Transcript

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Amen.

We have a lot of ground to cover tonight.

We left off last time really in chapter seven.

Our goal last time was to complete chapters six and seven, which leaves us with a task of covering chapters seven, eight, and nine for this evening.

And if, uh, the winds are with us, I'd like to, uh, even attempt to get into chapter 10.

I know that sounds rather ambitious, and given my track record, you have just cause for skepticism, but, uh, let's just do our best and see what the Lord allows us to do.

We saw last time just how important the covenant is, especially as we find it established in chapters such as Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, where the curses of the covenant are put upon the people of the Lord when they all enter into the oath of the covenant.

To swear an oath in the Hebrew language is to seven oneself.

To swear an oath is to put yourself under God's curse.

It's also to put yourself in God's blessing and to ask for God's blessing and his assistance.

We're gonna get into that a little bit more tonight.

But this explains in part the prominence of the number seven, the seven letters, the, uh, the seven seals, and now the seven trumpets, which is really what we're gonna look at in chapters seven and following.

So let's take a look at that, and again, I'm gonna breeze through chapter seven because I touched on a lot of it last week.

After this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or any tree.

Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God.

He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea, 'Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.' Then I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.

Now, the question is, what is the significance of the seal?

Some scholars take it back to Exodus 28.

Turn to Exodus 28.

There we see the, the priest, the high priest, Aaron, being suited up for his ordination, and in verse 36, we discover that he was to be sealed on the forehead.

And you shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it like the engraving of a signet, holy to the Lord.

And you shall fasten it on the turban by a lace of blue.

It shall be on the front of the turban.

It shall be upon Aaron's forehead.

So this holy to the Lord was to be inscribed on the turban that rested upon his forehead as a seal, and this was the mark of the high priest.

But more likely, the Old Testament background for this seal on the forehead is to be found in Ezekiel chapter nine.

We've seen so many things in Revelation that are also in Ezekiel.

Let's turn now to Ezekiel chapter nine, and I think the relevance is going to be very, very great.

As we're turning to Ezekiel nine, recall one other lesson that we really emphasized from last week.

It wasn't just the importance of the covenant principle and the blessings and the curses of the oath, it was even more so the significance of Jerusalem as it represented the old covenant and the temple in particular, and how often in the Gospels Jesus was speaking this war- this word of warning of covenant cursing against the temple in Jerusalem.

And we began to consider many of the details surrounding 70 AD and God's destructive judgments upon Jerusalem and the temple.

This is significance because, this is significant because you have many similar circumstances and parallels in Ezekiel nine.

In fact, in Ezekiel chapter eight, we have, uh, I'm gonna just begin reading here.

In Ezekiel eight, verse one, In the six month, in the s- in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, the day before 666 , as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord fell there upon me.

Then I beheld, and he has this vision.

Uh, And lo, a form that had the appearance of a man.

Below what appeared to be his loins, it was fire, and above his loins, it was like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming bronze.

And we have this image of jealousy which provokes jealousy in verse three, and then it focuses, verse five, Then He said to me, 'Son of man, lift up your eyes now in the direction of the north.' So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and behold, north of the altar gate in the entrance was this image of jealousy.

And He said to me, 'Son of man, do you see what they are doing?

The great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here that drive me far from my sanctuary?

But you will see still greater abominations.' And then he takes This is one of the most unbelievable visions of Ezekiel in verse seven and following.

He brought me to the door of the court, this is in Jerusalem, in the very temple, and when I looked, behold, there was a hole in the wall.

Then said He to me, 'Son of man, dig in the wall,' and when I dug in the wall, lo, there was a door, and He said to me, 'Go in and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.' So I went in and saw, and there, portrayed upon the wall round about, were all kinds of creeping things and loathsome beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel.

Drawn on the wall were these insects and beasts and idols, and before them stood 70 men of the elders of the house of Israel.

The Sanhedrin probably, 70 of the most authoritative leaders in Israel are all there, and they're offering incense and, and sacrifice to these idols.

'Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark?

For they say, The Lord does not see us.

The Lord has forsaken the land.' He said also to me, 'You'll see still greater abominations which they commit.' And there you see the worshiping of the pagan god Tammuz in the next verse or two, and then sun worship beginning in verse 16, and then finally the call to judgment in verse 17.

And so this is the key, this is the background for what we find in Ezekiel nine.So then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Draw near, you executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.

So God is now calling through Ezekiel for the executioners of the city of Jerusalem to draw near to the city.

This, of course, is the first destruction of the first temple in 587.

This is all leading up to the great Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the great destruction of the temple.

The second destruction of the temple is when?

In 70 AD, and it just so happened to fall on the exact same day of the year as back in 587, and it was one of the highest and holiest days of the year as well, right around the time of the Day of Atonement.

And it goes: Lo, six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, every man with his weapon for slaughter in his hand, and with them was a man clothed in linen and with a writing case at his side, and they went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

Now, the glory of the l of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherubim on which it rested at the threshold of the house, and He called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing case at his side and the Lord said to him, Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.

So what is this sign?

The Hebrew word for sign here in Ezekiel 9:4 is tau.

It's the same word as the Hebrew letter T.

It is literally the sign of the cross.

And so Ezekiel has a vision of how the people who sigh and groan over the idolatrous abominations that are going on in Jerusalem are going to be sealed on the forehead with a T.

And you better believe the early Church fathers made a lot out of this, because this became the sign of the cross that prepared everybody for baptism.

You're signed with a tau, the sign, the seal, the T, the cross.

And this is what marked the men and women who were to be spared from the destruction and the judgment that was to befall Jerusalem the first time it was destroyed.

And so how appropriate for this to be the task of John in Revelation 7 right before Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed a second time.

Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God.

He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had given power to harm the land and sea.

We already read through all that.

Let's go on to verse fi- verses 5 through 8.

There we find two or three things worth, worth noting.

First we have 12 tribes listed, and in each tribe we have 12,000 people.

The 144,000 are 12 times 12,000.

It symbolizes, it signifies most likely the remnant of Israel.

In other words, in each of the tribes God has spared a remnant, a faithful few who sigh and groan over the abominations and idolatrous practices that are going on in Jerusalem.

So God is faithful in drawing out from each of the tribes the true Israel.

Interestingly, in this list of 12 tribes, Joseph is mentioned, Dan and Ephraim are not mentioned.

Joseph is not normally considered one of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Joseph was one of the 12 sons of Israel, but he had Israel, his father, give him the double blessing by apportioning it to his grandsons, to Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

And so Ephraim and Manasseh became two of the tribes of Israel even though they were two of the grandsons of Israel.

They were picked at the request of Joseph.

But instead here, Joseph is named instead of Ephraim, and Dan is omitted altogether, and Levi is included.

Now, why is Dan omitted?

We're not sure exactly, but my own speculation is, uh, there was a, uh, a tradition in early Judaism, uh, and also that's reflected in the, uh, the early Church fathers, that great evil would arise from Dan.

And the early fathers actually believed that the Antichrist would be born from the tribe of Dan.

Now, why is this?

I'm not sure, I'm not sure how much credence we should give to that sort of speculation, but I think it is significant that when Jacob/Israel pronounces the blessing upon the 12 sons in Genesis 50, Genesis 49, I'm sorry, listen to what he says to Dan.

Genesis 49:17, Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path that bites the horse's heels.

So Dan I mean, each of the 12 sons of, of, of Israel is described in animal terms like Judah is a lion's whelp, uh, Issachar is a, is a strong donkey.

