The Resurrection Story (part 1)

David Brandt Berg

1984-03-30

This is Holy Week, but as far as we’re concerned, every week is holy, sacred, and set apart to serve the Lord. Every day is holy as unto the Lord. Some esteem one day above another; we esteem all days the same (Romans 14:5). They are all the Lord’s day—not mere holidays, but holy days.

The Christian world in general celebrates the death of Christ on Friday and His resurrection on Sunday, because according to the Scripture, His death was followed by a Sabbath. But this was the Passover Sabbath, a special day which was determined by certain phases of the moon and did not even necessarily fall on Saturday. The usual weekly Jewish Sabbath was a Saturday, but this was a very high and holy “Sabbat.”

It doesn’t say in the Bible that He was crucified on Friday. The day of His resurrection is specified as the first day of the week, which according to the Jewish week, of course, was the day after the seventh, the usual Sabbath or Saturday—which would then make Sunday the day of His resurrection.

Because of the pagans’ influence on the calendar, most of our weekdays are named not after any special holy days, Jewish nor Christian, but after pagan gods, and they threw in a few extras. Sunday was named after the sun, not the Son of God, sad to say. Monday was named after the Moon. The heathen worshipped all kinds of things, including the sun and the moon. Tuesday was named after a lesser known deity, Tiw, related to Mars, god of battle. With Wednesday the Anglo-Saxons got in a little influence. It’s named after the Norsemen’s god Woden—Woden’s Day, Wednesday. Thursday was named after their supreme god, Thor. Friday was also named after another Norse deity, Frigg, wife of Odin, another pagan god. And Saturday was named after a planet, Saturn, Saturn’s Day. None were named after our God or Jesus, but all pagan names after pagan gods.

In the New Testament we are specifically told that Jesus rose on the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1), and according to both Roman and Jewish calendars, the first day of the week followed the Sabbath, and therefore was Sunday. It has been the normal custom of the Christian church to observe Easter on a Sunday, to observe the resurrection of Jesus and to commemorate His being raised from the dead.—Which is why Sunday later became known as the Christian Sabbath or day of worship, and you’ll find many references throughout the New Testament that Christians were meeting on the first day of the week.

Many of them were secret believers and therefore remained faithful to go to synagogue on the Sabbath, but they had their own private meetings as Christians on Sunday, having their special Christian fellowship on the first day of the week. This became a common day of fellowship for Christians. This was very convenient because they could bring all the latest news from the synagogue. They tried to squeeze in messages about the Messiah, reminding them of various passages and prophecies, Isaiah 53 and all the rest. They’d get up and read it as Jesus once did to remind them of the prophecies which showed very clearly that Jesus was the Messiah.

They were still trying to be an influence in the synagogues on the Jews who were a little slow in believing, and then going together as Christians on the first day of the week, Sunday, to have fellowship and to exchange all the latest news and what progress they were making and what dangers they faced and what persecution was possible. Many of them were sort of living a double life, particularly some of the older ones, who were members of what became known as the concision or the circumcision, those who firmly believed that they should continue to keep the Law of Moses and the Sabbath and the Ten Commandments as well as receiving Jesus as the Messiah. They continued to attend synagogue on Saturday, but then they would also fellowship on Sunday with Christians who believed that Jesus was the Messiah.

They did not abandon their Judaism and their Mosaic Law or their Jewish customs. In fact, you probably couldn’t have told a lot of them from the Orthodox Jews that they had been. They sort of tacked Christ onto their already existing religion and condescended to receive Jesus as the Messiah and to meet together with other Christians on Sunday, the first day of the week, in recognition of their faith in Jesus as Messiah, without letting go of their old Orthodox Judaism and observance of the Law, Sabbath-keeping, and their fellowship with other Jews. In a sense they were trying to straddle the fence, and that’s an uncomfortable place, trying to have one foot in one world and one in the other, trying to enjoy both worlds and please both worlds, and still be respected by the Jews of the synagogues who had not yet received Jesus. You could hardly tell the difference between what they had been and what they were supposed to be now as Christians.

They could be a little dangerous to have around in the new Christian fellowships, as Paul and other apostles indicated in later letters, because in a sense they were almost like spies (Philippians 3:2; Galatians 2:4). They claimed to believe in Jesus, but they were still hanging on to the past, all the old customs and traditions and friends and fellowships and the rest.

We know according to the New Testament that Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day of the week. Scripture says specifically that Jesus spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth after His crucifixion (Matthew 12:40). Good Friday is observed by all the Christian world, both Catholics and Protestants, but if you count three full days and three full nights, you’d have to have Jesus being resurrected sometime Monday evening before the fourth night. But we know He was resurrected in the morning, the first day of the week.

We know He died in the afternoon, because it was the ninth hour of the day, or about three in the afternoon (Matthew 27:46). They were already preparing the Passover, and He died about the time they were killing the Passover lambs for their Passover feasts.—Not on a Friday, but on a Passover evening. Biblical days, Jewish days, did not begin in the morning but at sundown. Genesis says, “The evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:5).

God counted the 24-hour days by putting the night first, followed by the day. That’s even significant regarding times and ages and the way God looks at today, in the sense of this night followed by the day of the Millennium and heaven and the glory that’s to come! This, in a sense, is nighttime to the Lord, this age of the world, and it’s to be followed by the morning and the day. I think you’ll find in that Scripture that contrary to Jewish custom, it puts the word “days” first: “The Son of Man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).—Thereby beginning with the day. So the day He was crucified was the first day that He spent in the heart of the earth. He arrived there on the first day and He spent that night—not counting days as the Jews did, but just flat-out daylight hours and night hours, day and night.

Bible scholars who have worked back discovered that Jesus was crucified on Thursday, and it was the Sabbath eve. Their Sabbath began that night when Jesus had the Last Supper, Thursday night, because the following day, Friday, according to the moon and the way they figured out the Passover, was the Passover Sabbath.—Not the normal weekly Saturday Sabbath, but a high Sabbath, a special high holy day, and it says specifically it was the Passover. This was the Passover feast that they were observing on Thursday night, which was the beginning of the Passover day (Luke 22:1,8,15). Of course, we don’t worry about observing days, but if you are going to observe Easter, then you ought to be observing Good Thursday as the day of Jesus’ crucifixion.

When I was young they used to have sunrise services somewhere around five o’clock, and you had to get up about four to make it. In Miami we had to drive about five or six miles to the beach. They had the sunrise service on the beach because the sun rose out of the Atlantic, and you had to get up early enough to get there. A lot of people went there without breakfast and ate breakfast after they got back and then caught a little sleep before Sunday school.

Hundreds of millions of Christians around the world are observing these things at this particular time, and it’s a good time to remember them and to have the Lord’s Supper. “As oft as ye do it, ye do it in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:24–26).—To remember that night, to remember that Last Supper—to remember what the Lord told us to remember. There are not too many things He told us to remember, but that’s one of them. The Lord didn’t say when; He just said, “as often as you do it.” You could do it every day, ten times a day, once a year. “As oft as ye do it, ye do it in remembrance of Him!” (To be continued)

153 – Jesus—His Life and Message: The Passover

Jesus—His Life and Message

Peter Amsterdam

2021-05-04

(You can read about the intent for and overview of this series in this introductory article.)

As the day of Passover was approaching, Jesus’ disciples asked Him what arrangements should be made for the Passover meal. Meanwhile, in the days preceding the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread, the chief priests, the elders of the people, and the scribes were seeking to quietly arrest Jesus in order to put Him to death.

On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?”¹ 

While originally the Passover celebration was a one-day festival, followed by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, by the first century the two had basically merged into a single festival. This can be seen in the Gospel of Mark, where we read: On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” Technically, the sacrificing of the lamb was done on Passover, before the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

In the Gospel of Luke, we read: Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”² Peter and John were instructed to make preparations for the Passover meal. The Gospel of Luke often mentions Peter and John together.³

In each of the synoptic Gospels,⁴ the disciples inquired as to where they were to prepare and eat the Passover meal. In the book of Matthew, we read:

He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’”⁵ 

The Gospel of Luke tells us:

They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’”⁶

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus told the two disciples that they should follow the man who was carrying a jar of water “and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.”⁷

The account in the Gospel of Mark seems to indicate that Jesus was known to the owner of the house which contained the upper room, and that prior arrangements had been made with the owner to use the room. Obtaining a large room at the last minute during one of the most crowded nights of the year would have been difficult. However, Jesus referred to the room as my guest room, so it is possible that the use of the room was prearranged.

And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.⁸

This upper room was large as well as furnished and ready. This means that it had rugs, carpets, cushions, and couches for reclining as well as short tables for the food. The only thing that was missing was the food, which the two disciples were to prepare there.

The food for this meal would have included the Passover lamb, which would have been roasted over a fire, unleavened bread, a bowl of salt water, a bowl of bitter herbs, a fruit puree or haroseth (a mixture of chopped nuts, apples, wine, and spices), and enough wine for each participant to drink four cups in celebration of God’s four blessings in Exodus 6:6–7.⁹ These verses from Exodus state: Say therefore to the people of Israel, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”¹⁰

When it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”¹¹

Normally, meals were eaten at a table with chairs. Reclining on couches to eat a meal indicates that this was a festive meal, which a Passover meal would be. However, the mood changed when Jesus informed them that one of those at the table was going to betray Him.

They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me.”¹²

The disciples were shocked and saddened to hear this. The Greek text translated as “Is it I?” expects a negative answer, so that it can be understood as meaning “surely it is not me, is it?” Jesus didn’t indicate specifically who would betray Him. In the Gospel of Matthew we read: Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said so.”¹³ However, it is assumed that Judas asked Jesus this question privately and that it was not heard by the other disciples. In the Gospel of John, reference is made to one of the disciples asking Jesus who it is, which will be addressed in an upcoming article.

After stating that it would be one of the twelve who would betray Him, Jesus said:

“For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”¹⁴ 

Jesus pointed out that the events which were to come would happen, according to Scripture. However, He added a condemnation for Judas, the one who would betray Him.

At that point of the meal we’re told that

As they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”¹⁵

In the Gospel of Luke we read, “This is my body, which is given for you.”¹⁶ In 1 Corinthians, where the apostle Paul gives an account of Jesus’ Last Supper (written before the Gospel accounts), we read that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”¹⁷ Jesus’ action was a prophetic sign which was meant to foreshadow what awaited Him; just as the bread was broken, so would His body be broken.

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”¹⁸

After partaking of the bread, Jesus took a cup filled with wine and gave thanks. This thanksgiving was likely directed to God. It is from this verse that we get the name which is often used for communion, the Eucharist. The Greek word eucharistos means “to give thanks.”

Other names which are used in the New Testament for the Eucharist are:

The breaking of bread. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42). And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts (Acts 2:46). (See also Acts 20:7, 11.)

The table of the Lord. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons (1 Corinthians 10:21).

Communion. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16 KJV).

The Lord’s Supper. When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat (1 Corinthians 11:20).

Jesus then said:

“Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”¹⁹ 

Commentators have a wide variety of opinions about the meaning of this verse, and because there are so many differing opinions, I thought it best not to comment on it, other than to include a quote from one author.

Each New Testament account of the Last Supper involves a positive statement concerning the future. Thus the celebration of the Lord’s Supper should not be simply a sorrowful, backward recollection of Jesus’ suffering and death, but should also conclude with a hopeful look forward to and joyous anticipation of that glorious day when believers share with Jesus the “new” wine/food of the messianic banquet.²⁰

(To read the next article in this series, click here.)

Note

Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

¹ Matthew 26:17. See also Mark 14:12, Luke 22:7.

² Luke 22:7–8.

³ Luke 8:51, 9:28; Acts 1:13; 3:1–4; 4:13, 19; 8:14.

⁴ Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

⁵ Matthew 26:18.

⁶ Luke 22:9–13.

⁷ Mark 14:14–15.

⁸ Mark 14:16.

⁹ Stein, Mark, 647.

¹⁰ Exodus 6:6–7.

¹¹ Mark 14:17–18.

¹² Mark 14:19–20.

¹³ Matthew 26:25.

¹⁴ Mark 14:21.

¹⁵ Mark 14:22.

¹⁶ Luke 22:19.

¹⁷ 1 Corinthians 11:23–24.

¹⁸ Mark 14:23–24.

¹⁹ Mark 14:25.

²⁰ Stein, Mark, 653.

Copyright © 2021 The Family International.

Easter—Yesterday, Today, and Forever! (part 2)

Peter Amsterdam                                     

2013-03-26

 

Jesus was executed because the Jewish leaders rejected Him as the Messiah, and because the Romans said no unauthorized king could live. Yet the extraordinary and unexpected event of His resurrection reversed the verdicts of both the Jewish and the Roman courts.^[14]

Despite Rome’s rules that would-be kings must die, and the Jewish leaders’ belief that Jesus was not the Messiah, God Himself overturned their judgments, validating Jesus as both King and Messiah by raising Him from the dead. God gave His stamp of approval.

This in turn validated all that Jesus taught about Himself and about God the Father, about the kingdom of God and salvation. The resurrection, which proved that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, coupled with the coming of the Holy Spirit, established a new understanding about God. The significance of the resurrection in Jesus’ day was that it validated that Jesus was who He said He was.

Before the resurrection, the disciples didn’t fully understand the things Jesus had told them about His death and resurrection. However, after He rose, during the forty days before He ascended into heaven, He explained the Scriptures to them and they then understood.

He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.^[15]

Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself … They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?”^[16]

The realization that through Jesus’ Incarnation, death, and resurrection, salvation was available to all, was the reason the apostles preached about the resurrected Christ throughout the book of Acts. It’s why the New Testament writers wrote about the significance of the resurrection, stating that it proved He was the Son of God, that we are born again, that we have assurance of our salvation and that without it our faith would be in vain.

[Jesus is] declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead.^[17]

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.^[18]

He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.^[19]

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.^[20]

If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.^[21]

The resurrection was proof that God had indeed entered into the world in a new way, through His Incarnate Son. Fifty days later, after Jesus had ascended, the Holy Spirit also entered the world in a new way by dwelling within believers. These events motivated the disciples and the early church to spread that news throughout the world of their day. They shared the news that through Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross, humanity could become reconciled with God.

For the disciples then, and for us now, Easter is the bedrock of Christian faith and hope. The early disciples, while initially faced with crushed hopes due to their expectations, soon came to see that because Jesus arose, what He did, said, and promised are true. That carries down through history to us today. The risen Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, gave proof of His divinity, and proof that we can trust Him, by dying for our sins and by doing the impossible and rising from the dead.

Because He died for our sins and then rose from the dead, we know that all He said is true: that we have salvation, that we have eternal life, that the Holy Spirit dwells within us, that we have the promise of answered prayer, that He will lead and guide us when we ask Him to. The separation between us and God has been bridged. We are His children, who will live with Him forever, and we can bring others to Him through our witness.

Because He rose, as the firstfruits,^[22] we too will be resurrected in due season. Because of the resurrection, we have the assurance of salvation, the ability to lead a Christ-infused life today, and the honor to live with God forever.

Let’s rejoice in the significance of Easter—yesterday, today, and forever. Happy Easter!

Notes

Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

^[1] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 557.

^[2] Mark 10:35–38, 41.

^[3] Acts 1:6.

^[4] Matthew 16:20–23.

^[5] John 12:13.

^[6] John 12:12–18, Matthew 21:6–11.

^[7] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13–14).

^[8] Luke 24:19–23.

^[9] That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.

And He said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad.

Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered Him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened” (Luke 24:13–21).

^[10] John 11:48–50.

^[11] The high priest said to [Jesus], “I adjure You by the living God, tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard His blasphemy. What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death” (Matthew 26:63–66).

^[12] Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar” (John 19:12).

^[13] Matthew 27:37.

^[14] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 576.

^[15] Acts 1:3.

^[16] Luke 24:27,32.

^[17] Romans 1:4.

^[18] 1 Peter 1:3.

^[19] Acts 17:30–31.

^[20] Romans 10:9.

^[21] 1 Corinthians 15:14 KJV.

^[22] 1 Corinthians 15:20.

Copyright © 2013 The Family International.

Easter—Yesterday, Today, and Forever! (part 1)

Peter Amsterdam

2013-03-26

As Easter approaches, I have been reflecting on Jesus’ resurrection and its significance. What did it mean to His original disciples—all of those who believed in Him during His lifetime on earth? And what does it mean to us today?

By the time Jesus ate the last Passover meal with His disciples, just hours before He was arrested, tried, and killed, they had come to understand that Jesus was the Messiah spoken of throughout the Scriptures (the Old Testament). Their understanding of His Messiahship, however, was different from our understanding today. We look at Jesus through the understanding that He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, that He died for our sins, took our punishment upon Himself through His crucifixion, and that He rose from the dead.

At the time of the Last Supper, Jesus hadn’t yet died and risen from the dead, and the disciples’ understanding of Jesus as the Messiah was rooted in the Jewish people’s interpretation of the Scriptures at the time.

The Jewish people in first-century Palestine believed and expected that God would send a Messiah, as was spoken about throughout the Old Testament. According to their interpretation of Scripture, this Messiah, the anointed one, was going to be an earthly king of Israel. This king would win decisive victories over the pagan oppressors of the Jewish people—whoduring Jesus’ lifetime were the Romans—and would bring true, God-given justice and peace to the whole world.^[1] The expectation was that the king of the Jews would free the nation of Israel from oppression and domination by various other kingdoms, from which it had suffered for centuries. As they saw it, the kingdom to come was going to be an earthly one.

The disciples’ understanding of Jesus as the Messiah up until the time of His death was still based on this interpretation. They were expecting that Jesus would be the anointed king of physical Israel. This would have been the motivation behind the request of the brothers James and John (the sons of Zebedee) to be allowed to sit on Jesus’ right and left hand once He came into power. In other words, they wanted prominent positions when He came to rule Israel.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Him and said to Him, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And they said to Him, “Grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at Your left, in Your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.^[2]

Even when Jesus was together with His disciples after His resurrection, they still asked when He was going to free Israel and restore the physical kingdom:

“Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”^[3]

When Jesus told His disciples about His upcoming death, it was difficult for them to accept this, because there was no conception in the popular Jewish understanding of the role of the Messiah that the Messiah would be killed. We see Peter’s negative reaction—and presumably others felt similarly—in Matthew’s description:

[Jesus] strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ. From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a hindrance to Me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”^[4]

The Greek word Christos, from which the term Christ is derived, means anointed, or anointed one, which is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term mashiyach, meaning anointed, which the word messiah comes from. Jesus didn’t want to spread the news that He was the Messiah, at least not at that point, possibly because it would have brought Him into political conflict with the Roman government. The Romans were quick to stamp out any challenges to their authority, and undoubtedly would move against anyone who was advocating the overthrow of Roman rule or proclaiming himself to be king of a nation the Romans ruled.

While Jesus didn’t want the disciples to spread the news of who He was, He did inform them. Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ statement that He was going to go to Jerusalem to die was basically to tell Him that He was wrong. Why would a disciple tell Jesus that? Because, according to the Jewish perception, the Messiah was not going to die in Jerusalem—he was going to take over the physical kingdom of Israel and would rule and reign in righteousness, which in some way would affect the whole world.

Jesus’ response to Peter was, You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. He’s saying, “Peter, you are seeing it only in the physical realm, with the traditional expectations. You’re not seeing it the way God does. You don’t get it.”

Before Jesus’ time, as well as since, there have been individuals who either claimed to be or whose followers believed that they were the messiah spoken about in the (Old Testament) Scriptures. However, these people—who led rebellions against the foreign rulers of Israel—were killed, and nothing became of their so-called messiahship. They were, rightly, considered failed messiahs.

So, from the natural point of view, Peter’s response is understandable, as is James and John asking Jesus to let them hold positions of power in Jesus’ earthly kingdom. Their expectation was an earthly kingdom with an anointed king, the messiah.

The events of the days before the Passover added to this anticipation. Seeing the large crowd of those who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover taking branches of palm trees and going to meet Jesus, crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel,^[5] would have been exhilarating for the disciples! Jesus arrived in the capital city (as the Messiah was expected to do), and many were proclaiming Him as king. And why wouldn’t they? People had heard that He had recently raised His friend Lazarus from the dead. Throughout His ministry He had healed multitudes of sick people, He had fed thousands of people miraculously, He had spoken God’s word with authority. His arrival caused those who didn’t know who He was or what was going on to ask about it, and the crowds who were following Him said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”^[6]

The expectation of many that Jesus was likely the Messiah was high.

However, to all appearances, everything soon went wrong. Within days Jesus was dead—unfairly accused and savagely killed in the most degrading manner, a manner which the Jews understood to mean that the person dying was cursed by God.^[7] The Messiah was expected to bring the pagans to justice, not to suffer unjust violence at their hands. The hopes of those looking to Jesus as Messiah were crushed—Another failed messiah in their eyes.

You can imagine how devastating this shocking turn of events must have been for the disciples. The teacher they followed, their beloved Master, whom they were sure was the Messiah, was dead. They were confused and discouraged, as seen in the account of two of them who were walking to the village of Emmaus on the day of the resurrection. The risen Jesus drew near and started walking with them. When He asked about their conversation, they stood still and looked sad. In the course of telling their story, they said:

But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel.^[8]

Their hopes of Jesus being the Messiah had been dashed, and they were deeply saddened by His death.^[9]

But then, the resurrection changed everything! God raised the so-called “failed” Messiah from the dead. There had been no Jewish expectation that the Messiah would be raised from the dead, so it wasn’t as if the disciples, or the Jewish people in general, were waiting to see whether Jesus would fulfill some biblical promise in that respect.

A short time before this, upon hearing that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, the chief priests came to the conclusion that Jesus must die, saying:

“If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” … Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them … “It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”^[10]

During Jesus’ trial the high priest had asked Him if he was the Christ, the Messiah, and upon hearing Jesus’ affirmative answer, which included quotations from the book of Daniel about the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God, the high priest and those with him decided that Jesus must die.^[11] They accused Him of blasphemy, which by their law was punishable by death. The Jewish leaders rejected Him, did not believe He was the promised Messiah, and feared that if He lived, the Romans would take away their place in the temple and the nation as a whole.

Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, condemned Jesus to death on the basis of His claim of being a king. It seems he didn’t consider Jesus a threat, but due to the insistence of the crowd and the Jewish authorities, he chose to apply the law.^[12] There could be no kings without the sanction of Rome, so under the Roman anti-sedition laws He was crucified. The plaque which Pilate hung on the cross said, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”^[13] (to be continued)

24: Thy Kingdom Come

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 22

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation chapter 22: “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” We’re in the Holy City now, the new Jerusalem, come down from God out of heaven to a new earth, the capital city of the world to come, kingdom come.  “And in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

There is a river which flows through this city of God, this beautiful new Jerusalem, the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for you and me, where there are many mansions in His Father’s house for us (John 14:2). On each side of the river are these beautiful trees called the trees of life, and they bear fruit.—Twelve kinds of fruit on one tree. A different kind of fruit every month.

“And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Outside the Holy City is the surface of the renewed earth, whose surface and atmosphere had been destroyed in the last great war of Gog and Magog. The wicked of that time had been killed and then judged in the Great White Throne Judgment of God. Now we’re on the renewed surface of the earth at the beautiful new Heavenly City, a new heaven and new earth. And through it flows this beautiful river of life flanked by the trees of life, which have 12 fruits, a different one every month, and leaves that are able to heal the nations outside of the city.

There will still be nations outside of the city. We will have leaves from the tree of life for their healing. Apparently they’re still going to need help and still need healing and salvation, and we will have the answer to their problems.

They will not be allowed inside the Holy City, the beautiful new Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom of God to come, but they will be allowed upon the surface of the earth in a beautiful new earth where there will be no more sea. No more Pacific, no more Atlantic, no more Indian Ocean, no more Arctic Ocean, no more sea. It will all be land and these nations will still be there, but they’ll need healing, and we will have the answer to their problems, in the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of the nations.

“And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him. And they shall see His face, and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun” (Revelation 22:3–5). That is in the city; this isn’t talking about outside on the surface of the earth.

The surface of the earth outside will still have sun, moon, stars, day and night, seasons, etc. But in the city there’ll be no need of sun or moon or stars or candle. There’ll be no night there because it’ll be eternally lighted, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The inhabitants of the earth will be able to look up and view that beautiful city and know that God is there, that God now lives here with man. He’s come down out of heaven to make His dwelling place with man, and that’s His beautiful city, His capital city. Even if you’re not one of the denizens or one of the citizens of the city living inside the city, you’ll be able to look up from the surface of the earth and be thankful that you’re even there at all.—Even outside the city, the unsaved, one of those on probation, still learning to love the Lord.

