on it.  These are the people overcame the beast and his image.  The 144,000 did this, too, but these are the ones who were martyred for their faith.  Yes, they died, in fact were killed, but the beast didn’t win because they won through Christ’s victory on the cross.  And satan knows it.  These saints have harps of God.  The harp or lyre and the trumpet are the only musical instruments mentioned in Revelation.  The only ones who are given a harp are the ones who refused to worship the beast or take his mark and were martyred because of it.  That shoots down the misconception that we’ll all have harps and sit around on clouds.

            V. 3-4- The Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb – There are 2 songs being sung and there is some disagreement as to what these are.  The first, the song of Moses may be the song that Israel sang after God delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh and the Egyptians.  You can see the words to that song in Exodus 15 or you may recall when it was sung as a praise song some years ago – “I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea.”  Or it could be the song that Moses sang and wrote to Israel at the end of his life, which you can read in Deuteronomy 32.  It’s a song about the faithfulness of God and his intention defeat Israel’s enemies.  This song fits more closely to Revelation 15, but both are songs of praise to God.  It describes what God does as great and amazing and the inference seems to be what He WILL do, rather than what He has done.  It recognizes God as the great I AM who will work mighty things in the future.  It is a prophecy of how those nations who do not fear the Lord WILL fear the Lord at some point.  The Song of the Lamb is this song recorded in Rev. 15.  The Song of the Lamb is the future praise song to God and the Song of Moses is the song of the past.  Notice that there is nothing in these songs that brings attention or credit to the martyrs or the Israelites of the past.  The songs only praise God and His mighty works.

            The Israelites sang the Song of Moses after a very scary night before their deliverance from Egypt.  The angel of death passed over Egypt and because the Israelites obeyed God and marked the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a sacrificed lamb, they were not harmed.  The Song of the Lamb is sung by those who obeyed God and marked the doorposts of their hearts with the blood of the Perfect Lamb of God.  I believe that will include us.

            It’s awesome to consider that while the beast thinks he is expressing his absolute power by destroying these saints of the Tribulation, he is only providing a free shuttle service to Heaven.  God can use anything and anyone to do His will.  He spoke through a donkey in the OT and here He uses the antichrist to deliver His own people to Him.

            V. 5-8 The 7 Last Plagues – Remember Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah 6?  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him were the seraphim, each with six wings … and they were calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  At the sound of their voices the doorposts and the thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

            Here in these verses in Revelation, John sees a similar sight.  The Dwelling Place of the Tent or Tabernacle of Witness is opened.  This is the temple of Heaven which is the model for the temples that have been built on earth – the first one was literally a tent constructed in the wilderness by the Israelites under Moses direction.  John looks into the Holy of Holies, the Sanctuary and sees smoke inside the temple - the Shekinah glory of God.  This is one way that God reveals Himself and is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.  I’ve shared before how I saw this once as a girl at a Baptist GA House Party on the campus at Baylor.  It looks exactly like smoke, but it is controlled, or settled in a certain area more like how fog does.  In this passage, the smoke fills the temple, revealing that the temple is full of the Holy Spirit.  Entrance to the temple has been available to mankind for thousands of years, but at this point it is clear that that time is over.  The passage says no one can enter the temple until the 7 plagues are ended.  This means that if anyone remains alive on the earth who does believe in Jesus, that person will have to endure what comes until it’s over.

            In the OT, only the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, but now John sees angels coming out of the Heavenly Sanctuary.  They are all white and gold and are carrying 7 plagues.  One of the four living beings gives them the 7 bowls filled with God’s wrath.  These bowls are about to be poured out on the earth and the result will be to set everything right again.  The plan and purpose of God is in motion and nothing can stop or change it.