Dan is what?

A serpent and a viper.

Well, that is not very positive symbolism.

So maybe that's part of the reason why Dan is omitted, or later on Dan is associated with the tribe that will give rise to the Antichrist.

We can only speculate.

Moving along, verse nine.

And by the way, some people are bothered by the fact that, uh, uh, they don't agree w- that the 12 that the 144,000 are simply the remnant of Israel, along with verses nine and following here.

We have a vast multitude, a great multitude that no one can number.

That would be the Gentiles from every tribe and from every nation and from every people and language.

My interpretation is that Revelation 7 is describing the remnant of Israel and the faithful who are gathered from all the nations.

But the problem for some is that only the 144,000 are sealed.

Why aren't, why aren't the people in the vast multitude sealed?

Well, that's a common objection, and I think it, it's, it deserves an answer.

I think the answer that best, uh, the best answer to the question is the 144,000 alone seem to be at risk.

They're the ones who seem to be closely associated with Jerusalem, which is the place of judgment.

So they're the ones who really need to be sealed with this protective sign so that they are spared from the coming judgment.

The vast multitude that are being gathered as the faithful elect from all the other Gentiles, the nations, they don't stand in the same immediate danger as those who are in Judea who are looking to Jerusalem as the 12 tribes would naturally do.All right, let's move on, then.

Verse nine, After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.

They were wearing white robes.

And we've seen that the white robe is what the priests would wear, so these people are with the Lamb; they're priests and they're kings.

And they're holding palm branches in their hands.

This word, phoinikos, uh, is, uh, it's interesting.

It's only used two times in the New Testament, here and in John 12, verse 13.

John is the sa- is the only one who uses it, both here and in the fourth Gospel.

Turn to John 12 real quickly.

John 12, verse 13.

The word for palm branches is used to describe what's used in, uh, the triumphal entry.

The next day, a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, so they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, crying, 'Hosanna!

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.' And Jesus found a young ass and sat upon it, as it is written, 'Fear not, daughter of Zion.

Behold, your king is coming, sitting upon an ass's colt.' If we had the time to look up that quote from Zechariah 9, verse 9, we could study the passage in Zechariah 9, and also the allusion to Psalm 118, verses 25 and 26, Hosanna.

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.

Both of those Old Testament passages, uh, are, are significant for understanding just how important it is for Jerusalem to recognize and to receive its king.

The problem, of course, in the history of Jerusalem is that seldom does Jerusalem recognize its king.

In fact, in this book written by a great Protestant theologian in France, a Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City, Ellul has a whole chapter on Jerusalem beginning on page 94.

And, uh, I came across a interesting quote on page 97.

He's, uh, he's doing a biblical theology of city, showing how, you know, urban metropolis as a common theme from Genesis 4 when Cain was the first city builder to the Tower of Babel, and all the way through to the New Jerusalem.

We are, he says, We are never told that Jerusalem was sometimes righteous and sometimes not, that she was sometimes a city of blood and sometimes a holy city.

What is condemned in her is not an accident or event, but a permanent attitude.

Yet she is at the same time a holy city, and this quality is never taken from her.

In other words, Jerusalem in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, in Ezekiel, in Daniel, in Micah, in practically each and every one of the prophets, is a sin-filled city.

Now, is this an antisemitic tirade launched by the prophets themselves?

No.

What Jerusalem is in the eyes of the prophets is a miniature of the whole world.

It's a microcosm of all the nations.

In a certain sense, we've all received graces from God and sinned against them, but no city on Earth has received the graces that Jerusalem received in the Old Testament, and yet they also sinned like the nations, and to whom much is given, much is required.

And so in Jerusalem you see a concentration of human weakness, a concentrated focus on the human condition.

It isn't that the Jews in general and especially the Jews in Jerusalem are sinners, and we Gentiles are just kind of pure folk.

It's rather that the whole human lot is one of sinfulness, and even when great graces are dispensed in the Old Testament.

So anyway, Jerusalem, I think, is clearly in mind here in Revelation chapter seven, and, uh, Here we have these white-robed martyr, uh, these, these We're gonna discover their, their martyrs in just a minute.

This, this white-robed multitude holding palm branches in their hands, and they cried out in a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our Lord, to our God, who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

Most scholars see what's going on here as corresponding to one of the greatest feasts of the Old Testament calendar, namely the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles, because during the Feast of Tabernacles, families from all over the Promised Land would take a pilgrimage down to Jerusalem and live there in the city for one week.

They would all build leafy booths where they would live and celebrate the Lord's presence among them for that whole time.

And palm branches figure largely in this particular festival.

Uh, if we had time to look up these passages, we could.

Uh, in Leviticus 23, we really have the, uh, calendar laid out for us.

Just make a mental note, we don't have to go back and read all about Leviticus 23, but if you wanna find a summary statement of the, of Passover and of Pentecost and of the Feast of Tabernacles, you could turn and read Leviticus 23 and study that.

The reason I mention Leviticus 23 in the calendar is because the Feast of Tabernacles falls on what month?

The seventh month.

The seventh month is the most It's the densest sacred month of the Jewish calendar year, as you would expect given the fact that it's the number seven.

It begins, of course, with the Feast of Trumpets, which I think has significance, because now in Revelation seven and eight, we're going to have the seven trumpets.

On the first day of the seventh month, we have the Feast of Trumpets.

What is it we have on the tenth day of the seventh month?

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

And then we get closer when we, when we come to the, uh, the fifteenth day.

From the fifteenth day to the twenty-first day, we have the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths.

It's also sometimes called the Feast of Ingathering.

And on the twenty-second day, we have a solemn feast of sacred assembly.

So the first 21 days of this month are all set apart for holy worship, unlike any other month.

Three-quarters of this month, three times seven days, are set aside for holy worship, all right?

So it's the seventh month, and it's just saturated with this seventh symbolism that we've come to expect.And this, I believe, is the is the is the sort of festival background for what we hear, what we read here in verse, uh, Revelation 7.

All the angels were standing around the throne, and around the elders and the four living creatures.

They fell down on her faces before the throne to worship God, saying And here we see, in effect, what's happening.

The church, consisting of Jews and Gentiles, are joining with, with the angels and the cherubim and the elders in heaven, in the same liturgical worship that we read all about in Revelation chapters four and five.

Verse 13: Then one of the elders asked me, 'These in white robes, who are they?

And where do they come from?' I answered, 'Sir, you know.' And he said, 'These are they who have come out of the great tribulation.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' Revelation is filled with this sort of ironic imagery.

Would you ever think about washing your clothes in blood?

If you did, would you ever imagine that they'd come out looking white?

This is ob- obviously the use of irony and symbolism.

Revelation's filled with it.

For instance, when we hear about the, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, what do we see?

When we expect to see a, uh, a lion reigning, we turn and we see what?

A lamb that's been slain.

There are other examples too.

The white robes that are washed in blood; who are the victors in Revelation?

The victors are the victims.

The martyrs.

They're the ones who've overcome.

The ones who've been overcome are really the overcomers.

Uh, and also, when we get to Revelation 8, we're gonna see that, uh, the, the incense that is offered there at the mercy seat is what brings forth what?

Well, you'd expect mercy to come forth from the mercy seat, but the mercy seat is really the origin of all the wrath that's poured out upon the unfaithful on Earth.

So, const- constantly be on the on guard, looking out for this, this, this use of irony, because it's vivid and it's important.

It reminds us that things are not always as they seem.

In fact, in the spiritual realm, things are seldom as they seem.