You can look up at night and see that beautiful city. “And they shall reign forever and ever!” Who shall reign? The saints of God; all the Christians who love Jesus. They are all saints sanctified by His blood, purified, and set apart to serve the Lord.

“And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show unto His servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book” (Revelation 22:6–7). Quickly? John received Revelation 2000 years ago, and Jesus isn’t here yet. Jesus didn’t say He was coming soon. He said He was going to come quickly when He came. But He didn’t say “I’m coming soon” because it’s been 2000 years since then and He hasn’t come yet.

“And I John saw these things and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: Worship God” (Revelation 22:8–9). He said, “Don’t worship me. I’m just another prophet like you. I’m one of your fellowservants. So don’t worship me; only worship the Lord!”

“And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand” (Revelation 22:10). The book of Revelation began in John’s time. The sayings of this book, the predictions and prophecies of this book began right then in John’s day. That’s why he says “the time is at hand.” This book reviews the whole history of the world, prophetically, from the days of John till the very end. In fact, right on into heaven.

He says, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Revelation 22:11–12). He’s going to come very suddenly when He comes. He’s just warning them, even 2000 years in advance, that when He finally comes, He’s going to come very quickly. He says that about three times in this passage.—Not that He’s coming soon, but that He’s going to come very quickly. He does tell John that the events talked about in this book are at hand, starting right then, and this book covers the whole period from John to the end, even to heaven.

The saved will be rewarded at the judgment of Jesus Christ, the throne of Christ. Every saved Christian will be rewarded according to his works then. The judgment of the unsaved does not come until a thousand years later, when all the unsaved are raised to meet God at the Great White Throne Judgment described in chapter 20.

We who are resurrected and raised and raptured to be with the Lord at the end of the Tribulation, we get our rewards right away up in heaven at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, where there’s a great feast and a great ceremony, and God passes out the wedding gifts. He passes out the rewards to all of those who love the Lord. Isn’t that wonderful?

Verse 13: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Jesus is speaking again. Alpha and Omega are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, meaning the beginning and the end. “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” All those who do the commandments of Jesus Christ can eat of that tree of life that grows on both sides of the river of life that flows through the city.

The leaves of those trees will be able to heal the people outside the city that are still sin-sick, and sick from their disobediences and their rebellion against God. We’re still going to be witnesses for the Lord and we’ll be able to take those leaves outside the city to heal the nations outside. But we who live in the city are saved and have a right to the tree of life, to drink of those beautiful waters that keep us living forever so we can help those people outside.

We won’t just be sitting around floating on clouds, fiddling with harps—that’s some worldly cartoonist’s idea. We’re going to be very busy going in and picking leaves off of the tree of life. There are still going to be lots of unsaved people outside on the surface of the earth. They’ve been resurrected, they’ve been to the Great White Throne Judgment of God and each one’s judgment was decided upon, where they should go, some to the flames of hell itself and the Lake of Fire where the Devil and the Antichrist and the False Prophet are, those three beasts—the Dragon, and the Beast and the False Lamb. Those three animals are going to be in hellfire. But out on the surface of the earth after the Great White Throne Judgment of the unsaved, God’s going to let some of those people live outside the city to learn their lessons and to be healed.

“And I Jesus have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” Jesus is the morning star. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:16–17).

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18–19). You mustn’t add anything to this book and you mustn’t take anything away from it.

Some people say that means the whole Bible. But he’s just talking about this particular book, the book of Revelation. You shouldn’t add anything to it and you shouldn’t take anything from it. Some Christian fundamentalists seem to think that this is the last time God ever spoke, to John on the Isle of Patmos, and these are the last words that Jesus ever said, and He hasn’t spoken since then. Isn’t that ridiculous? We have a dead God who’s been dead and quiet and silent for 2000 years now, according to these fundamentalists who accept just the Bible alone and don’t believe that Jesus has ever said anything since then.

God has spoken since then. And down through the ages, after this book was written, God still had many prophets and prophetesses who continued to prophesy and speak with tongues and interpretation and prophecies throughout the whole 2000 years of church history, since the days of John and since this book was finished. God’s prophets and prophetesses have been continuing to prophesy in these last days according to the Word of God, throughout the church of Jesus Christ, throughout all Christendom, to Christians everywhere, millions of them.

And “He which testifieth of these things saith, Surely I come quickly.” Again, Jesus didn’t say He was coming soon, He said He was coming quickly! There have been 2000 years since then. But He said when He comes He’s going to come very suddenly, by surprise to the whole world.

But we won’t be surprised; we’ll be ready for Jesus when He comes. “Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” the prophet says. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen” (Revelation 22:20–21).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

23: The New Heaven and New Earth (part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 21

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

He’s going to purify and completely purge the surface of the earth with fire and destroy the atmospheric heavens and bring a new heaven and a new earth, where we’re going to be forever. Not up in faraway space, but right here on the earth in this new earth and this new heaven.

That beautiful Holy City, the new Jerusalem, the city of God is going to come down, it says here, “from God out of heaven.” It’s going to come right down here to this earth. Whether it’s going to sit down here on the earth or whether it’s going to float above the surface of the earth, we don’t know, but it sounds like it’s going to be right on the earth, because it has gates for people to come in and go out of. It says “the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it” and that we will go out of it to heal the nations with the leaves of the healing of the tree of life. So it sounds like it’s going to sit right here on the earth.

But there’ll be plenty of room on earth then, because right now only around a third of the earth’s surface is land. Whereas then there will be no more sea; it’ll all be land. The seas are the world’s great septic tanks, its great cesspools where all the waste of the world drains off into. That’s why it has to be salty, or it would stink like a toilet! Some places it does, where they dump their sewage and garbage into the sea, polluting the earth. The Lord says He’s going to destroy those that pollute and destroy the earth (Revelation 11:18).

There will be much more land area then, lots of room for the great Heavenly City to sit down where once was the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean or the Arctic or Antarctic Oceans. Maybe it’ll move around, so it can minister to different parts of the world. If it can float down from outer space from God out of heaven to the earth, then it probably can still float around the earth and hover or set down here or there.

Science fiction’s got nothing on the Bible or the future as foretold by the Lord! I have never seen anything in sci-fi movies to compare with this, have you? Nothing so enormous and magnificent as that beautiful city, full of precious stones and jewels, and best of all, full of precious souls. Immortal saved souls that love Jesus. Billions of people will be there because there were millions of faithful witnesses down through man’s history, from the time of Adam and Eve until the Millennium.

Verse 23: “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” It doesn’t say there’ll be no moon and no sun, but it says in the city they won’t need the moon and the sun. It has its own light, the light of God and His Son Jesus. But the sun and moon will still continue on the world outside the city on the planet earth, which still exists with a new Garden of Eden-like surface with the people who are unsaved out there, whom God is giving another chance to learn what they need to learn to be restored, to be reconciled.

I believe in the eternal universal reconciliation of man because Jesus said He died that all might be saved (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9), that the whole world might be saved, and I believe that’s going to happen someday! But only the saved, only those of us who have voluntarily chosen to love Jesus, to receive Him as our Savior now in this life on this earth, are going to walk the streets of that golden city and be able to enter through those gigantic pearly gates.—Unless some are also saved in the Millennium and the world hereafter.

You won’t have to ask Saint Peter for his permission either. Peter doesn’t have the keys; Jesus has the keys. If you have Jesus, you have your own key and you can go in and out whenever you want. Peter is just another one of the saved, just another saint of God just like you, a lost sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ.

We each have our own key that God gives us through salvation. Every one of you who are saved will be able to go in and out and enjoy the splendors of heaven. You’ll be able to look down on the surface of the earth and see it as if you were in a satellite. It’ll look like a map below, with people who God in His mercy will permit to live outside the city on the surface of the earth. Even that will be like heaven on earth. It will be even better than the Millennium.

How good is God! How kind, how loving, how merciful. The Bible says there’s no end to His mercy, His mercy is from everlasting unto everlasting (Psalm 103:17). He is forgiving, kind, gracious, and loving, and He’s not going to lose one of His sheep—not one soul! He’s going to save them all in the long run, even those outside the city who will never be able to enter the city. But we will go out into the world to help other people who are still learning how to believe and receive God and to love Him and serve Him.

It’s thrilling to think we’re not just going to be sitting around on clouds playing harps and doing nothing. We are still engaged in the marvelous, soul-satisfying process of the redemption of man, of all men everywhere, the whole world for whom Jesus died. God’s Word says so, that He died for all men. “That all men might be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), even those who don’t receive Him now but who will believe and receive Him later.

It may be too late for them to enter the Holy City, but not too late to enjoy the mercy and love of God and His forgiveness upon the surface of the earth, healed by the leaves of His tree of life (Revelation 22:2). The sun and moon will still continue. Day and night and seasons will still continue. The very first chapter of the Bible says that as long as the sun and the moon endure, there shall be seasons, summer and winter, spring and fall throughout the world (Genesis 1:14).

Outside the Holy City will live people who were not saved and who are only then learning to love the Lord and appreciate Him and respect and honor Him and worship Him with our help, who live under similar conditions, like it was in the Garden of Eden. It’ll be a pleasure just to live outside on that new heavenly earth that God is going to make for all mankind and all His creatures.

Not one shall be lost, not one of all God’s wonderful creations, immortal souls of man, not one. They’ll all be there either in the city or on the surface of the earth.

“And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it”—in the city—“and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it”—or literally unto it (Revelation 21:24). There will still be nations and kings on the surface of the earth outside the city. Of course, nations ordained by God—righteous kings teaching the people to love and serve the Lord, and they’ll be bringing honor to the city.

“And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there” (Revelation 21:25). The gates will be open night and day, 24 hours a day. What a city! Man thinks some of his cities today are pretty wonderful; they stay open till two, three, or four o’clock in the morning.

But that city’s going to be open day and night, 24 hours a day. Can you imagine what that place is going to look like at night from the earth outside all lit up? The most beautiful city in this whole world! Man has never seen anything like it. This gorgeous pyramid, 1500 miles high and 1500 miles wide, shining with a golden light all night long, glowing almost like the sun. It will no doubt light up the countryside, the surface of the earth for hundreds of miles around.

It’ll be a blessing just to live anywhere within sight of that city, to be able to see it at night and thrill to its splendor, resplendent with golden supernatural light of God. It will vie with the moon and even the sun for beauty and splendor. God’s word says that when He shall build up Zion, even the sun and the moon shall be ashamed in comparison with the glory and the beauty and the light of that Holy City here on the surface of the earth (Isaiah 24:23). It will outshine the sun, outshine the moon. This reminds me of an old song we used to sing:

When we go to be with Jesus
We shall outshine the sun.
When we shall be with Jesus
We will outshine the sun
And walk those streets of gold.
—Adapted from “We Shall Outshine the Sun” by C.F.W.

The saved will enjoy both worlds—the inside world of the beautiful Holy City of the saved, and be able to go out and minister to the poor folks who are lost but being rehabilitated and reconciled.

“And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 21:27). Nothing unclean there: no dirty city streets, no vile vice, no filthy crime, no sin. Not Sin City as today, but the sacred City of God. The Holy City, the pure city, the beautiful city. Everything absolutely clean and perfect and pure and sinless!

The Lord has a city prepared for you and me whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10). It comes down like a bride out of heaven adorned for the husband, out of heaven from God to the earth (Revelation 21:2). He says that the tabernacle of God or the dwelling place of God is now going to be with men (Revelation 21:3).

Are you running the race for Jesus? Or are you in the rat race of the system for the world? If you’re running the race for Jesus, it’ll be worth it all. If you’re running the rat race of this world, you will regret over there that you didn’t run for Jesus and work for Jesus and live for Jesus.

One of the most beautiful verses in the Bible is also one of these last verses of the Bible, when He says: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase.
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
—From “When We See Christ,” by Esther Kerr Rusthoi

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

22: The Millennium—Old Testament Millennial Scriptures (part 4)

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

“The Lord shall send the rod of Thy strength out of Zion: rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: Thou hast the dew of Thy youth. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:2–4).

There’s a beautiful symbolism here about Christ, that He was a priest to God. Although He was not a Levite, He was not of the priesthood, yet God chose Him as a priest like He did Melchizedek. (See Hebrews 6:20.) “The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, He shall fill the places with the dead bodies; He shall wound the heads over many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall He lift up the head” (Psalm 110:5–7). What a wonderful day that’s going to be! A day of victory and glory, a day of great power of His salvation!

Then “the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.”—Of this new kingdom of God (Psalm 118:22). “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord: we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord” (Psalm 118:26).

“The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; He will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If thy children will keep My covenant and My testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore. For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation. This is My rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it” (Psalm 132:11–14). Zion, His church. Or you can take the holy hill of Zion in Jerusalem if you wish, because it seems that’s going to be His capital during the Millennium, not after the Millennium. After the Millennium Jerusalem will be the new city come down from God out of heaven, the Heavenly City.—1500 miles high, 1500 miles wide, that gorgeous golden city encrusted with diamonds and pearls and jewels and pearly gates and all kinds of beauty!

“I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy” (Psalm 132:15–16). What a beautiful picture! Isn’t that worth living for and dying for and living for Jesus for?

Let’s skip over to Isaiah, the first chapter. “Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease Me of Mine adversaries, and avenge Me of Mine enemies. And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin. And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.” Whether you take that as literal Zion or Jerusalem or spiritual Zion, His church, it’s true. “And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed” (Isaiah 1:24–28).

Second chapter of Isaiah: Here is one of the most famous and beautiful passages regarding the coming thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ with His saints:

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains”—these mountains symbolizing governments, God’s government over all—“and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

“And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks.” Final disarmament. That will be the real genuine disarmament, beating their weapons into instruments of peace. “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:2–4). That’s a beautiful inscription also written on the wall of the garden of the United Nations in New York City. Yet all around it rages controversy and evil and war and crime.

you” (Luke 17:21). You’re a member of His kingdom that’s already begun upon earth.

“And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defense. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain” (Isaiah 4:5–6). The Lord Himself is going to be your tabernacle and protect you.

The eleventh chapter of Isaiah: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of His roots: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears.

“But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth.” That’s going to be the rod of iron, the truth of God that’s going to rule the world then. “And with the breath of His lips shall he slay the wicked.” There is nothing that curbs the Devil and His crowd like the truth, the Word of God. Jesus is going to be here then. “And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins.

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:1–6). You have never heard of a wolf lying down with a lamb nowadays, have you?—Unless the lamb was inside of the wolf! Or a leopard lying down with a kid, a little baby goat. They usually lie down with the kid inside too. Neither have you heard about a little child leading them all nowadays.

There was a day before the Flood when men and the animals were at peace with each other. They didn’t fight and they didn’t kill and they didn’t eat each other as they do today. That day is coming again when there will be peace between man and the animals. Even your little child will be able to play with them.

“And the cow and the bear shall feed.” Feed together, think of that, cows and bears! “Their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (Isaiah 11:7). “Now you’ve gone too far, telling me lions are going to eat hay! I don’t believe that.”

I have such confidence in the Word of God and every chapter and every book—I have proven so many of them to be true and none of them to ever fail or be false—that I believe every word in it, and I believe it means exactly what it says and that’s what’s going to happen. If they’re not going to eat each other or eat us anymore, they’re going to have to graze like the ox and the calf. So the lion will eat straw like the ox.

“And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp.” A little baby that’s not even weaned yet can play right on top of the hole of this poisonous little serpent called an asp, and yet not get stung or bitten. “And the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den” (Isaiah 11:8). Children will be able to put their hand into a nest of scorpions and what are today poisonous insects. Or in another place it says adders’ den, meaning a poisonous snake. The child can put his hand right into a nest of adders and play with the snakes then, like toys.

What a wonderful place to be! All the curse removed, the viciousness gone, all the killing and hurting each other gone. “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). We won’t have to be worried about witnessing anymore. We won’t have to say, “Know the Lord,” for He says “all men everywhere shall know Me” (Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:11). But I do believe we’ll still be teaching people the ways of the Lord.

“And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people”—Jesus—“to it shall the Gentiles seek: and His rest shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10). This is a wonderful picture of the final glorious days of this earth.

The earth will blossom as a rose, curse removed, enmity between man and the animals and the insects and the vipers removed, so that all God’s creation is in perfect peace and harmony, and man at peace with man. No longer will there be man’s cruelty toward man, no longer man’s inhumanity to man, but all will be peace and beauty—heaven on earth once again as it was in the beginning, because we’ll have Jesus.

I think Adam and Eve had Jesus then too. Who else could walk with them in the Garden in the cool of the day like a man but Jesus, the Son of God (Genesis 3:8).

“Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously” (Isaiah 24:23). “And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things.” Here is that wonderful Marriage Supper of the Lamb. “A feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” The vineyards and wineries aren’t going to go out of business.

“And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.”—The vail of misunderstanding, the vail of unbelief, the vail of non-comprehension of spiritual things. “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.

“And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest” (Isaiah 25:6–10).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

22: The Millennium—Old Testament Millennial Scriptures (part 3)

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

“Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him.” There won’t be any religion then but Christianity; there won’t be any kingdom except that of Jesus Christ. “For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and the needy and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight.

“And He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for Him continually; and daily shall He be praised. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. And they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” That is, of the great city of God.

“His name shall endure for ever: His name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed” (Psalm 72:6–17). Isn’t that a wonderful story and a happy ending?

He says, “All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off.” Remember those ten horns on the beast in Daniel and the ten horns on the beast in Revelation? He’s going to cut off all the horns. “But the horns of the righteous shall be exalted” (Psalm 75:10).

“Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still. When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah” (Psalm 76:8–9). Do you know what selah means? It’s a kind of musical rest note. It means “pause and think about that.” “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Psalm 76:10).

“Arise, O God, judge the earth: for Thou shalt inherit all nations” (Psalm 82:8). “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good: and our land shall yield her increase” (Psalm 85:10–12). Men are still going to till the land and build houses and marry and be given in marriage. The earth is going to be much the same as it is today, only God’s people are going to be the rulers and the policemen—the supernatural resurrected saints who are going to run the world as it ought to be run.

“All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord; and shall glorify Thy name” (Psalm 86:9). “Also I will make Him My firstborn”—Jesus—“higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for Him for evermore, and My covenant shall stand fast with Him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and His throne as the days of heaven. His seed shall endure for ever, and His throne as the sun before Me” (Psalm 89:27–29,36).

“Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth. The world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: He shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof.” Let the unrighteous roar against Him, it doesn’t matter; God will reign over them. “Let the field be joyful, and all there is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth” (Psalm 96:10–13).

“The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about Him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne. A fire goeth before Him, and burneth up His enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.” The wicked are going to tremble in His presence during that thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ and His saints upon this earth. “The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth” (Psalm 97:1–5).

“The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel”—the Christians, the new Israel of God, the chosen people of God. The former children of the kingdom, Jesus said, would be cast out and we would come in (Matthew 8:12). We will inherit the kingdom, all those who love Jesus: Jew or Gentile, bond or free, Greek or Roman or whatever, anybody who loves Jesus. You, if you love Jesus, are going to inherit the kingdom of God on earth. “The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (Psalm 98:2–3).

“Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for He cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall He judge the world, and the people with equity.” Equality, with evenness, fairness, and justice (Psalm 98:7–9).

“So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth Thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory” (Psalm 102:15–16). He’s building up Zion today. His church is increasing, His worldwide spiritual Zion. His spiritual Israel is increasing day by day around the world! “When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.” That’s when it’s going to happen on a vast scale.

“rishes and He sets up the new heaven and new earth, He will still endure.

The atmospheric heavens are going to perish, but He’s going to create a new beautiful atmospheric heavens and heaven on earth in the new heaven and new earth which follow the Millennium.

“Enter into the rock and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty.” God’s speaking of the unregenerate, when Jesus comes. “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan.

“And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish. And upon all pleasant pictures. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols He shall utterly abolish.”—Including the Image of the Beast.

“And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth” (Isaiah 2:10–21).

Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish (the old atmospheric heavens and the old surface of the earth), but Thou shalt endure” (Psalm 102:22,25–26). He’s saying even when the old world pe

God’s kingdom has already begun upon earth today in Christians who love Jesus—in you if you have Christ in your heart. He said, “For the kingdom of God is within “Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed” (Psalm 102:26). When you change your clothes, you don’t throw away your body too. You just take off the raiment, the surface clothing, and that’s what He’s going to do to the earth one of these days.

The earth today is clothed with its dirty surface and its polluted atmosphere, but He’s going to remove them both by fire and make a completely clean new earth and new heavens.—Clean air, no pollution, no contamination upon the earth, no poisonous gases and chemicals; it’ll all be washed clean with fire one of these days.

“But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end. The children of Thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before Thee” (Psalm 102:27–28). God’s going to keep you forever, praise God?

The 110th psalm is almost entirely a messianic psalm: “The Lord said to my Lord, sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” “The Lord said to My Lord.” Jesus brought that up to the Scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 22:44). What was He talking about? Was God talking to Himself? No, He was talking to Jesus, His Son.

22: The Millennium—Old Testament Millennial Scriptures (part 2)

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

 

“O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. For the Lord most high is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth.”—In the Millennium. “He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet. For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding. God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon the throne of His holiness” (Psalm 47:1–3,7–8). All of these marvelous predictions of the coming kingdom of Christ upon earth.

“I will make Thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise Thee for ever and ever” (Psalm 45:17). For “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows” (Psalm 45:6–7). What wonderful prophecies of the coming kingdom of Jesus! I turn the pages here in the Psalms and on almost every page I find another prophecy about this marvelous millennial kingdom of Christ.

“Our God shall come and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. Gather My saints together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare His righteousness: for God is Judge Himself” (Psalm 50:3–6). That’s the way it’ll be when Jesus comes.

“Through the greatness of Thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto Thee. All the earth shall worship Thee, and shall sing unto Thee; they shall sing to Thy name” (Psalm 66:3–4). “O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for Thou shalt judge the people righteously”—not all judges today judge righteously—“and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. Let the people praise Thee, O God; let all the people praise Thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase: and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him” (Psalm 67:4–7).

For “Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive: Thou hast received gifts for men”—the greatest being salvation—“yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them” (Psalm 68:18). God is even going to be good to the wicked who will—some of them—survive all the horrors of hell of the Antichrist and the Tribulation and the plagues of the wrath of God and the Battle of Armageddon to finally come into this millennial period through which we will rule and reign over them with Christ with a rod of iron for a thousand years.

“Give the king Thy judgments, O God.” This is Psalm 72, and almost the whole psalm is a prediction of the Millennium—“and Thy righteousness unto the king’s son.” Who is the king’s son? Jesus. “He shall judge Thy people with righteousness”—that means Jesus—“and Thy poor with judgment.” The world is going to see a righteous judge, a righteous king, a righteous ruler at last, who will have a righteous government. No corruption, no vice or crime or payola or bribery or crooked judges and crooked politicians, but a righteous government and righteous justice.

“The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear Thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations” (Psalm 72:1–5).

Don’t think that something’s going to happen to destroy the sun or the moon or the earth! God didn’t make this creation to be destroyed. He’s going to have to destroy the surface of the earth and burn it up because of the pollution of mankind and its wickedness, but He’s not going to destroy the ball, the planet earth, or the sun or moon. They’re going to continue to shine upon the earth.

We won’t need them in the holy city that comes down from God to the earth. There’ll be no need of sun or moon or stars there. Jesus will be our sun. But outside on the earth where others are still learning and still being healed, they’ll still need sunlight and moonlight and the stars, and God will be merciful to them. But that is the new earth and new heaven, which comes after the Millennium.

“He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” Here it’s speaking of the kingdom of Christ on earth, how it’s going to be over the whole world.

“They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him and His enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents.” The British. “The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.” The Saudi Arabians are going to become Christians.

“Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him.” There won’t be any religion then but Christianity; there won’t be any kingdom except that of Jesus Christ. “For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and the needy and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight.

“And He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for Him continually; and daily shall He be praised. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. And they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” That is, of the great city of God.

“His name shall endure for ever: His name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed” (Psalm 72:6–17). Isn’t that a wonderful story and a happy ending?