Chapter 16

            V. 1-2 The 1^st Bowl of Judgment – The 7 bowls are poured out in rapid succession and it will be what the OT prophets called the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.  If what we’ve read so far sounds horrible, wait until we read about these 7 bowls of God’s wrath.  Jesus said of this time that if it were not cut short, no one would survive.  We aren’t sure exactly how long this part of the Tribulation will be, but we can tell it will be more intense than anything thus far.  These bowls appear to correspond with the 7 trumpets, so some have thought them to be an intensification of the trumpets.  They do fall in the similar order as the trumpets, dealing with the earth, with the sea, rivers and other bodies of water, the sun, darkness, and lightening, thunder and a great earthquake.  However, there is a marked difference between these bowls and the trumpets, which indicates this is yet another series of terrible events.  For starters, the first 4 trumpets deal with 1/3 of the earth while the bowls of wrath are universal and greater in intensity.

            John hears the voice of God loudly commanding that the seven bowls of God’s wrath be poured out on the earth.  When the first one is poured out, the people who have taken the mark of the beast are the first to suffer and they will be covered with sores.  Notice the correlation between taking a mark on the skin and then getting sores on the skin.  This is a picture of the importance of the flesh to sinful man and what sin looks like on that flesh.  This will be a totally immoral society so it would be easy to see how STDs could result in this kind of severe problem or it could be brought on by drugs.  

            The 7 bowls are both literal and symbolic.  The judgments will occur as John describes them, but they also have another meaning.  They reveal a truth that otherwise wouldn’t be known.

            We’ve seen the symbolism of the earth for Israel, so the first bowl poured out on the earth represents a judgment within the land of Israel.  In a literal sense, the judgment will fall on the whole world, but symbolically, it will fall with greatest force on the apostate Jews who follow the beast, who are deceived by his lying propaganda and who accept the antichrist rather than The Christ.  It is thought that there will be very few true believers left at this point, if any.

V. 3 The 2^nd Bowl of Judgment – the 2^nd angel pours out his bowl on the sea and it turned into blood like that of a dead man and every living thing in the sea died.  If we look at this symbolically, this would mean the Gentile nations – the rest of the world other than the ‘earth’ or the Israelites in V. 1.  The literal meaning, however, could be the Mediterranean Sea due to its proximity to the old Roman Empire and the center of operations of the beast.  It could also mean all major bodies of water on the earth.  If so, the stench alone could make people want to die!  This bowl is also similar to the 2^nd trumpet, but again, the trumpet affected a third while this is a universal problem or at least it doesn’t specify a portion.  It is also similar to the first plague upon Egypt during Israel’s captivity when the Nile was turned to blood and the fish all died.  One suggestion for this phenomenon is red tide, which we along the coast are certainly aware of.  It is occasionally seen in the Caribbean and other seas that are sheltered by land masses.  It’s a microorganism which is unbelievably prolific and can so cover the water that sea life beneath it will die if it doesn’t escape in time.  Perhaps this will cover the Mediterranean.  We can only speculate.

V. 4-7 The 3^rd Bowl of Judgment – Now it appears that all the waters of the earth in the form of rivers, streams, springs and such are also turned into blood – whether literally or in some condition that looks like blood we don’t know.  The only thing that reinforces the idea that it is actually blood is from this passage where it says this is to avenge the blood of the saints.  If this is a blood for blood situation, then we’re looking at real blood, not only here but also in the sea in the previous verse.  I couldn’t find much of an explanation on the altar speaking out, but my thought is we know that the altar throughout the Jewish religion is where sacrifices were brought to God to pay for the sins of mankind.  Therefore it is a place of forgiveness and atonement.  It is where peoples’ sins have been forgiven and their lives have been restored by God.  It is the place of redemption.  So God’s mercy and grace that result in redemption gets in the face of those who killed the prophets and saints.

V. 8-9 – The 4^th Bowl of Judgment – is poured out on the sun so that it burns people.  The corresponding trumpet affected only a third of the sun, of the moon and of the stars.  For a time, the sun’s heat is suddenly increased and we know this can happen because we are aware of the great flares of nuclear fire that burst out from the sun’s surface and disrupt the earth’s magnetic field.  This is when we have trouble with our cell phones and other items of communication.  This sounds like immense solar flares, which have actually been predicted for the not so distant future.  This would produce increased ultraviolet radiation which would cause severe sunburns.  The amazing thing is that it reads like people know this is God’s doing, and still they do not repent.  In fact, they curse God!