Things are often quite the reverse of what they seem.

And so it goes.

Let's see.

Verse 15: Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple.

Interesting that the word temple here, and really the word All 16 references to the term temple, all 16 references to temple in Revelation actually use the term naos as opposed to hieron.

Naos does not simply refer to the temple; more particularly, it refers to the Holy of Holies, the inner shrine.

So, they are before the throne of God, the mercy seat, and serve Him day and night in His temple, but more particularly in the Holy of Holies.

That's interesting.

The remnant of the 12 tribes, the 144,000, along with the vast multitude who have been slain and have washed themselves clean and white in the blood of the Lamb, now stand before God, not just in the heavenly temple, but we're gonna discover that in heaven, the temple is not like the temple on Earth.

In heaven, the temple doesn't have the outer court.

The temple doesn't have the holy place.

Those two partitions were really symbolic of the inferiority of the Old Testament.

So when the New Covenant comes, when the New Testament arrives, the only part that's left in the temple is the Holy of Holies, where we can behold God face-to-face.

This is the New Covenant.

This is the mystery of Christ.

Uh, jump I'm gonna drop down here and just consider, um, in, in Revelation chapter 10.

Turn to Revelation 10.

We're gonna get to this in just a little while, Lord willing, but, uh, in Revelation chapter 10, we have in verse seven something very interesting.

In the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God as He announced it to His servants the prophets should be fulfilled.

I believe this mystery of God which awaits for its fulfillment into Revelation 10 is very closely related to what we're reading about here in Revelation 7.

The mystery of God is nothing less than the union of Jews and Gentiles in one united family of God.

For some background, turn with me to Romans chapter 16.

The term for mystery here and elsewhere in the Greek is musterion.

It's very similar to the English word mystery.

The only time it's found in the Old Testament is in the Book of Daniel, but it takes on considerable significance in the New Testament beginning in Romans 16 verse 25.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation, the apokalypsis again, of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages, but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations.

The mystery of faith is that which is being made known to all the, all the nations.

For more clarification, let's see what Paul says in Ephesians.

Let's turn to Ephesians.

The main theme of Ephesians is the mystery of Christ.

You pick up practically any commentary on Ephesians and you'll find in the first three or four pages the commentator saying the great theme of this epistle is what Paul keeps referring to as the mystery of Christ.

Now, what is the mystery of Christ?

Is it the mystery which is Christ?

No, not at all.

Ephesians chapter 3 reveals to us what the mystery is.

For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you've heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation.

You see how commonly revelation is what discloses the mystery in the Book of Revelation, in Romans 16:25, and here again in Ephesians 3 verse one and two, verse one, two and three?

The mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.

When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ .

which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to its holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that is; in other words, gang, I'm about to tell you what the mystery of Christ consists of; that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.

Of this Gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of His power.

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.

That through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

You talk about underrating the Church.

We underestimate their We undervalue who we are, especially as Gentile believers who make up a significant portion of the Church of Christ.

We embody the mystery of Christ.

The fact that we love God, we love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The fact that we love Yeshua and His mother, Mary.

That we love the lion of the tribe of Judah, that we call ourselves the Israel of God, that we are referred to as the true circumcision, heirs of the promise to Abraham.

This is the mystery which was hidden for ages, because it seemed hopeless.

It seemed impossible for God to ever reunite a family that had been so violently torn asunder by sin.

The angels, the principalities, and the powers, apparently, were reaching a point of despair, thinking, How can God ever bring about a reunited family on Earth?

And yet, in the Church, the angels, the principalities, and the powers are taught the wisdom of God.

We're the chalkboard on which is written all of the lessons for these angelic legions.

It's amazing.

What is the mystery of Christ?

The fact that Gentiles, goyim, swine, unclean, defiled people who walk in darkness now call upon the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

If we only knew the Old Testament, if we studied it, if we learned it, if we lived it, if we loved it, we would be so eager to get out and share the good news and tell people about this forgotten birthright that is really all of ours.

That is the Catholic evangel, that now, for the first time in history, Jesus Christ has established a Catholic Church.

It isn't just Judean anymore.

It isn't just Israelite, Palestinian anymore.

This is, this is the mystery of Christ which was hidden for ages and now revealed.

Verse 11, Ephesians 3:11.

This was according to the eternal purpose which is realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in Him.

Verse 14.

For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father for whom His whole family in Heaven and on Earth is named, that a- that according to the riches of His glory, He might grant you to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Wait.

Verse 18 is grammatically awkward.

That you may have the power to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth.

Of what?

Of what?

It doesn't tell us.

Of God's love?

Of God's fullness?

Yes, but grammatically, those terms would lead you to write the length, the depth, the height, and the breadth of what?

Marcus Barton in his Ephesians commentary suggests that when you don't say, Of what?

you're suggesting that the length, the breadth, the, the height, and depth are all equal, in which case you have what?

A cube.

Now, what object, what place in the Old Testament had the same length, breadth, depth, and height, and was characterized by the fullness of God?

The Holy of Holies.

We are the Church, the mystery of Christ, the New Jerusalem, the Temple of God, the Holy of Holies, beholding God face to face in Christ Jesus.

That is the mystery as it's revealed in Ephesians 3, and likewise in Revelation 7.

They serve Him day and night in his naos, the temple.

His nao actually, in the Dative, I believe.

And He who sits on the throne, which would be the mercy seat, will spread His tent, His tabernacle over them.

Never again will they hunger.

They have the manna in the ark.

Never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat.

We'll find out later on that in the heavenly temple, there's no need for a sun, moon, and stars, because the Lamb is perpetual light.

For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of living water.

And in Ezekiel's vision of the new temple at the end of time, the rivers of living water all flow from what?

Under the altar in the Holy of Holies.

So it isn't just the place where we receive the hidden manna, it's also the place which serves as the source for the living water which goes out and refreshes the whole Earth in Ezekiel's vision in chapter 47.

Let's move on.

We could consider some more, but we have to progress here.

Chapter eight.

When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour.

Why half an hour?

We're not really sure.

We can only speculate, but I think some speculation is better than others.

I would suggest to you that we have the background for this silence here in what happens when the priest goes into the altar of incense to offer his prayers and the incense, and then he returns.

Because that procedure customarily took about a half an hour.

And what happens as soon as there's this silence for half an hour, verse three, Another angel We've seen these angels that correspond to the priestly ministry in the temple on Earth.

Another angel who had a golden censer came and stood at the altar .

what altar?

Well, there are two altars in the temple, the bronze altar and the golden altar.

The bronze altar is out in the courtyard where the animals are sacrificed.

The gold altar is in the holy place right in front of the Holy of Holies, and that is where only the high priest can really go.

And s- and sometimes the priests can go, uh, other priests besides the high priest can also go there.

For an example of this, turn to Luke 1, verse 10, where we see what happens when a priest goes in.

You know the story pretty well.

This is the story of Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, who was called upon by drawing, by, by drawing lots to perform his priestly duty.

Luke 1:8, Now while he was serving as priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.

And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense, and Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

We won't go through all of this.

Uh, it's Gabriel, and he speaks to him and he doesn't believe, and so verse 20, Behold you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass.

Verse 22, And when he came out, he couldn't speak to them.

Oh, verse 21, And the people were waiting for Zechariah and they wondered at his delay in the temple.

It was customary for there to be a short delay.

It was an hour-long procedure, but the work within the temple took about half an hour or so, and then he would come out and he would pronounce a blessing upon the people.

