Transcript

Okay, we're going to spend about an hour on the Apocalypse or Revelation.

You already know which direction we're going on this one, right?

In other words, I believe that the Apocalypse is best understood as having been written for its original audience.

If the Apocalypse was not written for its original audience, the people of the first century, it is the only time that God has ever given a message to a group of people that did not apply to them.

Did you catch what I just said?

God doesn't do that.

God gives messages to people that can do something about it.

So here's the Apocalypse.

There's a blessing; we already covered the blessing.

Let's not make a mistake, though.

Just because the Apocalypse primarily speaks to the first-century situation, let's not forget the ground rule number three: that every event in Scripture can then stand as a prophecy itself that can be applied to our lives.

The lessons of the Apocalypse should be and must be applied to our own lives.

Now, I believe that the Apocalypse was written for the first-century Church for two reasons.

A lot of reasons, but I'm going to tell you two of them.

Number one, if not, it's the only book of the Bible that was written that way.

Number two, it says it was the very beginning of the book.

It says in Revelation 1:1, the very first thing it says: this is about what must soon take place.

What's going to happen in the first century?

In verse 19, it says this book is about what is—in other words, the situation as it is—and what is about to take place hereafter.

So the book claims to be about the first century, and if it isn't about the first century, it would be the only book written to a group of people that couldn't understand it.

So we're going to go with the majority.

If you factor out the Rapturist group of theologians, the majority opinion in scholarly circles, both Catholic and Protestant, is that the Apocalypse applies—at least a good portion of it applies—to the events of 67 to 70 AD. That may be news to you, but if you factor out the Rapturists, who are so loud on the radio that that's all you hear, if you factor them out, the majority opinion is that it does apply to those events.

Now, here's the outline, okay?

I'm going to go through it real quick.

If you can't understand it, I've got Daniel's outline right next to it, so if you would, you can remember.

Did I say it's the exact same outline?

It is.

We start out with the historical setting: God's people in persecution.

Remember I said, Daniel, if you didn't worship the king and you prayed to God, what happened?

You got thrown into the lion's den.

In Revelation, what happens under Nero if you don't worship the king?

You get thrown to the lions in the Colosseum.

So we have seven letters here in the first three chapters talking about the situation as it was: God's people in persecution.

The second major division is the first initial vision.

Remember back here, the initial vision was the mystery of God's kingdom revealed.

It's the statue; the stone comes down, and the mystery of what this kingdom is going to be like is revealed—that it's going to wipe away all the other kingdoms of the earth.

Remember that the mystery was mentioned eight times, so we knew it was the Messianic kingdom talked about?

In Revelation, the entire first vision is about, guess what?

The mystery of God's kingdom revealed.

It's the same topic as what Daniel had.

You see, the whole early Church, including St. John, read the book of Daniel.

They knew it backwards and forwards.

Why?

It was their national history.

They didn't study George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; they studied the Old Testament.

But it was also their literature.

They didn't study Emerson; they studied the Old Testament.

But it was also their religion.

They studied it as literature, history, and religion.

It was the sum and substance of what they studied.

They knew this book and the other books of the Old Testament backwards and forwards, as few, if any, of us ever could know it.

So St. John is patterning his book after the book of Daniel.

The third section is the three key personalities.

Now, we skipped this section in Daniel—the three personalities that affect the kingdom's coming.

We talked a little bit about Belshazzar; that was one of those personalities.

But we're going to have to skip over this one a little bit too.

But there are three personalities in chapter 12. This is chapter 12; it's the third section: the three key personalities.

They're very important, and this chapter is probably the pivotal chapter in the whole book.

But we don't disagree with the Rapturists that much on it, so we're not going to cover it a whole lot.

But those three key personalities are what the whole book hinges on.

That is a summation; that third section is a summation of Daniel's last week, his seven decades.

It gives us the history of the second seven decades from the birth of the Messiah to the destruction of Jerusalem.

The fourth section is a nice long section because it's got five visions in it, just like Daniel had.

The five visions are the initial vision recapitulated, which the whole Church believed that the visions were recapitulations until the 13th century.

For the first 12 centuries of the Church, everybody believed that these were recapitulations of what was taught up here.

Just like Daniel recapitulated in the vision of the beast, he had the same four kingdoms and he gave us more details because they were now beasts.

The same thing in the vision of the battle strategy of the dragon.

