Gooding, David: 8 - Revelation and the Tabernacle

And now this morning I begin with a frank confession of my faults and sins, which I'm told is good for the soul, and that is that sometimes I have, in an unchristian fashion, completely forgotten that there are valiant translators hiding behind their boxes and looking through little windows at me, and others that are stationed behind the curtain, and because I can't see them, I've forgotten them, you'll see. And that, of course, is not the only, uh, reason, but a certain weakness I suffer from, that from time to time I lapse from impeccable standards of English, and that's most of the time, and lapse into colloquial English and expressions and fire them with the speed of a machine gun, so that the translators, uh, find it impossible, you'll see. Uh, I remind the translators that you are exceedingly grateful to them, and your sympathy goes with them, and that there will be a special reward for them for translating me. Uh, but this morning I hope to, uh, uh, uh, come back a little bit from my prodigal ways and speak more slowly. And if I do not, uh, uh, succeed in fulfilling all my good intentions. Well, then perhaps the translators will rise up out of their boxes and wave their hands or stamp their feet, or otherwise communicating to me that I have lapsed once more, if not apostatized, into very bad habits. We have now come to the middle point of the book of the Revelation. For if there are, as I think there are, six major sections in this book, then at the end of section three and the beginning of section four, uh we stand at the midpoint of the book from a literary point of view. And this morning we must eventually attempt to move forward to at least reconnoiter the territory that is section four of the book. Before we do that, however, we have some unfinished business to complete in our study of section three. Last night, of course, there were many points, points of substance and importance that we passed over in silence, points that it would be very necessary to consider if we are to come to a full and accurate understanding of that part of the prophecy. But we were concentrating on tracing the main and pervading theme, and therefore we pass by those other points in silence. But in addition to that, we said nothing whatsoever on the fourth part of section three. That is listed for you on page six of the notes, and it is such an important part of section three. Such a, uh, uh, an helpful summing up of the pervading theme of section three that we must spend a little time in the beginning of our study this morning considering what it has to say. The first part of section three is, as we have now come to expect, a comment on the whole of the section. Just like one of the elders at the end of section two commented on and summed up the significance of that section two. So now at the end of section three, all twenty four elders who sit on thrones before God fell upon their face, fall upon their faces and worship God. And they sum up the significance of this tremendous topic dealt with in section three of the prophecy. Their comment is short enough that we could take time, perhaps, to read it now from the book of the Revelation, chapter eleven and verse fourteen: The second woe is past, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded, there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders which sit before God on their thrones fell upon their faces and worshiped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, which art and which wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign. And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came in the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth. Now, as our short reading of their comments has reminded us, the major theme of the comment is a question of timetable. The thanks that rises from the hearts of these great dignitaries as they get up from their thrones and worship him that sits on the central throne is this: We give thee thanks that the time has come. It is a question of timetable. And as as you perceive, it fits in with what has been the pervading theme of this section three, which was announced, so to speak, at the beginning. It is the question, how long will God remain silent in the face of evil? How long will he sit quietly and not avenge his people who are persecuted and oppressed and suffer under the, the persecution of the enemies of God and his people. And therefore, we see that their comment aptly sums up what has been the major concern. We give thee thanks, the time has now come for the dead to be judged and to give their reward to thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, and the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth. In the course, then, of their remarks and their commenting upon the timetable, we should notice what they say, the voices say at first. Verse fifteen, the great voices in heaven say, the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. At least that is one possible translation of John's Greek at this particular place. It would be possible to translate his Greek in a slightly different fashion. We could read it thus: The kingdom of the world, that is the worldwide kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, have- has now come. It has begun to be. Whichever of the two translations you prefer, shall we notice two things about this important statement? One, in the Greek, uh, phraseology, the emphasis lies on the verb. It stands first in its sentence, a tremendous acclamation, uh, a- as a- a- a- a proclamation in Greek, egeneto, they say. It's