In this case, Zechariah couldn't pronounce anything, much less a blessing.

So it's quite possible that the ritual silence here in verse 1 refers to the period during which the multitude that we've just heard about are waiting outside, in effect, for the blessing that will come from the prayers that are offered there at the golden altar of incense in verse 3.

Again, we're not sure.

We can only speculate.

One other possible background for this is Ezekiel 10, not the half hour so much, but the altar of incense.

Turn with me to Ezekiel 10.

You recall that we see in Ezekiel 9 a sentence of doom pronounced upon Jerusalem, except those who have the mark upon their foreheads.

Ezekiel 10, we have Ikabo, the departure of the Lord, The glory of the Lord departs from the sanctuary, and the cherubim all fly away, chapter 10, verse 1 and 2, Then I be- I looked and behold in the firmament that was over the heads of the cherubim, there appeared above them something like a sapphire in form resembling a throne, and he said to the man clothed in linen, 'Go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim.' Remember this glory, cloud, chariot, throne?

In the Holy of Holies is the Mercy Seat, but when Ezekiel sees the heavenly Holy of Holies and the heavenly Mercy Seat, it isn't just a throne, it's a chariot throne that is sort of like a cloud.

This theme, this motif is found throughout the Old Testament, and it's got whirling wheels and wheels within the wheels as well.

Go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim, fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim and scatter them over the city.

Some commentators see this as basically what's going on in verse 3 of Revelation 8, that you have these coals of incense being gathered from inside the te- the temple, the inner shrine.

Go back for a second, uh, when he to Revelation 8:1-2, When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven for about a half hour, and I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.

So we're moving now beyond the seven seals to the seven trumpets.

There's gonna be some overlap between the seven seals and the punishments they brought and the seven trumpets and the punishments they bring, but you'll discover that the seven trumpets bring worse punishments than the seven seals.

And then in a few chapters hence, the seven bowls of wrath are going to bring still greater wrath than the trumpets and the seals.

So we have an ever-increasing intensification of God's judgment upon the city and the people.

All right, so let's move on.

The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.

We've already mentioned how the Catholic custom of invoking the saints is reflected here, because the saints in Heaven are concerned about the cause of God, not only in Heaven, but also upon the Earth.

And so their prayers ascend in the heavenly temple along with the heavenly incense, just as our prayers ascend in the sanctuary along with the earthly incense that the priests sense, uh, that they, that they offer up.

Verse 5, The angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and hurled it on the earth, and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

Now, the same phraseology here is going to reappear in Revelation 11.

Turn with me real briefly to see practically the same phrase used at the end of chapter 11 in verse 19.

Then God's temple in Heaven was opened and the Ark of His covenant was seen within His temple.

Again, let me emphasize that practically the whole vision of Revelation occurs within a temple setting, and it occurs within a liturgical context, so they're worshiping.

This is confirming what we've already said time and again, that it is in our worship wherein history is determined.

And in the heavenly temple, the angels and saints who worship the Lamb are the ones who really control our destiny.

We are joined to them in the most mystical and powerful way.

The mystery of history is linked inexorably with the mystery of the liturgy.

The two go hand in hand, or better yet, hand in glove.

So here we have this, these, the, the peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake in, in, in Revelation 11:19 just as we see it in Revelation 8:5.

The Ark of His covenant was seen within His temple and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.And then immediately after that, we have the, the sign, uh, which appears in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun.

We'll look at that later.

That will probably be in our next session.

Let's move on.

Revelation 8, verse 6.

Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.

So now we come to the seven trumpets.

What is the significance of the seven trumpets?

In the Old Testament, trumpets were used primarily for two functions, worship and warfare.

Now you think those are rather antithetical functions, right?

I mean, if you're worshiping, you can't really engage in war, and if you're warring, you can't really engage in worship.

In actual fact, the two are inextric- inextricably linked.

You can see this, for instance, in Numbers 10.

Uh, elsewhere too.

In Numbers 10, verse one, The Lord said to Moses, 'Make two silver trumpets of hammered work.

You shall make them and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for breaking camp.

And when both are blown, all the congregations shall gather themselves to you at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

But if they blow only one, then the leaders, the heads of the tribes of Israel, shall gather themselves to you.

When you blow an alarm, the camps that are on the east shall set out.' And it goes on describing how the other, uh, tribes are to set out when the, uh, the, the trumpet is blown again and again.

Verse eight, And the sons of Aaron, the priests, are the ones who shall blow the trumpets.

So again, we have the heavenly angels and their ministry here corresponding to the earthly priests in the earthly temple.

The trumpet shall be to you for a perpetual statute throughout your generations.

And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with your trumpets that you sh- may Uh, let's see, that you may be remembered before the Lord your God.

So, when you blow the trumpets for battle, covenant remembrance is the purpose.

In other words, you want the Lord to fight your battle.

You want the Lord to fight on your side.

The Lord who is righteous shall vindicate your cause, so long as your cause is righteous.

If your cause is not righteous and the trumpet is blown, He will come upon you in judgment.

And you shall be saved from your enemies, verse nine.

Verse 10, On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts, and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings.

They shall serve you for remembrance before your Lord, before your God.

I am the Lord your God.

So, sounding trumpets by the priests, or in this case by the angels who have a priestly ministry, it is for the purpose of worship, and it's also for the purpose of warfare.

Now, I mentioned a min- a minute ago that these two can be inextricably linked, because whenever Israel set off for war, for battle, what went before them?

The Ark of the Covenant.

And who led the Ark of the Covenant and the 12 tribes in battle?

The tribe of Levi and, in particular, the clan of Aaron.

Now, there is one particular event wherein this occurs that I believe has colossal relevance for Revelation eight and nine and the seven trumpets.

And it's one that almost always goes unrecognized by commentators of Revelation because some futurist commentaries are so oriented toward, Well, when is this gonna happen in the future?

And other commentators are so concerned about establishing all of this in relationship to judgments that fell upon Rome in the first century.

I, I, I don't want to exaggerate here, because in the last 20 or 30 years, a great number of scholars have made these connections with Revelation and the downfall of Jerusalem.

But up until recently, up until the, un- until scholars have really been seeing the significance of the covenant and Jerusalem as the covenant city, most of the time, even Catholic commentators have been concerned with connections to Rome, not Jerusalem.

So all the Revelation roads have led to Rome in the past, whereas I think now they're leading much more to Jerusalem.

Let's turn to the Book of Joshua.

Joshua chapter six.

As you're turning to Joshua chapter six- I also want to mention a few other verses.

Oh, let's get to those in a bit, uh, in a little, uh, j- just a little while.

We have Joshua leading the armies of the Lord in battle against the city of Jericho.

Jericho was the first stronghold to be attacked by Israel.

It's significant because Jericho is by far and away the strongest city of the Promised Land.

In effect, the Lord's strategy is this.

Attack the biggest and the strongest city, because when you overcome it, the Canaanites will know that I've arrived.

They'll know that if Jericho falls, then all their other cities are going to be very vulnerable.

They'll just be like overripe fruit.

But how was the battle to be fought?

The battle was the Lord's, and so the weapons were the Lord's, and the weapons are liturgical.

Jericho was shut up from within and from without because the people of Israel, none went out and none came in.

And the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I've given you into your hand Jericho with its king and mighty men of valor.

You shall march around the city and all the men of war going around the city once.

Thus shall you do for six days.

And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the Ark of the Covenant.' Remember that in Revelation 11, when the seventh trumpet is blown, what was seen?

