Transcript

I was, uh, doing a lot of reading this week, trying to make sense out of these chapters, chapter six, seven, perhaps God is merciful, we can get through eight and nine as well, though I don't count on it.

I don't really even plan on it.

But I was also listening to some tapes by a friend of mine, Jerry Matatich, who did a series on the Book of Revelation that, that, that is very good and very helpful.

Uh, the one thing that I hear and one thing that I read that I think needs to be amended, if not corrected, is this idea that circulates about that G- God canceled His covenant with Old Testament Israel.

And I think that, that attitude often influences the interpretation of the Book of Revelation, uh, for those who see this as being fulfilled in the first century.

I think it's important to realize that is precisely what God didn't do.

I think that's what the Jews almost wished that He would've done, at least those Jews who would not accept Jesus as Messiah.

It's precisely because you're in the covenant that you experience the curses of the covenant.

If you're not in the covenant, then in some manner, you evade these terrible curses.

And so God is not canceling the covenant that He had with His people in the Old Testament.

God is enforcing it.

Now, in a certain sense, it's, it's as though they have unwittingly submitted their resignation, and it's on His desk, but He won't accept it, because they're bound by oaths.

And the oath that binds them goes all the way back to the fathers, and it's an oath that ever lives.

And it's an oath that really represents a kind of mysterious force and presence.

The oath is the principle of the covenant, and this covenant abides.

Uh, before we get into Revelation six and seven, I want to illustrate this idea of the covenant and the oath and the curses and the blessings, because I really believe it helps to tie together Revelation chapters one through seven, and I think we're gonna see it connecting even more beyond chapter seven.

In Revelation One, you can see Jesus Christ is portrayed as the Lord of the Covenant.

And He's not just the Lord of the New Covenant, He is the fulfiller of the Old Covenant.

And so in effect, when He establishes a new covenant, what He's really doing is He's renewing the old.

The new covenant is not an altogether different covenant so much as it is an absolute transformation of the old.

It's a renewed covenant.

And as Lord of the Covenant, He expresses in these seven letters to the seven churches the stern message of the covenant that is holiness or else.

And to the seven churches, He issues warnings that are drawn straight from the Old Testament that we saw, uh, from the various stages of Old Testament salvation history and from the various warnings that the prophets would give to the people when they began wandering from the covenant.

So He's saying, in effect, to the Church, As you will witness my judgments upon the people of the old covenant, as you will hear from my seer, the beloved disciple Saint John, all about these curses coming out of heaven upon the unfaithful in the old covenant, realize that this is not a cause for smug pride.

This is not a cause for relaxation, you know, and, and kind of congratulating yourselves on the privilege that you now have as Gentile ch- uh, Christians and children of Abraham.

You must realize that you, too, face the same prospects because you, too, are in this covenant of holiness that binds you to God.

So, it's a theme that's very similar to a message that Paul delivers in the Book of Romans.

In Romans chapter 11, Paul was very concerned that the Gentiles who understand the hardening that's come upon the Jews might succumb to pride, thinking, Aha, we now have Israel.

We now have all the covenant promises and all the blessings.

And Paul says, Oh, no, this is no cause for pride, no cause for smugness, no cause for sitting back and resting on our laurels and privileges.

If anything, this is a cause for holy fear.

In, uh, Romans 11, he says in verse 13, Now I am speaking to you Gentiles.

Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry among the Gentiles, that is.

Why?

In order to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.

In other words, As the Jews hear about the abundant fruit of my ministry among all of you Gentiles, they're gonna see how close you're getting to God and how close God is getting to you, and they're gonna want in on the action.

And that's why I'm, that's why I'm ministering to you Gentiles, because I can't minister to the Jews directly, they'd stone me.

So I'm gonna minister to them indirectly through you, almost means to the end.

In order to make my fellow Jews jealous and thus save some of them.

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

In other words, If their rejection has opened the door so the gospel can reach you Gentiles, imagine what it will be like when they see you Gentiles being saved, and they want in on the action, and they come back to the Lord through His Christ.

And then we really do experience the unity of God's family, Jews and Gentiles together in Christ.

That's what?

It's life from the dead.

What will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump.

What is the dough?

It's Jesus, Mary, the twelve disciples, Paul himself.

If these Jews who have accepted Christ as the Messi- Jesus as the Messiah are holy, so is the whole lump.

They have, in effect, sanctified the whole lump.

And if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, this is the picture from the Old Testament prophets of Israel as an olive tree.

If some of these olive branches were broken off, that is, the unbelieving Jews who wouldn't accept Jesus as Messiah, and you, a wild olive shoot, that is, you Gentiles, a While olive shoots were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree, don't boast over the branches.

If you do boast, remember, it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.

So boast about the root, boast about Christ.

You might say, 'Well, branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.' That's true.

They were broken off because of their unbelief, and you stand fast only through faith.

So don't become proud, but stand in awe .

stand in awe.

For if God didn't spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.

Note then, the kindness and the severity of God.

Severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in His kindness.

Otherwise, you too will be cut off.

And even the others, if they don't persist in their unbelief, will be grafted back in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

For if you've been cut from what is, by nature, a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural be N- natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren.

A hardening has come upon part of Israel until the full number of the nations and the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved.

What is Paul concerned about the salvation of all Israel?

Now that includes the Gentiles.

The Gentiles, we'll see, are going to be included in, with God's family.

We're gonna see, for instance, in, uh, chapter, in chapter seven, this, this remnant in the first eight verses, the 144,000.

And you know who those 144,000 are, right?

The Jehovah's Witnesses.

No.

Yeah, they might think they are, and y- y- y- yeah, uh, but that's not the case.

The, the 144,000 are explicitly 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

God is going to maintain a remnant from all 12 tribes.

But in addition to the 12 tribes of Revelation 7, verse nine, After this, I looked and behold, a great multitude which no man could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

So they're alongside of the 144,000.

This is the mystery of the new covenant, that God has restored His human family, Jews first, and then, Gentiles also.

These letters then, Revelation two and three, are very stern warnings to Gentile believers who now are part of this olive tree, they're part of Israel.

And he's saying, in effect, that if judgment has come upon the natural branches, then there's no cause for pride among these wild branches that have been grafted on.

So God hasn't canceled His covenant with Israel.

There is no, no justification for an antisemitic reading of the apocalypse or any other section of the New Testament.

Because whatever judgment came upon the Jews did not come upon them because they were Jews, but bec- because of their unbelief.

And the unbelief that Jews manifested back then is unbelief that Gentiles manifest in every age.

So He hasn't canceled the covenant.

God is faithful to the covenant, even if we're faithless to the covenant.

So, what is happening when all of these judgments and the woes and the, and the trials, the pestilence, the famine, the sword, and all these come upon Jerusalem in 70 AD?

Nothing but God being faithful and doing what He pledged to do when He made a covenant with them in the first place.

He's fulfilling these curses.

And so, in effect, after these seven letters have been delivered to the seven churches in Revelation two and three, we have Revelation four and five, where these seven churches are called, along with John, to enter Heaven through the liturgy, to worship at the throne of God, to worship the Creator, but to worship the Redeemer, because they're one in the same.

Jesus Christ is enthroned with a rainbow over His throne, but Jesus Christ is also the Lamb, the Lion of the tribe of Judah of Revelation five.

So, the Gentiles are now being called to participate in the worship of the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem.

And they are also going to be called upon to witness some of the most hor- horrendous judgments that will be administered by Heaven against the unfaithful of the old covenant on Earth.

So in effect, they'll realize just what Paul means when he says stand in awe.

Stand in awe, because if these natural branches undergo such horrible punishments and curses, then don't presume yourselves.