He's going to give us the dragon's response to the mystery of the kingdom being revealed.

In the second vision of the recapitulation, he's going to give us the battle strategy of the Lamb.

In Daniel, it was the battle strategy of the ram; now it's the battle strategy of the Lamb.

Who's the Lamb?

Jesus, the Messiah.

The third one is the vision of the battle strategy of God's people, just like the battle strategy in Daniel was, If you build it, he will come.

In Revelation, it's the vision of the battle strategy.

We're going to see what the strategy of God's people in the New Testament is.

Then there's the vision of the great battle, just like there's a vision of a great battle in Daniel, which we didn't cover.

And then there's the vision of from here to eternity.

Now, some people might combine those last two visions; I don't have a real big argument with them if they do, but I think it's easier to talk about them if they're separate.

Then the last thing is the thematic summary.

Just like Daniel has a thematic summary, he goes back and talks about the themes of the book in chapters 13 and 14. The vision of the thematic summary starts in 2:15 and goes to the end of the book.

So that's our outline.

Now, notice that to the right of this, I gave what's past and what's future.

This is from our perspective: almost the entire book, all the way through to the vision of from here to eternity, is past until we get to chapter 20, verse 2. At that point, we transition from what has already happened from our 21st-century experience to what is now present.

St. John takes a whopping five verses and describes the present situation; it's from chapter 20, verses 2 through 6. But then he comes back on the thematic summary and spends another basically two chapters, from 2:15 to the end of the book, on the present situation as well.

So what part of it is still future?

The part of the future is from chapter 20, verse 7, until 2:15. That's future events to us; it's about a chapter, okay?

So let's go back and start through the book.

Now, before we get into the book exactly, we're going to skip this historical setting, the letters.

We're going to start right here with 41. Rapturists make a big issue out of the fact that the Church itself is not mentioned anywhere in these next 18 chapters.

They're saying, and they say, You know what?

See?

We're right.

The Rapture has occurred; the Church isn't mentioned because there is no Church here on Earth.

Wrong!

Saints are mentioned 11 times—about once a chapter.

Not only that, but if St. John believed that there was a secret Rapture in here somewhere, that Rapture is so secret that he forgot to write about it.

Because he starts with churches that are in existence, and then he says in chapter 4, verse 1, I will show you what must take place after this.

In other words, the very next events, and there's no Rapture.

There's no Rapture because he didn't believe in a Rapture.

The saints are on the Earth; they're involved in these issues because we're going to be here for the final confrontation between evil and good.

Okay, so it starts out in the throne room of God.

Let's talk about the mystery of God's kingdom revealed.

This is the vision of the scroll.

Now, people get all caught up in the fact that there are seven seals on this scroll and that the last of these seven seals has seven trumpets in it, and that the last three trumpets are also three woes, and that there are also seven thunders in here.

We get so caught up in all that stuff that we forget about the scroll.

But the scroll is what the vision's about.

The seals are just the revelation.

In other words, imagine a scroll with seven seals on it—wax seals.

What's more important: the taking off of the seals or finding out what the scroll says when the seals are all taken off?

That's the important part, right?

Okay, so what this first vision is about is the mystery of this scroll.

What is in the scroll?

Now, there's only one person that can open these seals.

In fact, in the throne room of God, there's weeping because nobody can open it until, in chapter 5, verse 5, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, steps forward and opens the seals.

And the whole heaven bursts out in song, and this is what they say: Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain, and by thy blood didst ransom men for God.

This is important: From every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on Earth (verses 9 and 10 of chapter 5). This song summarizes the message of the scroll.

The scroll—the message of it—is the mystery of the kingdom.

That's the whole idea: there's this mysterious scroll, the kingdom that we can't open, and only one person can open it.

Why?

The only reason is because he has paid with his blood.

What is the mystery?

That there's no longer any Jews or Gentiles, there's no longer any men or women, there's no longer any slave or free.

The important thing is there is now redeemed and unredeemed.

That's the message of the scroll: the kingdom.

Notice he says the kingdom is established.

This is right at the very beginning of Revelation.

People that say that the kingdom isn't going to be established until the millennium are ignoring the whole first part of the book.

The kingdom is already established when the scrolls are first opened, right at the very beginning of the book.

The kingdom is already here.

That's Catholic theology.