We haven't gotten to it yet, but we just looked at it five minutes ago.

When the seventh trumpet is blown, the Ark of the Covenant is revealed in the heavenly temple.

On the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets.

And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, every man straight before him.

So Joshua the son of Nun called the priests and said to them, 'Take up the Ark of the Covenant and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the Ark of the Lord.' and thus it happens, just as the Lord had planned.

Now, before all this occurred, Joshua was a little concerned.

Back in Joshua chapter five, verse 13, we have a rather interesting episode.

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and behold, he looked and behold a man stood before him, with his drawn sword in his hand, a man who was no man.

And Joshua went to him and said to him, 'Are you for us or for our adversaries?' And he said, 'No, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.' Wait a second.

Joshua's thinking, That's my post, you know?

That's my title.

I'm supposed to be the commander of the hosts of Israel.

And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to him, 'What does my lord bid his servant?' And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, 'Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy,' and Joshua did so, just like when the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses at the burning bush.

So we have the angel of the Lord delivering the instructions for the battle of the Lord to the servant of the Lord, Joshua.

Now, I would suggest to you that in the Book of Revelation, what we're about to study in Revelation 8, 9, 10, and 11 corresponds to the destruction of the new Jericho.

The new Jericho is nothing less than Jerusalem.

We see Jerusalem described symbolically at the end of the seven trumpets, and again, to anticipate, turn to Revelation 11.

We've seen it before; we'll see it again.

Revelation 11, verse eight, The dead bodies of these two witnesses will lie in the street of the great city, and later on, the great city is used with reference to Babylon.

But here, the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, is where their Lord was crucified.

Where is their Lord crucified?

No place else except Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is being compared to Sodom and Egypt.

That great city.

Later on, that great city is called not Sodom and Egypt, but Babylon.

Babylon, Sodom, and Egypt have all three, all h- all three have s- have one thing in common, and that is, they are centers of opposition for the plan of God.

In the history of God's covenant dealings with His people, Sodom stood in the way of His covenant plan with Abraham.

Egypt stood in the way of God's covenant plan for Moses and Israel.

Babylon stood in the way of God's covenant plan for Jerusalem.

And Jericho stood in the way of God's covenant plan for Joshua and all the people entering the Promised Land.

So, I would suggest to you that what we have in Revelation 8 and following is a symbolic portrait of how the new Jericho must fall.

The old Jericho represented the stronghold of the Promised Land.

If you conquer Jericho, the rest of the Promised Land is yours.

I would argue that the new Jericho, Jerusalem, represents the stronghold of the old creation.

The Promised Land is not just Canaan, because what is it that God really owns, and what is it that God is gonna give to the meek and the faithful?

The meek shall inherit the earth.

Abraham is promised that, Through your seed, all of the families of the earth will be blessed and will become mine.

So, the Lord used the Promised Land of Canaan simply as a beachhead to get a foothold on the whole of the earth.

And so, what conquering Jericho was for conquering Canaan, overcoming Jerusalem is for the whole earth.

The whole old creation must fall to the armies of the new creation.

The whole old covenant must fall to the armies of the new covenant.

The old heavens and the old earth are symbolically structured in the temple of the old Jerusalem, and all of that must give way to the new Jerusalem, and ultimately to the new heavens and the new earth.

Now, I would contend that this is something that even Paul realized.

Turn to a passage that has stumped many interpreters of the end times, First Thessalonians, chapter four.

First Thessalonians 4 is commonly studied as, w- with reference to the rapture.

I believe that is, that is a profound misinterpretation, once again, because the Old Testament's symbolism is missed.

First Thessalonians 4, let's begin in verse 13.

Oh wait, before we do that, I wanna historically contextualize what Paul says in First Thessalonians 4 by looking at First Thessalonians 2, verses 13 through 16.

We won't read all of that, but let's just look at verse 14.

First Thess 2:14, For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea.

In other words, the, the churches outside of Judea, in Asia Minor and so on, in Thessalonica, imitate the churches of God in Judea.

For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did, that is, the believers in Judea did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displeased God, and opposed all men by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles, that they may be saved.

What stands in the way of the mystery of Christ being fulfilled?

Jews being envious of the blessing of Abraham going out to the Gentiles.

That is called the first generation of the Christian church.

Hear Paul again, They killed both the Lord Jesus and all of the prophets, they drive us out, they displease God, and oppose all men by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved.

Is this antisemitic?

Well, who's speaking it?

Paul.

He's Semitic.

He's Jewish.

He's not anti-Jewish, he's opposed to unbelief, which at this point in history, is concentrated among the Jews who love this earth more than they love the next world.

Nowadays, that problem is concentrated as, in the church practically as much as it is concentrated in the world.

This is not antisemitic; this is anti-sin.

Wherever sin is found in dense concentration, we're gonna have these words apply .

but look at verse 16 again.

By hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins, but God's wrath has come upon them completely.

The Greek word can be translated forever or in the RSV, But God's wrath has come upon them at last.

Rather apocalyptic sounding, isn't it?

Keep it in mind.

Let's turn to First Thess 4:13.

We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

In other words, what about the dead in Christ?

What about the faithful who have gone before us and who are not going to enter into the fullness of the share that we now enjoy?

For since we believe that C- Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.

For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the parousia, the coming of the Lord Now, this word parousia does not normally mean this materialistic, catastrophic advent when God comes on the clouds in judgment.

If you go back and study the meaning of the term parousia, in the first century, you'll discover that it was used by Romans and Greeks to describe what happens whenever a general lays siege to a city, and the people in the city surrender.

The general then established terms, and those terms will be the terms of this covenant of surrender.

And those people will swear an oath of l- allegiance to the general, and then he'll go off to perform other battles.

But those inhabitants, those citizens will be secure so long as they keep the oath of l- allegiance that they've sworn to the general who conquered them.

But when the general has finished conquering other cities, he comes back, and he doesn't tell the citizens when he returns, because he doesn't want them to change.

He wants to find out how they've been acting in his absence.

And so without any advance warning, the conquering hero, this great conqueror, will suddenly make his parousia.

It literally means appearance or coming.

And if the city has been plotting against him in his absence, he'll utterly destroy it.

And if the city has been keeping its pledge of allegiance, he will often grant it full citizenship in his empire and make them full-fledged allies for future battles.

The parousia of a conquering king was a commonplace in political terminology.

And so, when we read about it in First Thessalonians 4, we should realize that Christ has come to the city of Jerusalem, and He has, in effect, overcome it.

He has conquered it in His sacrifice.

But 40 years later, He's gonna come back to see what's happened.

The first time, when He entered it in triumph, the triumphal entry climaxed with what?

The cleansing of the temple.

Then He comes back, and what's He gonna find?

He took one demon out of the temple, out of the house.

Only in 40 years' time, what happened?

According to Matthew 12, seven demons worse than the first came back to inhabit the house.

So shall it be of this generation.

So Jesus' parousia, His sudden appearing as the conquering hero when He comes to Jerusalem, I would suggest to you, For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the parousia of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and who are left shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall, uh, so we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

What on Earth is it talking, is he talking about?

Well, look at this concentration of images here.

We have, on the one hand, a shout of command.

Secondly, we have the archangel who issues orders in verse 16.

Third, we have the trumpet of God being sounded.

And fourth, we have the Lord's parousia.

Where else do we find an archangel issuing orders concerning people making a loud shout, and a trumpet being blown, and a parousia?