God's merciful, and yet God is severe.

Note the kindness and the severity of God, as Paul says.

We'd like to pick kindness and leave behind the severity.

Revelation doesn't allow us that comfortable option.

Now, we're gonna see in Revelations 7, Re- Revelations 6 and 7, the seven seals.

Uh, reminds you of the, the famous movie by, uh, Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal.

Uh, not exactly fit exegesis of the apocalypse, but a very powerful movie if you've ever seen it, des- describing this Swedish existentialist search for God.

And, uh, very, very dramatic.

But anyway, the seven seals.

What are the seven seals?

They're the seven seals that bind or seal the book that nobody could open back in Revelation 5.

What is the book?

Well, we notice that the book had writing on both sides, the front and the back, a lot like what?

The tables of the law that God gave to Moses back in Exodus 32:15.

They're said to have writing on the front and back.

Likewise, the scroll that Ezekiel is given has writing on front and back.

We'll look at that later on.

We're not sure exactly what it is.

J.

Massenburg Ford argues that this is, is a, uh, a divorce, a- a- a writ or a bill of divorce, spoken of in Deuteronomy 24.

Uh, in the law of Moses, it speaks about how a- a bill of divorce must be issued.

And so Josephine Ford argues that what's happening here is that the, uh, the- the old Jerusalem is being released, divorced, as it were, and sent off.

And these seven seals represent the beginnings of her woes as she is, as she is cast off as the wife, as the bride of Yahweh.

I think that's very doubtful.

I- I- I think that there is, there's some real insight in For- in- in Ford's, uh, interpretation, uh, and some real parallels there.

But I think it's more, it's more interesting to notice that in the first century culture of John, this is true especially in the Greco-Roman society, you have books, a biblion, a scroll that would have se- seven seals.

Typically, as R.H.

Charles and other scholars point out, the document is a testament.

A covenant document, but a covenant that is designed to bequeath an inheritance upon a death.

And Charles points out, as other scholars do, that back in Roman law, when you sealed this covenant document, a last will and testament, you'd have six witnesses.

Each of them would seal, would put his own seal upon the scroll, and then the testator, himself, would put the seventh seal.

So that when the death of the testator, when the death of the one making the covenant occurred, that's the time, of course, when the covenant document would be broken open, the seals removed, so the covenant would in ef- would be put into effect.

I think that is a very plausible interpretation of how we are to connect Revelation five to these seven seals in Revelation six and seven, that you have a document, a covenant document that is sealed with seven seals, and nobody's able to open it.

Because only the testator is really, uh, only, only he has authority over it, and it's only valid when he dies.

At that point, he is, uh, it- it's, it's legally binding.

Mm-hmm.

And it's to be executed.

So what is the moment when this takes effect?

When all of a sudden John looks to see the lion of the tribe of Judah and the root of David, and what does he behold?

The lamb looking as though it's been slain.

So because the king has offered up his life in this holy sacrifice as testator, as the one who sealed this testament, this last will, this covenant in his own blood, he is worthy to break open the seals and to announce what this means for all those who are in his family, all those who are in line to receive the inheritance.

The faithless sons in the family will discover that this testamentary document only records curses for them.

Whereas the faithful sons will inherit the kingdom of the lamb.

So what does a testament bequeath an inheritance but for faithless sons, it's a disinheritance, and for faithful sons, it's the inheritance of the kingdom.

And that is what I think we f- we find in Revelation six and seven.

As these seals are broken open, we have the curses poured out upon the faithless.

Seven seals, and then as soon as the seven seals are all broken, immediately in Revelation eight and nine, we have what?

Seven trumpets.

And then we'll have an interlude in chapters 11 and 12, followed by the seven cups, or the seven bowls of wrath that are poured out.

So we have in chapters six and following, for the next 10 chapters or so, a series of sevens.

Seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls.

Most likely these bowls or cups that were actually used as, in the libation offerings by the priests as they were poured out upon the altar, either the libation offering of wine or the libation offering of what?

Blood.

Because the blood was poured upon the altar as well in these bowls or these vials or these cups.

Now, what is the significance of these sevens?

Well, I've mentioned that this is the covenant that God has made.

The old covenant and the new covenant really represent one covenant.

The old covenant is the covenant that God has administered with us through human mediators such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David.

The new covenant is that same covenant mediated by Jesus Christ who fulfills and renews that covenant.

And in this case, the new covenant is new even though now it's 2,000 years old because the mediator is divine as well as human, eternal as well as temporal.

The God man mediates the new covenant, so it's gonna be new 10 million years from now because it's as new as God is eternal and fresh.

So let's take a look at two, uh, passages that I think have real importance for us understanding these series of sevens, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven cups, uh, bowls.

Deuteronomy 27 describes the, the, the ratification of the covenant with Israel through Moses.

At the end of Moses' life, God called Moses to ratify the covenant with disobedient Israel at the end of their 40 years of wandering.

And Moses' own tribesmen, the Levites, have a very special and unique role in ministering the covenant in this ratification ceremony.

In Deuteronomy 27:11, God, uh, Moses charged the people the same day saying, 'When you passed over the Jordan, there, these shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people.' And he lists six tribes.

And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal for the curse.

Then he lists the other six.

And the Levites shall declare to all the men of Israel with a loud voice What?

The next 10 verses or 11 verses which follow.

'Cursed be the man who makes a graven or molten image,' verse 16.

'Cursed be he who dishonors his father and mother,' 17.

'Cursed be he who removes his neighbor's landmark.' We won't go through all of these, but the Levites shout 12 curses from the valley between the mount of blessing and the mount of cursing.

In other words, the Levites, who are the priestly tribe, put Israel under a curse.

That's what oath swearing means.

You can't have a covenant unless you have an oath that is sworn.

Once you have an oath that's sworn, you have a covenant, but once you have an oath that's sworn, you also have what scholars call self-malediction, self-cursing.

So these people put themselves under a curse.

It's like they're all saying, I'll be damned if I'm faithless.

And what's so tragic is that Moses is given a message by Yahweh in Deuteronomy 39- 29 and 30, which basically says, Yeah, in Deuteronomy 27, you all said, 'I'll be damned if 'We don't keep the covenant?

Well, Deuteronomy 30 says you will be damned, because you won't keep the covenant.

And you won't be able to keep the covenant until you've been scattered to all the nations, till you've been exiled, till you've been defeated, till you've been sold into slavery.

And only then, in this grinding humiliation, you cry out for what you needed all along, a new heart.

And then God'll give you a new heart.

Deuteronomy 30 says, At that time, after the covenant curses have come upon you, at that time Deuteronomy 30:1, And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, then say, 'If these things come upon you,' but when?

'And you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and you return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey His voice and all that I command you this day.' Verse three, 'Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion upon you, and He will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.' Verse six, 'And the Lord your God' speaking now of the future 'will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and that you may live.' But notice that Moses says, in Deuteronomy 29:4, But to this day, the Lord has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.

You say we'll obey.

You even say we have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to obey.

If only you knew the truth, you would say, We don't have those things.

We need them.

Please, God, give them, and God would.

But because you don't think you need them, because you don't ask for them, God's gonna withhold them until you realize just how needy you are.

This is really what's happening in Revelation.

As the curses come upon the people of God for their disobedience, at that point they discover just how needy they really were all along.

And so the purposes behind these curses are remedial, restorative, rehabilitation of wayward children, in effect.

Why the seven?

To swear an oath in Hebrew, the verb to m- the verb which means to swear an oath, shavah, literally means, in the Hebrew, to seven oneself.

So when you swear an oath, you seven oneself.

When you swear an oath, you put yourself under a curse.

Let's look at one other passage and see how this is, is more explicit.

