The Weekend, December 12
Welcome to the weekend, and we
get closer with each day in completing our reading thru the Bible in a
year. Today’s reading is from Revelation
11:15 – 12:6. Please come back after you’ve read the Scripture.
Seven is a very popular number in the book of Revelation. There were seven candlesticks, which stood
for seven churches in chapters 1 – 3.
Then in heaven, we began with a scroll sealed with seven seals, and when
the last seal was opened, seven trumpets sounded. Now at the seventh trumpet sound, a whole
series of events begins to unfold in heavenly visions that preview the last of
the three “woes” the angel had announced (8:13 & 11:14). For all of us who have memorized and recited
the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), we have repeatedly asked for “thy Kingdom
come”. It is time for this prayer to
be answered –
“Then the seventh angel blew
his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the
world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever
and ever.” And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God
fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, “We give thanks to you, Lord God
Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to
reign. The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead
to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and
those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the
destroyers of the earth” (11:15-18).
George Fredrich Handel wrote
the masterpiece The Messiah in 1741.
It was originally meant for Easter, but over time the oratorio has
become an Advent favorite. Probably the
most famous part of The Messiah is “The Hallelujah Chorus”. I
remember singing the Messiah one year in a group of two hundred choir members,
and the words still reverberate in my mind and spirit:
Hallelujah: for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.
The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord,
and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.
King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah!
John heard the chorus
first! There has been much discussion
among bible scholars, wondering if the seventh trumpet sounding, and the
declaration of the Kingdom of God, is not equated to the trumpets that Paul
wrote about in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, and 1 Thessalonian 4:16-17. The Corinthian passage has to do with the
final resurrection of the believers, which is not yet occurred here. The Thessalonian passage is held by many
pre-millennial interpreters to be the “rapture” of the church. While it is always possible that any
interpretation can be wrong, I don’t think this has to do with the rapture at
this time. The seventh trumpet announces
the “reign of the Kingdom upon the earth” – “The kingdom of the world has
become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever
and ever” (11:15). The
seventh trumpet opens up to final judgments – God’s wrath – that leads to the
final judgment and the second coming of Christ.
The seventh trumpet ultimately leads to the appearance of seven bowl
judgments in Revelation 16. In between
we see God exercising his Kingly rule upon the earth, and cleaning house!
(11:17-18).
As this “song” of the Lord God
Almighty taking His Kingdom to the nations comes to a crescendo, John sees the
Temple in heaven, along with a woman, and a red dragon, all of which seems to
recapitulate the first Advent of Jesus –
“Then God’s temple in heaven
was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were
flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy
hail. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman
clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the
agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a
great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven
diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them
to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give
birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth
to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her
child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the
wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be
nourished for 1,260 days” (12:1-6).
At the beginning of chapter 11,
John was told to measure the Temple (11:1).
Now we see the Temple revealed as being in heaven, along with the Ark of
the Covenant. The Ark was normally
concealed behind the Holy of Holies because it represented the Glory of
God. The writer of Hebrews wrote of the
earthly things of worship were mere shadows of the heavenly realities. The chapter division is unfortunate because
the vision continues in chapter 12. The images are symbols of the warfare that
is in heaven. We don’t think of heaven
as a place of warfare, and a place where Satan can be present, but both are
true according to the Bible.
The scene before us is full of
symbols. Chuck Swindoll explains what
we’re seeing like this: “In theatrical terms, we’re dealing with a
completely new scene. In fact, Revelation 12:1 says, “A great sign appeared in
heaven.” The Greek word” semeion”, is translated “sign,” and signifies a
mark or symbol that carries a special meaning or points us to something beyond
it. In this case, John indicates that the new vision contains symbolic
characters that point to real people or events in history—past as well as
future”. [1] What John sees is historical with a view
first of all of the first Advent. The
figures are of Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna, along with a King who tried to
destroy Jesus at his birth – Herod.
Behind Herod was Satan, who tried to stop Jesus at various moments of
his earthly ministry. After Jesus’
death, he is resurrected and ascends to be at the Father’s right hand (12:5). The message of the four Gospels is contained
in these symbols. This part of the story
is the “now” of prophecy – the current state of the church during John’s time.
The next part is about the
woman that flees into the wilderness and represents the Church that escaped
both Nero’s and Domitian’s attempts to destroy it but knows it is under
attack. The church is under attack both
then, and now, and the “not yet” is coming.
The warfare has been sustained for two thousand years as the church gets
caught up in Satan’s attempts to destroy it.
Jesus had said to his disciples (Matt 16:18) – “I will build my
church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it”. To John, on a
prison island for the “testimony of Jesus and the word of God”, it must have
been comforting to hear that the King and His Kingdom is more real than the
evil that Satan is behind, around him. The
conflict is ongoing and relentless. We
make the mistake of thinking that we do not have to diligent in our doctrine,
our teaching, our worship, and fellowship.
Yet, when we fail to see that the enemy is always seeking to undermine
the truth, the way, the life that is from Jesus, we will be deceived, and not
know it. Unfortunately, there’s more to
come.
Peace
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