happened. Oh, the joy of the announcement. It's come. It has begun to be. The verb is in the Greek eris tense, but it is what the, uh, pundits would call an ingressive eris. It has now begun to be. It's now happened. This is the beginning. Secondly, we should notice that the word for kingdom is in the singular. Whichever of the two translations you ref- you prefer, it should not be translated the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. The noun is in the singular, it is the kingdom. The kingdom of the world, God's kingdom, his worldwide kingdom. And that points in this direction. What the voices are saying is not, thank God, all over the long centuries, one by one, the kingdoms of this world have gradually been transforming themselves inch by inch, country by country, from paganism to Christianity, they have been gradually becoming one by one the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And now at last, the jigsaw is complete, the map is completed, the last kingdom of this world has been added, and now the whole lot can be said to be the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. No, that is not what the Greek is saying. It is not saying the kingdoms, the individual kingdoms, one by one have become. It is talking of the kingdom, singular, and it's the kingdom of this world, God's rule, God's kingdom set up over the whole world. And the, uh, remarks of the elders further enforce the fact that that is the true interpretation of the voices. For they now proceed to explain by what process the kingdom of God, the worldwide kingdom, has now come. Look again at verse seventeen. We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, which art and which wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and did reign. It is here more important than ever to notice that the Greek verb reign is an erist. Once more, it is an ingressive eras, meaning not you have been reigning all through the long centuries, but at this time, this time that has now come, you have entered on your reign, you have, and now we recur to the former verb, you have taken your great power. And by taking your great power, you have set up your kingdom at this point and begun to reign. Now they are startling statements, are they not? Because it will at once occur to us that they raise a very big question. What can they possibly mean? God has taken to himself his great power. You could understand it if it said, you've taken away the power of the beast and all the tyrants of the earth and taken over their power and made it yours, but that isn't what they say. They say you have taken your power. In other words, you have now asserted your power. And the question that writers is this, but surely God has been reigning all down the centuries. What do you mean he's taken his power? Didn't he always have the power? Or can it mean you have taken your great power? And alongside of that is the other question, what can the term mean? The kingdom of God then has now come. We should notice, therefore, how the term kingdom is here described. It is described as the kingdom of our Lord, that is God, God the Father, as we call him, and of his Christ. That is to say, this is the Messianic Kingdom of Christ. And it is helpful and profitable that we shall note, that we notice that the term Kingdom of God is used in two different senses, at least, in Holy Scripture. And it is particularly important that we learn to distinguish between these different usages and different meanings of the term kingdom of God. To help us in that, let's go back to an earlier prophecy, the prophecy of Daniel, and read there how the term is used. Daniel, first of all, chapter four. Daniel chapter four. And here in Daniel four and verse seventeen, Daniel is addressing His Majesty King Nebuchadnezzar and giving him to know what the significance of the awesome dream is that Dan- uh, Nebuchadnezzar has just dreamed. Verse seventeen: The sentence is by the decree of the watchers and the demand by the word of the holy ones, to the intent that the living may know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the lowest of men. There's no mistaking the meaning here. Daniel is asserting that God already reigns. He always has reigned in the affairs of men. He is reigning at the moment and will always and forever reign. Daniel four and verse seventeen. If you should have an Old Testament that's based on the Septuagint translation, you won't know what verse I'm referring to. Come and ask me afterwards. Let's go over now towards the end of the chapter, chapter four and verse 34, to hear a comment from Nebuchadnezzar himself, who has been chastised by God and has at last returned to sanity, not too soon, of course. And now he comments on what he has learned in this bitter experience. Daniel four and verse thirty four: and at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation. The truth has penetrated even Nebuchadnezzar's brain, that God rules. His kingdom is present. It ever was, it ever will be. God has never ceased to rule in the kingdoms of men. So the kingdom of God is used in that sense, both in Old Testament and in New. And Daniel understood it full well. But now let us pose the question that has been on our mind in the study of Revelation three. Does the fact that God's kingdom already exists Exists. mean Mean that God has already put down evil. That there is no problem with the question of evil. No, of course it doesn't. It is, my good friends, the very fact that God does reign that constitutes the problem of evil. Yes, he puts down an old tyrant like Nebuchadnezzar and chastises him and