In Leviticus 26, Leviticus 26.

And then after that, we're gonna go right back into Revelation and stop with all this background.

I find, though, that, uh, when commentators and, and teachers expound Revelation 6 and 7, the seven seals, I think that they, they, they often miss the covenantal background and the idea of the oath that is the heart of the covenant, and the curses that are always made u- that always make up the oath, the covenant oath.

In Leviticus 26, you have something very similar to what you find in Deuteronomy 27 and 28, a list of all the curses.

In Leviticus 26, we read Uh, I'm not gonna read this whole thing, but we, we read all about the warnings.

Uh, in the first 13 verses or so, God says, If you keep my covenant, then I'll give you rain.

I'll give you increase.

I'll give you blessing.

I'll give you offspring.

I'll give you prosperity and power.

I'll give you victory in your wars, and so on and so forth.

Verse 14, But if you will not hearken to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes and if your soul abhors my ordinances so that you will not do all my commandments but break my covenant, I will do this to you.

I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption, and fever, that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away.

You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

I will set My face against you, and you shall be smitten before your enemies.

Those who hate you shall rule over you.

You shall flee when none pursues you.

If, in spite of this, you will not hearken to me, then I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins.

Why?

It's the sevenfold curse of the sevenfold oath of the covenant.

You form a covenant when you swear an oath, when you seven yourself.

So God says to Israel in verse 18, I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like brass, like iron, and your earth like brass.

Then it describes how He'll send more plagues and more be, uh, beasts, wild beasts, upon, upon you until you become desolate.

Verse 23 and 24, And if by this discipline you are not turned to me, but walk contrary to me, then I also walk contrary to you and I myself will smite you sevenfold for your sins.

The second time He says, Sevenfold curse, sevenfold vengeance will come upon you, and I will bring a sword upon you that you sh- that shall execute vengeance for the covenant.

So, the sword is the executive arm of the covenant curse.

And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

Then it goes on, talking about starvation.

When I break your staff of bread, 10 women shall bake your bread in one oven, and shall deliver your bread again by weight and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

So there'll be famine, as well as pestilence, as well as sword.

And if in spite of all this, you won't hearken to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and chastise you myself sevenfold for your sins.

This is the third time that we have this sevenfold vengeance, and I would propose to you that this is what lies behind the seven seals, then the seven trumpets, and then the seven bowls of wrath.

The threefold warning.

Leviticus 26 is no typical chapter.

It was the bone-crushing, spine-tingling, chilling chapter of the law of Moses.

It was the covenant curse chapter, and they knew it all too well.

And so when you have this threefold warning of this sevenfold vengeance, I think we have the background for what is happening in Revelation 6 and following, when the people of Old Testament Israel refuse the Messiah and reject Him, and then persecute, uh, His followers, His apostles, and so on and so forth.

The covenant curses come upon them.

Seven seals, then seven trumpets, and then seven bowls of wrath.And the reason why I think this is the case is Let's take a look at Revelation 6, and just see the sequence and note the imagery.

Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say Remember the four cherubim back in Revelation 4.

I heard one of the four living creatures say, as with a voice of thunder, 'Come.' And I saw, and behold, a white horse.

And its rider had a bow.

And a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

Now, some scholars like Chilton argues that this is Christ.

Uh, other scholars argue that it's Antichrist.

I don't accept either position.

I just see this f- this, this first, uh, Horseman of the Apocalypse as, uh, as one of the first of the four curses.

So, here we have conquest, defeat, warfare.

Then let's look at verse three.

And by the way, if you want the background for the, um, these first four seals, you have to turn to the Book of Zechariah.

In the Book of Zechariah, you have in chapters one, and then again in chapter six, a lot of the imagery that you find here in chapter six of Revelation.

For instance, in Zechariah chapter one, verse eight and following: I saw in the night and behold, a man riding upon a red horse.

That's the second horse in Revelation 6.

He was standing among the myrtle trees, and the ground behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.

So, you have these four horses that are sent out.

Then I said, What are these, my Lord?

The angel who talked with me said to me, I'll show you what they are.

So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.

And they answered the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.

Then the angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which thou hast indignation these 70 years?

Zechariah's vision is coming at the end of 70 years of Babylonian exile.

And these 70 years of captivity were sent as covenant curses, just as the prophets had forewarned.

Notice then, that these four angels, that these four horsemen, that these, these, uh, four horses all correspond to these angelic messengers who patrol the earth to discern where in history are we with regard to the covenant of God's people, the covenant between the Lord and His people.

Here, we find it in Zechariah's time, where 70 years are up.

The curse has been exhausted.

But have the people of God repented?

And later on, we're gonna discover that, yeah, they have, but in a very limited and inadequate way.

And then later on in Daniel 9 We're, we're gonna look at Daniel 9 in just a few minutes, I hope.

In Daniel 9, Daniel discovered that 70 years of punishment weren't enough for the Old Testament people.

And so, God decrees 70 sevens, or 490 more years of captivity and exile to squeeze the sin out of Israel.

And then we'll discover at the end of the 70 sevens, the 490 years, even then, the hard heart of His people isn't always broken.

Anyway, so in Zechariah 1, and then again in Zechariah 6, we have these four horses.

In Zechariah 6, we see that there are four chariots.

Verse one.

And again, I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze.

The first chariot had red horses, the second black horses, the third white horses, and the fourth chariot, dappled gray horses.

And these four colors correspond to the colors in Revelation 6, where you have the four famous Horsemen of the Apocalypse, not to be confused with Notre Dame's football team.

Then I said to the angel who talked with me, 'What are these, my Lord?' And the angel answered me, 'These are going forth to the four winds of heaven after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth.' And it goes on describing how they patrol the earth, leading up to the introduction of a unique man.

As soon as these four chariots have gone forth and have performed their mission, then what happens?

Verse 11 and following says, Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it upon the head of Yeshua.

Jesus in the Greek, Joshua in the Hebrew.

Yeshua, the, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, the man whose name is the Branch- Which becomes a title for the Messiah.

'For He shall grow up in his place, and He shall build the temple of the Lord.

Goes on describing how this priest named Yeshua is given a throne and a crown.

A priest king.

Now, this, in a, in a way, corresponds to a high priest back in Zechariah's day, a high priest named Joshua.

And yet, in reality, the royal priesthood of Joshua was never really established.

It was only established in a shadowy type.

Ultimately then, these four horsemen, and this episode of Zechariah 6 all point forward to Revelation chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7, where the four horsemen go forth patrolling the earth, and then introduce the real high priest, the real priest king, the true Yeshua, who's enthroned and crowned as priest king.

Now, let's go back to Revelation 6 and take a look again at how the curses of the covenant unfold.

The first curse we noticed was battle defeat conquest.

Verse three.

When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, 'Come,' and out came another horse, bright red.

Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

So we see now, two of the specific curses of Leviticus 26, conquest and the sword.

Verse five.

When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come.' And And I saw and behold a black horse, and its rider had a, uh, balance in his hand.

Then I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, 'A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, but don't harm oil and wine.' In other words, there's a famine.

There's very little bread, just like Leviticus 26 talked about 10 women baking one loaf of bread in the oven, and there not being enough.

So, famine as well as the sword, as well as battle and conquest.

But the oil and wine would refer to what is going on in the temple most likely.

Verse seven: When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, 'Come.' And I saw, and behold a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him.

And they were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.

So, the first three horses administer curses in the form of famine, the sword, and battle, warfare.

But the fourth one finalizes those with death.

And you can see here the curse of the covenant specifically listed: sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts.

This same sequence is found elsewhere, for instance in Ezekiel.

Turn to Ezekiel chapter 14.