He says, “All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off.” Remember those ten horns on the beast in Daniel and the ten horns on the beast in Revelation? He’s going to cut off all the horns. “But the horns of the righteous shall be exalted” (Psalm 75:10).

“Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still. When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah” (Psalm 76:8–9). Do you know what selah means? It’s a kind of musical rest note. It means “pause and think about that.” “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Psalm 76:10).

“Arise, O God, judge the earth: for Thou shalt inherit all nations” (Psalm 82:8). “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good: and our land shall yield her increase” (Psalm 85:10–12). Men are still going to till the land and build houses and marry and be given in marriage. The earth is going to be much the same as it is today, only God’s people are going to be the rulers and the policemen—the supernatural resurrected saints who are going to run the world as it ought to be run.

“All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord; and shall glorify Thy name” (Psalm 86:9). “Also I will make Him My firstborn”—Jesus—“higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for Him for evermore, and My covenant shall stand fast with Him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and His throne as the days of heaven. His seed shall endure for ever, and His throne as the sun before Me” (Psalm 89:27–29,36).

“Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth. The world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: He shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof.” Let the unrighteous roar against Him, it doesn’t matter; God will reign over them. “Let the field be joyful, and all there is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth” (Psalm 96:10–13).

“The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about Him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne. A fire goeth before Him, and burneth up His enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.” The wicked are going to tremble in His presence during that thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ and His saints upon this earth. “The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth” (Psalm 97:1–5).

“The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel”—the Christians, the new Israel of God, the chosen people of God. The former children of the kingdom, Jesus said, would be cast out and we would come in (Matthew 8:12). We will inherit the kingdom, all those who love Jesus: Jew or Gentile, bond or free, Greek or Roman or whatever, anybody who loves Jesus. You, if you love Jesus, are going to inherit the kingdom of God on earth. “The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (Psalm 98:2–3).

“Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for He cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall He judge the world, and the people with equity.” Equality, with evenness, fairness, and justice (Psalm 98:7–9).

“So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth Thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory” (Psalm 102:15–16). He’s building up Zion today. His church is increasing, His worldwide spiritual Zion. His spiritual Israel is increasing day by day around the world! “When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.” That’s when it’s going to happen on a vast scale.

“rishes and He sets up the new heaven and new earth, He will still endure.

The atmospheric heavens are going to perish, but He’s going to create a new beautiful atmospheric heavens and heaven on earth in the new heaven and new earth which follow the Millennium.

“Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed” (Psalm 102:26). When you change your clothes, you don’t throw away your body too. You just take off the raiment, the surface clothing, and that’s what He’s going to do to the earth one of these days. (to be continued)

22: The Millennium—Old Testament Millennial Scriptures (part 1)

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

I’m going to read some verses which are my favorite passages in the Bible, some of the most beautiful scriptures in God’s holy Word.

The reason I am particularly fond of them is that they’re about the “happy ending” of the story. In much of the past chapters of this particular study of Bible prophecy in the book of Revelation, it seems as if it’s been a lot of bad news about the horrors about to come upon this world. The Bible admonishes us to be prepared for these days, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. (See Matthew 24:33, 44.)

We’re just strangers passing through; this is not our home. We’re strangers and pilgrims, and this is why God says He’s proud to be our God. He’s not ashamed to be our God, for we confess that we are only strangers and pilgrims here. We seek a city whose builder and maker is God, which someday will come down out of heaven from God to this earth (Hebrews 11:13–16).

At the end of that mighty Battle of Armageddon, of the forces of God against the forces of Satan on earth, we, the saints of God, along with our King Jesus Christ, will take over this world as it is now—this present world—and we will organize it and rule it and run it the way it should have been run if man had yielded to God. But this time, yield or no, God’s going to run it with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:27).

Whether man likes it or not, God is going to be supreme and Jesus shall reign from shore to shore, and we shall rule and reign with Him with that rod of iron. Then the unsaved who remain will be forced to do what’s right and to obey for a thousand years. They will have the amazing blessing of being able to live at all during this millennial period in which the earth, though it is this same earth upon which we live today—not the new heaven and the new earth, but the present earth—it will be relieved from the curses that have beset it. The thorns and the thistles and the briar and all kinds of beasts and critters and creatures that are poisonous, even poisonous flowers and grasses, will be sanitized and made harmless.

Even the unsaved who have survived the Tribulation and the wrath of God and the Battle of Armageddon—and it’s quite a survival to manage to survive all three of those—will be allowed to live during this beautiful paradise-on-earth, millennial period.

The Devil will be bound in the heart of the earth in the bottomless pit for a thousand years, and we will rule and reign with Jesus on this present earth for one thousand years to try to teach the survivors righteousness, to try to show them where they failed, to try to point out what the mistakes were, to try to show them how much better it would have been if they had yielded to Jesus and let Him rule and reign in their hearts as we do today.

We already have the Garden of Eden in our hearts. We already have paradise restored in our hearts, those of us who have received Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Lover and our King and our God, who has forgiven us our sins and brought us peace and love and happiness such as we have never known before. We already have the Garden of Eden in our hearts, but then we will have the Garden of Eden worldwide—the curse removed, even a measure of death removed. People will live for a thousand years as they did before, and if you die at a hundred years of age, they’ll consider you just a child (Isaiah 65:20). Think of that.

This is a part of the beautiful happy ending. The Bible is full of descriptions of that beautiful millennial period. It says more about the second coming of Christ and His rule and reign on the earth as its King, its Messiah, than it does about the first coming.

This is the purpose of it all, the marvelous happy ending of it all! This is our reward for loving Him, receiving Him, believing in Him, and preaching Him, telling others about Him, spreading the Good News of His love everywhere.

Jesus was the one responsible for it all, who loved us enough to give His own life for us and take our punishment, the punishment of our sins on Himself on that cross, on that tree, so that we could be forgiven and restored and become citizens of His kingdom, the kingdom of God on earth of the King of kings in the heavenly kingdom.—First of all, the Millennium, and later the new heaven and new earth.

What are the two books that are the most messianic books in the Bible?—The ones that talk more about the Messiah and His kingdom, that marvelous millennial kingdom on earth and the kingdom that goes on forever after, than any other books? We have to go back to the Old Testament to find them: Psalms and Isaiah, by two great prophets. “Prophets?” you say, “I thought David was just a king.” David was a king, but he was also a priest of his people. Foremost and above all, he was a prophet of God who wrote the beautiful Psalms of David. In the Psalms, he describes time and again the marvelous coming kingdom of Jesus Christ.

First, he starts with the Antichrist kingdom and the Battle of Armageddon, the forces of good against evil. (This could also apply to the Battle of Gog and Magog at the end of the Millennium.)

Psalm 2: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” That’s what they will say during the Great Tribulation. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.” God gets the last laugh! “Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.”

Despite all they can do, He has set His king upon the hill of Zion. Jesus will someday return to this earth and He shall stand first upon Mount Zion. God’s Word says it will cleave in two when He stands there, like a great earthquake, and cause a very great rift or very great valley (Zechariah 14:4). That great hill that the Jews and the Muslims are fighting over, guess who’s going to get it?—Jesus. And when He does land on it, it’s going to split wide open.

“I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me”—speaking now to Jesus—“Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” He’s going to give us the entire earth, all of it. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

“Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.”—If you don’t want to be broken. “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” Do you put your trust in Jesus? Then you’re going to be safe. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right with you.

“The Lord is king for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of His land” (Psalm 10:16). That’s what’s going to happen then. “Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion. When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad” (Psalm 14:7). The true Israel of God, those who have received Jesus the Messiah, the Christians.

“I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.” There’s going to be a resurrection. “For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Psalm 16:8–10). There are many prophecies regarding the first coming of Jesus, but these are the ones about His second coming.

“I will declare Thy name unto my brethren: and in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee.” Before this, they were worshipping the Antichrist; now they’re going to have to worship Jesus, whether they like it or not. “They shall come and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He hath done this” (Psalm 22:22,27,31).

The good news! We had to tell you the bad news first, all about the Antichrist and his reign of terror and the Tribulation and the judgment and Babylon and the horrors, and then Armageddon. But now comes the victory, the heaven on earth.

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O ye gates: even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah” (Psalm 24:7–10).

The Muslims have a prophecy that when Jesus returns, He will come through the gate called “Beautiful” and take over the city of Jerusalem and reign as the Messiah and King of kings. Therefore one Arab ruler many years ago didn’t want Jesus to come and take the kingdom away from him; he was afraid He might come during his day. So he walled up the gate “Beautiful” there in Jerusalem.

To this day it is still sealed, because God prophesied that no man should go through that gate again. A prophet prophesied this centuries ago when at that time it was one of the most popular gates of Jerusalem on a well-traveled highway that ran through that gate into the city. But God prophesied by His prophet Ezekiel many centuries earlier that it would be closed and never opened again until the Lord of hosts Himself, the King of kings, Jesus, would come and pass through that gate (Ezekiel 44:2; 43:1–4).

Praise God, the day is coming when “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:9–10). (to be continued)

21: The Millennium

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 20

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

The twentieth chapter of Revelation is a very important chapter. It’s one of the shortest chapters and yet it covers one of the longest periods of over 1,000 years in Bible history of the future. The nineteenth chapter covered the invasion from outer space of Christ and His forces, and the destruction of the forces of the Enemy on earth, the kingdom of terror and terrorism of the Devil in the Antichrist, in the final great Battle of Armageddon in which Jesus and His children are the conquerors.

Who are the winners in the Battle of Armageddon? You’ve heard so much about the Battle of Armageddon, maybe you never heard about who’s going to be the winner. Some people say about sports that it’s not important who wins, it’s how you play the game. Let me tell you, we’re playing this game to win and it is important who wins! It is the forces of good and righteousness and Christ and God that will win this battle over the forces of the Devil and the Antichrist, and his forces of evil in the nineteenth chapter.

In the twentieth chapter the victory’s already won, and the reason we’re going back to that chapter here is that thousand years which is so important. It is mentioned six times in this one short chapter. First of all, we are told in the second verse that Satan is bound and cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. Then there will be nobody left to take care of his business and he’ll go out of business for a while. I can imagine what the little boy said when somebody told him, “Oh, you don’t believe in the Devil, do you? It’s old-fashioned to believe in the Devil.” The little boy said, “Well, if there isn’t any Devil, who is taking care of all his business?” Because he’s still got a lot of business going on right now.

This amazing thousand-year period is known to theologians and Bible students as the Millennium. This millennial period is a very important period of the Endtime. It is the period during which Jesus Christ and His saints have won a victory over the Devil and his demons and the Antichrist kingdom of hell on earth. The Devil is bound or cast as a prisoner into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, with nobody left to run his business. We’re rid of him, thank God!

For a thousand years he no longer bothers us, no longer leads his legions and his demons across the face of the earth to plague the world and its citizens. Not only that, while he is in prison for a thousand years, it says that the saints who rejected the Mark of the Beast, who gave their lives rather than deny Christ, lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years (Revelation 5:9–14). The Devil is bound and imprisoned in the bottomless pit a thousand years, while the saints are living and reigning and ruling with Jesus Christ on the earth for a thousand years.

It says that the rest of the dead—meaning the unsaved dead, because the righteous dead have already been resurrected and raptured to be with the Lord—“lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” There is no resurrection of the unsaved until this thousand years is finished, until the end of the Millennium. The only ones who have been resurrected and raptured to be with the Lord are the saints of God, the Christians, those who love Jesus. This is the first resurrection. “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 20:5).

As dear St. John was writing this—perhaps in Greek the meaning was a little clearer—if he had turned that around a little bit, it would have been more understandable. When he says in the last part of the fifth verse, “This is the first resurrection,” he is talking about the first resurrection which has already taken place, of the Christians in the Rapture. “This is the first resurrection”—which shows that the resurrection which occurred at the time of Jesus Christ and the saints who rose from the dead shortly after His crucifixion was a part of this same first resurrection. It’s all called the first resurrection. “That they without us might not be completed” (Hebrews 11:40).

So the first resurrection has already taken place, and I think if he had put that statement first in the fifth verse, it would have been a little bit clearer and easier to understand. It would have read like this: “And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection.” That would have been clearer.—And then said, “But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished.”

Some people have been misled and confused by this, thinking that he’s talking about the rest of the dead being the first resurrection. If you read the passage and if you followed the scriptural study, this resurrection of the rest of the dead, of the unsaved dead, obviously is not the first resurrection or he wouldn’t even state it like that. “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” Obviously some resurrection has already taken place, and as he says, the first resurrection has already taken place. But the rest of the dead, who come up in the second resurrection, will not be resurrected—the unsaved dead therefore—until the thousand-year millennial period is finished.

What’s going on during this thousand years? Satan is in hell. We saints are here upon the face of the earth, ruling and reigning with Christ over the kingdom of God on earth, heaven on earth, the Garden of Eden restored. For the rest of the dead, there’s no other resurrection until the thousand years is finished.

It says in the sixth verse that “We shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” The Devil’s in hell for a thousand years and he is not allowed to come out again till the thousand years is finished.

He therefore has a blessing to give to those who take part in the first resurrection, the Rapture of Jesus Christ to be with Him at the end of the horrible Tribulation, the end of the Antichrist rule, the end of the Devil’s reign. We have a glorious, wonderful resurrection either from the dead or are raptured from the very face of the earth from among the living, and we go to be with the Lord and have the Marriage Supper of the Lamb while God’s judgments are being poured out on the wicked upon the earth.

Then we come back in that mighty Battle of Armageddon and we conquer Satan and all his forces and cast them into hell. We take over the world and rule and reign over it and run it the way it should have been run to begin with and would have been if man had not believed the Devil’s lies and disobeyed God and gone his own way. At last the Lord is going to redeem the earth again, and He’s going to cause the beautiful Garden of Eden to blossom in righteousness as we rule and reign with Christ upon the earth for a thousand years. This is spoken of time and again in the Bible.

Then, in the seventh verse it says that “When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of prison,” and then we have the Battle of Gog and Magog. It’s a sort of a second Armageddon, only far worse than the first. All hell lets loose and in one mighty effort Satan for the last time tries to destroy this kingdom of God on earth, this Millennium of a thousand-year personal rule and reign of Jesus Christ and His saints upon the earth over the people remaining, those who have survived the holocaust of the antichrist reign of the Tribulation and the wrath of God and Battle of Armageddon.

There will be some who will survive. There will be some who will be left on the earth; otherwise we’d have no one to rule or reign over if all the people were killed. Many of them are still alive. It’s almost as though the Lord is giving them another chance, a last chance to repent all the way through the Millennium, through a thousand years of the perfect rule and reign of Jesus Christ and His saints and angels on the earth in the perfect world government, nothing wrong, everything righteous, no corruption, every judgment righteous in the government of God.

Yet, as Isaiah says, “Let mercy be shown to the wicked and yet he will not learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:10). Therefore even some of these people who remain upon the earth, over whom we rule with a rod of iron, rebel during the Millennium.

So Satan is briefly allowed out of his prison where he’s been for a thousand years, just long enough to deceive the nations again, the people of this world over whom we have been ruling to show them the kingdom of God and His Law of Love and what God expects of man and the way He expected man to run the world.

The minute the Devil is let out of the pit, many of these ignorant, willful, easily deluded people follow him, believe his lies, obey his orders, and as a result they begin to attack God’s people, of all the silly things. Trying to attack us then will be like trying to attack angels. They can’t touch us! We will have resurrected spiritual bodies which have enormous powers like the angels of God, like Jesus when He was resurrected.

He was able to walk through walls and locked doors and appear and disappear at will, but He was still also able to enjoy physical pleasures. He was able to eat and to drink and even cook a little meal out by the seaside for the hungry fishermen who had toiled all night (John 21:4–13). Wasn’t that sweet? Jesus was working for them, His children, even though He already had His resurrection body, this marvelous supernatural instrument and vehicle that the Enemy can never touch anymore.

It’s so foolish for the Devil to raise a rebellion against these forces of God in our supernatural bodies. So foolish for the Devil to think he can conquer the camp of the saints—but he tries. When Satan is loosed at the end of the thousand years, he’s able to go out and rally quite a crowd behind him, “the number of whom is as the sand of the sea” (Revelation 20:8).

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about” (Revelation 20:9). The Jews and the Arabs have a longstanding controversy over who Jerusalem belongs to and who should rule over it. The Antichrist is going to try to settle it by making it an international city where those of all religions can feel free to come and worship, whether they are Christian, Jew, or Muslim.

But Jesus is not going to make it an interfaith city. When Jesus takes over Jerusalem at the beginning of the Millennium He’s not even going to make it an international city, because there’s just going to be one-world government, and that’s the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth, one great nation. He’s not going to make it an inter-faith city either, as the Antichrist has already tried to do, until he abolished all other religions and set himself up as god, as the false messiah and the false millennium and caused everyone to worship him.

In this case Jesus will set Himself up to be worshipped by all mankind as the Son of God, and it will be one-world government and one-world religion. The only religion in the world in that day will be the religion of Jesus Christ, of those who worship Jesus. It will be the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Jesus, the kingdom of love.

And yet, after a thousand years of that in our personal rule and reign with Jesus Christ on the earth over the whole world with the perfect government of love and fairness and justice and mercy and forgiveness, when the Devil is finally loosed, many run right after him, and he even tries to fight the kingdom of God. He again tries to rebel and fight against us, who by this time are the rulers of this earth by the power of God. So foolish for Satan to try to rebel against us, because he hasn’t got a chance!

This time God is so fed up with him that He sends down fire out of heaven to devour him completely and wipe him and all his anti-God, anti-Christ forces off the face of the earth. In fact, He causes such fire to come down from God out of heaven that it wipes out the entire earth completely. Not the ball itself, as we can prove from other scriptures, but the surface of the earth is completely burned and purified from all pollution, all the horrors of man, and God starts all over again with a new creation, as we’ll read in the next chapter—a new earth.

He re-creates the surface of the earth not like a paradise, but the paradise of God, and we will have a beautiful new earth under a new heaven! But notice that this thousand years comes before that. It comes at the end of the Battle of Armageddon, when Satan and his crowd are cast into hell and we rule and reign on the earth in the millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ over what’s left of unsaved man. We will rule over them for a thousand years. Then the Devil is allowed out for a little while to deceive the nations once again, and they try to come against God’s people and God wipes them all out with fire. In fact, He wipes the whole surface of the earth out with fire. Then occurs the great Judgment Seat of God when all the wicked are raised and are judged.

There’s this beautiful period of heaven on earth which occurs between that Battle of Armageddon and the Battle of Gog and Magog. A great battle begins it—Armageddon—and a great battle ends it—Gog and Magog. The participants and the belligerents and the main forces are the same, a conflict between the forces of heaven and the forces of hell: the forces of God and His son Jesus Christ, and the forces of Satan and his son the Antichrist. There is one beautiful thousand-year period between these two battles; a thousand years of peace and harmony and heaven on earth such as the world has never known.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

20: Satan in Hell—Heaven on Earth

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 20

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation 20: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the Beast, neither his Image, neither had received his Mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years (the Millennium).

“But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.”—The one that’s already taken place. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are”—are already—“and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”—An age and an age.

“And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

This is one of the shortest chapters in this amazing book, and yet it is one of the most amazing of all. This chapter covers one of the longest periods of time covered by this book, because it follows the Battle of Armageddon in which Satan, the Antichrist, the false prophet, and the forces that have accepted the Mark of the Beast are defeated. In chapter 19 they are all defeated by the forces of heaven, by a triumphal charge upon white horses out of the sky.

An invasion from outer space takes place. Jesus and those of us who love the Lord will come charging out of the sky upon white horses! You say, “What do you mean, white horses? If God is so supernatural and miraculous that we can be up in the sky and the heavenlies and in outer space in the first place, what in the world does He need with horses?” There is just something magnificent about a horse. God created horses. God sculptured the first horse out of the dust of the earth and made it a living creature, and He made it the way He made it and designed it perfectly for man to ride.

A horse was made for man to ride. Look at the shape of the horse. Its back is perfectly shaped to take the body of a man astride, and then its neck rising just in front of him with its head before him so that its head is almost even with the head of man. The average man is just tall enough to see right over the head of the average horse. It is made perfectly to size, made to fit man. Man was not made to fit the horse, but the horse was made to fit man.

Throughout the world even today horses are still used by some military forces, cavalry and police forces. It’s said that there is something about a policeman on a horse galloping through a city street or nudging a mob away from wherever they aren’t supposed to be, that gives a policeman a certain majesty, a certain authority that a policeman on foot cannot have. In some of the most modern cities in the world, they have a horse-borne police force, a segment of their police who are mounted police.

We’re going to ride into this earth from the sky, from the great Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Then, in the twentieth chapter, the Devil is finally going to be shackled by a great angel, bound by a chain—if not a literal chain, something to bind him. He’s a great spirit, a great evil power, so a literal iron chain is probably not what this is, but some type or form of bondage. He’s going to be bound, cast into the bottomless pit for one thousand years.

This period of a thousand years is mentioned six times in this chapter: once in the second verse, once in the third verse and once again in the fourth verse, and again in the fifth, sixth, and seventh verse. It is a very important thousand years, so important that theologians and Bible students have called it the Millennium, which is Latin for a thousand years.

During that thousand years, according to the sixth verse, we who have had part in the first resurrection, the Rapture, are going to rule and reign with Jesus Christ for a thousand years, on whom the second death has no power at all. If you’re born twice, you only die once.

If you’re born physically of the flesh and then born again of the Spirit, spiritually saved with Jesus in your heart, then you only die once physically. But if you’re only born once, just physically, you’re going to die twice. First of all, the natural physical death; second, the spiritual death, the second death. So, born only once, you die twice; born twice, born and born again, you die only once and then you go to be with the Lord forever.

You don’t spend that first thousand years in heaven. If Christians die now before Jesus comes, they’ll go to heaven, and when Jesus comes, He’ll resurrect and rapture them up to heaven for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. This takes place during the horrible hell on earth of God’s judgments, and then we come charging back to win this Battle of Armageddon in the nineteenth chapter, and the False Prophet and the Beast are cast into the Lake of Fire. Then in the twentieth chapter, the Devil himself is cast into the Lake of Fire with them.

What are we who love the Lord going to be doing during that time? We’ve already been resurrected, raptured, had the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, charged in and won the Battle of Armageddon, and now we’ve taken over the world. We’re going to rule and reign with Jesus Christ on the earth for one thousand years. That’s what the thousand years is going to mean to us. For the Devil and his crowd, it’s going to mean a thousand years in hell, the Lake of Fire.

But one more little thing is going to happen before the final heaven. This is not the final heaven; this is the Millennium. This is the heaven on earth of the restoration of the earth in its pure, pristine original beauty and perfection without the curse and without Satan and without most of the wicked. This is going to be the Millennium, the thousand years of our reign with Jesus on earth.

Then the Devil’s let out for a little while to show that “though mercy be extended to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:10). God lets Satan out and He lets him deceive the world to show that the people still left who survived the Tribulation and the wrath of God and lived through the Millennium under us deserve the judgments they’re going to get.

Even after a thousand years of perfect government under Jesus Christ and His saints and angels here on the earth, these wicked people rebel and follow Satan to their final destruction. Fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours the satanic forces of the Devil and his whole crowd completely, and wipes out all the wicked on earth in a gigantic fire in which the entire surface of the earth is burned up and the atmospheric heavens explode and roll back like a scroll, until God sits upon His judgment seat to judge the wicked.

This is not the Judgment Seat of Christ; that already occurred at the beginning of the Millennium, when the saints were judged and rewarded according to their works. That’s a different scene at the beginning of the kingdom of God on earth. (See 2 Corinthians 5:10.) This is the final great judgment, the judgment of the unsaved. This is their first resurrection, when they are resurrected to face God at His almighty throne of judgment for their sins. It is their first resurrection, but the second death for those who are cast into hell. And then after that, “Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire” (Revelation 20:15).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

19: The Battle of Armageddon

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 19

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

“And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God: For true and righteous are His judgments: for He hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.

“And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

“And he saith unto me, Write, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God.

“And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

“And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

“And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both (Antichrist and false prophet) were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.” Amen.

So reads the nineteenth chapter of this final book of the Bible, the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to St. John. A very remarkable passage, one of the longest in this book and one of the most fearsome, and yet not really one of the most complicated. The seventeenth chapter was one of the most symbolic and complicated and significant, which really requires interpretation. But this one, though long, is fairly simple; it’s obvious what’s happening.