teaches him sense. There were a good many people in that day who said, why didn't he do it earlier? Hm. And to complicate the matters, the verses are telling us that from time to time he raises up people like Nebuchadnezzar. Dear, oh dear, oh dear. For it's the Nebuchadnezzars this world are a major part of the problem of evil. And I repeat, it is the fact that we believe in our hearts that God reigns already that constitutes the problem. What we want to know is, if he's reigning, why doesn't he do a bit more reigning? Why does he not content himself with just putting down a Nebuchadnezzar now and again? Why doesn't he put down all evil men, full stop, and put an end to the problem of evil. Of course, Daniel talks about the matter later in the visions he records for us. How will evil be finally put down? In Daniel seven and in other of his visions, Daniel makes us aware of what the timetable and the future holds. Far from God immediately proceeding to put down all evil, in the vision given to Daniel, we are warned that the future holds an eruption of almost unparalleled evil. Evil. For in Daniel chapter seven, Daniel is given to see the rise of a number of Gentile imperial systems, and the last of them is a beast so hideous that in his awful strength he stamps, he bites, he destroys, and not only rises to his power by the merciless slaughter and destructions of millions, but he will be so arrogant in his power that he will think he can defy the Almighty himself. Far from the present continuing reign of God putting down evil, God himself warns us that evil will wax worse and worse. How, according to Daniel, then will that be put down? In his vision he saw that because of the blasphemous words that the final beast spoke against God, the beast was slain and his body destroyed, and he was given to be burned with fire. That's how he was put down. And then? And what happened next? Verse thirteen of Daniel seven: I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed. So now we have another aspect of God's rule over the earth. There was his kingdom that had continued from the beginning, is now, and shall ever shall be. But now here comes a new element. The putting down of evil permanently in our world is accomplished by God's direct intervention in judgment and by handing over the kingdom to the Son of Man. Here is the Old Testament version of the phrase that we read in our chapter eleven. It is the kingdom of God and of his Messiah, his Christ. There are then two senses of the kingdom of God. And we must now bring these things over to the New Testament and ask ourselves an important and basic question. When is Messiah's kingdom then to be set up. The answer that Daniel would give is at the time of the destruction of the beast. But now, and here we come to a point over which Christians have frankly disagreed, and sometimes very severely. Let us try patiently with one another to consider the thing and come to a biblical conclusion. Could we think... Well, no, we couldn't think, could we? That, um, the Messianic Kingdom of Christ came when he was born in Bethlehem, and thereupon he put down all evil beasts, tyrants, and dictators, and freed the world from persecution. Well, no, he didn't do that when he was born in Bethlehem. Of course he didn't. He was himself, so to speak, humanly speaking, the victim of the dictators of his day. Ah, well, yes, but, uh, he was put to death under Pontius Pilate, I know. Could it be that in his resurrection and ascension, uh, and his seated, being seated at God's right hand in glory, that that has solved the problem of evil, and that the kingdoms of the world have now become his? Well, if they have, there's a lot of people that don't know it. And I ask you, my brothers, my sisters, to face the question squarely and honestly in the light of history first. Did the ascension of Christ put down evil, slay the beast, stop the persecution of the faithful, give rewards to God's servants, the prophets, and institute the messianic kingdom of Christ. By no stretch of interpretation of history can it be regarded in that way. Since the ascension of Christ and very soon afterwards, Rome rose up and persecuted the believers. And even before the Roman persecutions began, the believers were already being persecuted by their own Jewish people. And who shall enumerate the vast sorrows of the world, let alone the vast sorrows of Christian men and women all down the centuries. You can't read the account of the sufferings of God's people since the ascension of Christ, to hear coming through, perhaps unspoken, but pressed out of them by their sorrows and their sufferings. Oh Lord, how long do you not avenge our blood? You think of the cries that went up from the faithful in Israel when they were being systematically gassed. Oh Lord, as they sang their psalms, oh Lord, how long? And of course, the New Testament makes it perfectly clear that the ascension of Christ was not going to put down evil. There is a sense in which Christ establishes his kingdom now, is there not? He indicated it and illustrated it by the parable of the sower. But within that spiritual kingdom that Christ has been setting up by the sowing of his word through his servant, the tares are allowed to remain. And it is indicated explicitly that the tares shall remain until the harvest. There were, we are told by Luke, some enthusiastic crowds that followed our Lord on his last journey to Jerusalem. They really believed he was the Messiah. There may have well have been hundreds, if not thousands of them, so that when they arrived from the north and came to the Jordan Valley