I think we're gonna see just how important it is to read the New Testament in light of the Old, just as we see the New Testament fulfilling the Old.

In Ezekiel 14, verse 21, we have an interesting verse.

All of Ezekiel 14 is a chapter describing the, uh, the idolatry of the elders in Jerusalem, and how Ezekiel urges them to repent.

And yet the fact is, only some repent, and the few righteous who do repent aren't enough to counteract the wickedness of the unbelievers who don't repent.

So there, we begin reading in verse 21: And the word of the Lord came to me, 'Son of man, when a land sins against me by ba- by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness,' says the Lord God.' It goes on talking about how He sends out wild beasts and He pours out His wrath.

Verse 20 again, 'Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they would deliver neither son or daughter.

They would deliver but their own lives.' Verse 21: 'For thus says the Lord God, how much more when I send upon Jerusalem my fi- my four sore acts of judgment, sword, famine, evil beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?' So who is coming under judgment here?

Jerusalem.

The same as it is throughout all of Ezekiel.

And remember, we saw last week, but even more the week before, that if there is one Old Testament book that the Book of Revelation follows in sequence, I mean blow for blow, chapter after chapter, it's the Book of Ezekiel.

And if there is one message for Ezekiel, it's the curse of the covenant upon Jerusalem.

Ezekiel is aware of the fact that Samaritans up north in Samaria are in some ways more wild than those who were down in Judah, down south in Jerusalem.

But he says, The people in Jerusalem are far more wicked.

They're far worse as the harlot.

In Ezekiel chapter two We'll come back to this, but I just mentioned the scroll here that we're gonna see later on in Revelation.

In Ezekiel chapter two, verse eight, we see how Ezekiel is commissioned to bring judgment upon Jerusalem- or announce judgment upon Jerusalem.

Verse eight: 'But you, son of man, hear what I say to you.

Be not rebellious like that rebellious house.

Open your mouth and eat what I give you.' Sounds like a parent.

And when I looked and behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and lo, a written scroll was in it.

And he spread it before me, and it had writing on the front and on the back.

And there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

And he said to me, 'Son of man, eat what is offered you, eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel.' So I opened my mouth, and He gave me the scroll to eat.

And He said to me, 'Son of man, eat this scroll and I give you that I give you and fill your stomach with it.' Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.

And then the Lord sends him to go prophesy against the rebellious house of Israel, and so he does.

And then in chapter four, he says, And you, oh son of man, take a brick and lay it before you and portray upon it a city, even Jerusalem.

So, build a little model city on a brick.

And put siegeworks against it and build a siege wall against it and cast up a mound against it.

Set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it roundabout.

And take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege.

And now press the siege against it.

This is a sign for the house of Israel.

What is it?

The punishment that comes upon Jerusalem.

I would argue that this is exactly what Revelation six and seven describes, that the imagery drawn from Zechariah one, Zechariah six, Ezekiel two, Ezekiel three, Ezekiel four, Ezekiel, uh, 16, Ezekiel five- should be Ezekiel 14, many other parts.

John knows that the images that he's witnessing are taken from Old Testament contexts where God sets His face in judgment against Jerusalem.

Now, they were faithless in various ways.

I mean, they were faithless before the Babylonian captivity, and that's why the Babylonians were sent to destroy the city in 587.

For 70 years, they were supposed to repent, and after 70 years, what happened?

They didn't repent.

And so God decrees through Daniel 77 more years.

In other words, it's the second instance where you have the sevenfold curse, and at the end of it, the Messiah comes, and hopefully then they'll repent.

But even then they don't repent, and so the third and final curse in a sevenfold form comes upon them.

Now Something else that is necessary here.

When we look at Revelation 6, the first, really the, the, the whole chapter, but especially the first four seals, we see a parallel between Revelation 6 and Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21.

There are three crucial chapters that you should be aware of.

They all describe the same thing.

It's known as the Little Apocalypse or the Olivet Discourse; Jesus' final discourse given on the Mount of Olives before His arrest.

And they're found, and you should memorize these, Mark and Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

We're gonna look at those in just a minute, and I'll explain why in a second.

But let's finish this section of Revelation 6.

Let's get through some of it, some more of it.

Verse nine: When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who'd been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.

They cried out with a loud voice, Oh, sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before Thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the Earth?

A couple things here.

First of all, we see here the intercession of the saints in heaven.

This is a classic proof text for the, the, the intercession of the saints.

Now, it doesn't show the saints on Earth invoking the saints in heaven, but it shows us that the saints in heaven are in solidarity with us in suffering, and they're concerned about us, and they're also concerned about the cause of the covenant that they suffered for, that their cause and our cause might be avenged.

We also see something else.

It says, I saw under the altar the souls of those who'd been slain.

Why are they under the altar?

Well, most likely because the altar was where you poured the blood of the sacrifices out, and the blood then would gather under the altar, and then, uh, there was a place of drainage for it to be gathered up and then taken away as well.

But in the Old Testament, there's this, there's this principle that the blood is what?

The blood is the life, and the life is the nephesh.

The nephesh is the soul, or the life of man.

And so when souls die, when life is extinguished, when blood is shed in sacrifice, that blood gathers at the foot of the altar.

What, what, what we see here is that when people bear witness to Christ with their lives, and they die, on Earth, wherever they die, might be in the temple near an altar, or it might be out in a field, or it might be in Timbuktu.

Wherever they die, they're offered up as a living sacrifice, and their blood is said to, you know, mingle with the earth a lot like whose blood?

Remember, way back in Genesis chapter four-

Abel.

Cain and Abel.

Right

Yeah.

And what does God say to Cain, you know, Where is your brother?

I don't know.

Am I my brother's keeper?

And He says, Behold, your brother's blood cries out from the earth.

One thing that's rather important for us at this point to remember, you often hear in the Bible, the Old Testament and the New, this idea of the, the four living creatures calling out from the four corners of the Earth.

W- why do we hear about the four corners of the Earth, or the winds The four winds are sent from the four corners of the Earth?

Did the Jews actually believe that the Earth was a square or a rectangle?

No.

There's a lot of evidence from the synagogues, the architecture and the, the mosaics of, and the floors of synagogues that the Jews b- believed They knew the world was round.

Then why describe the Earth in terms of four corners?

Quite simple.

Because the Earth is one big altar, and the altar has four corners and four horns at the four corners.

The whole Earth is one big altar where God's people learn to sacrifice themselves.

The animals sacrificed upon the altar are really part of God's pedagogy.

God is trying to teach the people of the Old Testament, Sacrifices, offerings, holocausts

Mm-hmm

has- I am not desired for the body I've prepared for you.

You know, it's, it's one thing to sacrifice animals.

It's another thing to sacrifice oneself for others and for the Lord.

What is it that God wants?

Well, He wants the sacrifice of ourselves.

But what is it we're ready for?

Well, we're not always ready to die for the Lord.

We're not always ready to take up our cross, to mortify ourselves as we discover once again now in lent.

So what does God do?

God trains His people to understand the nature of sacrifice by teaching them to sacrifice their animals, and by pouring out the blood upon the altar and having all that blood gather, and then take that, that animal and offer him up on the fire, the fire of the altar.

And the, the holocaust is a whole burnt offering.

And the interesting thing though, is that the Hebrew word for the whole burnt offering or the holocaust, the olam offering, is literally the ascending offering.

The animals offered on the altar, and then after slaughtering it, you burn up the animal.

And what happens to the animal when he's burned up?

He goes up in smoke.

It's called the ascending offering.

What does that symbolize to God's people?

It symbolizes how God is able to take a sacrifice on Earth and sublimate it or transfer its location to heaven.

The fire that is used to burn up the sacrificial victims is always the holy fire that is always burning there in the temple.