It's Jericho, when the archangel appears to Joshua with the orders of how the people are to blow the trumpets and issue the great shout which will collapse the city walls and bring Jericho into their hands, and with Jericho the rest of the Promised Land.

Now, how is this fulfilled in 70 AD?

In a liturgical and symbolic way.

Because when we gather for the Eucharistic liturgy, where are we?

Where are we every time we gather?

Hebrews 12 tells us when we gather, unlike the Old Covenant people, in Hebrews 12, verse 22, it says, You have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels and festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.

And it goes on talking about the sprinkled blood of the New Covenant which fills our chalices.

When we are in the Eucharistic assembly, we are in the presence of Christ, we are in the presence of angels and saints.

The dead in Christ were raised by Christ between 30 AD and 70 AD.

When Jesus was crucified, Matthew describes in one verse what happened.

Tombs were broken open.

And in the Holy City, what did people see?

In Matthew, I believe it's chapter 27.

Turn quickly to Matthew 27.

In Matthew 27, Verses 52 and 53 Let's begin in f- Matthew 27:51.

Behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

This sounds like Revelation 8 and Revelation 11, earthquakes and loud peals of thunder.

The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

The dead in Christ are being raised here.

And coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the Holy City and appeared to many .

who were they?

How long did they stick around?

I wish like crazy that Matthew had said, but he doesn't.

Why?

Apparently he takes for granted this oral tradition was well known.

It may be what lies behind what we're gonna study in Revelation eight, uh, Revelation 11, where two witnesses appear, one who can turn water to blood, Moses, and the other one who can turn the skies into brass, Elijah.

We're not sure.

We're not told.

But when Christ died, the temple, veil was torn in two from top to bottom.

God's saying, No longer shall all these old covenant partitions apply because I want my people face to face in fellowship with me.

No longer will the dead in Christ be alienated from me.

I'm going to raise them up so they can appear to the earthly Jerusalem, and then I'm gonna raise them up to the heavenly Jerusalem, so when we gather in the Eucharistic assembly, we gather with Moses and Elijah and all the Old Testament saints, and all the dead in Christ who've gone before us.

Our dearly beloved brothers and sisters are with us and we're with them.

We just don't see them with the physical eyes.

We only see them with the eyes of faith.

So this is fulfilled liturgically and symbolically when the new covenant is finally ushered in.

That is, in a sense, in 30 AD.

And even more so in 70 AD.

Turn with me to Hebrews nine.

In Hebrews nine, verse eight and nine.

In Hebrews nine, the writer is talking about the day of atonement and how the high priest goes in every year and offers sacrifice.

Verse eight, by this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing.

What is the outer tent?

The holy place and the courtyard.

In other words, as long as the edifice known as the Jerusalem temple stands, the way into the Holy of Holies is not yet open.

By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the Holy of Holies is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age.

When did the present age end?

In 70 AD.

That's the end of the old age, and that is when the age to come finally comes.

Liturgically, we are living in the age to come, the new age.

We won't live in that physically until we receive our resurrection bodies and enter into the new Jerusalem and the new heavens and the new earth and the new creation.

But we already have an earnest of the new creation in Christ's resurrection and in that resurrected body as it is present sacramentally in the Holy Eucharist and in the Eucharistic liturgy that we participate in.

We underestimate what the liturgy of the Eucharist empowers us for.

So according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various ablutions, the Greek word there is ʋaptismois.

In the old covenant, you have veils that keep you from entering into the Holy of Holies as long as the present age is around, and you also have food and drink and baptisms, which do not perfect the conscience of the worshiper.

But he only, the- their regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.

The contrast is between the old covenant and the new covenant.

In the old covenant, you've got food and drink and baptisms that only deal with the body that don't perfect the soul.

Implicit is that in the new covenant you've got food, the Eucharist, and drink, the precious blood, and baptisms which do what?

They do perfect the conscience of the worshiper.

They don't just deal with external rites of purification.

Therefore, when you enter into the new covenant, the heavenly Jerusalem, you're entering into the resurrected assembly of all of the saints and the dead in Christ.

In other words, Jericho, the new Jericho is this Jerusalem which must give way to what Christ is bringing about when he establishes a new Jerusalem, a new covenant, a new creation, a new heavens and a new earth, but all in proper time.

This calls for real contemplative and mystical study.

This is not just a flat out literal historical exegesis.

It builds on that, but it goes beyond it because it calls for us to develop a liturgical and contemplative sense of what the world is.

It is a mega sacrament.

This world is a mega sacrament of the next world.

The cosmos and history itself are both signs that signify what the new heavens and the new earth will be.

And we are now in the in between time.

We're living in old creation bodies, but we are worshiping in the new creation.

We dwell, in effect, in this old earth, but we worship in the setting of the new heavens and the new earth.

So I would suggest to you that when we come to these seven trumpets, we have to interpret these in terms of the downfall of the new Jericho, which is Jerusalem.

Symbolically, not only Sodom and Egypt, but also Jericho and, as we shall see, Babylon.

I want to mention something in passing here.

I have a book edited by Jeannette Bassler entitled Pauline Theology.

It just deals with, uh, Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, and Philemon, so it's called Volume One.

There's a very interesting essay in here by N.T.

Wright, Tom Wright, a, a, an evangelical Protestant who's coming out with a four volume work on New Testament theology which is supposed to be the blockbuster work of the '90s in the area of New Testament scholarship.

Tom Wright is, I think, the world's best and not only because he's writing a four volume New Testament theology which hasn't been done, I don't know, like in a century by any real leading New Testament scholar, but also because he has so many insights that I like and I agree with.

Let's just be real modest about it.

Uh, he argues in his, in, in some of his other writings that the main theme of the New Testament is the new covenant establishing a worldwide family .

a worldwide family of God fulfilling the promises to Abraham.

In this article, Putting Paul Back Together Again, on page 198, he deals with the problem that many interpreters have, that Paul seemed to think that Christ was gonna come again in his own lifetime.

Poor Paul, right?

Poor Paul misled many other poor Christians who took him at his word.

I think that he And here's what Wright says.

I think it is better to see the main aim of apocalyptic as being to articulate and give theological depth to the hope of Israel, that because Israel was the covenant people of the one God of all the earth, this God would eventually vindicate Israel as His people by delivering from his oppressors.

Then he goes on to talk about, The language of apocalyptic must therefore be read as highly charged, metaphorical, mythical manner of speaking about God and His plans for His covenant people, not as a literal or one-dimensional description of spacetime events.

And he goes on to talk about how we need to rethink Paul in this light.

What happens when we rethink Paul in this light?

He focused on First and Second Thessalonians, and the day of wrath and day of the Lord in this imagery.

He says, The likelihood is that they refer to the imminent destruction of Jerusalem, the time when Jesus would be vindicated over the city that had rejected him.

This view, which accords well with Jewish prophecy and apocalyptic in which judgment upon Jerusalem is frequently the referent of such language.

Then he goes on to talk about how Jesus uses this language also in the Synoptic Apocalypses: Matthew 24, Mark 14, and Luke 21.

So, in Thessalonians, in Hebrews, in the Old Testament as well as the New, we have this presentation of Jerusalem as the stronghold of resistance against what God wants to do by establishing a new covenant through Jesus Christ.

Let's go back, now, to Revelation 8 and consider each of these seven trumpets.

Some other passages that you can look up when you're interested to see the significance of trumpets, Ezekiel 33.

Ezekiel 33:1- 11 through 16, we have, uh, the watchman who is to look out for Jerusalem.