outside Jericho and began the steep ascent to Jerusalem, there were many who expected that the kingdom of God was immediately to appear, says Luke. And now you see in which sense Luke is using the term kingdom of God. All these pious Jews that now believed in Jesus had always believed that God's kingdom, in the one sense, exists, has never ceased to be. But when Luke says they thought at this moment that the kingdom of God was about to appear, he's using the term, isn't he, of the messianic kingdom of our Lord and his Christ. They thought Jesus was the Messiah, and he was. They thought Jesus would only have to get over the brow of a hill and descend on Jerusalem city, and the kingdom of God and his Christ would there and then be established. Our Lord had to check their enthusiasm. That wasn't going to be so. And he told a parable that was about a nobleman that first went into a far country to receive a kingdom, and then to return. The New Testament witnesses this, that the kingdoms of this world, the kingdom that is God's universal messianic kingdom, the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, were not timetabled to happen immediately after the ascension of Christ. When then? Well, you notice the position o- o- of the announcement in chapter eleven, to recur to our chapter. The announcement comes when the seventh and final trumpet is blown. Then they say, the time has at last come. And then it is, they say, with the notes of the last trumpet sounding in their ears, now has come the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah. And they further specify it, what they expect now to happen, not necessarily all at once, of course, but now they indicate the train of events that they associate with this time having come. The nations were wroth, they say, verse eighteen, and God's wrath came. This kingdom of the Messiah is not set up by preaching the gospel, pray notice it. It is set up by the wrath of God coming. The great day of his wrath. And the coming of his wrath will mean the time of the dead to be judged. That has not been going on all the centuries of the Christian era, surely. And the time to give their reward to thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great. And our Lord Jesus commented upon it, of course, himself, didn't he, to his disciples. When shall the rewards come? He said to his apostles, his twelve apostles, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, then you also will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. That is there to be their particular and personal reward. But when will that time come that the apostles will be rewarded and sit on their thrones and reign with Christ in this particular fashion. It is called the regeneration, and when shall that happen? The other passage in the New Testament that our, uh, records our Lord's use of the phrase is as follows. When the Son of Man comes in the glory of his Father and with the holy angels, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory, and then shall he give rewards to his servants the prophets. Our Lord's directions are very clear. It is to be noted, of course, that what John is being told, now has come the kingdom, is a prophecy, not to be understood that it came at the time contemporary with John, while John stood on the Isle of Patmos. It's a prophecy of what yet will be. And you see that again, obviously, don't you? For the final trumpet, the last trump hadn't sounded when John stood on Patmos. God shall not take his great power and begin to reign in the sense of establishing the messianic kingdom on earth until the last trumpet has blown. The whole thing is a vision of the future. But why should we trouble our heads about matters of timetable of this kind? The importance is, of course, in our practical evangelism, in estimating what we is our brief. What is the task that God has given us? What may we and mu- what must we expect to happen? And if, my brothers, we had it in our mind that the Lord Jesus has already set up his messianic kingdom in the world, that there all the trouble is that there are a few dictators here and there, if you go looking for them, you might find one, and who hasn't yet submitted, and that our job is to help Christ to rule these dictators with a rod of iron and smash them like the vessels of a vessel of a potter is smashed to smithereens, and thus put into practical effect the messianic kingdom that's already been instituted. Then, of course, well, if we couldn't smash the old dictator with the gospel, we should take our rod of iron, shouldn't we, and smash his head in some other fashion. And you will remember how at certain periods in Christendom, Christendom got it into its head that that is precisely what it had to do. There were some obstinate, um, Turks and things around about the place, outrageous, and they even possessed Jerusalem, terrible. They didn't recognize that the Messianic Kingdom had come and that the Pope was his vicar. So they got out their armies and tried to rule the world with a rod of iron. And what oceans of tears came out of it. What ghastly misrepresentations of the gospel. We in our day need to be clear, do we not, of what the briefing is that has been given. There are now perhaps more people than there used to be who hold the view that our Lord will not come till after the millennial kingdom. And that it is our job as Christian preachers and pastors and teachers, in the power of the Spirit, so to spread the gospel that the great age of millennial glory of peace and satisfaction and bliss will come on earth, not by the coming of Christ, but by the efforts of