In the eighteenth chapter we studied the witch and the monster: the great whore Babylon and the great seven-headed monster, the Beast with ten horns on the last head. We saw the destruction, the fall of the world system of the Great Whore, Babylon, materialism, wealth, riches, power, mammon, money. You name it—she’s it, the woman who all kings of the earth and all nations worship. But she’s finally completely destroyed in that eighteenth chapter.

We’re getting sort of little cameos now of the separate magnified events of the endtime. Actually we have already had the Rapture of the saints and the wrath of God, and even the Battle of Armageddon has already been predicted and we’ve had a little preview of it. But now after the Tribulation, the great world system is destroyed, Babylon the Great, the Great Whore that deceived the nations and caused the whole earth to worship her and desire her, because she is the great religion of the world—materialism.—Wealth, power, riches, that after which most men lust and covet.

The religion of this world is not Judaism or Christianity, or Islam, Buddhism, or animism. The greatest religion of the world is this harlot that rules over the kings of the earth. She is the goddess of things, the goddess of wealth, the goddess of possessions, the goddess of materialism—mammon.

In chapter 18 she was totally destroyed. Not by God, though it was ordained by God, but by her final great lover, the Antichrist himself.—The Devil-man, Satan incarnate who merely used her to gain power and to become the dictator of the world with a one-world government by uniting all the religions of the world behind him to promote him.

Having attained that power and having achieved that position at the pinnacle and peak of world power, the greatest world dictator the world has ever known, to rule the entire world in a one-world government of the Antichrist, the Devil has finally accomplished his purpose. He no longer needs the Whore, the world money system and its materialistic worship. Now he is going to demand not just the worship of things—which he has persuaded man to worship for millenniums. For thousands of years, he has persuaded mankind to worship things and idols and images and selfishness.

Many self-help speakers today promote worship of self—self-realization. “Get into yourself, discover yourself. Find self! You are your own god!” People begin to worship themselves and love themselves above God—“lovers of self rather than lovers of God,” as the apostle says (2 Timothy 3:2–4).

He’s going to set up his image in Jerusalem in the holiest of all holy places to the world’s three greatest religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. He is going to say, “Behold, I am thy God, O Israel. Behold, I am thy God, O Christians. Behold, I am thy God, O Islam. Worship me. I am the god of this world now. I’ve deceived you and led you astray all these years, but now you’re mine and I’m your god and you’ll worship me because I’ve destroyed all the rest of your gods and religions. Now you must worship me in person.”

Then he won’t need the Whore anymore. He destroys her and the great world economic system, the great world commercial and capitalistic system, the whole works, and he makes it a kingdom of hell on earth, a kingdom of the Devil himself in person, and declares that he is God—something he always wanted to be. He tried to steal the position of God in heaven. But, of course, he was nothing compared to God, and so God forced him out of power completely and he was cast out and down to the earth at the time of the Great Tribulation to tribulate and trouble the world for their sins.

Satan himself having destroyed the whore and the world system and having insisted that everyone worship his image, the image of this Beast, or be killed, and bear his name or number or mark in their foreheads or hands or starve, now rules supreme as the god of this world, demanding worship.

But something else is about to happen! Just at the hour when he thinks he has everything under control—at last he’s worshipped by the whole world as God and he sits in the temple of God, saying that he is God—suddenly, BOOM!  Like a bolt from the blue, something happens. Jesus comes and snatches all His children out of this world, all believers, all those who love God and who refused the mark of the beast and refused to worship the Beast, preferred even to die than to worship him.—For which reason many will be killed and martyred because they will rebel against him and reject him and refuse him, those who really love Jesus.—Christ their Savior, and God their Father.

So the Resurrection takes place, and all the saved who were dead come to life and all those saved who are still alive are raised into the air to meet Jesus in the clouds. A wonderful miracle has taken place and God’s own have all been removed from this earth, and then horrible wrath is poured out upon those left behind.

In chapter 19 after the wonderful Resurrection and Rapture of the saints, they are in heaven with the Lord enjoying the great marriage feast of the Lamb, the great wedding of His Bride, the entire true church of God, believers in Christ, all of them counted as one great bride though they are composed of millions, marrying Jesus at this great celebration in heaven, this wedding feast that’s going to be one of the greatest parties ever held!

While that wonderful party is going on in heaven, described in the first part of this passage, hell on earth, the wrath of God, is going on below. Where the saved are, in the first part of the nineteenth chapter, there’s only beauty and saints and the power of God and the praise of the Lord at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, with everyone clothed in beautiful fine linen.

They’re all praising God, thanking God for the great victory over the Enemy. They have been released and rescued out of this hell on earth, and they’re in heaven with Jesus having a wonderful party, the Marriage Supper, and a wonderful time while God dumps His judgments upon their wicked enemies they left behind.

Finally, He says, “Now we are going to mount our great white horses in the sky and return to the earth like ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky.’” That old song always gave me a thrill, and reminded me of the Battle of Armageddon as the Ghost Riders come charging out of the sky on white horses to conquer the Devil and Antichrist, and his false prophet, his false propaganda system, and destroy his evil idol, the Image of the Beast, and the seat of his kingdom and all of his followers, all those who took the Mark of the Beast in their head or palm or hand.

We’re going to ride out of the sky with Jesus on white horses. It says he saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, the horse on which sits Jesus, the Faithful and the True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war.

We’re going to come riding out of the sky, ghost riders from the sky. An invasion from outer space, aliens now to this world! Man worries about an invasion of aliens from outer space, and that’s what’s going to happen. We are going to be the aliens. We’re going to come riding out of the sky on great white horses and destroy the satanic kingdom of hell on earth, and then we’re going to set up the kingdom of heaven on earth, the kingdom of God, and restore earth to the beauty of the Garden of Eden.

His followers are going to rule over whatever people may have been blessed to survive both the wrath of man and the Tribulation and the wrath of God Himself. Those who have survived will be privileged and blessed of God to have managed to live through all that into the kingdom of God. We will be the rulers of this earth with Jesus and we shall rule and reign with Him together upon the earth, God’s Word says, with a rod of iron—by force. They are going to be compelled to obey God and compelled to do that which is right, and “righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas” (Isaiah 11:9).

There’s going to be a great millennium of righteousness, a thousand-year period of the restored Garden of Eden upon earth. But first of all we have to destroy the Antichrist kingdom. We’re going to have to destroy Satan and the Antichrist, the false prophet, his propaganda system, his great image of himself, and all those who followed the Beast.

Jesus invites the beasts and the fowls of the air, the vultures, to come and feast upon the bodies of these terrible people who rebelled against God and who tried to fight God to the very last. Even after all of His judgments, after He did so many mighty miracles and caught His people out of the grave and off the surface of the earth into the sky to be with Him in heaven! They hate Him all the more, fight Him all the more. So He finally comes back with His followers and destroys their whole kingdom.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

18: The Fall of the World System

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 18

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation 18: “And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are  waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies” (verses 1–3).

This Babylon is not just the ancient Babylon of old—of which that Babylon was a type of the Babylon of all ages and the Babylon of today, the great commercial system of wealth, money, riches and materialism. The religion of the world is the worship of things and not God. That is the Babylon which He’s talking about. That is the Babylon which is used as the symbol of all other Babylons and world systems from the beginning to the end.

In fact, it dates from the very time that Cain disobeyed the Lord, and instead of sacrificing the blood sacrifice that he was told to, he decided he would sacrifice whatever he wanted to sacrifice, that he would set his own standards and decide on his own sacrifices, and that would be his religion. As a result, God was greatly displeased and refused to accept his sacrifice, but rather accepted the sacrifice of his dear brother Abel who sacrificed a blood offering, a lamb, symbolic of Jesus Christ, which was pleasing to the Lord. (See Genesis 4.)

And Cain was very angry with his brother Abel outside the Garden of Eden in the very beginning, because God accepted his younger brother Abel’s sacrifice and rejected his, the older brother’s. And the Lord asked him, “Why art thou wroth? Why is thy countenance fallen?” He said, “If thy sacrifice is not accepted, then sin lieth at the door” (Genesis 4:5–7). There are many people today who try to be religious and holy and have some form of religious worship, but it’s not God’s. It’s not what He has asked for. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can satisfy His commandments.

So Cain was so wroth—this first symbol of false religion and the worship of things and materialism and the gods of this world and disobedience unto the Lord—that he became very angry with his brother Abel, whose sacrifice was simpler and perhaps less abundant but was in obedience, a blood sacrifice of a lamb symbolizing Jesus. So Cain, the head of the world’s first false religion of disobedience to God and of substituting his own righteousness and his own way and his own sacrifice instead of that which was commanded by God, became angry with the true believer, Abel, there just outside the Garden of Eden.

Cain rose up in anger and tried to kill the true, loving worshipper of God, the one who had obeyed God and given the right sacrifice. He killed his own brother in a jealous rage because his brother’s sacrifice was accepted—so simple, so humble, but so obedient. And his own abundant sacrifice of his fruits of the field, his fruits of his own hands, his own labors, his own righteousness was rejected by God and displeased God, because sin lay at his door in disobedience to God.

This simple little picture of Cain and Abel and the murder of Abel by his older brother Cain in jealous rage is a picture of the false church and the true church from that time on through over 6,000 years of man’s history. The false self-dependent religion which rules over the kings of the earth has persecuted the poor minority of the true church of believers who love and obey God and believe His Word and trust Him and follow Jesus.

Here in this great book of Revelation we have two women pictured. One is this horrible whore who has deceived the nations of the earth and rules over the kings and the powers and the governments of the earth, always persecuting the church of Jesus Christ.

We see the two women of this book, one very good, beautiful, and pure like Mary herself, the bride of Christ; the other evil, wicked—though beautiful—a licentious fornicator, adulteress, mother of harlots, the false church.—The greatest religion of all, that of materialism, the worship of things, riches, wealth, power.

While the poor pitiful little true bride of Christ like Mary of old flees into the wilderness for protection by the Lord, she is persecuted by the Devil and hounded by his mistress, who at last gets her due. This Antichrist government, this great red beast turns upon her and devours her and destroys her with fire at the very end in the Tribulation; and his ten kings pitch into her, burn her with fire, and destroy her.

First of all, having come into power, the Antichrist, Satan in the flesh, the Devil-man, decides he no longer needs Babylon, the great commercial, city system of materialism, so he destroys it. Remember, this is a flashback; we’re going back again into the period of the Tribulation and Antichrist rule before the Coming of Christ and the wrath of God.

We’re going back to see what the Antichrist does to the great whore, he and his ten kings who turn upon her and devour her with fire and destroy her and eat her flesh.—She who made them rich and powerful, she who rode upon their backs as a queen, saying, “I shall see no sorrow.” She who was a king-maker, she who was an empire-ruler, the empress of the Antichrist, is finally destroyed by the Antichrist government itself as he demands that all men everywhere shall now worship him only as the world’s god.

In the eighteenth chapter of Revelation, the Antichrist destroys the world city system in what appears to be a final atomic war. God thinks it’s such a tremendous event that He devotes an entire chapter to it, describing how she is finally destroyed, how the world cities and their banks and office buildings and temples of worship are finally totally destroyed, along with a great deal of the world. Very suddenly, He says, in a day, in one hour!

Fourth verse: “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double.” The angel is saying to God, “Double to her the judgment and the cruelty and the punishment and the persecution that she gave the saints.”

“How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day”—one day! The experts say the atomic war will be over in a few hours, in one day, perhaps one hour. “In one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire. For strong is the Lord God who judgeth her” (Revelation 18:5–8).

“And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment”—lest they get caught in the fire—“saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city. For in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more.” No more commercial system.

“The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men” (Revelation 18:9–13). That just about covers everything that the great whore trades in—all of her products, goods, wealth, from virtually everything on earth, including the very souls of men, slaves of her religion.

“And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls. For in one hour so great riches is come to nought” (Revelation 18:14–17).

“And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off”—they didn’t dare come very close because of the horror of the atomic destruction and the fallout—“and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city.” It must have been something like that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness. For in one hour is she made desolate. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her” (Revelation 18:17–20). The world city system, the Rome of modern days, tries to persecute and martyr the children and prophets of God because they’re thorns in their flesh and pricks in their eyes; they prick their conscience and make them feel guilty for their sins.

“And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all” (Revelation 18:21). With violence she destroyed many, with violence she destroyed nations, with violence she destroyed empires, countries, whole peoples with her hellish wars and bombs.

“And the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee. And no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee.” No more engineers, no more manufacturers. “And the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee” (Revelation 18:22). No more production even of food and grain.

“And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee.” That’ll be the day, the night when all the lights go out, the night when there’s the great blackout, the greatest the world has ever known, and the world goes dark.

“And the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Revelation 18:23–24). This witch who practiced her witchcraft and sorcery to deceive man, to deceive the entire world to follow the Beast and his Antichrist, is finally destroyed by her own lover—the Antichrist.

This Antichrist destroys her, along with his kings, who turn on her and burn her with fire and destroy her, and she is gone forever.—The harlot of the kings of this earth who have lived deliciously with her in luxury and wealth and have promoted her and carried her upon their backs to great power and glory.

At last she’s destroyed because she destroyed God’s servants and God’s children throughout time. She persecuted and harassed them, and finally killed and martyred many of them in these last days. Their message, their witness, their words of God needled her, tormented and annoyed her, so she tried to wipe them out to get rid of her guilty conscience and that convicting message, preaching against her sins and her abominations and her worship of this world, the god of this world, the Devil in the flesh and the things of this earth, having worshipped the creature and the creation more than the Creator (Romans 1:25).

So is destroyed her in whom was found the blood of the prophets and of the saints and of all that were ever slain upon the face of the earth. All the people of God in both Old and New Testaments were destroyed in her, this worldwide Babylon of sin and iniquity and mammon and materialism and the worship of the things of this earth instead of God. Then the Antichrist demands the worship of all men and claims he’s God.

That’s the beginning of the end. God is about to destroy Satan and his Antichrist kingdom and his beast and false prophet and all his Mark-takers throughout the earth. They have persecuted His children and have tormented them and killed them and harassed them from one end of the earth to the other.

Finally His children say, “Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, before You wreak revenge on these who have shed our blood?” (Revelation 6:10). And the Lord says, “Just a little bit, wait a little bit longer.” “For he which lives by the sword and kills by the sword must die by the sword; here is the patience and the faith of the saints.” For he that comes out of the pit, out of hell, must go into perdition (Revelation 13:10; 17:8).

In the nineteenth chapter we come to the end, the Battle of Armageddon, the return of Jesus Christ with His saints to take over the world and to set up the kingdom of God on earth, the great millennial kingdom of God! The curse is removed, man restored, and the beauty of God’s marvelous original creation restored here on earth for a thousand years. We’ll read about that beautiful millennial period after we read chapter 19 in which the final victory is won over the forces of the Antichrist and of Satan.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

17: The Witch and the Monster

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 17

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation 17: “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials”—these angels of judgment and wrath—“and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.”—This old witch who has bewitched the world, the false religion of the world. “With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” All governments cooperate with their religious system, and the religious system helps them rule, and the major religious system of the world is materialism. Mammon. Babylon.

“So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast”—a great red monster—“full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication” (Revelation 17:3–4). She lives in luxury and fornication with the system. She represents that which most men worship, which is not a religious system or one particular religion, but mammon, wealth, riches, money, the commercial system.

“And upon her forehead was a name written, mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth” (Revelation 17:5). God here is using a term for this great, wealthy, materialistic commercial system of the modern world, taking a term from ancient history—Babylon, a great, idolatrous capital of the world at one time. But this is talking about the final Babylon, the final manifestation of mammon or wealth or riches or materialism.

“And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration” (Revelation 17:6). He doesn’t mean he admired her in the sense we do today, but with great astonishment, with great wonder. She was drunk with the blood of the saints—she had martyred the people of Jesus.

“And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition.” He comes out of hell and he goes back into hell. In other words, he is demonic, Devil-inspired. “And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

“And here is the mind which hath wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth” (Revelation 17:7–9). This literally means seven great kingdoms or world empires, world powers, the same as the seven heads of this great red monster or red dragon, this beast. Seven great world empires, most of whom have already passed across the stage of history by the time this occurs, and at this time there is one final world power of the Antichrist, the seventh.

“And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space” (Revelation 17:10). The angel says there are seven kings, seven world powers since the beginning of the first great world power of man, Egypt, and five are already fallen. The angel was speaking to John the apostle who was getting this revelation on the Isle of Patmos about the year 107 A.D. during the Roman Empire.

So the angel says five of these kings or these kingdoms or these world powers are already fallen. Is this true according to history? Egypt—gone; Assyria—fallen; Babylon—fallen; Medo-Persia—fallen; Greece—fallen. Five already fallen, and he said one is, which was Rome at the time of John, and the other is not yet come—that’s the Antichrist.

There’s not been a worldwide empire since the days of Rome. There’s been no world empire that has ruled nearly all the known civilized world since Rome. There have been great Chinese empires, and there have been the Arabian empire and the Ottoman empire and the Spanish empire and the Portuguese empire and the British empire and the American empire and the Russian empire, but not one of them has ruled the whole world like the former empires.

But he’s coming; he’s called the Antichrist, Satan incarnate, the son of the Devil, who is going to rule the whole world in a one-world government by a one-world dictatorship and proclaim himself to be God and insist that the whole world worship him. So he’s “not yet come.”

Tenth verse: “And when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” He only rules the world for a very short time, only seven years, the last half of which is the Great Tribulation.

“And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is one of the seven, and goeth into perdition” (Revelation 17:11). This is a very strange statement here, because you notice there’s only one beast, but there are seven heads of this beast. So these seven world powers or world governments or world empires are nothing more than simply seven manifestations of the same beast from which these heads sprout. In other words, the Devil, the Antichrist.

All the world’s empires have come out of this Beast. And he says the Beast himself, verse 11, “was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven”—he’s of the seven—“and goeth into perdition.” In other words, they’re all one and the same. Only under the seventh head, that last revival of the Roman Empire, the Antichrist kingdom, the Beast himself rules and reigns, therefore really making himself the eighth, both the seventh and the eighth beast, in a sense.

He was, and is not—he disappears—but then he revives again. It says that he has a wound unto death and that he’s healed. (See Revelation 13:3–7.) This is a very deep mystery. He is the seventh, and it looks like he gets killed, but then he seems to be resurrected or brought back to life. Therefore in that sense he’s the eighth, and he’s one of the seven, the seventh in fact, and he goeth into perdition—he goes to hell where he deserves to be, because he’s the son of the Devil, Satan himself.

Verse 12: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.” The Antichrist kingdom is made up of these ten great world powers, ten kings or kingdoms—presidents, premiers, heads of parties, governments. They are the ten great leaders of the ten leading world powers in the last days of history in the time of the Antichrist, and he gets them to cooperate with him, to help put him in power. “They have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.”

In other words, these kings are not yet kings. Their kingdoms may already be in existence, but the world leaders who surrender to this antichrist Beast and make him the world emperor, the world dictator, and his one-world government the world government, are not yet come. They haven’t yet actually appeared upon the scene, but they will come on the scene for the last hour of world history along with the Antichrist.

Verse 13: “These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” These ten great world powers or kings or kingdoms or world leaders will give their power to the Beast. They will surrender their power voluntarily to the Beast, or the Antichrist, to proclaim him the king of the world, the world dictator of the one-world government. He doesn’t have to fight or conquer them—they voluntarily surrender their power and their kingdoms to him and cooperate with him so that he might control the whole world and become its great world dictator, the Antichrist. So they have one mind and give their power and strength unto the Beast. (Three he overthrows. See Daniel 7:8, 24.)

“These shall make war with the Lamb.” This Lamb is capitalized, signifying Jesus. “And the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). The Antichrist forces are deluded enough to try to make war with Jesus Himself and His forces, His followers. But that’s where they’re defeated, because He is the Lord of all lords and the King of all kings. Christians are with Him, the called, chosen and faithful. The forces of Christ finally confront the forces of the Antichrist in the Battle of Armageddon after the Tribulation and the wrath of God.

“And he saith unto me, the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (Revelation 17:15). This is one religion that rules the whole earth—materialism, the worship of things. She’s pictured as a beautiful woman adorned with precious jewels and gold and silver, living in luxury. So she, Babylon, bewitches the whole earth with her sorceries and her fornication to cause men to worship money and wealth and material things.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s just a little thatched hut and a wooden canoe; if you worship it, it’s a sin! If you worship it and love it and hold it above God Himself, with no love for God nor your fellow man or neighbor, but just for your little shack, it is a sin. Even if you don’t have a mansion, even if it’s just a little cardboard shanty or a grass shack, if it has become your idol, what you worship, what you’d rather have than anything in this world, it has become your religion.

In the capitalistic commercial system of Babylon, its temples are banks. Its temples are office buildings to which its devotees and worshippers resort to worship eight hours a day from nine to five, five or six days a week.

That is the religion of the world. That is the great whore, Babylon the Great, that the kings of this earth have made rich and who rides on their backs and controls them. It’s their lust for things and wealth and riches and power, and she rides on their necks and controls them. She rides on the back of the Beast.

They all seek and lust after the same things. They worship things and riches and power and money and wealth, and materialism is the god and the religion of the world. She, the great whore of Babylon, is the one they worship and to whom they give their power and who rules over them.

“And these shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them.” They’ve always made war with Christians and persecuted them and killed them and martyred them.—This false religion of the world, those who worship this world and the things that are therein.

God says to us, “Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world, for he that loveth the world is at enmity with God” (1 John 2:15; James 4:4). To those who love Jesus, He said, “If any man would come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me. For he that would save his life shall lose it, and he that would lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s shall save it” (Matthew 16:24–25). So they make war on the church of Jesus Christ and His followers, but the Lamb will overcome them, for He is the Lord of all lords and the King of all kings. And they that are with Him—all saved Christians—are called, chosen, and faithful.

Verse 15: “And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, multitudes, tongues, nations.” The whole world. She rules over them all. “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.” Eventually they will turn on her and destroy her; they will destroy the world materialistic system and turn the world over to the Antichrist.

The Antichrist will destroy the materialistic world system and demand worship of himself as God— the Devil incarnate! He will say, “Stop worshipping wealth and commercialism. Stop worshipping this harlot, this whore of materialism you’ve always worshipped. From now on, I’m God.” So he destroys her. He destroys commercialism, materialism, all of it, and demands that all nations and persons worship him.

“For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill His will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:17–18).

Praise God for our true God, Jesus, King of kings. Are you ready to go with Jesus?

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

16: The Wrath of God (part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapters 15–16

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

They took these vials of wrath from one of the four beasts around the throne of God here in Revelation. (See Revelation 4:6–9.) They appeared in several other places, one like a lion, one like an eagle, one like an ox, one like a man and so on. What are they? All kinds of theories have been given.

They seem to symbolize the great powers of God by which He runs the universe. They seem to symbolize the great power like an ox and like an eagle and like a lion and a man and so on. In fact, these very beasts used to be worshipped by the idolaters and the pagans of the ancient world. Here they’re all combined around the throne of God, giving glory to God, worshipping God, making great announcements to God, saying “Amen” to God, doing certain duties for God.

There are many mysteries that God has hidden for Himself and which He has reserved for us only to know sometime in the future or perhaps in heaven itself. So you can theorize about these four beasts who are so often pictured surrounding God like four great bodyguards, surrounding His throne in heaven or traveling through time and space, but I doubt if we’ll know until we get to heaven and see them for ourselves. Maybe we won’t even understand them then.

The prophets who saw them never explained them; maybe they didn’t understand them either. God’s ways are above our ways, as high as the heavens above the earth (Isaiah 55:9). So we’re not expected to understand everything God does and has and knows. We’re just finite men and we have pretty small minds, and we can’t possibly comprehend all of the wonders and the creations of God.

This is the great event of God’s judgments being poured out upon the earth and upon the wicked who remain on the earth after the righteous have been caught up in the Rapture. It’s so important that the Bible devotes an entire chapter just introducing these seven angels of wrath. Then it plunges on into their plagues, which they pour onto the earth in chapter 16. Notice what kind of plagues they are and what parts of the earth they affect.

The first plague is poured out on the earth, and the men who had followed the Beast, the followers of the Antichrist who accepted his mark and worshipped his image, develop sores, horrible sores. Maybe cancer is a forerunner of the sores that will fall upon the followers of the Beast, the unsaved, the wicked left behind for the judgments of God.