Where did that holy fire come from?

When the Holy Spirit came down from heaven at the dedication of the tabernacle by Moses and then at the dedication of the temple by Solomon, and that holy fire is always used to kindle the sacrificial victims upon the altar.

And then the smoke sublimates those sacrificial victims so that in effect the fire and the smoke show Heaven accepting the sacrifice.

Well, how do the rabbis, how do the early Church fathers see all this?

That those animals symbolize us, the altar symbolizes the Earth.

We offer up our lives to the Lord upon the Earth, and the fire of God and the Holy Spirit takes us so that we can ascend as a whole burnt ascending offering, a holocaust up to heaven.

And so the blood that we shed upon the Earth, the four corners of the earth altar, cries out to the Lord, along with our prayers, for God's vindication, for God's judgment.

We're saying, in effect, You're faithful, but Satan is accusing You of being faithless.

And Satan has inspired powers on the earth to take away our lives.

Vindicate Your name.

Vindicate Your faithfulness.

Vindicate us.

Avenge our blood.

And so the true altar is the Earth.

The true sacrifice isn't an animal.

It is every saint who offers himself up as a martus, a witness who gives testimony, marturia, to God's faithfulness.

And so these people, almost like Abel of old, slaughtered by his envious older brother, cry out for God to judge and vindicate His own holiness.

We go on.

Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer.

What is the white robe?

It's the uniform of a priest, white linen.

So they are told to reign with Christ, but they're also given white linen so they can reign as priest kings like Christ does.

And they're told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

When He opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth.

The full moon became like blood.

And the stars of the sky fell to earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.

The sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the generals and the rich and the strong and everyone slave and free hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb ' I love that image, the wrath of the Lamb, the killer Lamb.

Like a Monty Python image almost, huh?

For the great day of the wrath has come, and who can stand before it?

Now, this language is actually found elsewhere in the New Testament.

Turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 23, verse 27.

Luke 23 shows us that the language here is actually borrowed from our Lord.

Here's our Lord on route to Calvary, having been falsely tried, falsely accused, and then unjustly sentenced to die, carrying his cross to Jerusa Carrying His cross up to Golgotha.

Verse 27, And there followed Him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented Him.

Here they Here are these women, lamenting the innocent one who's led off to die.

And what does He do?

Does He say, you know, You're blessed because you recognize my innocence?

But Jesus, turning to them said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck.

Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us.

For if they do this when the wood is green In other words, If they do this, if they're crucifying Me, if they're spurning the graces that God has given to them in the Messiah, if they're crucifying Me when the wood is green, what will happen when it's dry?

In other words, What is it gonna be like when God's grace is taken away?

If they're doing this when they still have an abundance of graces, imagine how horrible it's gonna be when God lifts His grace away from Jerusalem.

Don't weep for me.

Weep for yourselves and for your children.

So again, in Revelation 6, we see imagery stolen straight from the divine curses of the divine covenant made with the people of God, and that covenant is architecturally established in the temple of Jerusalem, the Holy City, which was once holy.

Now, now that we're in the Gospels, I want to show you something that several scholars have noticed.

Turn with me to Mark no, to, to Matthew 24.

This is the passage I just mentioned a minute ago, the Olivet Discourse, or the Little Apocalypse.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record for us this Little Apocalypse, the Olivet Discourse of our Lord.

Here's what scholars notice, that in Revelation 6, verses 1 through 17, there is a sequence of images and events, a sequence of images and events that correspond exactly to the same sequence of images and events in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

Remember that in Revelation 6, verses 1 and 2, the first horse went out to conquer, bringing war.

Look at Matthew 24, verse 6.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you are not alarmed.

The second horse went out with a sword to bring international strife.

Look at Matthew 24, verse 7.

For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

And then in Revelation 6, verses 5 and 6, the third horse went out bringing famine and pestilence.

Look at verse 7.

Be there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

All this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulations and put you to death, and you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

And so the persecution is described there in verses 9 and, uh, verses, verse 7.

These scholars also point out that in Revelation 6, you have the sequence, first of war, then of international strife, then famine, then pestilence, followed by persecution.

Likewise, in Matthew 24, verses 9 through 13, we have the description of persecution.And then many will follow and betray one another and hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

And because wickedness has multiplied, most men's love will grow cold.

And he who endures to the end will be saved.

And then finally, in Re- Revelation chapter six, verses 12 through 17, which we just read, there's a description of earthquakes and a kind of decreation, these heavenly signs, like the sun, moon, and stars falling.

Likewise, in Matthew 24, verses 15 through 31, you have the same thing.

You have the earthquakes, and you also have these cosmic signs.

Look at verse 29.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Now, what is going on?

Is this referring to the end of time, like most fundamentalists and many Catholic interpreters would have us believe?

While I respect interpreters, whether they're fundamentalists or Catholic or whatever, and I, I respect them and I learn from them even when I disagree, I would have to say that in this case, I think they're wrong for interpreting this as the end of time, or the second coming.

For instance, we find Jesus using the same language when He is being tried by Caiaphas.

In Matthew 26, verse 63, Jesus was silent.

And the high priest said to Him, '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, hereafter, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.' The high priest tore his robes then and said, 'He has uttered blasphemy.' He is identifying Himself as the Son of Man of Daniel 7, a divine, a heavenly divine being.

He's blasphemed.

But notice that Jesus thinks that Caiaphas will see this sign.

And not just Caiaphas.

Let's turn back to Matthew 16.

In Matthew 16, right, after speaking to another high priest, not Caiaphas, but Caiaphas, or Cephas, or Peter, says, uh, talking about the need to suffer, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Whoever would lose his life for my sake Whoever would, uh, save his life will lose it.

Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Then drop down to verse 28, 27 and 28.

For the Son of Man is to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and that He will repay every man for what he has done.

Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.

In other words, Jesus is saying that there are people alive back then who are going to see the sign of the Son of Man that is spoken of in Matthew 24.

So, what is Matthew 24 really talking about?

We might be tempted to think it's simply the end of the world.

And I'm arguing that, yes, it's the end of a world.

It's the end of the old world symbolized by the old temple of the old covenant.

And that this prefigures the ultimate and eventual destruction of the macro temple we call the universe.

But we cannot relegate fulfillment simply or exclusively to the end of time.

It has a primary and an initial fulfillment in the lifetime of Jesus' hearers.

And we can see this clearly, I think, not just in Revelation, which borrows from the synoptic Apocalypse And by the way, besides Matthew 24, the exact same sequence, as I mentioned, is found in Mark 13 and Luke 21.

We don't have the time to look those up, but you can on your own and see this.

But I want to impress upon you this idea that what's happening in Revelation 6, with the seven seals, is John's apocalyptic version of what Jesus describes in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

Same sequence of images and events, the same background against the old Jerusalem.

Turn with me now to Matthew 23, and we can see this.

Why do you think that, uh, Jesus intended, uh, Caiaphas to see, uh, the Sanhedrin, in the passage you quoted there?

Yeah, I believe that what he's saying, in effect, is, You shall see the sign of the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, which points to His resurrection and His ascension, and His, uh, rule, His session at the right hand.

And then in a, in a special way, the vindication that will come to Him in 70 AD when, coming on the clouds of heaven, judgment will rain down upon Jerusalem and destruction on the temple.

And, and why I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump ahead here.

Why then use the imagery of sun, moon and stars?

The sun will be darkened, the moon and the stars will fall.

One scholar explains it, I think, in a very helpful way, that this language is used in Isaiah 13 and in many other parts of, of Isaiah and Ezekiel and the prophets of the Old Testament, to symbolize political judgments that befall the enemies and the persecutors of God's people.

Because prophets often use symbolic language to describe historical, temporal, political events.