the church. That the church will rise to be the most significant institution in the whole world, and thus will the Messianic kingdom come without the Lord Jesus coming. And only when the church has thus pacified the whole world and set up the Messianic kingdom, will the Lord come. My brothers and sisters, I say it with all due respect to those who hold the view, but if we were to get that view into our heads, we shall be one day sorely disillusioned. Disillusion. There is to come, says Daniel, and now the revelation is about to tell us, there is to come an outflowering of evil, that though it has had parallels in time past, will reach such a peak of blasphemy and apostasy. Will so persecute the true servants of God and those that bear the testimony of Jesus, that only the divine intervention of the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of glory will suffice to put down that evil Evil and and establish establish the kingdom of God. And this is not a deduction that we make simply from the figurative language of the book of the Revelation. The straightforward statements of the Apostle Paul in two Thessalonians chapter two, chapters one and two, tell us the same thing. This hideous blasphemer, the man of sin, that, to use Paul's phrase, sits in the temple of God, claiming divine honors. How shall he be disposed of? When shall come the great day of God's wrath that shall deal with him? He shall be destroyed by the epiphany, by the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And at that time, says Paul, God in his righteous judgment will give rest to his faithful servants. It is just that he should do so, relieve them of all their sufferings and reward them. At that time he shall give out tribulation to them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be banished from the presence of the Lord with eternal destruction. These are the directives of the New Testament that must inform us as we go about fulfilling the mission of the Lord Jesus that he has entrusted to us in the world. But now we have come to the end of section three and the beginning of section four. And since I must beg leave of you to take some few minutes more, I'm going to suggest that we break off here, sing a hymn, uh, or at least a verse of a hymn, if we can find a pianist, that'll give us time to yawn, a very deep yawn, and to ease the power of gravity on our posteriors and refresh us for the last twenty minutes of our study. Shall we sing, therefore, the hymn thirteen? We shall sing just the first and the second verses of the hymn thirteen on your sheet. Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne. Now, God willing, we shall have one session at least tomorrow in which to consider section four of the book of the Revelation. So for the remaining minutes, I propose to ask you to work with me. It may well tax your patience as we do some foundational study into the literary form, once more, of this book of the Revelation. Study of the Word of God, as you doubtless have found in your experience, brings us times of elation and joy as our spirits are raised to heaven and we praise the Lord. The study of the scripture is not always so, is it? There is to be done the hard, painstaking work that lies underneath any true understanding of the word of God, and to such painstaking work I now invite you to join with me. Let us first take our bearings and notice one feature in particular about the way John has arranged his material. Let us turn back to chapter six and to the seals and the judgments that came as the Lamb unloosed the seals of the book. And come down with me to chapter six verse 9, when John says, and when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. A great voice saying, how long, O Lord, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given them to, uh, given to each one of them a white robe. And it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little time, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, which should be killed even as they were, should be fulfilled. So under this seal, we see what amounts to an outburst of deeper persecution on believers. The result is that many of them ha- lose their lives, and they are seen thus under the altar, a symbolic way of saying that their lives have been sacrificed. They are told, as they cry to God, how long, O Lord, are you not going to avenge us? They are told they must wait a little time. And the incident occupies verses nine, ten, and eleven, simply one of the seals. And after that, the vision goes on to other things. But thereby, the Holy Spirit of God has given notice of a topic that he is about to deal with at much greater length. The persecution of the saints, their intercessions and pleadings with God, how long before you avenge us? The fact that they've got to wait a little time before others are also persecuted, and then the reward will come. And as we have now seen, that theme that is mentioned there is then taken up in section three. It is in fact the main topic of section three, The fact that the prophets and and the saints will yet be persecuted and must wait a little time until the time comes for evil to be put down and the reward to be given. Now let's come on to section three to see a similar thing. In chapter eleven, as we were considering last night, we have the description of the two witnesses, the two prophets. They are the two lampstands and the two olive trees standing before the Lord of the earth. And they exercise their supernatural ministry. And none can hurt them or destroy them for the time being. But eventually, when their ministry is complete, look