Rapturists have trouble with that, but we believe that the kingdom was established at the Passion, and Revelation is agreeing with us.

It's saying the kingdom is already here, and that kingdom is filled with people from every tribe, every tongue, every people, and every nation.

It goes back to what we were saying at the beginning.

It was unheard of for Jews and Gentiles to commune together.

It was unheard of in the Roman system for slaves and free people to worship together.

It was unheard of for men and women to worship together.

But this happened.

This happened where?

In the kingdom that Christ bought with his blood.

Now, what kind of a kingdom?

It's already set up, and it has these vast numbers of different people.

See, we don't find this very interesting; we don't find this very phenomenal.

Why?

Because for 2,000 years, that's the way things have been.

But this was news to them in the first century.

This was phenomenal that there were no longer Jews and Gentiles in the Church.

It didn't matter if you were Jew or Gentile; it just mattered that you were a Christian.

That went against everything that the Old Testament said.

Now, what kind of kingdom is this?

He's made us a kingdom and priests.

It's an ecclesiastical kingdom.

You see, the Rapturists are still looking for the earthly political kingdom to be fulfilled in the millennium.

But Revelation, right at the very beginning of this first vision, is making very clear to us that the kingdom that Jesus is revealing the mystery of by opening these seals is not a political kingdom; it's an ecclesiastical kingdom.

Do you see why it's so dangerous to start playing around with this stuff if you're not Catholic?

The only place to find anything that remotely approaches what Revelation teaches is in the Catholic Church.

So St. John already knew this.

But what happens when the seals are opened?

What happens when these seals are opened?

Who now understands the mystery of the scroll?

The entire world, when the seals of the scroll are opened, can see what Christ accomplished when he died.

You see, up until when the temple was destroyed, the world looked at Christianity as a mere sect within Judaism, and Jesus was a good little Jewish boy that maybe had some weird ideas, but he certainly wasn't starting a new religion.

But that's not what Jesus said.

And although his followers understood some better than others—St. Paul certainly better than most—where this kingdom was going to go, the world certainly did not understand it.

Okay?

And when the seals are opened, when the scroll can be seen, all the world will see what?

That the kingdom that Christ founded was an ecclesiastical kingdom that encompasses all nations, and it is not a subset under Judaism.

Okay?

Are you with me so far?

That's the message of this first scroll.

Okay, now this is impossible for the Rapturists to explain, but let's get into the exact seven seals.

Now, why are there seven of them?

First of all, because that's a complete number for judgment.

In Leviticus chapter 26, verses 14 through 18, Moses warned Israel that if you don't obey me, I will sevenfold punish you; I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins.

So John arranges these into sevens to show that this is the prophesied judgment on Judaism for the fact that they rejected their Messiah.

The first seal: a white rider on a horse.

I like to call him the white rider.

This white rider is best understood as, right at the very beginning of the seals, a message of hope.

The visions start with the white rider, and the visions, when we get into chapter 19, end with the white rider.

And in both places, particularly in 19, it's very, very clear that the rider of the white horse is Christ.

So right here at the beginning of the opening seals, there's going to be some pretty nasty seals that come along.

But the first one assures us that the white rider is going to be victorious.

The white rider is Christ.

The second, third, and fourth seals are also riders.

The red horse symbolizes war, the black horse symbolizes famine, and the pale horse symbolizes death.

Now, if you've ever been in the army—I’ve never been in the army—but I'd say it's probably pretty much logical that war can cause famine, and war and famine put together can definitely cause death.

This is the same order that Jesus talks about these exact same events in the Olivet Discourse.

In other words, this first vision is talking about the same events that Jesus talked about in answer to the first question of the Olivet Discourse.

When Rome came into Israel and attacked Jerusalem, there was war, famine, and death, and it happens in the same order that Jesus talked about it in the Olivet Discourse.

The fifth seal—and I know we're going fast here, but even at this speed, we're going to be in trouble, so I'm trying not to slow down—the fifth seal is a group of martyrs underneath the altar up in heaven.

Now, you say, Golly, what in the world?

That is a really weird picture.

It means several things.

First of all, it substantiates that Christians that die for the Church have not stopped being alive.

In other words, their souls are still alive.

It flies in the face of the Roman belief that at death, you just stop being.

But why are they under the altar?

Well, in Leviticus 17:17, the blood of the sacrifices flowed under the altar, and the Old Testament taught that the life of the flesh was in the blood.