He's told that if you see the enemy come and you blow the trumpet, and the people don't do anything, then you're not guilty because you've given them the warning.

If you don't blow the trumpet, then you would be guilty for the blood of these victims in the city.

Likewise, in Joel chapter two, we have a very significant episode involving trumpets being sounded.

Blow the trumpet in Zion.

Sound the alarm on My holy mountain.

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, is- it is near; a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

Like blackness, there are spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people.

Their like has never been from of old, nor will ever be again after them through the years of all generations.

So, Joel says, At some point in the near future, blow a trumpet in Zion.

Let the inhabitants of Judea prepare for the day of the Lord, a day of darkness, a day of gloom.

This is significant, because where do we read the New Testament citing Joel 2?

Acts chapter 2.

When Peter stands up to explain why the apostles are speaking in tongues, he quotes from Joel 2.

And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Your old men shall dream dreams, et cetera.

Verse 30, And I will give signs in the heavens and on the earth, blood, and fire, and columns of smoke.

The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, there shall be those who escape.

Oh, great.

What good news.

How would you like it if somebody came and said, I've got some good news and I've got some bad news.

The good news is there will be a few survivors left in Steubenville.

Would he even need to bother telling us what the bad news is?

In other words, the trumpets are sounded as a warning to Zion because the day of the Lord has come, the day of judgment.

And Peter sees this being fulfilled around 33 AD, because the day of the Lord is imminent.

And he's saying the Spirit is being poured out to seal the 144,000, the elect of the Jewish people.

Why?

So that in Jerusalem, there shall be some who survive.

That's the significance of Pentecost.

It was the beginning of a 40-year period of grave confusion where God would seal up and protect His remnant.

All right, let's go back and consider the trumpet.

There are other passages too.

We won't look these up.

In Jeremiah 4:5-9, Jeremiah 4:5-9, once again we have Jerusalem being warned by a trumpet.

Okay, The first angel sounded his trumpet and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth.

What does hail remind you of?

Can you think of any plagues that involved hail?

Yeah, Egypt.

You're gonna see these seven trumpets borrow heavily from the plagues that came upon Egypt back in the Book of Exodus.

Uh, where else do we see it?

Verse 11, The waters turned bitter.

And let's see, the, verse 12, the, the, The sun was struck and a third of the moon, and the third of the stars so that a third of them turned dark.

So we have darkness.

Uh, we have, uh, also in verse 8 and 9, um, uh, the sea is turned to blood.

There's some other examples as well that we'll come to.

Over in chapter 9, with the fifth trumpet, the sun and the sky are darkened there in verse two.

So many people point out that besides Jericho imagery with these seven trumpets, we also have Exodus imagery as well.The second angel sounded, let's see, uh, yeah.

The second angel sounded his trumpet and something like a huge mountain all ablaze was thrown into the sea.

What does that sound like?

Turn to Matthew 21, verses 21 through 22.

In Matthew 21:18-22, we have the barren fig tree incident, where Jesus sees the fig tree with no fruit.

And what does he do?

He curses it and it withers to the roots.

What is that a symbol of?

We've seen in the Old Testament prophet, the fig tree is a symbol of Jerusalem.

And the disciples marveled, saying, How did the fig tree wither at once?

Jesus answered them, Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and never doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will be done.

We hear about the faith that moves mountains, but that's not what Jesus said.

He said if you have the faith, you'll be able to say, To this mountain Where is Jesus when he says this?

It's the triumphal entry.

What is this mountain?

It's Zion.

It's Jerusalem.

If you have sufficient faith, you'll be able to say to the mountain on which the earthly Jerusalem of the old covenant rests, Go into the sea, and it will be taken up and cast into the sea.

It indeed will be done.

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive it if you have faith.

So, what do we want?

We want God to take away the old and bring in the new, beginning with the old covenant, moving into the new covenant, the old Jerusalem coming, followed by the new Jerusalem.

So Chilton and other scholars have seen Matthew 21 as the backdrop for this mountain, this huge mountain, being cast into the sea.

And remember, in Luke 9, when Jesus is on the Mount of Transfiguration, which we heard about in today's reading, he talks to Moses about his departure, which was soon to take place in Jerusalem.

The Greek word for departure in Luke 9 is exodus.

Jesus talks to Moses about his own exodus, which must take place in Jerusalem, which has become a new Egypt.

That's why it's fitting not only for Jericho imagery to be used, but for Exodus imagery to be used, because we're all making an exodus out of the old Jerusalem, out of the old order, the old creation, the old covenant.

Verse ni- verse 10.

The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star blazing like a torch fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.

The name of the star is Wormwood.

A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that became bitter.

This is almost the reverse of what happens in Exodus 15, where the waters at Marah, which were bitter, what does Moses do?

He throws in the tree, and the waters are made sweet.

The early Church fathers used to see that as the cross being cast into the bitter waters of sin, making sweet so that we can drink from these living waters.

Let's move on.

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark.

A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.

By the way, this one third idea is found in Ezekiel 5.

We're not gonna have time to look it up, but in Ezekiel 5, we have the prophetic symbolism of one third.

Also, you should be aware of Hosea 8:1.

Let me just read that very quickly.

Hosea 8:1.

We have the trumpet imagery again.

Set the trumpets to your lips, for an eagle is over the house of the Lord, because they have broken my covenant and have transgressed my law.

So here we see in verse 13, after the fourth trumpet is blown, as I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair, call out in a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels.

So Hosea 8:1 sounds, sounds like it's being echoed.

Send the, set the trumpet to your lips, for an eagle is over the house of the Lord, because they've broken my covenant.

This eagle is over the house of the Lord, namely the temple.

All right, moving along then.

Chapter 9.

We have the next three, the last three trumpets being blown.

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth.

The star was given the key to the shaft of the abyss.

The abussus is the Greek word for the tehom, the deep.

The, the, the abyss If you ask an ancient Jew, What is the abyss, the tehom, the deep?

He'll tell, he'll tell you this: it is the shaft that is underneath the rock on which the temple is built.

Have you ever seen pictures of Jerusalem today?

At the center of the city is this big, shiny dome.

It's an Arab mosque called the Dome of the Rock.

It's the rock in which Abraham sacrificed Isaac.

It's the rock which 2 Chronicles 3:1 tells us that Solomon built the Holy of Holies in the temple there.

We also b- We also know that Muslim, Jewish, and Christians have a legend that underneath the rock is a shaft.

And I have a book downstairs called The Dome of the Rock with huge pictures of the enormous stone that the whole mosque is built around.

And underneath this enormous rock, which would be two or three times bigger, maybe five times bigger than this room, is this empty space.

And you look b- below it, and it's a shaft that goes down as far as you can see.

The Muslims actually pray for their dead there, just as the Jews have done, because they believe this shaft is like an elevator shaft into the underworld.

It is the gate of Hades, and it's covered by a rock.

This is what many scholars believe Jesus is alluding to when he says to Simon, You will be called Rock, and on the rock I will build my church.

That is the new temple upon a new rock, so that Peter will be given the keys of the kingdom so that he can break into the gates of Hades.

There at this shaft that goes down into Hades, goes into the underworld, to liberate the dead in Christ.

This is always known as the power of the keys of Peter, why he can deliver those who are in Hades or Sheol.

The Latin term is purgatorio.So, we have this kind of imagery here, only at this point, the devil has power over the abyss.

We're gonna see this later on in Revelation 20, that at the end of a long period of time, the devil is released and given power.