The second angel poured out his vial on the sea and it became blood. You notice that some of these plagues had already been brought by the judgments of God on the kingdom of the Antichrist during the Tribulation, during his rule and reign, but they were only partial at that time. A third was destroyed, a third of the waters became blood, a third of the trees were burned up, and so on. This time it seems to be almost total. It says the whole sea became blood, apparently all the sea, and everything that lived in the sea died. What a mess!

The third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains and they became blood. There’s no way to get a drink of water, nothing to drink but blood. The angel says they’re worthy of it because they shed the blood of God’s prophets and His children and people, so they deserve to drink blood. How the blood of the martyrs is avenged!—Those that cried from under the altar of God in heaven in chapter 6, “How long, O Lord, how long until You avenge our blood upon our enemies?” Here it is. First they develop sores all over their body and then they have to drink blood.

Then the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun and they were scorched with fire. I think the way some of these sunbathers bathe and get horrible sunburns that nearly kill them, and sometimes do, with red blisters all over the bodies, second and third degree burns, is a little sample of what God’s going to do in the last days of His judgment when He’s going to cause the intense heat of the sun to be multiplied, it says in another place, sevenfold (Isaiah 30:26). So man will be scorched with its fire. I can hardly imagine curses or sufferings any worse than these horrible curses and plagues that God pours out upon the wicked who have persecuted His children and killed His prophets.

Now the fifth angel, and there’s darkness. The wicked are left on the earth, deserted by God and by the righteous Christians who are caught up to heaven to be with Jesus, deserted to their sufferings and plagues, groping their way around in such thick darkness that they can’t even find their way around. How terrible!

Next, the sixth angel dries up the great river Euphrates to prepare the way for the kings of the East, the armies of the East. We saw in a previous chapter that 200 million horsemen are going to come from the East, summoned by the Devil himself for a last great battle on earth, still trying to rebel against God and against His angels and still trying to conquer the earth. They are still reviling God, cursing God, and creating even more destruction in a final horrible war called the battle of that great day of God Almighty—Armageddon. They are summoned together by the evil spirits of Satan himself and the Antichrist and his false prophet.

Then Jesus warns, “Watch out, I come as a thief in the night.” He’s speaking to John and to me and you today. “You’d better be ready! You’d better be ready for the Rapture, the Resurrection, when it comes, if you want to escape all this hell.” You’re to watch and keep your garments. What garments are these? That suit, coat and tie you’re wearing? That lovely dress you’re wearing, ladies? No, He’s talking about the robes of righteousness. He’s talking about the clothing of salvation, not natural clothing. He says, “lest ye be found naked.” Lest you be found without His salvation, without His robes of righteousness, without being saved.

Satan and his cohorts gather mankind together for one final destructive battle at a place referred to in verse 16 as Armageddon. This literally means the height of Megiddo. When Napoleon first saw the height of Megiddo he said, “What a place for a battle!” Some Bible students have speculated that this is where that final war, the Battle of Armageddon, is going to center and where it’s going to concentrate in this final battle between the forces of hell and the wicked on earth, and the forces of heaven coming out of heaven with Jesus to conquer and to annihilate them (Revelation 19).

You’ve heard of this Battle of Armageddon all your life, haven’t you? World wars and other great wars have been called Armageddon. But those have only been bare little previews of the final horror of this worst-of-all wars at the end of the age of man.

When He has gathered them together into this Valley of Megiddo surrounding the height of Megiddo, Armageddon, from all over the earth, the seventh angel will pour out his vial into the air.

“And there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, it is done.”—Meaning, this is the end. This is the very end, the last scene of this drama of all the damage that man can possibly do on earth. This is his last horrific battle, warfare being man’s greatest sport, creating the most possible destruction, man’s inhumanity to man.

This time man gathers together under the Devil himself to try to fight the forces of God. How foolish! How ridiculous! How presumptuous! You wonder how the Devil could be so dumb as to think he can fight God. Well, he’s been doing it for thousands of years, or trying to. He’s made himself king of the world, the god of man, and now he’s trying to fight the very forces of heaven coming down.

So what does God do as they gather here in the Valley of Megiddo? What’s the last sign of this war?

“And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great” (Revelation 16:18). Lightnings, thunders, a great earthquake, the greatest the earth has ever known, and the cities of this earth are divided and the cities of the nations fall! Not just one little quake here or there, a little isolated earthquake with just one or maybe a few cities to fall, but the cities of the entire earth are going to fall in this last shake-up of God. One last earthquake is going to destroy all the cities.

“And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath” (Revelation 16:19). God gives the fierceness of His wrath to Babylon—here again, speaking of the cities, the great world system, the world commercial system, banking system, its cities, its buildings, all tied together in the worship of mammon, the worship of wealth, the worship of materialism, the greatest religion of the world which nearly all men are members of except the followers of Jesus Christ.

“And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found” (Revelation 16:20). They’re all going to be leveled in that day and the islands are going to disappear. And a hail from heaven with each stone weighing over 100 pounds, over a talent’s weight, a horrible hail is going to come down from heaven (Revelation 16:21). Great hail from heaven flattens the cities of the earth and is going to crush the armies of the Antichrist!

So ends this wrath of God upon man at the end of the Tribulation at the final rebellion of man in this period of wrath following his great Tribulation period, after the saints are with the Lord in heaven. I don’t want to be here then, do you? It’s bad enough to have to go through the Tribulation of man and his horror and his anger and his wrath on earth and the wrath of God combined against him. Thank God His children will escape most of that, because that’s directed at Satan and his forces even during the Tribulation!

Most of the horrors of the Tribulation are not directed at God’s people; they’re directed as curses of God upon the forces of their enemies. You just can hardly even comprehend the horrors that are going to occur after the Lord takes the saved, Christians who love Jesus, out of this earth and out of their deadly grasp and their cruel hands. God’s going to rescue us and take us out in the Rapture before all this.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

16: The Wrath of God (part 1)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapters 15–16

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation 15: “And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

“And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest.

“And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the (ark of) testimony in heaven was opened: And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from His power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.”

Revelation 16: “And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

“And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea.

“And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgments.

“And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues; and they repented not to give Him glory.

“And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty (Armageddon).

“Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments (salvation), lest he walk naked and they see his shame (sins). And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

“And the great city (Babylon—the city system) was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: And great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the great plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.”

Here we begin to read about this final wrath of God. In the Tribulation period in the preceding seven chapters (chapters 8–14) and previewed in the first seven chapters of Revelation, we have the wrath of man manifest in the world, in the kingdom of the Antichrist, the Devil-man, Satan incarnate. Now he’s being brought to his end and to his doom.

Even at the end of the last chapter, Revelation 14, we were told that as this wrath of God began to be poured out upon the earth, that blood was going to run as deep as the horses’ bridles for the space of 200 miles! Have you the faintest idea how much blood that would take? With the old system of warfare and fighting with mere swords and staves and spears and even their worst guns and rifles and pistols, they couldn’t have begun to draw and shed that much blood.

Only when they began to drop the horror bombs on cities like Nagasaki and Hiroshima, slaughtering 100,000 people at a time and maiming 100,000 or more, only then could man begin to realize how much blood he could shed with his latest, hellish, most fiendish instrument of death and destruction, the atomic bomb.—These horrible nuclear weapons that can kill millions at a salvo. How could blood run for 200 miles, as deep as the horses’ bridles, four feet deep? How could there be that much bloodshed? It’s going to be shed in the days of the wrath of God.

In this fifteenth chapter He introduces these angels of wrath, and there are seven of them, having seven last plagues of the earth—plagues meted out upon sinful, unrepentant man who has refused the truth of God. Man who has insisted on going his own way instead of God’s way. Sinful man who was given a choice between believing God and believing the Devil in the Garden of Eden and ever since. Don’t blame it all on Adam and Eve! We have each been given the same choice.

What is the horrific end of it all? Some horrors, hell on earth, brought by the Devil incarnate, in the person of the Antichrist, man’s wrath upon man. The fulfillment of the worst wrath and horror that man can bring upon this earth, followed by the wrath of God upon these wicked men who have brought such hell to the earth and such suffering and such death and such rebellion against God, until this Devil-man commands that he be worshipped as God himself and tries to kill everyone who refuses to worship his idol, his image, and tries to starve everyone who will not take his mark.

The Devil has done his worst, man has had his day and he has done his damnedest, and he has made the biggest mess out of God’s creation that could possibly be made of anything that began so beautifully and so perfectly in that gorgeous Garden of Eden. Man has literally brought hell on earth with the help of the Devil himself.

So the angels of God begin to pour out the wrath of God upon the unregenerate who are left behind upon the earth, while the Christians, the righteous, the saved, those who love God throughout the world, millions of them have already been resurrected from the dead and raptured from among the living, caught up into the sky to meet Jesus to have a wonderful party in the air, a marvelous Wedding Supper of the Lamb that’s going to be going on up yonder. Heaven above while there’s hell below.

You’re getting a picture now in these two chapters of the hell that’s going to be happening on this earth after Jesus Christ has deserted it and taken out all His own, those who love Him and are saved by His blood and His sacrifice on Calvary. There won’t be anybody left behind except the living dead, the dying living, and the hell that both Satan and God are going to bring upon this earth. Hell has already been brought by Satan, now God’s going to give His judgments upon the kingdom of the Antichrist, this kingdom of the Devil, this kingdom of hell on earth.

Meanwhile the saved praise the Lord! Just before you are given a view and a rundown on this horror that God is going to bring on the earth by His judgments, you’re given a beautiful picture of the righteous, the saved, the Christians who love Jesus standing upon a sea of glass in heaven, so smooth and so beautiful and so polished, through which God can see all things that happen—past, present, and future.

There stand we who love Jesus and who have suffered through all of this hell on earth and the opposition and persecution of our enemies. There we stand with Christ at last, supreme, glorious, radiant, happy, singing the songs of Moses and of the Lord. And they will praise the Lord and say, “Who in the world could possibly not fear God after all of this?” In the preceding chapter you found the whole world wondering after the Beast, but this heaven above wonders after Jesus.

You notice in that fifteenth chapter, the fifth verse, that he looked, “and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened.” Where was the tabernacle of the testimony, the Ark of the Covenant which symbolized the presence of God upon earth and once symbolized the presence of God in the old Jewish temple? It’s been a mystery for ages.

What ever happened to the Ark of the Covenant?—The ark of the testimony, the tabernacle of the testimony as it was called, that little box which contained those souvenirs of the wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel and over which hovered two angels and the shekinah glory, the light of God Himself symbolizing the presence of God, but which at the death of Christ on the cross, the temple veil having been rent in twain by the hand of God, was suddenly discovered by its packed worshippers on that great Passover eve to be empty and gone.

The most sacred relic they had was gone, which only the high priest could even see, only the high priest could visit once a year, which symbolized the presence of God with His people. When the veil was rent in twain, the Ark was gone, and from then on Judaism was a hollow, empty, hard shell of religion with nothing left. Even the Ark of the Covenant was gone, and soon the temple was smashed and burned to the ground.

What happened to the Ark of the Covenant? What happened to the tabernacle of the testimony? Here you find it in heaven, standing right there in the temple of God. And the angels of judgment, these angels of God’s wrath come out of the temple with these seven vials of wrath. As the cup of man’s iniquity was full, God poured out His cup of wrath, seven cups of wrath upon the wicked earth and its unregenerate men, having rescued His own children in the Rapture just before this in chapter 14. (to be continued)

15: The Rapture

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 14

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation 14: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

“These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God, and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

“And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

“And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

“And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”

Thus reads the fourteenth chapter of this thrilling but almost frightening book of the Revelation of God to Jesus Christ to John to us. This is the last of the second seven chapters of Revelation, divided so beautifully into these three sevens of chapters, plus one about heaven. The first seven chapters had to do with what is now past history, from John’s day through the very end, a sort of a preview and a summary of all history. The second seven chapters zero in on just the last period, the worst and most awful period of man’s history, the Tribulation period and its seven Tribulation trumpets, and it virtually ends with the seventh trumpet, the last trump announcing the Coming of Christ, and we zero in a little closer to all the endtime events which occur upon the blowing of that last trumpet.

Now, in this fourteenth chapter, the end of the second seven of chapters, we come to a summary of the grand finale of events accompanying the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the Rapture of His saints. First we have some announcements from heaven, some important, glorious announcements of what is about to happen. And then we have a description of the actual events, with a prediction and a quick glimpse of the beginning of the wrath of God and the doom to come.

First of all, he speaks of the hundred and forty-four thousand, and there is great fanfare for their appearance, like it’s a grand appearance of the stars of God’s great play. It’s almost as if they’re making a curtain call, because they’ve already appeared in the play before, but here they appear with Him in heaven.—This time not just on Mount Zion, Jerusalem, where they got their start as the first Christians of the early church, the pioneers of this great, great family of God, but after they have finally arrived and the play is almost over and they’re having their curtain call with the fanfare and the applause and plaudits of all the world, the voice of many waters, thunder, harpers. What a grand finale for any play!

And they sang a new song. They have a grand final number that they’re going to sing as this particular scene closes on this grand dramatic play of the Lord; only it’s not just a play, it really happens. Nobody else could sing that song except these who bore the earliest cross and the heat of the day and the pioneering of the church!

Nearly all of these first Christians were Jews, as they’re called here in the fourth verse, “the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb” (Revelation 14:4). And as they were named in a previous chapter even by tribes, 12,000 from each tribe of Israel, 144,000 all together, it sounds to me, if you want to take it literally, like all of these first Jewish Christians who pioneered the church of Jesus Christ, the early Christian church, are being honored here by the Lord for being pioneers and so many of them martyrs and pure in heart as far as God was concerned.

He makes it figuratively speaking, saying “not defiled with women” and so on, but it doesn’t mean that they were celibates. It doesn’t mean that they had never committed any sins; it simply means that in the sight of God they were pure and holy, sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ, greatly honored here in this last grand scene, this great climax of the play of this particular scene of the world’s greatest hour of Tribulation, which is about to close with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. They’re greatly honored and praised, there’s an orchestra, there are harps, songs, thunders—all kinds of tremendous celebrations—and God shows that they’re in heaven with Him. Praise God!

Now if you don’t want to believe that they were all the first Jewish Christians, you could interpret this more or less figuratively and symbolically as being the most outstanding Christians of the Christian era throughout Christian history. But it’s a bit hard to get around that list that is given back in chapter 7 where they’re not only named as 144,000, but they’re named from specific tribes of Israel. It’s a little bit difficult to say that that’s just symbolic and figurative and they weren’t necessarily literal Jews from those literal tribes.

I’m more inclined to believe that they were Jews, and that God is greatly honoring them here in this chapter because they were the pioneers, the earliest martyrs. They’re the ones who bore the burden of the heat of the day, the heat of persecution, the heat of martyrdom, the most horrible slaughter and torture and terrible things, to help get the church of God started. Once it was rolling, once the Roman Empire and the Roman emperor himself had accepted Christianity, the job was easy, in a sense. Although then, sad to say, in many cases the Romans had not become Christians but the Christians had become Romans and continued under the name of the new Roman church to persecute the true believers, the true Christians, the humble followers of the Word of God in His apostles, disciples, and prophets.

But these here sound to me like real genuine Jews who love Jesus and who were the first Christian disciples and followers of Christ in the early Christian martyrdom era, who suffered the ten persecutions of the Roman Empire. They’re praising God, glorifying God, and here we have several angelic announcements by angels of God, like heralds of the king coming out on the stage and announcing a new thing that’s about to happen or has just happened.

In the mind of God, as far as He was concerned, by this time Babylon had already fallen. She had fallen because she fell prey to the Antichrist government of the Tribulation, first of all during the first half of the Antichrist’s reign and rule. The first three and a half years of his seven-year reign he cooperates with Babylon, the false religion of the world. But then he turns on her and destroys her, his only remaining competition (Revelation 17:16). Now, the Protestants have called Babylon the Catholic Church, and some have called Babylon all churchianity, but if you’re going to picture this Babylon and you find out she was full of merchants and riches and great wealth and so on, you’re not just going to have to include a few religions.

You’re going to have to come face to face with the greatest religion in the whole world, which is neither Catholicism nor Protestantism nor Christianity nor Islam nor Judaism nor Buddhism nor any of the Oriental religions or any of the so-called religions of man, but you’re going to have to confess that the greatest religion of this world is the one religion that they don’t even call a religion. But all you have to know it is a religion is by what they worship. What do most people worship?

The god of most of the world is money, things, materialism! The things which they possess. Jesus said “a man’s (true) life consisteth not of the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15), but that’s what man thinks his life consists of, and so he worships these things, these idols. They may not be in the figures of statues and actual heathen gods and idols or Christian gods and idols, but they are the things that he worships and his idols, and that’s the god of this world: materialism, things, money. Mammon, as Jesus called it in general—the god of wealth, riches, possessions (Matthew 6:24).

By this time the Antichrist has declared himself as God and he has destroyed the great capitalistic commercial system of the world and all other religions as well, and set himself up as god, so Babylon is fallen. By this time he’s insisted that all mankind take the mark of his bestial image in their foreheads or hands, and everyone who does will be condemned. And of course the true Christians, the true believers in God, will not accept that mark because they already have the invisible mark of God in their foreheads—faith in Jesus Christ. And those people who have the mark of the beast and worship him will be condemned in torment, it says forever and ever. We’ll go into exactly how long that means in later studies, but it means for an age and for ages and so on.

“Here is the patience of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” What is their patience? “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” Because here appears in the fourteenth verse of the fourteenth chapter the coming of Jesus Christ on a cloud.—The Son of man, having a sickle and a golden crown, and He reaps the earth.

What can this be other than the Rapture, after which another angel reaps the wicked and casts them into the winepress of the wrath of God. That is the end of this chapter. The next chapter begins the description of the wrath of God on the wicked who were left behind after Jesus has gleaned out of the earth His beautiful, great reaping of the harvest of the Christians and the true believers, His bride in the great Resurrection of the dead and Rapture of the saints.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

14: The Beast of Hell

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 13

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation 13: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast”—or a monster—“rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon”—that great red dragon, Satan, that we saw in the last chapter (part 13 of this series)—“gave him his power and his seat and great authority.” The Devil himself possesses this monster, this beast, this Antichrist man.

“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon”—the Devil—“which gave power unto the beast”—the Antichrist—“and they worshipped the beast”—the Antichrist—“saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:1–4). Apparently he is very powerful at this time.

“And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.”  He’s a great propagandist; he uses the media. “ And power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” There again we have the three and a half years of Tribulation. “And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Only those who have his mark. “If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.” Meaning Satan and the Antichrist. “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Revelation 13:5–10). Where? Knowing they’re going to be avenged against this enemy.

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” This is the false prophet, the false Christ, the false messiah. Not the Lamb of God but the wolf in sheep’s clothing. “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast”—this monster “whose deadly wound was healed.” (The false prophet represents the Antichrist like the Holy Spirit represents Christ.)

“And he”—this false prophet, this false lamb—“doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” This beast, this Antichrist is going to be like a resurrected man.

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak”—in other words, it’s some kind of an automaton, a robot, operated by some kind of computer. “He had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Revelation 13:11–18). His number is six hundred sixty-six, 666. So there you have it! Revelation 13, a very unlucky chapter.

Here we have the picture of this horrible monster, this devil-man called beast or monster here in the Scripture. He is inspired by the Devil, given power by the great red dragon, Satan himself, to take dominion over the whole earth. It says here that everybody is going to worship him except those who love the Lord. Everybody is going to receive his mark except those who have the mark of God already in their foreheads—and those in the book of life.

All the rest of the world is going to believe him and receive him and follow him and wonder after him because he is this great superman, this false messiah, the phony savior. Not the Son of God, but the son of the Devil. Not God incarnate, like Jesus Christ, but Satan incarnate—the Devil in the flesh.

“Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:9–11).

The Antichrist is sent to those who rejected the truth and God’s Word and Jesus Christ, since they rejected the truth and didn’t want the truth. So He sends them strong delusion that they might believe a lie, that they might be damned.

This is the same man referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2, who comes doing great signs and wonders and miracles and sits in the temple of God showing himself as God and that he is God and requiring everyone to worship him as God.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4).

He has all the characteristics, you’ll notice, of all the former kingdoms and empires which have preceded him. He’s partly a leopard, like Greece; he’s partly a bear, like Medo-Persia; and he has the mouth of a lion, like Babylon. This shows you the territories he covers. And the dragon, the Devil himself, gives him his power, his seat, and his authority.

Now here’s a very strange thing; he has seven heads with ten horns and ten crowns. How could seven heads have ten horns? It looks like seven heads ought to have seven horns, or maybe 14 horns if they had two on each head. But no, the seventh head has ten horns, this last head. According to Daniel, three of the ten horns are overthrown and this eleventh one takes their place. So three horns are then gone or dominated by the little horn, who springs up in this last head, making him the eighth. “Even he is the eighth” (Revelation 17:11; Daniel 7:8,24).

Each of these heads of this beast represents one of the great world empires that has passed off the scene. This time the picture gives you all the world’s empires, all the way from Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome and finally the Antichrist, this last world government, the last great world dictatorship of the world dictator, the Antichrist, called here the beast.

There are ten horns, ten kings at the last who’ll cooperate with him, as we’ll find out a little later, and who work with him. He overthrows three of them, and he comes up in their place, and that’s why it says “even he is the eighth” in another chapter we’ll study later (Revelation 17:11). He continues forty and two months, exactly the same length of time we’ve been told of in every other passage we’ve read so far, which is the last three and a half years of world history called the Great Tribulation. In fact, it’s the last half of his seven-year reign.

He comes on the scene with a pact to reign seven years, but in the middle of it he breaks the pact, this holy covenant with the religions of the world, and he abolishes them all. He bans all other religions and says, “Now we’re not going to have any more religious arguments, religious bickering or religious wars; we’re not going to have any more problems over Jerusalem and who’s to take care of it, because I am going to take care of it. I’m going to set my palace up in Jerusalem, my headquarters for my world government, and who are you going to worship? I’m going to sit in the temple of God as god and I will make you worship me, for I am God.” Yes, their god: “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

He also has a false prophet, this other beast who looks like a lamb. You see, this devil-man, he pretends to be God, so he has to have a prophet of God, this false lamb who becomes his greatest promoter, his propaganda master, his false prophet who promotes him and his worship and insists that the world build him a great image, a great idol of this beast, this monster, and that all the world fall down and worship his image or be killed.

He insists that all the world take his number into their foreheads or their hands or they can’t buy or sell. They can’t live; they’ll starve to death. They can’t do business, they can’t sell their produce or their products, and they can’t buy their groceries or their needs. No one will be able to buy or sell or do any business without this number in their forehead or in their hand, and they will all be commanded to worship his image, this great, amazing, computerized robot that will be able to act like it’s alive and move and talk and command the worship of the world.

Because man has now made an idol, an image which is smarter than he is, man has made his own god and he will fall down and worship it and worship the works of his hands.—A new scientific idol that he will worship as god and call God and obey as his god and which the Devil, Satan himself, will be able to “bring to life.”

He will operate this image and cause it to command that everyone who refuses to worship it will be killed by the Antichrist forces of the devil-man, the beast, of whom he is an image, and that no one will be able to buy or sell or do any business of any kind unless he has his mark in his forehead or hand.

Are you ready for it? Will you receive that mark and that number and be condemned? Or do you have the number of God, God’s mark, already in your forehead by salvation in Jesus Christ to spare you from worshipping that monster and his kingdom of hell on earth? You just have to take Jesus into your heart and He’ll save you.

For when Jesus comes,
The earth will shake
And hearts will quake,
Be ready.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

13: The Queen of Heaven and the Dragon (part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 12

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

No wonder the Antichrist is so powerful and such a superman and wonder worker, because Satan at last is cast out of heaven. There’s a purge in heaven, and the rebels and the demons and the devils are cast out. You say, “What do you mean? I didn’t know there were demons and devils and rebels in heaven.” Well, you haven’t read your Bible very well.

Satan is even called one of the sons of God in the book of Job, and here as being one of God’s creations who is in rebellion against Him and yet appears before Him in the courts of heaven, accusing the saints day and night. Until in this last three and a half years he’s finally purged and cast out with his rebel demons, so that they have no more power in heaven, can no longer come into the presence of God and accuse His saints (Job 2:1; Isaiah 14:12–15; Revelation 12:9–10).