So it's a symbol that these people who had been burned as torches in Nero's gardens for fun, who had been thrown to the lions in the Colosseum, that their life was still preserved under the altar.

They didn't waste their life, although that's certainly what it looked like when you were watching them get eaten by the lions.

But their sacrifice had eternal significance, and they still have a voice in earthly affairs.

They're crying out for justice against their persecutors, and the answer given to them is, We're going to wait a little longer.

Why do we wait?

Now, this is a hard one for us to sort of accept, but we're told we're going to wait a little longer until the fullness of the martyrs has been filled.

In other words, Christ's objective for us is not always earthly happiness but human divinization.

Now, that sounds really scary to us unless we know that human divinization was a theme constantly talked about by the Patristic Fathers, the early Church Fathers.

That was the purpose of the Passion and the Resurrection: to bring us into communion with God.

The sixth seal is actually the final one.

Now, the reason is the way he's arranged this: all seven trumpets are inside this seventh seal.

So he's breaking seven seals, but when he gets to the seventh one, it's actually seven trumpets.

This is a little hard for us as 21st-century people to say, Why in the world did he arrange it this way?

This is pretty common back in apocalyptic literature.

So the sixth seal is now the final one before we get into the trumpets, and it's classical language for political dynasties being uprooted.

I forget here ground rule number five: in the sixth seal, political dynasties are dislodged, and that did happen in 67 to 70 AD. Both Jerusalem and the Hasmonean priesthood dynasty, which had gone all the way back to Solomon, were dislodged at this point.

In chapter seven, St. John also describes what's happening on the Earth as the great tribulation.

This great tribulation, as we already saw in the Olivet Discourse, occurred from 64 AD until 67 AD. Another group of people is mentioned, and it's the 144,000. 144,000 is a very symbolic number; it's 12 squared times 10 cubed.

All those are important numbers.

12 is 3 times 4—God working in the world, 3 times 4. That's 12; you square that, and 10 is the number of completion, and you cube that.

Notice that the 144,000 specifically are Jewish Christians; they're not Gentile Christians.

In fact, the Gentile Christians are mentioned separately in verse 9, and they are a great multitude.

So what is the 144,000? That's the number of Jewish Christians.

Granted, it's a symbolic number, but it's a large symbolic number.

That's the number of Jewish Christians that Christ was waiting for to come into his Church before Jerusalem was destroyed.

The remainder of chapter 7 gives us a little bit of a glimpse of the celebration that's going to happen.

I'm going to go back to Galatians from last hour or two hours ago.

When Hagar's son, Ishmael, is cast out of the household of Abraham, Isaac becomes the son of promise.

That's what we're seeing here.

What we're seeing here is Old Testament Judaism being pushed aside and making it clear to the entire world that the New Testament Church is God's plan for creation at this point.

And this is what happens when that finally happens: heaven breaks out in song, and they say, Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb!

Amen!

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!

Amen!

We are now at the end of the first cycle.

We're only halfway through this first vision, but John now, in the seventh vision, starts all over again at the throne room of God, which is where the first vision started.

He recapitulates all those same events from the perspective of people here on Earth.

So far, the perspective has been that of Christ.

Now we're going to see how the Jewish people look at what's happening.

In the first trumpet, we have hail and fire mixed with blood, and a third of the trees are destroyed (chapter 8, verse 3). This really did happen.

Jerusalem around it was deforested for miles, and the main thing that the Roman army needed wood for was...

Was two things: to build their war machines.

In other words, they were building platforms upon which they could scale the walls, but they were also building crosses.

They were crucifying, on average, over 500 people every single day.

When they ran out of wood, what they'd do is tear a guy down and put a new guy up.

The devastation, the ecological devastation, was horrific.

There was blood everywhere; there were trees nowhere.

That's the first trumpet.

We're looking at the same thing that we saw the first time, only this time we're looking at it from the perspective of the conquered peoples.

The second trumpet: something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea (chapter 8, verse 8). This is classic apocalyptic literature, as we see in ground rule, I believe it was 5, for the destruction of a monarchy.

If you want to look at it in the Old Testament, Amos 1 and 2 talks about a great mountain, which is a monarchy, being thrown into the sea.

It's the fact that this Hasmonean priesthood, this kingly priestly line that Judas Maccabee refounded but could trace this line really all the way back—with some gaps—all the way to Solomon, and from there all the way back to Moses, was overthrown.