And it's appropriate in this manner to speak of sun, moon and stars, connection with the catastrophes, because they serve a kind of clock function.

Uh, for instance, if you were to ask Ezekiel, you know, What is the fortune or the future of, of us and our city?

Chances are, when you read Ezekiel, you'd probably guess that he wouldn't tell you straight off what the fortunes are.

In fact, he wouldn't probably verbalize his answer.

More often than not, God had him show judgments by acting out judgments.

Now, in the ancient world, what is the clock that people use to tell time?

I mean, they didn't have Timexes, they didn't have Big Bens, they didn't have, you know, uh, the kind of clocks that we have.

What did they do use to tell time? sun, moon and stars, right?

The sun would tell them what time of the year it is, the moon would tell them what time of the moon th- or the month it is, and the stars would tell them whether they're in the age of Aquarius or some other stellar age.

So, if you want to convey a message to a kingdom persecuting God's people, your time is up, what better way than to say to them, Look up at your clock, you know?

Sort of like if John Majors asked me, if I was a prophet, or asked Ezekiel, you know, What is the future of Great Britain?

And instead of saying a thing, he just takes out a model of Big Ben, puts it on the table, grabs a mallet, and smashes it to pieces.

What would he be telling John and all the Brits?

Your time is up.

Destruction is near.

And so when Jesus speaks this way to the people of Jerusalem, He's saying, Check your clock.

It's not ticking.

It's taking a licking, you know?

Your time is up.

And that's why He says I'm gonna go back to Matthew 20:23 in just a minute.

But he says in Matthew 24, immediately after this, verse 32, From the fig tree, learn its lesson.

As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.

So also, when you see all these things, you know that He is near at the very gates.

The same kind of imagery that we saw in Revelation 6 with the fig tree.

Verse 34, Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place.

So, He's talking to the people of Jerusalem about what will befall them in a genea, a 40-year time span.

That's what a generation consists of.

Let's go back into Matthew, uh, the earlier chapters.

Look at Matthew 23, but, but realize that this begins long before Matthew 23.

For instance, in Luke's Gospel, Jesus is described as, Setting His face like flint toward Jerusalem.

And this disturbs people in other villages because they feel like they're being ignored.

But Jesus' reason is simple, that, There's no other place for a prophet to die, except where?

In Jerusalem.

So, He knows He has to go up and die.

In, in Matthew 22, he tells the parable of the marriage feast and how his servants, the king's servants were, were treated, mistreated, shame- treated shamefully.

Verse seven, The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Hint, hint.

There's no mention of a city earlier, but of course, that is a description of what is to befall the city of Jerusalem.

Just as earlier in that chapter, or no, in Matthew 21 verses 33 and following, you have the parable of the wicked tenants.

And, uh, the owner, the landlord sends his own son after the messengers have been abused.

They execute the son.

When, therefore, the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

They said to Him, He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season.

And then Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures, 'The very stone which the builder rejected has become the head of the corner.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.'?

Therefore, I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking about them.

And for once, they were right.

So, in Matthew 23, he now addresses these chief priests and Pharisees.

He first warns the people about them, saying, Don't do what they do, but you have to do what they preach.

And then He goes on, describing how they're hypocrites and much worse.

And then He pronounces seven curses upon them.

That's what the seven woes symbolize.

Verse 13, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

You shut the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven against men.

Verse 15, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

For you traverse sea and land to make a single convert.

And when he becomes a convert, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Verse 16, Woe to you, blind guides who say, 'If anyone swears by the temple,' et cetera.

So, He pronounces another woe in verse 23.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Verse 25, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside, they are full of extortion and rapacity.

You blind Pharisees, first cleanse the inside of the cup and the plate, and the outside may also be clean.

The sixth curse or woe is in verse 27.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within, they're full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

And back then, the tombs of the great men in Jerusalem were monuments that were kept up.

So, in verse 29, the final woe, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and you are yourselves living graves, as it were.

And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Your fathers murdered the prophets who prophesied of me, so you indeed are sons of those who murdered the prophets because you murder the one the prophesi- the prophets predicted.

Fill up then the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers.

How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

I defy you to find language anywhere in Scripture which applies to Rome this language.

That's why I think it's such a serious misreading of Revelation to see the great city under divine judgment as Rome.

Rome was the city that the early Christians wanted to convert.

Rome was the city that Peter and Paul threw themselves into like in the mouth of a lion because they knew that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church and that Rome was the fourth beast, the final beast that Daniel predicted, and that this would undergo the same experience that the first three beasts, the first three gentile empires had undergone that had sla- enslaved God's people.

Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, their leaders had all undergone a conversion experience like Nebuchadnezzar who proclaims Yahweh as the true God; Cyrus, the Medo-Persian emperor who's actually called by Isaiah, The Lord's anointed; Alexander the Great who builds a city in Alexandria and has it staffed by rabbis who showed all kinds of favor to Jerusalem.

Finally, the fourth and final beast, Rome that Daniel predicted would trample over God's people.

The Jews wanted Rome to be burned and destroyed.

The Christians wanted it to be converted.

I think we are Judaizing when we interpret Revelation in light of Rome being burned.

For one thing, it'd be a false prophecy because Rome was never really destroyed with fire.

Only one city was in the first century; that's Jerusalem.

A second reason it's a serious misreason- misread- reading is because it would transform the seer of the Apocalypse, Saint John, into a zealot, into a Jewish zealot, somebody who wanted to, to fight with military weapons to bring about physical defeat in order to establish a military em- empire, or at least to, to overthrow the military empire of Rome.

That is not what the early Christians were taught.

They were taught as Paul says in Romans 13, to honor the authorities.

In Romans 13, Paul talks about how all the authorities have been established by God.

And he's writing to the Romans when he says this.

And the Caesar at that point back in '56 AD was Nero himself.

Christians are not zealot, militant revolutionaries who advocate violence to overthrow Rome.

The Jews were back then, especially the zealots who controlled Jerusalem during the war leading up to 70 AD.

That's why I think it's such a serious misreading, not only of Revelation, but also of Matthew 24.

Let's go on here.

You serpents, you brood of vipers, how you do escape being sentenced to hell.

Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some of you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town that upon you, the chief priest, the scribes, and the Pharisees, the people who lead and live in Jerusalem, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Truly I say to you, all of this will come upon this generation.

You've got a sandwich now.

The bread on top is Matthew 23:36.

The bread on the bottom is Matthew 24, verse 34, This generation And sandwiched in between is the meat of this apocalypse.

And it begins, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who were sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not.

Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.' Jesus left the temple and was going away when His disciples came to point out to Him the buildings of the temple.

He answered them, 'You will see, you see all these, do you not?

Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.' And the Roman soldiers did just that between March of 70 AD and August of 70 AD.

They laid a terrifying siege to the city of Jerusalem.

This room might hold one and a half stones, they were that big.

Some scholars estimate it could probably hold one stone.

I mean, we're talking big stones, and they were torn down.

But what's interesting is that what the Romans didn't tear down, later on, Burgundians and vandals did because the fire set to the temple was so hot, the flames were so fierce, that they melted the gold inlaying, the, the gold that was inlaid in the walls and the ceiling and all the furniture, that it actually is described by Josephus that we have gold that was melting and just kind of flowing like little streams, and it was collected between the cracks of the stones.

And so long after the Romans left, vandals came and began prying these enormous stones up, one off the other, to get at the gold between them.

Jesus got it right.

And He's describing things that are truly unique.

Up until this time, it was the age, it was the era, it was the time of the Pax Romana, the Roman peace.

But between 30 AD and 70 AD, there came an eruption of violence and all kinds of natural disasters.

For instance, violence.