So the Devil in his fury, knowing that his time is short, possesses this Antichrist and makes him a superman, a devil-man, the Devil in the flesh, son of Satan, like Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh. He is the great counterfeiter! The Devil doesn’t know anything new, he can’t do anything different; he just watches what God does and he tries to imitate Him.

Since God had a Son who was God in the flesh, the Devil has this son, who is the Devil in the flesh, possessed by Satan himself. Then the Devil tries to set up on earth the false kingdom of God, the false millennium, only it’s the kingdom of the Devil and it’s the kingdom of hell on earth instead of the Millennium of heaven.

He even has his own trinity! The Devil is the father of his trinity, the Antichrist is his son, and then he has the false prophet, his unholy spirit. Here we have the false trinity, and he becomes the false messiah of the false millennium of the false kingdom of the people who take the Mark of the Beast. All an imitation of what God is about to do—a brief and pitiful imitation.

The Devil tries to imitate God because he always wanted to be God, so when he’s cast out of heaven and he can’t annoy God Himself and God’s angels, then he decides to lord it over the earth and to become the king of this earth. He has been the prince of the power of the air, but now he becomes the usurper king of this world (Ephesians 2:2).

That’s what Jesus even calls him. He says, “I saw him cast out” (Luke 10:18). You may wonder, then, whether he was cast out in Jesus’ day. No, Jesus was looking forward into the future, seeing the day when Satan would be cast out to the earth and possess this Devil-man, the Antichrist, the superman the world is waiting for to solve its problems and set up this false millennium, his kingdom of hell on earth, during which time he chases and persecutes the woman, obviously the church.

“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. Yet they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. But woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea. For the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:10–12).

We’re being told that now that the Devil is cast out of heaven and heaven is purged, there’s good riddance of bad rubbish, and heaven is rejoicing! But the voice says to the inhabitants of the earth, we who dwell upon the earth and even the church of Jesus Christ still on earth, “Woe unto you people on earth, for the Devil is come down to you and he knows that his time is short and he has great wrath.”

So look out for his wrath during these last three and a half years, these 1260 days, these 42 months of Tribulation mentioned throughout Old and New Testament prophecies. Here’s another proof that the church is here throughout the Tribulation, because the Enemy chases her and she flees into the wilderness.

All these centuries, yea, millenniums, thousands of years, the Devil has been accusing the saints of God. He came before God and accused Noah, Job, and nearly every person of God who has ever lived. He has accused you day and night before the Lord, bringing up your sins and reminding God of the law and saying that you should be punished. He’s the prosecuting attorney who demands the execution of the law. And of the culprit—you!

But you have an advocate, a defense lawyer—Jesus Christ, God’s own Son. God is the judge, the Devil is the prosecuting attorney and executioner, but Jesus, God’s Son, is your defense attorney, your advocate, your lawyer defending you. When the Devil reminds God of all your sins and all your iniquities and your mistakes and your shortcomings and your failures and accuses you for every little flaw and fault he can find, all you have to do is look to your defense lawyer, Jesus.

Say, “Please, Lord, plead my case before the Father. Because You know I’m no good. You know I’ve failed. You know I can’t be good enough. You know I’m not righteous enough. I just have to plead Your blood on the cross, that You died for me and You took the rap. You took the punishment. You paid the price. You fulfilled the law and You died in my place, so therefore You said that God has pardoned me. Plead my case with Your Father.”

Jesus just looks to the Father and says, “This is another one of Mine, Father, who has received Me and believed on Me. He has received My sacrifice in his place and believes that I took his punishment for him. Therefore, Lord, You can hand him one of those pardons that You have stacked up there on Your desk for everyone who loves Me and believes in Me and has received that forgiveness from You because of Me.”

God hands down the pardon, and Jesus hands it to you, and the Devil slinks away with his tail between his legs, defeated again. “Foiled again. Curses!” There used to be an old comic strip in which the villain appeared, looking like the Devil, and every time he got defeated, he slunk off all angry with his tail between his legs, saying, “Curses, foiled again!”

So that’s what happens every time the Devil accuses you now or tries to accuse you. But in these last three and a half years he’s no longer even going to be able to go before the court of God in heaven; he’s going to be right here accusing God’s children and persecuting and trying to kill them.

“And when the dragon saw that he was cast out unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent” (Revelation 12:13–14). She is given wings like an eagle.

Beloved, don’t worry about the Tribulation. Don’t worry about the persecution of Satan. God’s people are going to be given wings to fly away out of his reach into the wilderness! “Given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly”—and for how long? Three and a half years again. A time, two times, and a half a time, three and a half years. So this frustrated, foiled, cursed villain finds out he’s been foiled again, and what does he do in the fifteenth verse?

“And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:15–17).

When he couldn’t touch her—God wouldn’t let him lay a claw on her or one fang—he cast a big flood of water out of his mouth. Obviously the Devil himself is not an actual dragon; this is all symbolic. What is this flood the Devil casts out of his mouth? What is the Devil’s major business from the beginning in the Garden of Eden to the end? What does the Devil, Satan, that old serpent, cast out of his mouth and flood the world with?

He tries to drown the world in all of this propaganda and lies. The world will swallow all his propaganda while the church escapes into the wilderness, hidden and protected by God as though she had two wings to live through that awful time to the very coming of her Husband, her Bridegroom, from the sky, to rescue her and take her out of this hell on earth the world will have become.

Are you ready? Are you one of the believers in Jesus? Are you a part of His great bride? Have you accepted Him as your Husband and your Bridegroom and your Savior? Then you don’t have to worry. He’ll take care of you right on through the Tribulation, if He has to give you wings. He’ll hide you in the wilderness if He has to make you disappear. He’ll feed you there and take care of you just as He says here, all the way through that 1260 days or three and a half years of Great Tribulation. And you will be saved and brought through and you will survive till Jesus’ coming.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

13: The Queen of Heaven and the Dragon (part 1)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 12

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

We’re studying the twelfth chapter of this final book of the Bible, the Revelation of the endtime, the grand finale, and in this we have the exciting, dramatic story of the queen of heaven and the great red dragon.

“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another great wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

“And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne” (Revelation 12:1–5).

I think by the time you read this fifth verse you begin to catch on who this was and who this child was. That’s the key, the clue to who the woman is. “For she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”

Scripture says this about Jesus several times, that He is going to come some day and rule the world, rule all nations, and even rule over the wicked who refused to love and obey Him voluntarily. Now He’s going to rule them with a rod of iron, by force! This is obviously talking about Jesus. “And her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.” So after His ministry, Jesus was caught up to God and to His throne.

You say, “I know who his mother is. It was Mary.” But the passage says that she was a woman clothed with the sun, bright and shining like the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Mary, as far as we know, never looked like the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars. And though she had a child, travailing in birth and pained to be delivered, Mary never had a great red dragon standing beside her waiting to devour the child.—A great red dragon whose tail drew the third part of the angels of heaven and cast them down to the earth.

So who is this woman and how come she looks like the sun and has the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars? This woman is far more than Mary. Mary in a way almost symbolizes this woman, and in a way this woman symbolizes Mary, but obviously her description goes far beyond the 16-year-old Jewish girl who had Jesus as an unmarried mother, to the surprise and chagrin of her husband Joseph, to whom God had an angel appear to explain what was happening so he wouldn’t feel bad and refuse to take her for his wife.

God Himself gave Mary a child—Jesus, unbeknownst to her own husband-to-be Joseph. God had to explain it to them by His angels.—To Joseph in a dream, to Mary by an actual presence, an appearance of God’s angel Gabriel. But this woman in Revelation was far greater than Mary. It isn’t very likely you’re going to see any woman sitting in the sun with her feet on the moon and stars in her crown. Also, it’s not too likely you’re going to see a great red dragon like this standing around waiting to devour her child, literally.

So therefore, if you cannot interpret the vision or the picture or the revelation or the dream literally throughout, it must have symbolic significance. That means each figure of the dream or revelation or vision must symbolize something, must illustrate something. Therefore who was this woman? If it was not literally Mary who brought forth Jesus, if it was greater and beyond Mary, then who was this woman who brought Jesus into the world and who was then attacked or chased by this great red dragon? Obviously this great red dragon is Satan himself, who leads a third of the angels out of heaven with him when he deserts the forces of God.

If the woman symbolizes some greater figure than just Mary herself, who could that be? If this woman is the queen of heaven, she must be the wife of the king. And who is the King of heaven?—Jesus Christ, the Son of God, her Bridegroom, her Husband, her King—and she is the queen. Then who is this woman, if she is the bride of Christ, the queen of heaven?

She can be no other than the complete church of Jesus Christ from the beginning to the end, from the Garden of Eden to the Revelation, from the beginning to the end of the world, all those who are true believers, who loved God, who received Christ the Messiah as their Savior, all those who love Jesus, all those who believe He is the Son of God, all those who are married to the Bridegroom, all those who are the bride of Jesus Christ.

She is the bride of Christ. No other woman could be so glorious, shining like the sun with the moon under her feet and twelve stars in her crown. This woman typifies the whole church of God from the days of Genesis to the final days of Revelation, God’s human bride.

We find this great red dragon, obviously Satan—in fact, he’s later called the old serpent, the Devil, and Satan in the ninth verse, so we know who he is—and he creates a rebellion in heaven, a revolution, a civil war, as we’ll find out a little bit later here, and he’s cast out of heaven with a third of the angels. He tries to destroy the church, he tries to destroy Jesus, and we then find that this woman has to flee into the wilderness.

We’re only getting a little preview here; in fact, we’re having a little flashback, first of all about the coming of Jesus into the world, who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron, becoming the King of kings and literally her Bridegroom, her Husband, she becoming a queen of heaven, as well as queen of earth. But in the sixth verse we find that after her child is caught up to heaven to God and His throne, out of reach of His enemies, she is left behind upon the earth—apparently almost at the mercy of this cruel dragon.

“And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (Revelation 12:6). Here we have the 1260 days once again, the three and a half years of the Tribulation period. One thing that gets a bit confusing about the book of Revelation is that it goes back again and rehashes the story from a different angle and a different perspective. We’ve had the coming of Christ already described in this book about three or four times, but then it goes back and it gives a new angle.

You’ve seen movies like this sometimes. You’ve seen a movie of some family or various characters on a boat or in a plane or a hotel, and it gives you flashbacks of their former life and where they came from and who they are and how they got there, then finally they all get together in this hotel or they’re all together in this plane crash, or they’re all together in this sinking boat.

You’ve followed the narration of each life story until they’re all headed on a crash course to this grand finale—and that’s like the book of Revelation. It gives you a picture of each segment of the history of man from these different angles and shows you how it’s going to end from a different standpoint and a different view with different characters and what’s happening to them.

In the preceding chapter we just had the death of the two famous witnesses and their resurrection and their rapture to be with the Lord. And yet, now the seventh angel has just blown and we haven’t heard the whole story.

Now all of a sudden we’re going back again to the birth of Christ and how He was caught up to heaven to be with the Lord. The church was left behind on the earth to be chased and persecuted by the dragon, who is now furious because he couldn’t get rid of Jesus. He came back to life and went where the Devil couldn’t touch Him anymore. Then it speaks of this church in a period of time, of 1260 days—that’s about 42 months or three and a half years. And what period of time is that that we’ve been studying over and over and over again all through the Old Testament and all through the New Testament? The Great Tribulation.

This book is not supposed to be a history book. It’s supposed to be a revelation of the future, and particularly a revelation of the endtime, the very end of history, of man, of his kingdoms, the very end of his history on earth, and so naturally its main emphasis is the endtime.—Although it may give you a few flashbacks into the historical background, as it does in this chapter.

It flashes back to the old history of the church, in a sense, from the time of Eve, who brought forth a line which was to bring forth this man who was to crush the head of Satan. It says, “Her seed will crush your head, Satan. You’ll bruise His heel, but He’ll crush your head” (Genesis 3:15). So it is a flashback to give you the history, in a sense, of the church, only just a flashback enough to show what’s happening now in these last three and a half years of horrible Tribulation and persecution of the church.

“And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old Serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:7–9). Now we have the picture.

Who is this great red dragon? The ninth verse says specifically that he was that old serpent, the Devil, Satan, “which deceiveth the whole world.” At this time here, obviously at the beginning of this three and a half years, 1260 days, 42 months of Tribulation, he is cast out of heaven by Michael and his angels, the archangel of God who defends God’s people. He’s cast down to earth with a third of the rebellious angels that follow him for the last three and a half years of earth’s history—the Great Tribulation.

(to be continued)

12: The Last Trump

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 11

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation chapter 11, the last trump. We’ve had a glimpse in the first part of this chapter of the two witnesses who were witnessing and preaching the love of God and also the judgments of God all the way through the Tribulation period of three and a half years, all 42 months or 1260 days unto the very end, three and a half days before Jesus comes and they are killed. (See Revelation 11:1–12.) The Lord allows them to be killed, since their ministry is over, and they are thereby released to go up and be with the Lord when He comes. He gives us the whole picture of how they are resurrected to be with Jesus in the very end.

In the rest of the chapter, He goes back, backspacing just a bit to show you how it happened. At that moment when they suddenly came to life and jumped to their feet, that was the moment that the seventh trump was sounding. “The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly” (Revelation 11:14). And then comes the seventh trump of God. This trumpet is the last trump, and under this trumpet come a whole series of events.

It sounds like Jesus has come immediately and it’s all over, but no, this trumpet is another herald of God. He’s another trumpeter of the truth, the last Tribulation trumpet to usher in this very last period of the Tribulation period when Jesus comes.

There is no past, no present, no future to the Lord. So therefore, under this last trump He pictures all of the events which occur at the very end, from this very moment, and in the next chapter He goes in a flashback all the way back to the birth of Jesus and the church and right up to the end in her persecution. And then in the thirteenth chapter He goes back and He tells you about the Antichrist and what it’s going to going to be like under the Antichrist in the three and a half years of Tribulation. This last trump simply ushered in this final period of the Tribulation which ends with the coming of Jesus.

“And the seventh angel sounded”—the last trump—“and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). When that last trump sounds, the endtime events begin to transpire, ending with the glorious coming of Jesus and His reign here on earth for ever and ever!

So we have this endtime trumpet blowing and here follow these tremendous events of this final period of the seven Tribulation trumpets.

“And the four and twenty elders”—these are the great leaders of God’s children and His church of all time, from the beginning of time until the end. These are probably the twelve greatest patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament period, and then the twelve greatest apostles and prophets of the New Testament period.

“And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God.” They said, “We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned” (Revelation 11:16–17).

In other words, it’s time for God to take over. It’s time for Jesus to come. In the mind of God and in their minds, it was already done as far as they were concerned. For He says, “The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged.” The Resurrection was about to occur, which we already had a little preview of with those two witnesses.

“And that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). The time is coming when the dead will be judged, and God’s servants and prophets and saints, all the saved, all of God’s children everywhere, the great family of Jesus, are going to get their reward.

I hope you were faithful so He can say to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21). For some of the people who are going to be raised are going to be raised to everlasting shame and contempt because they failed God (Daniel 12:2).

So the end is come, the time of judgments and the time of rewards. “Them that fear Thy name, small and great,” are going to be receiving their crowns, their reward, their prizes, all those wonderful things.

“And shouldest destroy them that destroy the earth.” He says He’s going to destroy those who are destroying the earth, those who pollute it and who bomb it and who contaminate it and who destroy its people. He abhors those who pollute His earth and who destroy it. So before they have a chance to do that, or do a complete job of it, He’s going to come back before they can destroy the rest of it, thank God. He’s going to destroy them.

“And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the Ark of His testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail” (Revelation 11:19). Here come some of those cataclysmic, climactic events of these very last days of the end of time, the end of the Tribulation, judgments of God on the sins of man and all his destruction. John the apostle, the prophet of God, is being shown all these events which were not to happen until over 2000 years later.

“The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the Ark of His testament.” That’s a very remarkable statement, because the Ark, even in John’s day, had long ago disappeared! But the people had not discovered this until Jesus died on the cross.

The moment the veil of His flesh was rent in twain by that spear and He was killed on the cross, the veil of the temple itself was rent in twain.—A huge veil, four inches thick, one of the thickest pieces of carpeting or woven ware the world has ever known. This thick, heavy veil that separated the holy place of the temple from the holy of holies, the sanctum from the sanctum sanctorum, was completely torn apart. (See Matthew 27:50–51; Mark 15:37–38; Luke 23:45–46.)

In the holy of holies had stood the Ark of the Covenant of God, that wooden box covered with gold over which two golden angels hovered, and between whose wings the Shekinah Glory of the presence of God shone like a brilliant light. This was a room into which only the high priest was allowed to go once a year to make atonement for the sins of the people. They had a rope tied to his foot so that if God struck him dead because He didn’t like the way the people were behaving, because the people were sinning too much and were not repentant, God could strike the high priest dead and they could drag him out with that rope, because no man was allowed to go therein but the high priest.

When the veil of the temple was rent in twain when Jesus died, what do you suppose the great congregation of Passover worshippers discovered at that moment, that awesome moment at the height of the Passover celebration, when the greatest Passover Lamb who ever lived, Jesus Christ, was being slain on the cross for their sins? What do you suppose the congregation discovered had happened to the Ark of the Covenant, which was supposed to be standing behind that four-inch thick curtain behind which only the high priest could go?

They discovered to their amazement, their astonishment, their horror, that the Ark was gone, symbolizing the presence of God! God was gone from their midst! He was gone from their temple. He had deserted them and their holy of holies and their Messiah-less religion. He had taken the Ark up to heaven with Him and placed it in His temple there.

Why do you suppose God rent the temple veil in twain? The high priest hadn’t told them the Ark was gone. He wasn’t going to tell them, of course, because that was the center of their religion, the Ark of the Covenant behind the veil in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Their whole religion would have collapsed had they discovered that the Ark was gone. God rent the veil in twain so they could see the Ark was gone. He had removed the Ark of the Covenant, which symbolized His presence in the Shekinah Glory of God which shone there between the angels when God was there.

Christians today are the modern Israel of this day of grace since Jesus came. Anyone can become a part of true Israel, the Israel of God, and a prince with God and with man, just by receiving God’s Son Jesus Christ, just by believing on the Messiah, the King of the Jews. He’s King of all of those children of God who believe on Him and receive Him as their Savior—the true spiritual Israel. As St. Paul says, today a Jew is one inwardly, in his heart, the crucifixion and the circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:28–29).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

11: The Two Witnesses

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 11

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation, chapter 11: “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months” (Revelation 11:1–2). There’s that three and a half years again of the Tribulation period. The Gentiles will tread the holy city of Jerusalem under foot for forty and two months, three and a half years during the Tribulation period in which the Antichrist rules supreme.

During the preceding three and a half years—half of the last seven years—the Antichrist has made a deal or a holy Covenant, a pact with the religions of the world to make Jerusalem an open city, internationalized, at least the holy places internationalized, probably under the UN or his world government, so that they’re supposed to have equal access and equal representation of temples and so on. The Jews have rebuilt their temple, reinstituted sacrificial worship, and the pact seems to be going well, except it doesn’t solve all the problems.

The religionists still bicker and argue and fight amongst each other, until finally the Antichrist gets fed up with it all and decides to just have one world religion as well as one world government, and of course this is what he’s been waiting for an excuse to have all the time. So he abolishes all other religions and demands that the whole world worship him as God, sitting in the temple of God, claiming that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

This will go on for three and a half years or 1,260 days or forty and two months, as we see in this second verse of the eleventh chapter, when he will rule with an iron hand, cruelly demanding that all who refuse to worship him be put to death. All who refuse to take his Mark in their head or hand will not be able to buy or sell. In other words, they are to starve to death. But here comes some good news!

“I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days”—there you are again, three and a half years. They’re going to prophesy for the duration of the Tribulation period. “Clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth” (Revelation 11:3–4). This symbolizes the fact that they’re fruitful—like two olive trees—and they give light, like two candlesticks, symbolic of these final two great witnesses unto the Lord.

“And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed” (Revelation 11:5). No one will be able to touch them until their witness is finished. No one will be able to stop them until they have finished their witness for the last three and a half years of the seven-year reign of the Antichrist, that great Tribulation period in which God’s people will be witnessing right to the end.

These are going to be the two greatest witnesses, no doubt right there in the holy city, perhaps right on Mount Moriah between the three great temples—one already there, the Mosque of Omar, Dome of the Rock, the Muslim temple; one to be rebuilt, the Jewish temple, and sacrificial worship restored; and possibly also a Christian cathedral of some kind to be built upon the same holy mountain to represent the world’s three greatest faiths. So that could be where these two witnesses will be witnessing against the Antichrist, against his unholy image and against his claims to be God, his blasphemy against God.

Nobody will be able to stop them, not the Antichrist himself nor all his forces, until they’re finished. If anybody tries to even approach them to stop them, fire comes out of their mouth and devours their enemies—as it did in the days of Elijah when the king sent bands of fifty soldiers to take him. Elijah called down fire from God out of heaven and devoured each band of soldiers as they came to arrest him (2 Kings 1:9–15).

So will it be with those final great witnesses in those last days. These two will stand in the very presence of the Antichrist and all their enemies, and no one will be able to touch them. They’ll be able to keep right on giving a witness to the very end!

Sixth verse: “These have power to shut heaven that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.” They not only have power to bring fire down from God out of heaven and fire out of their mouths to devour their enemies, but also to turn the waters into blood and to smite the earth with all kinds of plagues. No one will be able to stop them during those days.

They will preach and witness the Word of God with such mighty power of God, and it will be the greatest witness the world has ever seen! Not only the Antichrist will see it, not only the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims will see it, but the whole world will be watching, no doubt by satellite.

Verse seven: “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit”—this Antichrist, this Satan in the flesh—“shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” When they have finished their testimony, not a moment before! They will be able to testify and witness the full 1,260 days of the total Tribulation period, and nobody will be able to stop them; isn’t that wonderful? No matter what the Devil and all his henchmen and all his cohorts and conspirators and cruel, wicked followers try to do, they cannot touch them until they’ve finished their testimony.

Then the Lord allows the Devil to touch them, once they’ve finished their job. Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). So this is when the job is finished and the world is saturated with the doctrine, turned upside down, as they said: “Here come those that turn the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). Actually we’re not turning it upside down, we’re turning it right side up! On radio, television, literature, in person, the whole world will have heard the Gospel—every nation, kingdom, tongue, and tribe.

By that time, every tribe will have heard the Gospel; every one of them will have heard about Jesus. At the end of the Tribulation every single tongue, tribe, and nation throughout the earth will have heard the Gospel of Jesus, Jesus said, and then shall the end come. Then the Lord allows the Beast to ascend out of the bottomless pit and make war against them and overcome them and kill them.

Eighth verse: “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt and where also our Lord was crucified.” Wasn’t Jesus crucified in Jerusalem, or just outside Jerusalem? So what is He talking about here that the bodies of these two witnesses shall lie in the street of this great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt and Jerusalem? He could have added one to that, and He does a little later on in the Scripture—Babylon.

You ask, “What are you talking about? John must have been a bit screwed up on his geography, because Sodom is way south of the Dead Sea, and Egypt is another couple of hundred miles south of that, and Jerusalem is a couple of hundred miles north of that, and Babylon was a thousand miles to the east. How could Jesus have been crucified in all four cities—Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon?”

Every one of these cities typified the world system. Every one of them typified the worldly, anti-God, anti-Christ, money-hungry, greedy commercial system of the world, which in a later chapter He calls Babylon. Here He calls it Sodom and Egypt and Jerusalem. So here we have them all grouped together in one great world system—all symbolic of the final great system that hates God and His witnesses, until the Devil’s own representative, the Devil-man in the flesh, Satan incarnate, at the end of their witness finally rises up and kills them. But he can’t do it until then.

Don’t worry, the Devil won’t be able to lay a finger on God’s children; he won’t be able to hurt you, he won’t be able to harm you until your job is done. God will not suffer you to be cut off before your time. The Lord will not allow His children to be stopped or killed until they have finished their job and work. And then, praise God, the quicker the better, the sooner you’re released from this body of flesh and dirt and disease and weariness and hunger and thirst and all of its problems, and set free in the realm of the spirit.

Your spirit, the real you is the one that lives inside of this house, the one that’s looking out these windows, the real you that lives inside. We look into each other’s eyes and hearts and spirits, and that’s the real you, inside of that body, inside of this house you live in. This is just the vehicle you run around in, and it’ll soon go back to dust again from whence it came. As soon as it does, you are released, your spirit’s set free, and you will be so happy and completely free for the first time in your existence. You’ll feel light as a feather when you die.