at verse seven of chapter eleven. And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them and overcome them and kill them. That's an interesting bit of information, isn't it? And at that point, uh, you might well scratch your head and say, that's interesting, but uh, who is the beast? You've not told us about him before. Who is he? It doesn't make all that much sense. We don't know who he is. Who is this beast? John, have you fallen into the bad habit that some preachers have of using technical terms without first explaining them? You shouldn't do that, John, my boy. You ought to go to a class on hermeneutics and learn that if you're going to use a technical term, you better first explain the meaning of the technical term. But I think John isn't for begging our pardon. You'll see he wants to bring up the idea now, the beast that comes up from the abyss. Anybody with any sense could see that's some infernal creature. He comes up out of the abyss anyway, doesn't he? So that's enough for the moment. The very powers of hell are going to be allowed to extinguish the testimony of these final prophets. But now, if you want to know more about the beast, well, of course, now that is what, uh, section four is going to be about. John is about to define his terms and tell us about the beast. And so though there, though there may be some chronological progress in the series of judgments. You notice what John is doing. He will carry a theme through from the beginning of one series of judgments or events right to the end, the rational end of that theme. And then in the next, he will backtrack to one item that he has just mentioned, and he will take that, and he will expound that in the next section of his book. We shall see the same thing happen with Mistress Babylon. In this section four, she receives a very short notice for the first time. And if you're wondering what it's all about, well then when you come to section five, Mistress Babylon will be, uh, described in great detail. Next we notice, as we take our bearings in this fourth section, what we have noticed now so many times. It opens in chapter eleven, verse nineteen: There was opened the temple of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his covenant. Something opened in heaven, and then some piece of heavenly furniture appears. This time it is the ark of the Covenant, and in our survey of the book, we saw the significance of it. This is the covenant that God made with Israel, its terms housed in the Ark. Its terms are these: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods but me. Thou shalt not make a graven image or idol of anything in heaven above, on earth below, to bow down thereto. That forms a very sit- fitting background, does it not, to what is to be the main theme of section four, the rise on earth of this hideous dictator, this foul imitation of the Blessed Trinity, as the dragon engineers the rise of the beast and leads the world in their insane adoration of the beast, till they attribute to the beast divine honors and say, who is like unto the beast? And the second beast, his minister of information and broadcasting, he, uh, contrives that the nations of the earth shall make an image to the beast and commit that basic offense against Almighty God, bowing down to worship the idol and image of a man. We can see the relevance of this o- o- o- of the setting, therefore, can we not? Now I want us to do another little bit of research. Would you recur to your sheets, and first of all to, uh, page three of your notes? And And now now notice the significance of a thing I point- have pointed out to you from time to time in our earlier studies, and you may have wondered why I did it, for the point of it could not have been immediately clear. Sh- sheet number three, therefore, this is the first section. There are four main parts to it. It has a series of seven. They are our Lord's evaluation, appraisal, and judgment of his churches. They come at the fourth position. Then we look at page four, that is the, uh, analysis of, uh, section, uh, page, I'm sorry, uh, uh, section two, that is page five of your notes. Page five of your notes, section two. It has, as you see, four major parts. It also has a series of judgments, but they come not at position four but at position three. The form of section two is different from section one. Keep section two in front of you and look at section three. That we found on page six. It has four parts to it. It also has a series of seven. They are likewise seven judgments, but in section three the judgments come not at point four nor at point three, but at point one. You say this is all tiresome stuff, this is not fit for human consumption, such preaching. Now, but wait a minute, let's look at page seven. That is a layout of section four. It has a series of three— Oh, sorry, a series of seven. Not simply the seven times occurrence of the verb I saw, but a series of warnings and then judgments. And they stand, as you now see, at point three. Put alongside that your sheet of section two and compare them for a moment, if you will. Section two and section four. We start with the simple observation that the seven series of judgment in section two come at point three. The seven series of warnings and judgments in section four come at point three. And you say, well, that's how it is. You know, John did like variety, and he, he got as much variety as he could, but there's a limit to what variety you can do, and so some of them ought to be similar, I suppose. They can't help being similar. Ah, but wait a minute. What is the topic of section two, and