V. 10-11 – The 5^th Bowl of Judgment –  This bowl is poured out on the throne of the beast and his kingdom is plunged into darkness.  This would be the revived Roman Empire of Western Europe.  A similar occurrence is recorded from May 19, 1780, when the entire region of New England was covered by darkness – a day which is known in New England history as The Dark Day.  The mysterious blackout lasted for several daylight hours.  The phenomenon occurred again on March 19, 1886 when a zone of darkness moved across central Wisconsin, causing the sky to turn from a bright, cloud-dappled blue to midnight black in a matter of a minute.  It blanketed several villages and towns to the west of Lake Winnebago and lasted about 10 minutes.  It’s has recurred in Memphis, TN in 1904, Louisville, KY in 1911 and other times and places around the world.  No one was ever able to explain these events in terms of a known phenomenon such as an eclipse and most of the people who experienced these events were terrified and believed that the end of the world had come.  The land of Egypt was plunged into darkness as the 9^th plague when Pharaoh refused to let the people of Israel go.  We also know that the day Christ was crucified, there were 3 hours of complete darkness during the day.  The symbolism of this event in Revelation would be the removal of the light of God’s truth from the world.  We know how the world reacts to brown-outs.  People go crazy.  There’s looting and all kinds of wickedness.  In a black-out fear takes over.  Imagine this event with unexplained darkness.  It’s likely they will be terrified, but, like Pharaoh, not terrified enough to repent and turn to God.  This darkness that envelopes the kingdom of the beast is a foreshadowing of the outer darkness Jesus spoke of, where unrepentant sinners will be cast.

V. 12-14 – The 6^th Bowl of Judgment – Keep in mind that these events appear to be falling in place rapidly and perhaps immediately after the trumpet events.  This judgment falls on the Euphrates River and the result of it is beyond catastrophic.  The drying up of the river sets in motion a series of things that lead up to and occur during the 2^nd coming of Christ.  These may be merely hours in the progression of one thing to another or it may take days, weeks or months, but at any rate, it will be a swift process.

            The 6^th angel pours out his bowl to dry up the Euphrates and make a way for the kings from the east to enter Israel.  This river has significant history throughout scripture.  For starters, in Genesis we can read how this river flowed out of the Garden of Eden.  And it is the prophesied eastern boundary of the Promised Land, the land God promised to Moses and his descendants.  It was also the eastern boundary of the original Roman Empire.  There are many references to the Great River Euphrates in scripture.  If you kept up with the progress of the 1991 Gulf War, you may remember that the Euphrates formed an impassable barrier to the armies of Saddam Hussein as they tried to retreat from U.N. forces.  They were bottled up with the armies of 30 countries before them and the Euphrates at their backs.  This won’t happen at this point in history.  The Euphrates will be a dry river bed – a virtual highway for invading armies.

The kings who are able to cross the river leading their armies are from the east.  The original language implies the kings are from the land of the sun rising, which certainly suggests the Orient, but in any case means east of Israel as the sun rises.  It could include China, India, Japan, and even the entire Orient.  We’ve seen in recent years these nations rise to great prosperity and military power.  The U.S. owes China so much money from borrowing that China practically owns us.  If they called in their loans all at once right now, it would destroy our economy.  When you think that Japan was all but destroyed in 1945 and China was a backward agrarian country only a few decades ago, it’s astonishing to see them now.  China is a world superpower.  People like to quote Rudyard Kipling by saying, “East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.”  But that’s not the whole thought he expressed.  He actually wrote, “Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat.”  Whether or not he knew that he was prophesying the battle of Armageddon or not, his words describe what is coming next.