He comes up out of this abyss and he begins to flood the world and the, and the place with evil.

But realize, the abyss, this bottomless pit, was according to many well-known Jewish legends, the shaft that was underneath the rock that served as a kind of cornerstone for the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple.

This kind of geographical symbolism is lost to most Western interpreters.

I have a book by, um, uh, Vildne called Legends of Jerusalem, in which he goes into an elaborate description of all of these legends concerning this abyss and how David had to control it so that Satan wouldn't come in, because Oh, I should, I should mention this, because one other common legend that was, uh, th- One of the legends that was common back in the time of John was that this shaft was where the devil lived.

The dragon was kind of locked under this as long as the rock held firm over the abyss and the temple was on top of the rock, then the devil was locked up, as it were.

But if the people in Jerusalem became wicked and went into an alliance with the devil, then he would be given power to come out and eventually break the seal and ultimately destroy the temple, which is on top of the, the rock.

Now obviously, this is mythical symbolism, or what they call mythopoeic imagery.

What do we do with it?

We're not really sure, but we have to interpret these l- these images somehow.

There is this abyss.

What is it?

Well, back in John's day, Jewish Christians would have immediately identified it as that which was under the Jerusalem temple.

When he opened the abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace.

The sun and the sky were darkened by the smoke from the abyss, and out of the smoke, locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.

This is like the eighth plague in, in the book of Exodus, chapter 10.

They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

Remember Ezekiel, who was to be sealed?

The Jerusalemite remnant.

The faithful who were still in Jerusalem, moaning and groaning and sighing for the sins of the elders and the idolatrous leaders in Jerusalem.

So the 144,000 were those who were in and around Jerusalem, moaning and groaning for the sins of the priests and the scribes and the Pharisees that Jesus called a brood of vipers who had made the temple into a den of thieves.

And these people now are to be harmed.

They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months.

What does the five-month period refer to?

Many scholars believe that this has a historical reference back in the first century.

Gessius Florus was the procurator of Judea, and in May of 66 AD, he deliberately slaughtered 3,600 perfectly innocent citizens of Jerusalem as procurator.

Why?

He never said, but everybody knew, because he wanted to incite a revolt.

He was the Roman procurator, and he was fed up, sick and tired of the Jews in Jerusalem, so he simply slaughtered, mercilessly, 3,600 of them in cold blood.

Why?

To incite a rebellion.

And Josephus dates the Jewish wars back to Gessius's Flor- Gessius Florus's action, and for the next five months, war, terrible war ensued.

It worked exactly as he planned.

Gessius Florus provokes the revolt in May, and then Cestius invades Palestine and conducts a campaign for exactly five months against the Palestinians, and it is ruthless.

Josephus describes how thousands of troops under Cestius are called from, guess where, the Euphrates, to come to Palestine to besiege the Palestinians for five months.

After ravaging the countryside, they attack the, the city of Jerusalem in the month of Tishri, which is the seventh month, the holy month, and there, right around the t- the time of the Feast of Trumpets, five months after the campaign begins, Josephus describes how they're routed, how they're unbelievably routed.

Now, I want to read to you a little bit about this, because it's so important.

Let's see, um, then at the very moment when complete victory was within his grasp, Cestius suddenly and inexplicably withdrew his forces, right when he was about to conquer Jerusalem in '66.

Encouraged, Josephus says, the Jews pursued the retreating soldiers and attacked them, inflicting heavy casualties upon these Roman soldiers.

Cornfield comments that, quote, Cestius' failure transformed the revolt against Rome into a real war.

Up until this, the Jews had a hopeless cause.

Cestius was about to conquer Jerusalem when, all of a sudden for no reason, he withdrew his forces.

The Jews took this as a sign of divine deliverance, so they attacked Cestius and inflicted unbelievable losses upon his army, and they were just sent fleeing.

A success so unexpected and sensational had naturally strengthened the hands of the war party.

The majority of the opponents to the revolt now found themselves in a minority and tended to ally themselves with the winning zealots, even though they didn't believe that victory was possible.

Thus, the high priests and the moderates who didn't want to fight the war, who didn't want to revolt against Rome, decided to assume the direction of the war, which was now considered inevitable.

And Josephus says that this one event blinded the Jerusalemites into thinking that they actually had a prospect of success in defeating Rome.

In other words, this one moment of success and triumph is what deceived them into throwing themselves headlong into an unbelievably suicidal rebellion against Rome, which issued ultimately forth in what?

The siege of Jerusalem and its destruction three years later, three and a half years later in the seventh month.

So let's go on.Uh, so it's describing this five-month agony.

Uh, During those days, men will seek death but will not find it.

They will long to die, but death will elude them.

And it goes on.

I'm not gonna read all of this.

The locusts looked like horses, and describes 'em in this horrible, in horrible terms.

Verse 11, They had is king over them, the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abadan, and in Greek Apollyon.

Destroyer.

Satan.

The first woe is past, two other woes are yet to come.

Let's see.

I- I- I missed something here, because I know the Euphrates is actually mentioned here.

That must be down a few Yes, in just a few Yeah.

The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God.

It's said that the sixth angel who had the trumpet released the four angels who were bound to the great river Euphrates.

And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.

The number of the mounted troops were myriads and myriads.

You know, 200 million if you want an exact count, but the idea is just, you know, unbelievable numbers here.

The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this.

And again, they're described in horrible terms.

The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur.

A lot like Leviathan, the devil himself, described in Job 41:18, uh, and also in verse 21.

This- the power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails and And it goes on.

Verse 20: The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still do not repent of the work of their, of their hands.

They do not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

Now, the next time we come back and study Revelation In fact, the next two studies, we're going to be looking at Isaiah 1, 2, 3, and 4.

We're gonna look at Jeremiah, we're gonna look at Ezekiel.

We're gonna look and see that the one thing that incited the Lord against Jerusalem was precisely this: that there, the priests, and the elders, the scribes, and the leaders were all worshiping the gods of the Gentiles.

Just as we saw earlier tonight in Ezekiel, they're worshiping Tammuz, the sun, and all of these creeping, crawling insects that they draw on the walls.

Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

We go on now, verse 10.

We only have two minutes.

Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven.

He was robed in a cloud with a rainbow above his head.

His face was like the sun and his legs were like fiery pillars.

He was holding a little scroll, which lay in his hand.

He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion.

Who is this angel?

I believe it's none other than the Lord Jesus, the lion.

And he's like the angel of the Lord, and his legs are like the fiery pillars of the heavenly temple.

And he raises his right hand in verse Oh, I should not skip this.

Uh, verse, um, verse 3: When he shouted, the voice of the seven thunders spoke, and when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven say, 'Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.' We have no idea what they were, the only thing that is unrevealed in Revelation.

And then the angel I had seen standing on the- on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven, and he swore by him who lives forever and ever.

I believe this is Jesus Christ swearing the oath of the new covenant, bringing the mystery of Christ to fulfillment.

That's why it says in verse 6, There will be no more delay, but in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished.

The old Jerusalem will be destroyed.

The only thing standing in the way of the mystery of Christ's full accomplishment when Jews and Gentiles will comprise the new Jerusalem.

This is the new covenant about to be realized and fulfilled in history.

We're gonna have to come back and consider Revelation 10 more closely the next time.

We're gonna see that this is the new-covenant-making event, when this angel of the Lord, who is like a lion, swears this great oath in order to unite to Himself the Jews and Gentiles who are to make up this new-covenant family.