what the topic of section four? Go back to section two, and it begins with the description of the throne of the Almighty Creator. And the choirs of heaven sing to the Creator upon his throne, thou art worthy to receive the power, the might, the glory, and the riches. It is a depiction of the throne of God. Now look at section four, and it is going to be the story of the throne of the beast. In part two of section four, in the early verses of chapter thirteen, we are told that the dragon gave him, verse two it is, the dragon gave this beast his power and his throne and his authority. And if that were all that we could observe of the similarities between the two sections, it would be enough, would it not, to justify the little blurb that I have put at the head of each of those two sheets. In section two, we saw it yesterday at some length. The major question was the throne of God and the worthiness of God and of the Lamb to receive the worship and service of God's whole creation. And we spent long minutes discussing the worthiness of God first, and then the worthiness of the Lamb to enforce the government of God and the grounds on which the Lamb is worthy to do it. The Holy Spirit was greatly concerned to explain to us and to explain to the world in general that when God sets up his kingdom, here are the grounds on which he calls for mankind's obedience and submission. The worthiness of God, the worthiness of the Lamb. The lion has overcome. The Lamb has been slain. Now in chapter four, we are to see the rise of Satan's imposter. We are to have described the setting up of that terrible throne that is a mockery of the real throne. We are to watch that ghastly imitation of the Trinity. The dragon representing the place, trying to take the place of the Father. And just as the Father gives the throne to the Son, the dragon gives the throne to the first beast. Just as the Holy Spirit delights to witness to the Lord Jesus and to glorify him, so does the second beast, the false prophet, take it as his task to glorify the first beast and to bow every heart on earth, if he can, to worship that imposter throne. Now, but more. Section four is going to point out to you the grounds on which the world's obedience is demanded for the throne of the beast. It is also going to describe to us the techniques that will be used for the establishment of the throne of the beast. And it will do so not merely to hold, to fill in an otherwise boring Monday night so that we can, uh, do a little prophecy to, uh, distract our minds and set ourselves interesting puzzles. It'll do it because we learn from the future and can apply the lesson to the present. John, in his other writing, which is his first epistle, says, we know Antichrist comes. He will come one day. But already, says he, many antichrists have gone out into the world. And therefore, for John, the coming of the great antichrist is not just an impractical interest in sterile timetabling, because there are already antichrists that in their little way are fostering and preparing people for the coming of the great Antichrist. We need to be wise as to their tactics and how they will go about their tasks. For the war is the same. There'll come a mighty great battle at the end of the age, but it's a battle in the same war. We are called to fight in our den generation in that battle. But the formal comparison of sections two and four can help us a little bit further, can they not? Look down in section two to position four. It is the comment of the elder upon the uncounta- countable multitude. You remember the verses? John sees this uncountable multitude coming with palms of victory in their hand, and they come crying, salvation to our God and to him that sits on the throne. And the elder nudges John, eh, in the ribs and says, John, um, who are these, this great multitude clothed in white garments, uh, and they're crying salvation? Who are they, John? And John replies respectfully, for the life of me, I couldn't tell. Why do you ask me? Don't you know yourself? And the elder proceeds to tell him, these are they that have come out of the great tribulation. No wonder they're shouting and singing and praising God. Oh, what a victory has has been. They have been under the pressure, this terrible, this great tribulation. Satan has done his worst, and they're coming out of the tribulation victorious. Look at the palms in their hands, crying salvation to our God who sits on the throne. Their robes have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and they stand before the throne of God. Come to section four and point four. Here are, uh, is another song. It is the song we are told of those who come victorious from the beast. That's different, isn't it, from the comment at the end of three that we have been discussing this morning. In three, it wasn't an escape story. We were not told of people overcoming or escaping. It was a comment on the timing of the judgments of God. But these two, the end of section two and the end of section four, they are both escape stories, both stories of triumph. In two, it is those who come victoriously out of the Great Tribulation, and in four it is those who come victorious from the beast. And in four there's an air of victory about the praise. Let the beast do what the beast will. There's an air of victory. Share it, my brother. You say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tell me first, who are these that stand on the glassy sea? Oh, I'll tell you, not, well, not tomorrow perhaps, but when I get home to heaven, I'll tell you, allow yourself the luxury. If you don't understand who