V. 15 - Jesus speaks - In the midst of this mounting horror, Jesus Himself speaks and reassures those remaining believers that He is coming like a thief.  At first thought, we’d probably say WHAT believers?  But we know that the 144,000 are protected and still alive.  We know that some Jews will be hidden away somewhere – perhaps Petra – we don’t know.  There won’t be many, but however many there are, Jesus encourages them to hang on, He’s coming.  He repeats His words from the Gospels and Paul’s words from his letter to the Thessalonians.  He tells them to watch and keep their clothes with them so they will not be naked and shamefully exposed.  That means they must trust, trust, trust, trust, trust!!!  They must put all their confidence in Jesus and in the robe of righteousness He bought and gave them.  They cannot let down their guard but must be alert and ready for His return.  If they are robed in hypocrisy or dishonesty, in pride or any other thing, they will be exposed.  Remember how the man sent his servants out to notify his guests it was time for the banquet and they were all too busy to come.  So he sent the servants out again to gather in whosoever would come to the wedding banquet.  Once they were all gathered, he spotted some who were not wearing wedding garments and had them thrown out where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.  This is a picture of this end of the Tribulation.  There will be no religiousness, no hypocrisy, no falseness or dishonesty – only truth as everyone stands before God.

We all have a tendency to hide behind things – to keep others from knowing what we are really like or who we really are.  We want people to believe the best of us, to respect us, to like us, to promote us, include us, etc.  Transparency is so important to believers.  The world loves to look at us and call us hypocrites and sometimes they are right.  They love to use that as an excuse to not come to church, to not be involved with Christians and they wear it like a badge of honor, as if knowing that everyone is hypocritical makes it just fine for them to be so, too, or that they are better that other folks because they are NOT hypocritical.

A couple of weeks ago when Ruston gave his testimony, he told how God is teaching him and how sometimes he gets it right and sometimes he doesn’t.  I complimented him on being transparent in what he shared and he looked at me with a puzzled expression.  He said something about well, he guessed that was a good thing.  I told him that the more transparent we are, the better others can see through us to see Jesus.  His eyes lit up because he got it.  The fact is, God can see through our various robes that we wear to hide in, whether others can or not.  The robe He is looking for is the one Jesus gave us – our wedding garment which we received by grace through faith in Him – which can never be taken away from us.  Those who are dressed in the garment of His righteousness on that final day will not only be spared shame but will be blessed indeed.

V. 16 – The War Begins –  Some think that the term Battle of Armageddon is misleading and it might not be a single battle, but the culmination of many battles that end with the great battle that does take place at Armageddon.  However, as unimaginable as it is that the nations of the world would think they could gather together to do battle against God, it doesn’t seem to me that such a battle would last very long.  Thinking to do battle against God is the height of human arrogance – the epitome of pride.  It appears they are aware that the very Day of Judgment is approaching and they are preparing to stand against God and His army!  How unbelievably stupid!  This passage gives us a good look at how the world is actually run, with world leaders thinking they are brilliant and their decisions so smart, when the truth is, unseen forces are moving history forward – not these people who are legends in their own minds.  We see here that three evil spirits appear as frogs which proceed out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.  This unholy trinity performs demonic miracles to deceive the nations and make them believe that there is power to defeat God.  It will be a time like no other with the nuclear arsenals of the world and the armies of the world will be prepared for the war to end all wars.  We don’t know how many warriors will form this final world army since we don’t know what all the disasters and catastrophes of the Tribulation Period will do to the population, but by today’s standards it could be 200 million soldiers – an army with plans to bathe the Holy Land in blood.  Some believe they will start out fighting each other or that some have come to do battle with the beast, but there’s no suggestion of that in scripture as far as I can tell.

            Armageddon is thought by some to mean ‘Mount of Slaughter,’ but Megiddo is the Hebrew term that corresponds to Armageddon.  Over the many centuries numerous battles have taken place in that location, the valley in the shadow of Mount Megiddo, and over and over people have proclaimed such battles to be the Battle of Armageddon.  The missing link, however, is that the Euphrates has not yet dried up.  This valley is 14 miles wide and 20 miles long, but even at that size could not hold all the armies of the world of today.  Does this mean that the armies of the world will be severely diminished at this time?  We don’t know how this area will accommodate all the armies of the world.  In the 6^th trumpet an army of 200 million is loosed to slay 1/3 of the inhabitants of the world and these bowls of judgment follow the trumpets in rapid succession, so there is likely some overlap.