The Antichrist will claim to be the Messiah—God—the king of the world, and offer utopia, heaven on earth, the false Millennium under his rule. But soon he insists everybody worship him, and then everything goes wrong and the whole thing begins to fall apart, because it’s anti-God and anti-Christ and anti-peace and anti-everything that could possibly bring peace.

Until finally Jesus Himself has to come back and take over and run the world with His children, His people, for a thousand years to show them how it ought to be run. But just before He comes back, here’s what happens. These final two witnesses witness right up to the very end of this Tribulation period:

“And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city …” In other words, they may be killed in the very city of Jerusalem itself. But it doesn’t matter where, because anywhere in the world, people can see them on television. They’re witnessing to the whole world. Their dead bodies lie in the street.

“And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves” (Revelation 11:9). They are so fiercely angry at these two witnesses who faithfully preached the Word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the judgments and warnings of God.  They hated them so much that they didn’t even want to see them buried; they wanted to watch them rot in the streets and the flies to crawl over them and the worms to crawl in and out and smell the stink of their dead bodies, lying on the street.

But what a hollow victory!—Just lumps of clay, lumps of mud. Those two witnesses, their spirits have gone on to be with the Lord. Those were just the bodies, the houses they occupied; the vehicles they ran around in, now gone back to dust.

“And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth” (Revelation 11:10). They’re going to have a new day to celebrate—the death of the great final two witnesses of God.

They’re going to be so happy that they’re dead and no longer convicting them of their sins and preaching the Gospel at them all day long in the heart of the news, and on radio, on television and in newspapers, and their pictures plastered all over the world and beamed from satellites. These two miracle workers will be top headlines and top news and their message the top message to the world. Their opponents are going to be so happy they’re dead, they’re going to give presents to each other like they do on Christmas.

“And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them” (Revelation 11:11). What’s happening? They’re being resurrected! Suddenly those bodies come to life before they’ve been buried.

Jesus is coming in the sky and all the dead in Christ are rising to meet Him in the air—including these two witnesses. Only three and a half days after they’re killed, Jesus comes to resurrect them and rapture them along with all those who are saved. Praise God! And fear fell upon their enemies.

“And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. The same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly” (Revelation 11:12–14).

Next we hear that seventh angel, the last trump sound. This is like a little story leading up to that last trump, because when it sounds, that’s when they were resurrected.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

10: Proclamation of the End: Time Shall Be No More*

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 10

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation, chapter 10: “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

“And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: but I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be”—here comes the announcement, the great proclamation that this chapter is about—*“that there should be time no more” (Revelation 10:1–6). He said there’s going to come an end to time. Even Einstein said that was possible. * (“That there would be no more delay” ESV)

“But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel”—remember, we’ve been studying the seven trumpets of the Tribulation. He says—“when he shall begin to sound”—that seventh and last trump—“the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets. And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, go”—he’s talking now to John, the prophet of God, who’s seeing this vision—“and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.

“And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book, And he said unto me, Take, it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and I ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: but as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.” He got indigestion over that one! “And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings” (Revelation 10:7–11).

This little book is obviously the book of prophecy. There are many people interested in Bible prophecy and prophecies of the prophets and the soothsayers, clairvoyants, mediums and fortune-tellers—lots of people are interested in the future. Nearly everybody wants to know what’s going to happen. What is the future? What is the prophecy all about?

They have a great desire for prophecy, and in their mouth it tastes so sweet, all these juicy prophecies about the future. But when they get down to where they’re trying to digest it and understand it and interpret it, it gives them a real bellyache. They get a case of acute indigestion of prophecies, the words of God which can only be understood by the leading of God’s Holy Spirit.

So John took the little book of the prophecy of the future and it tasted like honey in his mouth, but when he wrote it down and tried to understand what this angel and these people were talking about, that was a little tougher to digest. You’re going to find that in a lot of these scriptures we read that it’s going to be a little bit difficult as we go along. It sounds fascinating, so interesting, and you hope to understand every word so you’ll know exactly what everything is about. And then sometimes afterwards you’re a little disappointed. We probably won’t know some of these details until we see them and when they begin to happen, because we don’t have to know now. But He’s told us many things in advance so that when we see those monsters or those things or whatever they are, we’ll recognize them and say, “This is what John was talking about in his book of Revelation. He described that to a tee, and now there it is; it really happened!”

A lot of these things you’re not supposed to understand now. A lot of these things you will not understand until they begin to happen, just like the book of Daniel. God told him, “Shut up the book until the time of the end. It’s not for you; it’s for the endtime.” (See Daniel 12:4,8,9.) In fact, it gave Daniel a bellyache too. He was sick certain days after he had those revelations. In fact, he fainted several times during the process and thought he was going to die (Daniel 8:27).

The Lord said to him, “Daniel, you don’t have to worry about understanding it; you can’t understand it. You couldn’t possibly understand it now, because it hasn’t happened yet. But one of these days in the endtime, I’m going to open the book again and the people who are there where those things are happening and when they’re happening, they’re going to understand.” Just like the prophecy in Nahum that says that “the chariots shall jostle one another upon the broad ways and they shall run like lightning with flaming torches” (Nahum 2:3–4).

Chariots certainly didn’t run like lightning in Nahum’s day, although they could gallop pretty fast, like Ben Hur’s chariots in the chariot race. They didn’t have any broad ways either, so there was no problem about chariots being so numerous in such big highways that they would have as many accidents as they do today. They certainly didn’t run like lightning. They might have carried torches sometimes, but they were not like the flaming headlight torches of the modern automobile. But that’s what Nahum was seeing, chariots jostling one another in the broad ways, running like lightning with flaming torches.

The Lord told Daniel, “Shut up the book because it won’t happen till the end, when many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be greatly increased” (Daniel 12:4). Never in the world’s history have so many people run to and fro, and never has there been people traveling so much and with so many ways to travel, and so much increase of knowledge. Do you know that more has been discovered and invented in the past 100 years than in all the previous thousands of years of man’s history? Think of that! Knowledge shall be increased in the last days. That’s another proof we’re living in the last days.

So you want to know about the future? Well, it tastes good in your mouth, but then when you try to start chewing it up, it can be pretty tough to chew on and really hard to digest. I’m trying to help you digest it, and I will offer you several different possibilities of interpretation that many men of God and Bible students have accepted. I generally say it could be this, that, or the other, but we won’t know until it happens.

But that’s what it was written for. Today Daniel’s prophecies are understood, because many of these prophecies are past history. The whole realm of human political history from the days of Babylon up until the very end, the final world government of the Antichrist, are described in the book of Daniel. They’re also described here in this book of Revelation.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

09: Fifth and Sixth Tribulation Trumps (part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 9

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

“One woe is past; and behold, there come two woes more thereafter. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates” (Revelation 9:12–14). Here comes another judgment of God upon the wicked: four angels, obviously four angels of judgment.

“And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them” (Revelation 9:15–16). Two hundred thousand thousand; that’s two hundred million.

When those four angels of judgment are loosed from the River Euphrates, we are told in another verse that the river is dried up so that the kings of the East might come (Revelation 16:12). And here come these two hundred million horsemen charging across the Euphrates to attack. That would be the biggest battle ever fought and the most soldiers ever put in the field.

The last time the greatest number of soldiers was ever put in the field was when Alexander the Great was fighting the Medes and the Persians, and the Medes and Persians put over a million men into the field. Alexander was heavily outnumbered, but he won the victory, because God was on his side. God wanted the Grecian Empire to conquer the world, to spread Greek language, culture, and beauty. God wanted their interest in philosophy and religion to spread throughout the world, as well as their knowledge and science and medicine, so that the world would be ready for the Gospel. It would have one language, the Greek language, in which the New Testament was written.—A language which everyone would speak, because it was spread throughout the entire civilized world at that time.

This is going to be the war of all wars, when this happens, and you’re going to hear more about it as we read on. At the end of this Great Tribulation occurs the Battle of Armageddon, in which these horsemen will undoubtedly take part.

“And I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone” (Revelation 9:17). Obviously horses don’t issue fire and brimstone out of their mouths, so if they’re not real horses, then maybe they’re tanks with guns issuing fire and brimstone, and maybe that’s the best way he could describe them.

They looked like some kind of vehicle coming. They had heads like lions. Have you ever seen the turret on the top of a tank revolving like a head? It looks like the head on a monster because it revolves and looks different directions and its gun revolves with it, and out of its mouth it belches fire and brimstone and smoke, and even worse. Or maybe it’s something we’ve never even seen before and that’s the best way he could describe it. Whatever it is, they were either war horses or engines of war.

“For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails.”—That big mouth, that big gun belches smoke and shells. And their tails, did you ever notice the little barrels of machine guns sticking out, firing bullets that sting? “For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them do they hurt” (Revelation 9:19).

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” (Revelation 9:20–21). In spite of all this horrible period of Great Tribulation, particularly upon the wicked, they would not repent. God’s Word says, “Let mercy be shown unto the wicked, and yet he will not learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:10).

This Great Tribulation is going to affect the unregenerate, and these horrible plagues and monsters are not to attack His people but to attack the wicked! It is a time of their great tribulation.

Yet those that were not killed by these monsters and these plagues still refused to repent. Even though it later says they even gnawed their tongues for pain, yet would they not repent of their wickedness. That’s so true of the truly wicked who hate God and hate Christ.

He says here they’re going to pray for death and not be able to find it.—The horrors of hell let loose on the earth, Pandora’s box opened at last, and all of these horrible creatures and monsters of God or the Devil or both, to torment the wicked, those who have given His people so much trouble and tried to give them hell on earth. God is going to cut loose in this Tribulation period and give them hell.

Beloved, don’t fear the Tribulation if you love the Lord. Don’t worry about that three and a half years of Tribulation. It’s not going to be hell for you. I’ve heard some preachers make it sound like it was going to be such hell that no Christian would ever want to be here. The Antichrist is going to be after God’s children, and his anti-Christ followers are going to be on their tails trying to get them, but let me tell you, there’s going to be a lot more on their tails, not just trying, but getting them.

So you don’t have to worry about the forces of the Devil and the Antichrist. God’s a much greater enemy to them than they are to His people. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of God will raise a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19). And we will march on.

Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus, going on before.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope, in doctrine, one in purity.
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus, marching on before.

God’s people are going to march triumphant, protected by God, right straight through the Tribulation from beginning to end, in the face of their enemies. While they’re being tormented by these monsters and plagues and fighting off these horrors of hell, God’s people are going to march right through unscathed. They may catch up with a few of us and kill a few of us, as they promised they will if people don’t worship their Beast and his Image and take the Mark; a few of us will die and suffer martyrdom even as some of His people do today, but we’re still marching.

They can’t stop our rain, and they won’t be able to stop it, because God is going to cut loose all the horrors of hell against them. They’re going to have their hands so full of those monsters and beasts and those wars and weapons of war that they’re not going to have very much time to spend on persecuting His people.

No matter where you are, or how you are, or what you are, or what’s against you, the Lord will keep you if you’re in the center of His will. It’s a charmed circle where you live a charmed life, and they won’t be able to lay a finger on you.

Chapter 10 will be next, where we hear a most marvelous announcement before the Last Trump is blown, because at the Last Trump, that’s when God’s people go up. As the apostle Paul said, “The trump of God shall sound; the dead in Christ shall rise, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). Paul says in another place, “We shall all be changed, in an instant at the Last Trump” (1 Corinthians 15:52).

When that seventh trumpet is blown, those who are alive and remain are going to be raptured out of this world. “Stop the world, I want to get off!” And that’s what’s going to happen, right in the face of God’s enemies. Just when they’re trying to obliterate and exterminate His people, they’re not going to be able to do it. Hallelujah!

Lord, help us to go marching on as Your Christian soldiers, never fearing, never worrying and not fretting what the Enemy or man can do unto us, for they can only kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But we’re rather to fear You, Lord, love You, believe in You and obey You (Matthew 10:28).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

09: Fifth and Sixth Tribulation Trumps

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 9 (part 1)

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

In chapter 8, we studied the first four trumpets of the Tribulation, and now we’re going to be dealing with the fifth and the sixth trumpets in chapter nine of the book of Revelation. This Revelation of the future was given to the apostle John on the Isle of Patmos about 107 A.D. during the days of the Roman Empire, as God predicted to him the future of the world.

When we reached the eighth chapter, the Lord began to zero in on the very last days of the world, the very end of the world and its last terrible time of Tribulation. Now we’re reading the ninth chapter, beginning with the first verse:

“And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit.” You notice it calls this star a “he.” In other words, it’s an angel. God often uses the words interchangeably. He calls angels stars and He calls stars angels. And this falling star opened the bottomless pit “and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

“And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of the scorpion when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them” (Revelation 9:2–6).

Notice that these monsters released from the bottomless pit out of hell by this angel are sent by God to torment the ungodly, the wicked, the unsaved, because He gives them a strict commandment not to hurt those who have the seal of God in their forehead. He says, “Hurt not any green thing neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.” In other words, they were not to hurt the men who did have the seal of God in their foreheads—salvation in Jesus.

Anyone who loves Jesus will have God’s seal in his forehead. The people who are following the Antichrist—this Devil-man, Satan in the flesh, this horrible Beast—they will have the Mark of the Beast in their foreheads and in their hands as they follow and worship him. But those who love the Lord cannot accept that Mark of the Beast, and will not. If you love Jesus, you will refuse the Mark of the Beast, because you have God’s mark in your forehead and hand, a symbol of salvation.

Even though the Beast commands that no one can buy or sell without his Mark and that anyone who refuses to worship his image would be killed, God’s children will refuse. They will refuse both the Mark and the worship of the Image, and therefore the Antichrist government will try to kill them, and they will not be able to buy or sell food or clothing or shelter or the necessities of life, and will likely have to flee into the wilderness for survival. But God is going to take care of His own.

Notice that these plagues which are being released upon the earth don’t hurt God’s children! They don’t touch the people of God at all. They are sent to punish particularly the followers of the Beast, the Antichrist. They are sent to torment them, and no doubt even to defend His people. Think of that! God is going to send into this world, monsters such as the world has never known or seen before, to attack the wicked who are attacking the people of God.

During this Tribulation period when the Antichrist and his followers are attacking the followers of Jesus Christ, God is going to let loose pestilences and plagues and monsters to attack the kingdom of Satan. They’ll have so much on their hands defending themselves from these monsters and these plagues that they won’t have much time to persecute God’s people.

This is very similar to the days of Moses when he went in to rescue the children of Israel. When Pharaoh persecuted the Jewish slaves and wouldn’t let them go, Moses called on God and God sent terrible plagues upon the Egyptians. While the Egyptians were having these horrible plagues, over in the land of Goshen where the Israelites lived, all was well.

When great darkness fell upon all of the rest of Egypt, it was light in the land of Goshen. When the frogs were everywhere and even in their beds in Egypt, no frogs in Goshen. When the cattle were slaughtered by great hail from heaven, no hail in Goshen. When the horrible sores fell upon all the Egyptians, no sores on the Israelites. God was giving the Egyptians lots of trouble to make them stop causing so much trouble for God’s servants. (See Exodus 7–12.)

So that’s exactly what He’s going to do during the Tribulation—the last great hour of trouble and persecution for the saints of God. God is going to send great plagues upon the earth to protect His children, to make enemies take their hands off His people. These are terrible plagues. Listen to this description of the locusts:

“And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months” (Revelation 9:7–10).

Does that sound like anything you ever heard or saw before? Not likely. Because the prophet of God was seeing something in a vision that God was showing him, a revelation of the future of things which he had never seen before, so he had to describe them in a language that the people of his day could understand. He had to describe what he was seeing as well as he could by the things that he was already familiar with, because he had never seen such monsters before.

The prophet had never seen tanks or planes or guns, or heard their explosions and bombs, or the roar of their engines and motors. So if he was watching a terrible war, having never seen a tank or an airplane, how could he possibly describe such engines of destruction? He just did the best he could with what he was familiar with.

He said they look a little bit like locusts; they fly, so he may have been seeing an airplane. And yet they were like horses prepared to battle. Perhaps he was watching one of these steel chariots like a tank, and it rumbled along across the earth and it reminded him of the rumble of horses’ hoofs—war horses running rapidly in wartime.

He said, “On their heads were as it were crowns like as gold.” Tanks have turrets, and on the old bombers of World War II they had gun turrets which revolved sort of like crowns on the top. He said, “Their faces were as the faces of men.” Perhaps he saw them peering through the windows, or maybe when he looked at the front he saw those windows like eyes staring out.

“And they had hair as the hair of women.” Have you ever noticed a jet going by and the airstream following it like a long trail of hair? “Their teeth were as the teeth of lions.” Maybe he saw them firing guns? Or perhaps he saw the bombs or the missiles hanging down underneath and they looked like lions’ teeth. “And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron.” They were made of metal; they looked like iron shields.

“And the sound of their wings as they flew was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.” Doesn’t a jet roaring overhead sound like many horses running to battle? The prophet just described these things he was seeing, sights he’d never seen before, the best he could. I’m personally convinced that he was probably seeing airplanes and bombers flying. “And they had tails like unto scorpions, and stings in their tails.”

“And their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon” (Revelation 9:11). Obviously, if he’s out of the bottomless pit, you have an idea whose angel he is. Some say it’s the Devil himself; others say it’s one of the Devil’s archangels.

There’s such a horrible time of torment going on for men not sealed with God’s seal that these monsters, whatever they may be, whether you want to say that they were a modern jet bomber or they were actually some kind of a monster that looked just like he’s describing here, one way or the other, they’re not going to hurt the people of God.

God is going to protect His own from these planes and tanks and guns and bombs and bullets or even monsters, if it’s a new kind of monster that’s never been seen before. They’re not going to hurt His children, He said, just the unsaved who have the Mark of the Beast on them instead of the Mark of the Lord in their forehead. (to be continued)

08: The First Four Tribulation Trumps (Part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 8

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

 

“And the first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.” Sounds like atomic war, doesn’t it?

“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound” (Revelation 8:2–13).

There we have the first four trumpets of the Tribulation period. Actually this period is continued on into the ninth chapter, which we will deal with hereafter. But in case you didn’t understand exactly what we were reading, I wanted to read the whole chapter first, so that you could get the context of it.

First there is an awesome period of silence as all heaven and earth await in awed silence the most awful period in man’s history, and an angel—to emphasize this last time of terror and suffering—takes a censer [vessel for burning incense] from the throne of God and casts it down into the earth, and there are voices and thunderings and lightnings—symbolic of the judgments of God, symbolic of the terrible events to come.

The strange thing about this Tribulation period, unlike the period of God’s wrath which follows and the seven vials of His wrath which occur after the next seven chapters (the eighth through the fourteenth chapters), is that the Tribulation is like the wrath of Satan being poured out upon mankind and upon the earth. Nevertheless, God pictures it as actually all coming from Him, because these are some very supernatural things which occur. The last days of man’s history, a time to try men’s souls, and this censer being cast into the earth, showing that terrible things are about to come, gives an indication of what’s about to happen.

But at the same time, the prayers of the saints are ascending unto the Lord from His children; an encouragement that God is listening, a brief glimpse of the efficacy of our prayers. Though the believers are suffering through this period, the Lord hears their cries. He hears their prayers and He will not be deaf, but He will heed their cries for help and He will help them. This is a definite indication that the Lord is going to help His children through this terrible period of the last three and a half years of man’s history, the Great Tribulation.

The first angel sounds and hail and fire mingled with blood are cast upon the earth, and the third part of the trees are burnt up and all the green grass is burnt up. This sounds an awful lot like an atomic war, this hail and fire raining down from above, doesn’t it? Atomic bombs that destroy a third of all the trees and all the green grass, think of that. It’s possible it is an atomic war.

The second angel sounds and a great mountain burning with fire is cast into the sea, and a third part of the sea becomes blood. The third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life die, and a third part of the ships are destroyed. Mountains in God’s Word almost always typify or symbolize great kingdoms, world powers, or empires.

What great world power or empire will be destroyed under the beast himself, this final worldwide government, this final world dictator, Satan, in the form of a man called the Antichrist? What government will he destroy? All man’s governments that have preceded him.

What kind of government does he destroy? What kind of world power that has preceded him does he cast into the sea? What else than capitalism, a world power that has ruled the earth now for centuries. And in the destruction of capitalism and capitalistic powers of the Western world in this atomic war, a third part of the sea will become blood and a third part of the creatures in it will die and a third of its ships will be destroyed.

“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven.” Stars can be symbolic of angels, and the star falling here could indicate the fall of Satan himself, which we find later in another chapter when his fall is described at this particular time of the Tribulation. “Burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the water became wormwood and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.”—The poison of the Serpent.

You can take these waters and rivers and so on as literal, and this is often interpreted as possibly representing the fall of a meteor to the earth (which would appear to be a great start falling from heaven). I’m inclined to believe that much of this is symbolic as well. When Satan is cast out of heaven (see Revelation 12:9), he poisons the sources of propaganda of the world, the rivers of information. He poisons the rivers which flow with feeding information to man through the media; Satan poisons them and makes them bitter. And many men die as a result of being poisoned with his bitter propaganda, his lies, his half-truths, his distortions, his deceits. “With lying wonders,” God’s Word says in another place (2 Thessalonians 2:9).

“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.” What’s the result of all of this, whether you think it’s literal or symbolic, of this poisoning of the rivers and the waters, or the sources of information, the sources of propaganda, the media information of the world? Darkness.

As man is fed poison water, as he is fed poison information, as he is fed poison propaganda, poison news, his mind is darkened, his heart is darkened, even as the Lord said that if we stray away from Him, we become darkened in our understanding, alienated from the life of God, and past feeling (Ephesians 4:18–19). Even so will unregenerate man be in these last days of the Tribulation period; in spite of all of its terrors, most of the men of this earth will not turn to God.

They will believe the lies of this Devil-man, Satan incarnate, the Antichrist, and as he poisons the waters of information and propaganda, their hearts will become more darkened, their minds even more lacking in understanding as he darkens the world. Or if you want to take it literally, the very heavens are darkened, the skies are darkened, the sun and moon are darkened. Either way, it sounds pretty bad to me.

“I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe”—three woes—“to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels, which are yet to sound.” He says, “There are coming yet three more woes upon the earth.” Four have already occurred under the first four trumpets of the Tribulation, representing the first four periods of the Tribulation.

Each of these trumpets is like a herald; an angel sounds and heralds a new and more awful period of the Tribulation one by one. If you’re here and still alive, you’ll know exactly the progress of the Tribulation period by what’s happening, whether you’re under the first trumpet, the second, the third, the fourth, and so on.

He also tells us the exact amount of time this period of Great Tribulation will last, to where you can’t possibly misunderstand it, so that you will know exactly how much longer you have to wait for Jesus to come.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

08: The First Four Tribulation Trumps (Part 1)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 8

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

“And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour” (Revelation 8:1).

We have at last come to the end of the seven seals of prophecy, with which the first seven chapters of Revelation were primarily concerned. As we told you in the introduction, the book of Revelation is very harmoniously, almost mathematically, designed.

The first seven chapters deal with the introduction, the letters to the churches and the first six seals of prophecy—history in advance. The next seven chapters have to do with the seven trumpets of the Tribulation, and then the last seven chapters have to do with the endtime events—the complete end of all these things, winding up in heaven itself.

The seventh chapter closes with the angels rejoicing and the saints in heaven rejoicing that the saints have been raptured to be with the Lord, and all the saved are now safely out of this world and in heaven. Then we sort of zero in on the last events of this prophetic period, on the very endtime, like a movie flashback.

It’s sort of like an inset on a map. Sometimes you see a map and then a certain particular part of that map or an island or a country comes zooming out at you in sort of an inset, or a zoom-out or zoom-in, to place the emphasis on a particular part of that map.

Now that the first seven chapters have concluded and you have seen a synopsis of world history from the time of John unto heaven itself, we’re going to zoom in. In this synopsis or bird’s-eye view of future events, the Lord very beautifully and chronologically is zooming in to give a closer view of some of these particular endtime events under the seventh seal. For when He opens the seventh seal, He begins to show what happens specifically at the very end just before the Rapture of the saints.