There were numerous wars that Tacitus records.

All of a sudden, Rome had wars everywhere.

The, I believe it was the Phrygians who were crossing the, the river entering into Rome itself, but I mean, they were fighting wars north, south, east, and west.

The Jews were as well.

The closer they get to 70 AD, the more the violence against them.

In 66 AD in Alexandria, 50,000 Jews were slaughtered in a day.

Shortly after that in Caesarea, 20,000 were tor- were, were, were executed.

The earthquakes between 30 AD and 70 AD occurred in Crete, Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Colossi, uh, Campania, Judea, and Rome.

And Pompeii, which was hit later on with the great and violent earthquake that destroyed it, was actually hit by an earlier quake back in February 5th of 63 AD.

So, I mean, there were earthquakes, and the Book of Acts record several famines.

Josephus records other famines as well.

The Book of Acts also records how there were false messiahs.

Gamaliel refers to some of the false messiahs who had misled the people.

Simon Magus of Acts 8 is later worshipped by Caesar Claudius as a god, this Jewish false messiah.

Josephus records how during the war of Jerusalem, during the Jewish war that led up to the destruction of Jerusalem in '70 AD, there were so many different false messiahs within Jerusalem that they became the real reason for the downfall of Jerusalem.

They had a bumper crop that year before and so they had lots of food harvested and stored away for the siege in Jerusalem.

But there were three or four different false messiahs who gathered together bands of followers, and they began to war among themselves to see who could control the city to defend it against the Romans.

They burned each other's food supplies and thus induced a really unnatural famine in Jerusalem that became wild and severe.

So much so that Josephus describes how when the Roman soldiers finally entered into the city of Jerusalem, they came across the houses of nobles and they found a noblewoman who had just roasted her dead baby for food.

He describes how cannibalism was rife throughout Jerusalem as a result of the famine, even though they had a bumper crop, a better harvest than they had for years.

And yet, again, these prophecies are fulfilled down to the excruciating detail.And it's, and it's our problem because we really don't know history.

I mean, while I- I was talking to somebody earlier this week and they, they mentioned to me Verse 14 of Matthew 24, And this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

And they said, Surely this didn't happen before 70 AD.

And yet, indeed it did.

According to the, the church's tradition, we have the apostles scattering to the four corners of the earth.

I have a list here.

Andrew went to Scythia.

The Russians venerated, uh, Andrew as the one who brought the Gospel to them.

Philip went to Phrygia.

Bartholomew brought the Gospel of Matthew to India.

Thomas was also evangelizing in India, and was martyred there.

James Alphaeus went to Egypt.

Thaddeus went to Persia.

Simon went to Egypt and then he went on to Britain, and he was, uh, reputed to have evangelized Babylonia as well.

And then John Mark also went down to Egypt and Alexandria where the liturgy of ju- is, is traced back to John Mark.

In Colossians, uh, chapter one Verse 6, Paul talks about how the Gospel has been proclaimed throughout the whole world.

And he says the same thing in Romans 1 Verse 8, that the Gospel has gone out to the whole earth.

So, this prophecy here that Jesus gives is the little apocalypse.

Matthew records it, Mark records it, and Luke records it.

The only one who doesn't record it is John.

And I think the reason why is simple.

Because instead of giving us the mini apocalypse, he gives us the maxi apocalypse.

He reserves an entire book for it, as the Lord could foresee the need.

And in fact, early historians tell us, the early church historians tell us of how between 600,000 Jews, between 600,000 and 1.2 million Jews perished in Jerusalem, but we don't know of a single Christian who perished.

Why?

Because of the vision.

There was a vision.

We're not told specifically where it was, but look at Matthew 24 Verse 15.

When you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the Prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.

This is why I think Matthew was probably written before 70 AD, uh, because it's, it's being written to Palestinian Christians who have existential interests at stake here.

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

This is not end of the, this is not end of the world type language.

This is the end of a world, the world of Judea, the old covenant.

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house.

And it goes on in Verse 20.

Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.

For then there will be a great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.

That language is almost, is almost found verbatim in Josephus.

Josephus describes how people in all parts of the world underwent many tribulations.

But he says, And I was an eyewitness, he says, Never has there been a tribulation like that which befell Jerusalem.

What's interesting about that though, uh, Josephus was captured before the destruction came, but he says this.

Uh, I am of the opinion that had the Romans deferred the punishment of these wretches, either the earth would have opened and swallowed up the city, or it would have been swept away by a deluge, or share the thunderbolts of the land of Sodom, for it produced a race far more ungodly than those who were thus visited.

Josephus describes how never before has a generation of my people produced such wickedness.

He describes how the place was overrun with demonic spirits.

It was violence, it was evil, there was simply indescribable, almost unimaginable.

And again, it's just what Jesus said.

Turn to Matthew 12.

In Matthew 12, Jesus is being rejected in the first formal and public manner by the chief priests and the Pharisees who are in the temple.

And they're not just rejecting Him, they're accusing Him of being demonic.

And so they say, Verse 24, But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, 'It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons that this man casts out demons.' Jesus knows their thoughts, and so He rebukes them.

But notice that only here in this case does Jesus speak about the unforgivable sin.

Some people say the unforgivable sin is final impenitence, and so it may be.

But in the context, it seems as though the Pharisees have reached a stage early on of a kind of final, final impenitence where it says, um, in Verse 31, Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

Uh, and whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against this Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

A lot of people speculate about what this sin is.

I think in this immediate context it is, consists of this.

Pharisees who know God's Word inside out, Pharisees who have been shown divine graces in superabundance, Pharisees who have been confronted with the very Messiah of God, now say what?

We're not sure?

No.

Do they say, We are sure He's not the Messiah?

No, it's far worse.

They're saying, We are sure he is Beelzebul.

He's Satan himself.

That is evil reaching a point of maturation and refinement that represents something like Lucifer at his fall.

There is illumined evil.

And so in this context, He's saying back in Verse, um, 25, He speaks of how, Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

What is He referring to?

He uses three images, a city, a kingdom and a house.

The city is what?

Jerusalem.

The kingdom is what?

The old kingdom of David.

The house is what?

The temple.

And then He goes on to describe how, uh, binding, and He says this.

Uh, But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

For how can one enter a strong man's house, the temple, and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man?

He's suggesting that Satan is now in control of the temple in Jerusalem, that Jesus is now binding him and giving this generation one last chance if they will cooperate with the graces.

'Then indeed he may plunder his house.

He who is not with me is against me.

He who does not gather with me scatters.' Then drop down to Verse 43.When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it's almost like Jesus driving the devil out of Jerusalem's temple for a season.

He passes through waterless places seeking rest, but he finds none.

Then he says, I'll return to my house from which I came.

And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there.

And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.

So shall it be also with this evil generation.

This generation has received an in- a, a tremendous grace.

That is, I have cast out the devil, I have bound the strongman, I plundered his house, I have cleansed the temple.

Now what will you do?

If you're not for me at this point, you're against me.

If you're not gathering, then you're scattering.

And what happens?

The rest is, as we say, history.

Now, I wish we had more time to go into specific details concerning Josephus's account or Tacitus.

Larry, you gave me Tacitus The Histories last time.

Fascinating account.

This is in the Penguin Classics, uh, on page 278 and 279.

It's unbelievable that almost exactly like Josephus, Tacitus describes the supernatural downfall of Jerusalem.

He describes how Jerusalem was an impregnable fortress city.

The city occupied a commanding position.

It had been reinforced by engineering works so massive that they might have been, they- they might have rendered even a flat site impregnable.

Then two lofty hills were enclosed by walls skillfully staggered.

And forming re-entrant angles designed to explose the, expose the flank of any attacker.