That line is lost forever; we do not know where it is.

That mountain has been thrown into the sea; it's gone.

The third trumpet: a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the water because it was made bitter.

Now, the Rapturists claim that this is biochemical or nuclear war that will destroy the water supplies.

Actually, that's a misunderstanding of the Old Testament use of wormwood.

Wormwood is in Jeremiah 23:15. If you want to look it up, it's very, very clear that what wormwood is is equivalent to our statement of saying you're going to eat your words.

So in other words, when you drink wormwood, it's the same as saying you're going to eat your words.

All throughout the siege—and the siege went for three and a half years...

The leadership of Jerusalem was predicting that God would save them.

Josephus, the historian, tells us, There was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people that they should wait for deliverance from God, and this was in order to keep them from deserting and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes.

The wormwood is a symbol of the fact, just like in Jeremiah, that those prophets were going to have to eat their words.

But there was a more important group that had to eat their words, and that was the Sanhedrin.

Do you remember?

All of these events were put into play 40 years earlier when the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to death.

They too had to eat their words; they had to admit that they were wrong.

The fourth trumpet: a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon and a third of the stars (chapter 8, verse 12). Once again, ground rule 5: political destruction.

The fifth trumpet, which is also the first woe, by the way, St. John saw a star fall from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit (9:1). Probably the best interpretation of this fifth trumpet is that it was either Nero or the Jewish high priest.

Either one of them works; it's very possible, as with ground rule—I think it's number two—that St. John actually meant both of them.

We're going to see here in just a minute that this star falls from heaven, which politically has been dislodged, but he opens up this pit, out of which comes a locust-scorpion army.

The two people that would have done that, who were in power, were the high priest by starting the war and Nero by declaring the war.

So it could have been either one of them, or it's very possible, as we saw in the ground rules, that St. John actually meant both of them.

Ground rule four, I believe, was that out of that pit, he was given a pit, and out of that pit comes a locust army.

Now, locust means literally burners of the land, and that is exactly what the Roman army did when they came across the Euphrates River and swept over the whole land of Israel.

Rome was ticked; Rome was mad.

These Jewish people had become a pain in the neck.

And they were going to teach them a lesson that the world—not just them, but that the world—would never forget: that you don't mess with Rome.

That's what Rome was about to tell them; they are an instrument of God's judgment.

Almost every time we see locusts in the Old Testament, even in the original Exodus—remember Exodus chapter 10, when we have the plagues?

The locusts were an instrument of God's judgment against Egypt.

In Joel chapter 2, verses 1 to 11, the Babylonian army is said to be an army of locusts.

So the army of locusts are human; the Babylonian army, as far as I know, had humans in it, and Joel says that they were an army of locusts.

Now, here's the description that we see in Revelation of this Roman army.

I think if you think about a Roman cavalry all decked out in bright Israeli sunlight, you see exactly what this picture is.

The locusts were like horses arrayed for battle.

On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces; their hair like women's hair; their teeth like lion's teeth.

They had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of them was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.

That's an army!

The only thing that doesn't sound like a human army is the whole idea of teeth like lion's teeth, and that comes directly out of that passage in Joel that talked about the Babylonian army—that the Babylonian army were locusts and that they had teeth like lion's teeth.

So St. John is borrowing very common, well-known Old Testament imagery to say that there's going to be a locust army that comes and conquers Israel.

Now, Revelation here in this trumpet even tells us how long this Roman army, this scorpion army, this locust army will be there.

It will be there for five months.

They will be there from May to September.

Now, Titus actually led the army for only one summer; Vespasian did it before that.

Guess how long the fighting season was that Titus was in Israel?

Anybody want to take a guess on what month it started?

May.

Anybody want to take a guess on when it ended?

September.

That's exactly what St. John said would happen, and it's exactly what did happen.

Their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings a man, and in those days, men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will fly from them.

That is a horrific picture in chapter 9, verse 6, and it was written by St. John, a man that saw crucifixion up very close.

He'd seen this scorpion army take one of his beloved—in fact, his most beloved—and sting him.

That's what crucifixion is: where you sting and you want to die; you want to die.

The Roman army, the siege itself, killed one million people in five months, many of them from crucifixion.

The Roman armies circled Jerusalem with crosses that touched each other.