            V.17-21 – The 7^th Bowl – This bowl of wrath is poured out into the air of earth.  This is the first time the air has been touched.  There are numerous speculations on this.  Looking at the natural aspect, some think this is God clearing the air space of military airships, missiles and possibly spaceships if this is far enough into the future for us to have developed to that point.  In Ezekiel 38, there’s a prophecy of a host of the enemy coming like a storm from the north like a cloud covering the land.  Sounds like aerial warfare.

Another take on it is that God is clearing the atmosphere of all demons, because Scripture tells us that satan is the prince of the power of the air.  There are speculations about the earth’s atmosphere, too.  We just don’t have answers for this event.  But after it is done, God the Father speaks and proclaims, “It is done.”  That’s when things really go crazy.  There’s an earthquake greater than any that has ever been on the earth – so severe that cities collapse, island sink into the sea, and even mountains crumble.   Again there are two takes on what happens next.  Some see there is a special focus on the two spiritual capitals of the world – Jerusalem and Babylon.   Jerusalem is split into three parts and God’s wrath covers Babylon.  But others believe the reference to the great city is also Babylon and it is the city split into three parts.  In Zechariah 14 it is prophesied that the Mount of Olives will be split in two with half moving to the north and half to the south.  There are other references by the OT prophets of the topography of Israel changing drastically.  Again we don’t have the answer to this event.  Ultimately, it appears that every single thing man has built will be toppled.  There will be no monument left to the ingenuity of mankind.  And then – the 100-lb. hailstones start to fall!  So not only is every single thing toppled, now it will be beat into little pieces.  And how do the unbelievers react to this?  They curse God. 

Chapter 17

V.1-6 The Great City Babylon and the Dragon Lady – Chapters 17 and 18 are a zoom-in, close-up look at the final destruction of Babylon.  It is suggested that Chapter 17 deals with Babylon at a spiritual level and 18 at a political level.  Keep in mind that Babylon represents false religion and the woman or the great prostitute is the symbol of Babylon, who ruled over the nations of the earth through false religion.  It is strongly suggested that this is not false religion in the perspective of non-Christian religions, but actually false Christian religion – people who outwardly appear to be Christians but whose hearts do not belong to God.   These are people who believe they can earn their way to heaven or that they personally merit favor with God.  It is also people who believe they can do as they will as long as they go through the motions.  It’s hard to believe that this kind of religion could survive through Revelation, but this is a very deceptive belief system.  It all points back to self, therefore leaving the person susceptible to anything that satisfies self.  This is spiritual adultery and the whole system is described as a prostitute – one who sells herself to get what she wants.  The people of the earth are drunk with the wine of her immorality.  True believers, on the other hand, are referred to as the Bride of Christ without spot or wrinkle.  Believers will be the pure, legitimate wife of Jesus.

            The timelessness of Revelation warns us to be careful that we are not just an outward show of religion, but are inwardly true believers who are committed to God’s will for ourselves and for others, people who put no confidence in our own works to save us, but only in the final work on the cross.

            V. 3-4 The Harlot in the Wildnerness – Remember that we are zooming in again to take a closer look, so this isn’t picking up where the last chapter left off.  This is another look, another perspective of the events that have already taken place.  The woman riding the beast represents the religious power of the time or the false/apostate church and the beast represents the political power of the time or the revived Roman Empire, and they appear here in a symbiotic relationship.  The beast supports the woman and is her transportation while the woman holds the reins to the beast.  The true church has been raptured and the false world church is so interconnected with the beast and his political system that you can’t separate the two.  The woman is all decked out in red and purple finery with gold jewelry and precious gems.  Sounds a lot like all the ecclesiastical pomp of high church and is an imitation of the priests of the Jewish tabernacle.  Purple represents royalty and scarlet also has implications of both power and immorality.

The 7 heads and 10 horns represent 7 successive forms of government and the 10 kings who rule during the end time.  We’ve talked about all of this in previous chapters.