At the edge of the crags was a sharp drop, and a series of towers dominated the scene.

60 feet high where the rising ground helped and 120 feet high in the hollows betw- between.

There presented an impressive appearance, and to the distant observer seemed to be on a level.

There were further walls inside around the palace, and a conspicuous landmark was the lofty castle of Antonia.

The si- The temple was like a citadel, and had its own walls, which would have been even more laboriously and skillfully constructed than the rest.

The porticos around it constituted themselves a most excellent defensive position.

To these advantages must be added a spring of never-failing water.

Chambers cut into the living rock, tanks and cisterns for the storage of rainwater.

Its builders had foreseen only too well that the strange practices of the Jews would lead to conti- to continual fighting.

Hence, everything was set for a siege, however long.

And it goes on describing how after Pompey had conquered it in the first century BC, they spent even more money, time, and energy reinforcing it beyond this description.

This city was the most impregnable fortress city in history.

And yet it fell like overripe fruit into the hands of Titus, who didn't even expect, he wasn't even sure if he'd be able to overcome it.

He issued a decree that the temple was not to be burned because of his reverence for this holy place, this magnificent structure.

He goes on describing, bearing witness against this, the people, the city, the generation, saying, I had no intention to bring such waste to this city.

Josephus describes or actually recounts Titus's own testimony of how their god delivered the city into my hands far more than I planned or even desired.

We don't see all this because we haven't seen the covenant as the background, the backdrop, the foundation, the be all and end all of everything God does in history.

It's the key.

Now, I realize we didn't even get into Chapter 7.

Let me just kinda wet your whistle.

In Chapter 7, I mentioned earlier, we have 144,000 plus the vast multitude.

I believe what's happening in Chapter 7 is the fruit of the ministry of a man like Paul, and others as well.

Paul goes out with the apostles to gather in the remnants of Israel, because even in Jerusalem, there were some that were saved.

They all fled to a mountain city, a little mountain tall, town called Pella, P-E-L-L-A.

According to the early church's tradition and early historians, not one Christian perished because of the vision of Matthew 24, and quite possibly the apocalypse itself.

They all knew when they saw desolation and sacrilege to get out of town, and they fled, and they didn't perish.

And they all spent the winter in Pella.

And there they survived while millions of Jews were either slaughtered or taken away.

500 Jews were crucified a day for weeks and weeks after August of 70 AD on the rone- on the road leading from Jerusalem all the way back to Rome.

That was the kind of judgment that was delivered upon this people from Rome.

Far beyond anything we can imagine.

But before that happened, a remnant was gathered so that 144,000, 12,000 for me to the 12 tribes, representing, symbolizing how God will draw in believing Israelites.

Just as Elijah said, I alone am left, and God said, No, I have preserved for myself a remnant.

There are 7,000 who have not bowed their knee to Baal.

So in this generation, there are 144,000 who bow their knees to the Messiah, to Christ.

And along with them comes the vast multitude gathered from every nation to form the new Jerusalem, the human family, where there's no longer any difference between Jew or Gentile, free or slave, etc., etc. That's what we'll look at next time.

We'll have to go over, and I think rather quickly in passing to get into the seven trumpets.

I'll give you one Uh, I know, I know I shouldn't do this, but I will, I will.

The seven trumpets.

When do you hear seven trumpets in the Old Testament?

Seven trumpets are blown right before the city of Jericho falls.

Guess what the new Jericho is?

Jerusalem.

Right after the seven trumpets are blown, Revelation 11 describes the earthquake which brings destruction to the city where the Lord was crucified.

Spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, and symbolically portrayed as Jericho.

Jerusalem has become Sodom, Egypt, Jericho, and I dare say later on, Babylon itself, where God's people are held captive.

This reading, this covenantal interpretation, I think, will, will bring far more light, harmony, make much more sense out of Revelation.

And why it had such impor- importance, and it was such an urgent message .

through the first century.

Uh, I want to add a postscript.

I just noticed, I looked down here and I realized I'd forgotten to read one thing.

Do we have enough time on the tape, I think?

Yeah.

Think we got like three minutes?

This is taken from F.W.

Farrar's Early Days of Christianity.

I want to anticipate an objection.

What about Nero?

What about the Neronian persecution?

How does this relate to Jerusalem?

Are you saying it's Jerusalem and not Rome?

What about Nero?

Well, Farrar describes this.

He says on page 42, and this is a kind of standard classic here, uh, history of the early church, especially in the first century.

The Jews were by far the deadliest enemies of the Christians, and the two persons of Jewish proclivities were at this time in close proximity to the person of the emperor, Caesar.

One was the pantomimist, Ally Turus, and the other was Poppaea, the harlot empress.

The Jews were in communication with these powerful favorites, and had even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome, he should have the kingdom of Jerusalem.

It is not even impossible that there may have been a third dark and evil influence at work.

Uh, let me skip over this.

Move on.

If, it seems certain, the Jews had in their power during the reign of Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne, does not historical induction drive us to conclude with some confidence that the suggestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them?

Saint Clement says as much in his epistle that the Christians suffered through envy.

He says jealousy, but Clement says envy.

Whose envy?

Who can tell what dark secrets lay veiled under the suggestive word?

Was Poppaea jealous?

Et cetera, et cetera.

But there was a deadly jealousy at work among the new against the new religion.

To the pagans, Christianity was but a religious extravagance, contemptible indeed, but otherwise insignificant.

To the Jews, on the other hand, it was an object of hatred which never stopped short of bloodshed when a possessor could usurp the power in which th- in which they'll long suppress by circumstances displayed itself in all the intensity of its virulence during the brief spasm of the dictatorship of Bar Kochba.

Christianity was hateful to the Jews on every ground.

It nullified their law.

It liberated all Gentiles from the heavy yoke of that law, without thereby putting them on a lower level.

And indeed, it even re- tended to render those who were born Jews indifferent to the institutions of Moses.

It was, as it were, a fatal revolt and schism from within, more dangerous than any assault from without.

And worse than all, it was by the Gentiles confounded with the Judaism It was by the Gentiles confounded with the Judaism, which was its bitterest antagonist.

I see in the proselytism of Poppaea, this Jewess, guided by Jewish malice, the only adequate explanation of the first Christian persecution.

Hers was the jealousy which goaded Nero to matricide.

Hers not improbably was the instigated fanaticism of a proselyte, which urged him to imbrue his hands in martyr blood, and she had her reward.

A woman of whom Tacitus has not a word of good to say, and who seems to have been repulsive even to a Suetonius, is nevertheless described by Josephus as a devout woman and a worshiper of God.

In other words, Suetonius and Tacitus looked upon Poppaea, who was so close as a mistress to Nero, as a, a, as just a despicable woman.

But to Josephus, the Jew, she was a, she was a great woman who worshiped God.

In other words, the tension between the Jews and the Christians was so intense in Rome that historians like Farrar see a lot of inductive evidence and reason to support this idea that Nero, who would have no other reason for scapegoating the Christians, did so quite probably at, under the pressure from the Jews.

Which would then also explain why, having realized that he'd been used, he turns the most ferocious assault and persecution, after three years of persecuting the Christians, upon the Jews themself.

From '63 until around '66 AD, Nero persecuted the Christians.

And then in '67, he launched an even fiercer persecution against the Jews, which had no advance warning or no antecedent cause that we know of, unless this type of thing is plausible.

And then he dies, of course, in '68, and in the next 18 months or so, we have four emperors, a time of great flux that Tacitus describes.

But, uh, again, I think all roads lead to Jerusalem -

Mm-hmm

when it comes to the New Testament, the Gospels, and the Apocalypse.

And seeing here an allegory of what the church must avoid, and that is pride, unbelief, and presumption.