When a man died, he was ripped down, and another man was put up.

The body was thrown into the valley.

Why did Titus do that?

He was trying to scare the inhabitants of Jerusalem to death or scare them into surrender.

That's exactly what he was trying to do.

Now, this locust army, this scorpion army, has a king.

His name is Abaddon.

Abaddon is the angel of the bottomless pit; he's released by the star that falls with the key and opens it up.

In Obadiah 12, we find Abaddon, and when we compare this verse (9:11) with the beast that kills the two witnesses, which we're going to get to in chapter 11, verse 7, and with the eighth king that was and is not and is to come in chapter 17, verse 8, when we compare all those passages, what we find out is Abaddon has a name, and we know his name: his name was General Titus Caesar Titus.

He was the head of the scorpion army that stung those men and rounded Jerusalem with those crosses.

He was not a particularly nice man.

Jewish tradition tells us that when they finally took over the temple, Titus grabbed some of the scrolls of the Torah, flung them on the ground, took a prostitute, and committed an act of fornication in the Holy of Holies.

This man was a beast; he's Abaddon.

The word literally means destruction; that's what he did.

The sixth trumpet goes from chapter 9, verse 13, through chapter 11, verse 14. But before the sixth trumpet can start, we're told in verse 15 of chapter 9 that there has to be a delay.

Now, we saw an earlier delay when there had to be more martyrs for the Church; that was during the great tribulation.

This is a different delay.

This delay has to wait before the destruction can start because, in verse 15, it says the destruction had to be held ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year.

In other words, the very year that this happened was already planned in heaven.

The very month, the very day, the very hour.

Why?

Why was the hour so important?

I'll tell you why.

When you see the armies surrounding the city of Jerusalem, flee to the Judean hills.

Get out of the city, my Church; it's your only hope to get out.

Why did God hold back General Vespasian?

Why did God say the destruction cannot happen yet?

The hour is not here because he had a Church to save.

You see, behind all of the machinations of men is the hand of God.

Sometimes it's difficult to see, but the hour of destruction had to wait so that the Church, the kingdom, would not be destroyed.

Now, this army that General Titus brings, that Abaddon brings, we're told the size of it.

The cavalry—we're not told the size of the army—was twice 10,000 times 10,000. Anybody real good with numbers?

What is that?

200 million, right?

The cavalry alone was 200 million.

Now, this is a symbolic number; it's just two rounds—in other words, a thousand, a thousand, and then doubled.

What is the meaning?

I think we can find it right in Revelation.

First of all, Titus brought a huge army.

In fact, his army was so huge that Josephus, the historian who fought against him, was the first general to go against him, and most of his army deserted before the first battle.

They saw this huge host of people and they said, Oh, we're out of here!

You know...

But more importantly, he says that it's twice 10,000 times 10,000. Now, we didn't mention this, but back when we were in the first vision and in the throne room, the saints were circling the throne around the Lamb when the scroll was being opened, and we're told the number of saints that there are and angels.

The host of heaven is 10,000 times 10,000. Obviously, 100,000 is a symbolic number, but it's a huge host on God's side.

But guess what?

Who's got more on their side—God or the beast?

We're outnumbered two to one; there's twice 10,000 times 10,000—twice that number.

In Old Testament Jewish time, the number of God was three, and the number of man was six.

God is always outnumbered by man's forces.

But don't forget the white rider.

We know that even though they've got twice as many—an insurmountable army—that's only the cavalry of the army.

We're going to win; the white horse is going to be victorious.

We're also told at this point that this army of locusts is given sway over Israel for 42 months.

Now, I think you probably know when that 42 months started.

It started in February of 67 and went until August of 70—it's 42 months precisely.

Okay, now elsewhere we find this 42 months mentioned in other places, but it's the biblical time of judgment.

Do you remember in the Old Testament when Elijah held back the rain?

Someone said that Elijah was the quintessential prophet, and that's absolutely true.

How long did Elijah hold back the rain?

Three and a half years—forty-two months—it's the time of perfect judgment.

It's the time of perfect judgment: three and a half years.

And that's how long the war actually lasted—three and a half years.

It's also the time that the two witnesses prophesy; they're witnessing during these 42 months.

In 11:3, it's also the time during which the woman flees from the dragon in chapter 12, verses 6 and 14. That woman is the Church.

Actually, the woman in chapter 12 symbolizes two things: Mary and the Church.