they are, don't begrudge them their hymn of praise, will you? See what they've done. They've come victorious from the beast. Isn't that something? And if one of these days you come across them standing on the glassy sea, and you'll have a word with them, or perhaps they've moved off it after that, you'll say, and you say, were you one of those who stood on the glassy sea, my brother? Won't you want to congratulate them and say, we read your story, you know, when we were down there on Earth. We had an easy time of it ourselves, you know, our sufferings, well, they weren't worth talking about. But anyway, we read your story, and what a tremendous inspiration that was. Uh, we read it and saw you standing on the glassy sea, singing the praise of God after your victory over the beast. It so thrilled our hearts. We said to ourselves, well, if they can sing and they got a victory like that in those circumstances, we better stop talking about our problems. Now, why shouldn't we start talking about our victories? Be nourred and encouraged by the songs of the few- of the redeemed. To overcome ourselves. Well, finally, you will notice one big difference between section two. I haven't now time to draw the parallels between all the other, uh, uh, parts, you can do that yourself. What I mean is that in section two one, it describes the throne of God, and in section four one, of course, in the battle that rages, the child is caught up to the throne of God, and thus and thus you can compare them all down the list. But I want to point now to one very big difference. In section two, the actual word overcome is reserved for Christ. The lion of the tribe of Judah has over come. And our hearts were moved to worship yesterday as we thought about his overcoming. My brothers, my sisters, there's another side to the story. Section four will use the word of believers. It's not enough that Christ overcome, is it? Believers Believers. have to overcome as well. And how shall these overcome the beast? That will be our problem tomorrow. You say, that's easy enough. They'll overcome him. You see, when the going gets tough, God will bring out his heavenly cannon, aim them at the beast, and blow him to smithereens. Ha, the saints will overcome, you'll see. The beast has been destroyed. You will search the whole of section four and you will not find any record of the beast being destroyed. Hm. Well, how did they overcome him then? They had to face him. And all his threats when he was in the prime of his power and overcome him while he was still in his power. You'll see, I've never thought much about, really, the possibility of my becoming a heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and I rather think I've left it a little late to become one. But I have thought, you know, from time to time, how easily I could become boxing champion of the world and overcome, uh, Cassius Clay. You'll see how old fashioned I am because he's the only name of a champion boxer I can think of. I think he lived, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, in the first half of this century sometime. But anyway, you know, uh, when I ponder it in my wilder moments, I can see how easily I could have overcome Cassius Clay, you'll see. I would have put on my boxing gloves and faced him in the ring, gingerly, of course, wouldn't have come too near him. And just as he was about to, uh, uh, land the knockout blow, I should have stationed someone with a pistol in my corner of the ring and aimed it at him, you'll see, shot him through the heart, and as the great Cassius Clay ra- lay on the floor, shot dead, I should raise my hands, like these people do in that frantic fashion, and claim to be the boxing champion of the world. I have overcome the beast by destroying him. You've got to stand and fight him. It's all right for God to overcome the beast, that's one thing. That is not all the point, is it? I have to overcome the beast. Not Not overcome. overcome him by getting God to destroy him, but by facing him. And if we shall not be called upon to face the beast in that day, be sure we shall have to face his predecessors, the many Antichrists, in our own day. And we shall be called upon to overcome him and not to leave it all to God to do. There is some profit in the necessary work of patient literary study, even of the basic literary form of a book like the Revelation, for it deals with its topics and puts now one side and now another side, and to get a completely balanced view of things, we need to understand both sides of each question. That's enough for now. You've got an afternoon off for which I'm sure you're grateful. Let us just bow and give thanks. Father, we thank thee now for thy holy word. We thank thee for the care with which thou hast written it. Help us, O Lord, we pray, to be diligent and exact students of it. We thank thee that when we come to see the exactitude of thy word, it produces in us an ever deepening trust in the inspiration of thy word. When we see the holy balance of thy word, it strikes us as being true to life. For Lord, sometimes we do become so unbalanced. We see one side and not another, and therefore, we pray, Lord, thy grace that we may give attention even to these external formal arrangements of thy word, that we might catch the deeper lessons that these formal arrangements were meant to convey. So we thank thee for the Lord Jesus. We worship thee again for his great victory and praise thee that the lion of the tribe of Judah has overcome. O Lord, only help us, we do beseech thee, that we in our day and generation, we too may overcome for his name's sake. Amen.