These are called the seven trumpets of the Tribulation—that last three-and-a-half-year period of man’s history, the last half of the Antichrist’s reign of terror against all religions, all faith, in which he tries to set himself up as God and abolish all other religions except the worship of himself and his idol, his own image. And he sits in the temple of God as though he were God, claiming that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

This is the last terrible Tribulation period of which the Scriptures have spoken for generations, for millenniums. For thousands of years God by His prophets has predicted this last terrible period of earth’s torment, Jacob’s trouble, the Gentiles’ trouble, tribulation, the worst in earth’s history (Jeremiah 30:7; Joel 2:11; Malachi 4:1). As Jesus Himself said, “There was not such a time of trouble until this time, no, nor indeed ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). The end of man’s reign on the earth, the last of this demonic Devil-man’s reign, the last half of the Antichrist’s seven-year reign.

As we begin to read chapter eight on through the fourteenth, we find here a sort of an inset, almost a flashback, to zero in on the details of this last three and a half years, the period of these seven Tribulation trumpets.

Jesus Himself opens this seventh seal, and under this seal the book is opened to virtually the last chapter of man’s history on earth—that is, under his own government—to show what a mess he’s made of the world, what a holocaust he has made of man’s history on earth.

When Jesus opens this seventh seal to reveal what is going to happen in this last day of man’s history, this last three and a half years, it is so awesome, so awful, that there is a sudden stunning silence in heaven for half an hour before anything else happens, before anything else is shown. Before John hears anything else, there is a sudden half-hour of silence, as though all heaven is stunned, as though all earth is stunned by the horrors that are about to be revealed and occur. That’s the scene that’s being set.

We could be a bit frivolous and perhaps say as one preacher once told me—preachers love jokes—he said, “Dave, I can prove to you that there are no women in heaven.” I said, “What do you mean, no women in heaven? Of course there are women in heaven!” “No, Dave,” he says, “I don’t see how there can be any women in heaven, because right here in this eighth chapter, first verse, it says there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” He said, “How could there be any women in heaven if there was silence for half an hour?”

A bit of humor can provide some relief from the awfulness to come. That reminds me of the missionary who’d been in Tibet for 25 years. I was washing dishes with him elbow to elbow at the Soul Clinic in Los Angeles at one time, and he had been a missionary in Tibet even when the communists took over. He spent four years there under the communists, operating a hospital in the heart of the mountains of Tibet, the Forbidden Land, as it used to be called.

Because I knew he was a veteran missionary, a soldier who had been in many battles and on the field for many years, and I wanted to be a missionary and to know just what it took to be a missionary, I asked him, “Sir, what would you consider the most important qualification of a missionary? What does a missionary really need to serve God under such severe conditions as you did in those mountains with those strange people and that strange language for 25 years, operating a hospital, and then for four years after the communists took over, continuing to work even clandestinely preaching the Gospel under the communists?”

There we stood with our arms elbow-deep in dishwater, washing dirty dishes for over 100 people who were attending the Soul Clinic school in Los Angeles, and he looked at me and he smiled. I guess perhaps he was thinking of the humor of our situation.

Here he was a 25- or 30-year veteran, and I was just a young greenhorn, as green as the greenest grass, still wet behind the ears when it came to missionary work. I had been an evangelistic helper and a very short-lived pastor of a church that I’d built, my first and last pastorate, and now I wanted to be a missionary. But I had never been outside of my own country except to Mexico and Canada. I had never been on a far-off mission field.

He looked at me, both of our arms immersed in dirty dishwater, and I guess he was thinking about our present situation—him a veteran missionary, me a veteran evangelist and former pastor, and here we were washing dishes together. What were we doing here washing dishes for 100 people? He looked at me and he chuckled and said, “David, a sense of humor!” He said, “You know what a sense of humor is? It’s to know how things ought to be, and to see how funny it is when they aren’t like they ought to be.” And I often thought about that for a long time afterward—to see how things ought to be, and yet to see how funny it is when they’re not like they ought to be.

He said, “I’ll never forget when we were hiding in a bus trying to escape the communists. When the soldiers came on board to check the passengers, we were down on the floor hiding under the seats. My fellow missionary and I almost gave ourselves away, we got to chuckling and laughing so. We thought it was so funny, us crawling under the seats while the communist soldier was checking the passengers. Here we were staring at each other under two bus seats, and we just almost got to laughing until we gave ourselves away!”

He said, “A sense of humor is almost indispensable if you’re going to be a missionary”—and I’m sure that many of you who are missionaries in far-flung fields around the world have often found that in the most serious kind of situation, in the most sober, somber, almost terrifying situation, somehow God has suddenly come to your rescue and your relief with something funny to relieve the tension. In the teaching of public speaking they call it comic relief. You’re very serious on a very sober subject, but suddenly you tell a joke to ease the tension of your audience and they laugh and they can relax and they can stand the next heavy section.(to be continued)

We’re proceeding now with the eighth chapter of this marvelous revelation. We’ve been through seven chapters which predicted in advance what the history of the world was going to be from the day of John until this terrible Tribulation. Now the Tribulation begins, and these great angels of the seven trumpets of the Tribulation begin to blow their trumps. Chapter 8, verse 2:

“And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.” That is the throne of God in heaven.

“And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

07: God’s Seal On His Servants

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 7

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

Revelation chapter 7 is the last chapter in the first part of Revelation, which has to do with the introduction of this marvelous Revelation, and a preview of the immediate history of the world from the time of John, who was receiving the Revelation about 107 A.D. He was about 90 at the time, on the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey, near the seven churches which he talks about and to whom he is writing and giving this Revelation which he had received from the Lord.

This seventh chapter is almost like a pause in the revelation and it is at the very end of this whole preview of the future that was to begin in John’s day.

He says, “And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the winds should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree” (Revelation 7:1). These are the winds of God’s judgments upon man for refusing the love and laws of God and His Savior Jesus Christ. “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea” (Revelation 7:2). There were four angels being prepared to execute the judgments of God upon sinful man and his wicked earth.

But this angel came first, who had the seal of God in his hand, and he said to the four angels of judgment, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads” (Revelation 7:3). He said, “Wait! Don’t mete out the judgments of God on wicked men until we have sealed the good men—the servants of God—with the seal of God in their foreheads.”

“And I heard the number of them which were sealed, and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel” (Revelation 7:4). He said, “Before we mete out these judgments here upon wicked men and the Antichrist kingdom”—these are about things that are to happen in the very end—“we must seal the believers, the true children of God, the true Israel.”

Now you can interpret this passage one of two ways: You can say that this meant the early church, all of those early Christians who were Jews, who were saved, and therefore were sealed of God. He talks about how the number of them which were sealed were 144,000, and of each tribe 12,000. It’s possible that this 144,000 were the early Jewish Christians that Jesus is saying are sealed here.

Others believe that this means that there will be Jews in the very endtime, in the time of the Antichrist and the Tribulation, who had previously thought that he was not their savior, the Messiah, or the Son of God, and wake up to the fact that Jesus is the Christ. They will realize that they have ignored their true Messiah and will be saved then and God will seal them then. Because it speaks pretty specifically about these people being of the children of Israel in the fourth verse, and of the various tribes, naming the tribes one by one in the succeeding verses. (See Revelation 7:5–8.)

After having sealed these Jewish believers, apparently 144,000 Jewish Christian believers, 12,000 of each tribe of Israel, the ninth verse says: “After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”

This is the great mob, the great hosts of heaven and earth who believe in Jesus Christ—be they Jews or Gentiles—because there’s no longer any Jew or Gentile in Christ Jesus, no male nor female, no black or white, no rich or poor, no difference in the kingdom of Christ now. (See Galatians 3:27–29.) We’re all the same to Jesus, all brothers and sisters in the one family of God.

“And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 7:10–12).

You notice the angels could only say “Amen.” Because as my mother used to sing: “For angels never knew the joy that our salvation brings.” They can only witness it. They were never lost, at least God’s angels were not, so they can’t know the joy of salvation. But they can say amen to it and witness it and help us and love us and comfort us and protect us, thank God.

“And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes and whence came they?” “One of the elders answered”—sounds more like he’s asking questions to me. “And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest” (Revelation 7:13–14). John says, “I don’t know. You’re the guy that’s supposed to know.” Notice that there were 24 elders; possibly the 12 outstanding leaders of the Jews before Christ that God considers the most important, such as Abraham, Moses, and the prophets of God down through the ages, the most important Jews and descendants of Abraham who truly loved God and really knew the score.

The other 12 are possibly the 12 apostles or leaders of the Christian church, pioneers of the Christian faith, or maybe the leaders down through the ages. Who knows? It could be that the 24 are going to be the 12 most important leaders of the Jewish church of the Old Testament and the 12 most important leaders of the Christian church of the New Testament. God’s going to honor the 24 most outstanding leaders of His people for the past 6000 years.

John said, “You know.” Yes, the elder knew. He was just asking a rhetorical question; he wanted to see if John knew. “And he said to me, these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). Those who are saved. This is the mighty host, the multiplied millions and billions of the saved who are getting this mark of God in their foreheads to protect them from the Enemy and from the Beast and the forces of hell. “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple.” This is the host of God in heaven.

“And He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them” (Revelation 7:15). He’ll sit on the throne and dwell among them. It doesn’t say we’re going to go up and dwell with God. It says that God’s going to come down and dwell with us. It says that all through the Bible, down to the very last chapter, that God is going to come down and dwell with us here on the earth eventually—in the New Earth.

Our heaven’s going to be here on earth. John saw the Holy City—that place called heaven—coming down from God out of heaven, unto the earth, unto man. And God, he said, will now make His dwelling with men below (Revelation 21:2–3). He’s come down to man’s level to love him and to live with him and to keep him forever.

This seventh chapter ends here with a beautiful vision of heaven—the raptured saints in heaven. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat” (Revelation 7:16). They lived in a hot country where they didn’t appreciate sunshine; they liked the clouds better than the sunshine.

“For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17). God’s going to wipe away all tears. We shall neither hunger nor thirst anymore, nor suffer pain or agony or death anymore.

God doesn’t say there aren’t going to be any tears in heaven. I think a lot of people when they get to heaven and face the Lord are going to cry over their sins and their failures and faults and be ashamed, some to live in everlasting contempt for their failures and disobediences and sins against God, but nevertheless forgiven and saved (Daniel 12:2).—But no crown, no reward, no “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” only tears and shame when they meet God.

But isn’t the Lord wonderful and loving and merciful? He says He’s going to wipe away all those tears, and He’s going to wipe away all that memory of those evil years, and there’ll be no more pain, no more death, no more sorrow, no more tears, only eternal happiness, joy, and paradise on earth forever and ever.

These first seven chapters cover the whole history of man from the days of John until the days of our final heaven on earth. It is a kind of a résumé, a preview of the history of man.

In these first seven chapters, we’ve covered what was future in John’s day, but is now mostly history except for these last few scenes of the saints in heavenly places. From here on, it’s all about the endtime that hasn’t happened yet, under the seventh seal with the seven trumpets of the Tribulation period, the last most horrible day in earth’s history and in man’s rule, and man’s inhumanity to man.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

06: Warriors of the Faith

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 6:9–17

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-04-01

Revelation chapter 6, verse 9: “And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

“And I beheld when He had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:9–17).

We’re reading from the sixth chapter of the book of Revelation, beginning with the ninth verse. We’ve already covered the first eight verses in the previous class on the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Do you remember what these horses were? The first one was Jesus on the white horse with a crown and a bow going forth to conquer. The second was the war horse. The third was the commercial system, buying and selling. And the last one was death by every means—hunger, famine, pestilence, plague.

You may wonder, “Were these separate times? Did Jesus first go forth and conquer, and then war came, and then after that the commercial system came, and then came death?” No, these horses, although they’re pictured one by one, began to ride almost immediately. God told John when He first started giving him this revelation that these are things which shortly must come to pass, for the time is now at hand. Therefore, these things began to come to pass in John’s day; in fact, they were already existent in John’s day. These horsemen were already riding in John’s day. God was just revealing them to him one by one to show him the difference.

The horse of Christ and Christianity, the great white horse with Him with a golden crown and a bow in His hand to go forth conquering and to conquer: Jesus had been riding that horse for many years already, and the church spread around the world—the whole Roman world of the day. There had been wars and rumors of wars, and there had been much commercialism and buying and selling, and plenty and poverty and famine, and finally all kinds of death. So these horses had been riding continuously. In fact, He’s just picturing here what has been going on for the last 2000 years.

These seven seals of the book of Revelation are the seals of history, you might say, history in advance. They cover the time from the days of John, about 100 A.D., down to the very end of the world. So these seals of this seven-sealed book are a picture of the future from the days of John to the very end. The first seal was the four horsemen of the Apocalypse—Christ and His kingdom, war, commercialism, and all forms of death—riding from John’s day till the end.

This whole first part of the book, almost the whole first seven chapters, has to do with history from John’s day until the end, particularly until the Tribulation period. But the first six seals here, as you can see, cover the entire period. It’s sort of a summary. As they say in the movies, it’s a flashback of what has happened since John’s day to the present. Under the first four seals were these four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Under the fifth seal we have another picture of heaven, this time not exactly the throne scene, but an altar scene. We see the souls of the martyrs, their spirits, clothed in white robes, pictured under the altar of God, meaning they are waiting there, in a sense, where they were sacrificed as living sacrifices for the Lord. God’s Word says that we are to “yield our bodies a living sacrifice unto the Lord,” which is His perfect will, and your perfect sacrifice, “that ye may know what is that good and acceptable will of God” (Romans 12:1–2).

You want to know the will of God? Yield your body a living sacrifice, which is good and acceptable unto the Lord, which is His perfect will for you, and then you’ll know God’s will. But not until you’re willing to give yourself in His cause as a martyr for Christ—not necessarily to die but to die daily, to live and die daily for Him, in witnessing and serving Him in winning souls. That’s what He expects of you. In a sense, every one of us is a martyr. In a sense, every one of us dies daily for the Lord.

I remember a lady in one of our Bible school classes in Miami, Florida. She loved to sit in church and listen to beautiful sermons and organ music and lovely choirs, but she finally felt that really she needed a little more Bible study to know more about the Bible.

So she decided she wanted to go to Bible school. She picked our little Bible school because it was free. Not only free tuition, but free room and board, too. So she came to our school to take this Bible course and learn more about the Bible.

But then she found out that a part of our schedule, about half of it, was spent out in the field, not just studying theory and just studying the Bible—which is all very good and a necessary preparation, because it’s your tool, you’ve got to do it—but she had to spend half her time out with the other students in the field, with her teachers going door to door or on the street corner or in the park learning how to preach the Gospel, how to witness, how to win souls.

She came back after her first day out witnessing and said, “Oh my God! Do I have to do that again?” She said, “This just kills me! That business of going out and passing out tracts on the street corner—me a respectable, reputable, well-to-do woman, standing there like a beggar on the street corner begging people to take my literature. This just kills me. Do I have to do that again, brother?”

I said, “Yes, sister, you do, because that’s exactly what it does, and it’s good for you. It just kills your pride, and it kills your reputation, and it kills your vaunted idea of yourself, and it kills you in the eyes of man, when out there on the corner you get his contempt and his scorn and ridicule.”

It kills you, all right. It makes you a martyr every day. Every single day, you’re a martyr for Jesus and you die daily, as the apostle said (1 Corinthians 15:31). These are the martyrs for Jesus Christ. We’re all martyrs in that sense. You don’t have to die physically on a cross or be beheaded or whatever in the long run; you’re a martyr every day. Do you know what the word means? Martyr is a Greek word meaning “a witness.” And you’ll find out that witnessing is martyrdom to your pride and your self-respect and the opinions of men.

Witnessing is martyrdom, and if you are a faithful witness unto God, you will be a martyr for Jesus Christ. So these folks were martyrs. They had died daily and died the final death and were in heaven with the Lord, waiting to be avenged for the blood that they had shed. They’re waiting there for God to avenge them against their enemies who tormented them and persecuted them and ridiculed them and made it hard for them.

These saints wanted retribution. “How long, O Lord, are You going to not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”—Their persecutors their tormentors, their torturers. And the Lord said, “Just be patient, just rest a little while longer for all of your fellow servants who are dying daily right now for Me and will die for Me. Wait till the whole flock is in, and then I’m going to turn loose My judgments on them. When I’ve called out My sheep from among the goats, when I’ve reaped My good grain from among the tares, so that they don’t get hurt.”

God always has to call His people out and get them out from among the wicked and the sinners. He says, “Come out from among her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins,” so you won’t be punished for her sins (Revelation 18:4). He says, “Come out of Babylon, the world system. Get out of it! Start serving Jesus.”

That’s what these martyrs have done. They died daily for Jesus.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

05: The First 4 Seals and 4 Horsemen

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 5 and 6:1–8

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-04-01

“And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

“And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne. And when He had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen, amen, amen and amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped Him that liveth for ever and ever” (Revelation 5).

Praise the Lord for this wonderful scripture, this marvelous revelation! It’s a very mysterious passage, but when you understand who the Lamb is, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, then it’s not difficult to understand. If you realize that this seven-sealed book—called a book, but actually a scroll—was the book of the future, the book of the Revelation that God had promised to give to John, and herein, in this marvelous throne scene, then we discover it is about Jesus.

When no other man could be found worthy to open the book of the future, the book of prophecy, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was found worthy to open the book.

When He took the book, then the four beasts and the 24 elders had to praise Him and say, “Amen, amen” and to praise God. They fell down and worshipped Him and so on. Every one of them had harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints. I’ve seen this in some of the dreams and visions that I’ve had, that prayers were like beautiful vases or golden vials full of perfume rising unto the Lord like beautiful flowers and angels and fragrances to God in heaven.

They sang as Jesus opened the book; they sang that He was worthy: “For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.”

Thank God, some people from everywhere are going to be saved. We’re doing our best to reach the whole world with the Gospel. Our Family is doing its best to go into all the world and preach the Gospel unto every creature just as Jesus commanded (Mark 16:15). We’ve preached it on six continents to over 100 nations in 40 languages. For one little outfit of at most 8000 missionaries, I think that’s a pretty good record.

So they sang this song praising the Lord, for He had made Himself worthy by shedding His blood. “And Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” We are already kings and priests unto God as far as He’s concerned. We may not look like it to the world, but we are already kings of this earth, and priests of our people unto God, because we’re already in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God that is within us in our hearts, the kingdom of God composed of His saints, His children everywhere throughout the world.—All those who love Jesus, all those who have received Him as their Savior, the Son of God, and His sacrifice on Calvary for their sins, and His forgiveness and His cleansing from sin.

John beheld and he heard the voice of many angels. First of all the beasts and the four and twenty elders and the saints, and then many angels are singing. This is a real praise service up in heaven—a great, victorious session in the great throne room of heaven! There before that crystal sea through which God can look upon the earth and see everything that’s going on. And the number—how many angels? How, many beasts? How many elders? How many saints?—Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, from everywhere—billion and millions! Hallelujah!

We’re not going to be the poor persecuted minority; we are then going to number in the billions and the millions, and we are going to rule the earth with Jesus Christ!

Jesus comes. He stops the earth, the history of this world, and He lets us off right in full view of our enemies. We rise in immortal victory over the forces of the Devil and of the Antichrist and right before the eyes of our enemies, now out of their reach forever, to be with Jesus in the air. This hasn’t happened yet here, but John is being given a vision of this to see what was going to happen in the future. He’s shown that Jesus opens this book of the future, this book of prophecy, sealed with seven seals.

It’s such an amazing and marvelous occasion that all heaven is rejoicing! All the angels are rejoicing, the beasts, the four and twenty elders, and the millions of saints. Beloved, you are not alone. “Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). What a cloud of witnesses! Never in the history of this world has there been such an audience for such a performance. You literally have billions upon millions of souls and saints and angels watching you from above in those heavenly galleries while you perform here on the stage of God’s history, His story, in this final act of His story, history. Isn’t that wonderful?

This will be the greatest show on earth, and all heaven will be watching.—All the saints of God that have gone on to be with the Lord, all the angels of God that have ever been created, including even Satan and all his angels, have to watch this grand and glorious performance and the final victory in the biggest hit that ever hit this world. That is going to involve millions of people, a cast not of half a dozen or a dozen or a score or two, not a cast of hundreds or even thousands, but a cast of millions upon billions acting out the last scene of God’s marvelous drama here on earth.

In John’s vision in this chapter, they’re all watching while Jesus begins to open the book of prophecy and future history begins to unfold. What a performance! What a cast! What an audience! No play or movie or television series on earth ever had such an audience as Jesus had as He began to open this book of the future—a history from John’s day down to our day, and on to the end. So Jesus is about to open the book now in chapter 6.

Let’s swing out into space and travel into the future, shall we? We are time travelers, space travelers. We even travel beyond the realm of space and time in this marvelous book.

Chapter six of the revelation of God to Jesus Christ and His angel unto John, first verse: “And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold, a white horse: and He that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto Him: and He went forth conquering, and to conquer” (Revelation 6:1–2).

Now begins the marvelous revelation of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.—These four mysterious horsemen of the book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse, depending on whether you want to use the Latin name for the book, the Revelation, or the Greek name Apocalypse.

The first horseman is obviously Jesus, with a crown all in white, going forth conquering and to conquer. What was happening in John’s day? Jesus was going forth to conquer the world with the Gospel through His saints and His apostles and the early Christians in a mighty conquest of the Roman Empire—more powerful in its message of love than all the legions of Roman force, cruelty, and war. Jesus is this mighty conqueror on the white horse in verse 2.

“And when He had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword” (Revelation 6:3–4). This second horse of the Apocalypse was obviously the horse of war, and there have been nothing but wars ever since the time of Christ and the early church.

The red horse of the Apocalypse is the horse of war, and certainly nothing could have been predicted more truly of the two millenniums of history which followed from John’s day to ours. There has seldom been a day in the world’s history that there has not been a war going on somewhere, with slaughter and massacre and killing and wounding and maiming and the horrors of hell. What does it matter whether they kill with stones and clubs and bare hands or knives and swords and spears or planes and guns and tanks and atomic bombs? It’s all the same horror in the sight of God, the same horror of man brought on by the Devil’s inspiration to inspire man to kill one another and destroy each other.

“And when he had opened the third seal”—Jesus opened the third seal, another chapter in the book—“I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.”

Here comes the horrible horse of famine and the horse of commerce, the horse of money, the horse of commercialism, the horse of capitalism, and the horse of plenty, feast and famine both.

“And I beheld this black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine” (Revelation 6:5–6). Doesn’t that sound like your typical salesman, your typical merchant? Your typical high-pressure TV commercials, always hawking their wares? So this next horse was to become one of the curses of the earth: commercialism, moneymaking, capitalism, making precious every little bit of material and food and so on. That’s the third horse; we’ve now had three horses of the Apocalypse.

Seventh verse: “And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a pale horse.” The actual meaning here is a pale yellowish-green horse. “And his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:8).

Here the final horse, the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, was death itself in every form. Death not only in war, but death from beasts and death from plagues, death from famine and hunger, death in every conceivable form. Haven’t we had that kind of death ever since the days of John? Haven’t we had commercialism and trading and capitalism and greed since the time of this revelation?

But praise God, we’ve had Jesus.—Crowned with many crowns, the King of kings riding on His great white horse of victory! He’s been riding throughout the earth for the past 2000 years, conquering nation after nation and tribe after tribe and people after people with the wonderful message of the Gospel, until at least half the world has become Christian. Half the people of the world confess Christ and are at least nominally Christian.

So there you have the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: First Jesus, the Son of God conquering the earth with His Gospel of love. Second, war, the opposite of love—hate and killing and death. And then commercialism, capitalism, greed, trading, moneymaking, one of the curses of the earth that deprives the poor and makes the rich. And finally, the fourth horse, death in every form, from war and beasts and famine and plague.

Have we not had all four of these horses riding rampant for the past 2000 years since John? Have we not had Christianity spreading throughout the world? War throughout the world? Commercialism throughout the world, the commercial system, Babylon? And all forms of death and destruction? We’ve had them all, and they have ridden rampant for 2000 years since John until this very day.

They will continue to ride right until the end, when Jesus comes and takes His children out of the hell on earth this world becomes into the heavenlies, while He pours out His judgments upon the hell below.—Until we come again in the Battle of Armageddon and we conquer the forces of hell and death and satanic power, and wipe out the Antichrist and his mark-of-the-beast forces and destroy his Image and destroy the wicked who follow him, and we cleanse and purify the earth, and set up the kingdom of God upon this earth to be ruled by Jesus Christ with a rod of iron.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.