But at this point, it's the Church fleeing from the dragon, who would be the beast and his forces.

And where are they going?

They're going to Pella in Transjordan to be under King Agrippa for 42 months while the battle over Jerusalem goes on.

Then in 135, we see again that the beast is given power for only a certain time—three and a half years.

Luke tells us that this time has a nickname: it's the time of the Gentiles.

The time of the Gentiles will be for three and a half years.

That time has already happened.

The time of the Gentiles, where they come on Jerusalem and attack it, is already history.

It was the 42 months from February 67 to August 70. Now, that's in Luke chapter 21, verse 24, by the way: the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

How do we know that there's not going to be a time of the Gentiles in the future?

Because that distinction doesn't make any sense anymore.

Gentiles and Jews aren't important anymore; now we're talking redeemed and unredeemed, and that's where the battle lines are drawn.

Now, Jew and Gentile is an irrelevant distinction in the New Covenant.

During these 42 months, we also see that there are two witnesses that witness within the city of Jerusalem.

Now, the identity of these two witnesses—you can get 100 people together, and you'll have 102 different opinions.

I believe that the best understanding of it is that it's the Law and the Prophets as personified in Elijah and Moses.

Remember that Daniel was told that was the first time we saw the 42 months, the three and a half years, the times, two times, and half a time.

Remember that back in Daniel?

We were told that Caesar Nero, which was the little horn, would make war for 42 months on the times and the Law.

I think if you take that information and apply it here, it makes sense that this is talking about the assault that Nero did on the Law and the Prophets.

You see, when Jerusalem—Nero said, You know what?

These guys are a pain in the neck.

We're going to wipe this religion off the face of the earth, and we're not going to have to deal with people telling us it's wrong to have adultery, and we're not going to have people telling us it is wrong to have emperor worship, and we're not going to have people telling us that their sins have to be atoned for.

We're going to get rid of these guys.

The war was against more than just the political city of Jerusalem; the war was against the religion of the Old Covenant.

So the war was against these prophets, the Law and the Prophets, that the Old Testament and the Jerusalem used against the Roman Empire.

But more importantly, that the Church was now using against the Roman way of life.

In Revelation, what happens to these two?

They're killed, and they rise up and go to the city in heaven, the New Jerusalem.

They go into heaven.

This is a perfect picture of what happened in 70 AD when Jerusalem fell.

The Roman Empire celebrated; there were actually gifts given to people in Rome.

Yeah, hey, we're done with those people; we can live like we want now.

But before Rome knew what had happened, the Law and the Prophets had now been subsumed into a city over which they could not make war, and that new city is called the Church.

You see, now the Church took the message of the Law and the Prophets, and there was no city that you could destroy to get rid of the Church.

There was no temple in one place that you could destroy to get rid of the Church.

The Law and the Prophets had gone to the New Heavenly Jerusalem, and they could not be reached, and their message was still going to be given.

This was the view, as evidenced even by the leadership in Rome.

There's a historian—some of these names are just really difficult—but Sulpius Severus is the best I can do on this name, okay?

This is what he said: Titus himself thought that the temple ought specially to be overthrown in order that the religion of the Jews and of the Christians might be more thoroughly subverted; for these religions, although contrary to each other, had nevertheless proceeded from the same authors.

What authors?

The Law and the Prophets.

If the root were extirpated—in other words, if Judaism was extirpated—the offshoot, in other words, Christianity, would speedily perish.

The world thought that if Jerusalem was destroyed, Christianity would die out, and that is the message of the scroll.

Remember the scroll?

That's the whole message of this initial vision.

This initial vision is about the scroll—the fact that the Church is not simply a part of Judaism.

Now he gives us an idea of when this happens.

Again, he's given us all kinds of clues, but he says when this happens—when the Law and the Prophets are no longer a part of Judaism but become a part of the Church's message—and everybody in the world knows that that's true, there will be a big earthquake.

He says in chapter 11, verse 13, At that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell, and 7,000 people were killed.

You know what?

That actually happened.

The temple encompassed a tenth of the city of Jerusalem.

We know what day it fell: August 10th, 70 AD. On that day, the Jewish—not the Roman army, but the Jewish zealots—realized they couldn't protect the temple anymore.

They tried to escape to the royal palace, which was also in Jerusalem.

What stood in their way were about 7,000 to 9,000 innocent Jewish people, and they decided that they didn't care, and they killed over 7,000 of their countrymen.

We know what day this happened.

This is the earthquake in the sixth seal, and it happened in 70 AD. Now St. John is going to give us—in case we haven't caught on yet—he's going to give us the specific location where all this stuff happens.

He said it's going to happen in the great city, which is allegorically called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.

Now, where was the Lord crucified?

It was in Jerusalem, just outside the walls.

St. John is using a very clear message here to tell us two things: I'm talking about Jerusalem—that's where Christ was crucified—and number two, I'm going to start using allegorical names from the Old Testament for Jerusalem.

We're going to see that he uses many of them here.

We know he's going to call them Sodom and Egypt; he would call them a harlot, which is a very common Old Testament term for Jerusalem.

The Old Testament prophets, particularly the minor prophets, used that to describe Jerusalem over and over and over again.

In fact, Hosea even made his whole life a message about this by marrying a harlot.

Can you imagine that?

He married a harlot on purpose to show in his life what God was going through being betrothed to Israel, to Jerusalem.

And Babylon—that's the last name that we're going to find.

Those are all names for Jerusalem, all symbolically representing what Jerusalem is about.

That's who he's talking about, but he's put us on notice that he's going to use those kinds of names.

Now, the last and seventh trumpet sounds, and we hear, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

And in the days of the trumpet called to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God—remember the mystery of God?

That's what this whole scroll is all about.

The mystery of God, as he announced to his servants the prophets, should be fulfilled.

It made clear to the entire world that this new kingdom was established in its own right.

It was not a part of Judaism; you didn't need to be a Jew to be a Christian.

And that Jews and Gentiles were equals within this kingdom.

It was not political; the kingdom was spiritual, it was personal, it was ecclesiastical.

Men and women, slave and free, would have equal dignity.

But most important, Jews and Gentiles would forget about the kosher laws and eat together.

That was the most important thing.

That's why the Eucharist is so important; it shows what Christ built.

There's a lot of other reasons why the Eucharist is important; we'll get into some of those later.

In Colossians 1:24, St. Paul writes about this mystery—the mystery of the Church.

This mystery is Christ in you, that the kingdom is now personal, that the kingdom is now ecclesiastical.

That Jesus is not interested in being an earthly potentate ruling from a throne in Jerusalem over an earthly kingdom as some kind of a human king.

That's not what he's interested in; that's not what he prophesied.

This is what the prophets longed to see, and this is what the scroll reveals—not just to the Church, because the Church understood this.

The opening of the seals reveals it to the whole world.

The whole world can see that Christianity is distinct from Judaism.

Okay, we are at the end of the first vision.

Whew!

Okay, how are we doing on time?

Tell you what, let's cover the key personalities, and then we'll come back and try to see what we can do.

Hopefully, we'll be able to go through the second one faster.

But this next division, the three personalities—first of all, let me ask you something.

Has anybody seen anything so far that says that we should insert in here a secret Rapture?

Has anybody seen anything in here that says we need to have a seven-year great tribulation?

Has anybody seen anything in here that talks about a future millennium after the second coming?

I hope not, because I don't see it.

Now, this 12th chapter, which is our third division—the three key personalities—this is Daniel's 70th week.

That's 70 years that goes from the birth of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem.

That's 70 years; that's seven decades.

The time that Daniel laid out as his last week, during which there will be covenantal changes, is described here in chapter 12. Just like Daniel gave us three personalities here after his initial vision, St. John is going to do the same thing.

There are three personalities: there's the child, and the child I think we can safely say is who?

Christ—Christ Jesus or the Lamb.

The second person is the woman.

The woman actually symbolizes two things, which we shouldn't have a problem with since we already know that can happen.

In ground rule chapter 4, the woman is first of all Mary, and then it also symbolizes the Church as it flees from the dragon.

The third symbol is the dragon.

The dragon is Satan, as he tries to destroy the woman and as he tries to destroy the child.

In the next half of the Apocalypse—we're over halfway through, believe it or not—and we're going to try to really race through this.

This first vision is recapitulated; in other words, they take the same events and look at them over again, just like Daniel did.

Okay?

And we're going to fly through that, and we're going to try to just cover it real, real briefly.

My notes tell me I'm a little over halfway through, but we're going to do it a lot faster than halfway through.