Rev 11:1-15 theme verse Rev 11:15
The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.
In this twenty fifth Sunday after the Pentecost, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, through Jesus’ messages to seven churches in chapter 2 & 3 of the Book of Revelation, we decided to live in balance between love and truth, while enjoying spiritual richness in Jesus, not compromise with the world and overcoming the temptation of materials and worldly, as we live the end era of abundance. This week we would like to look at the second message which our Lord gave us about those that are to take place.
1) As we saw last week, the Book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John when he was captured by the Roman soldiers in AD 95 and exiled to the island of Patmos at the persecution of Christians who did not bow down to him by the Roman Emperor Domitian. This Book of Revelation contains two messages, I mean, the exhortation of the Lord regarding the things that happened at that time and the prophesy of the Lord on the ultimate victory of the things that were to take place after, to encourage them to endure and overcome suffering and temptation to the end.
2) And this book of Revelation can be divided into three sections, I mean, the prologue of 1:1-8, the main body of 1:9-22:5, and the epilogue of 22:6-21. And in the prologue of 1:1-8, John wrote, along with the greeting, the purpose of his writing that he bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, and to all that he saw. And then, in the main body, first, in the chapter 2 and 3, as we saw last week, the status of seven churches on the things that were happening at that time and the Lord’s messages to them were written. And then from chapters 4 through 22, the things that would take place after were written. I mean, first, in chapter 4 and 5, the heavenly worship and reign of God and a scroll sealed with seven seals which onlye the Lamb could open, were written. And then in chapter 6 and 7, what would happen when the Lamb opened the seven seals and also the story of the 144,000 who were sealed by God’s angel were written. And from chapters 8 to 11, it is recorded what would happen when the seven angels blew the seven trumpets and the stories of the little scroll, and of the two witnesses. And then from chapter 12 to 14, it is recorded the story of a woman and a male child, fighting with a dragon, and two beasts, and then the prophesy of the angel who had the everlasting gospel, on the judgment of God to the great city of Babylon, and those who worshiped the beast and received its mark, and also the perseverance of the saints who kept the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And in chapters 15 and 16, after the story of the seven bowls of wrath of God, and in chapter 17 through 19, the stories of the destruction of Babylon and of the beast were written, and also in chapter 20 through 22, the story of the judgment of the dragon and the final judgment of the people, and the story of new heaven and new earth with new Jerusalem which will come down from heaven, where the saints will reign forever with God and the Lamb, were written. And then finally, in the epilogue of 22:6-21, John concludes the Book of Revelation saying, “Amen, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.” in response to the Lord’s promise that “Surely I am coming soon.”
3) Even though these are complicated stories with lots of images and symbols, yet they can be organized based on two perspectives. I mean, first, based on the seven seals in Chapter 6 and the seven trumpets in Chapter 8, and the seven bowls in Chapter 15, we can see the Revelation tries to show us how the gospel, which is the secret of God, was revealed, would be fulfilled, and will be consummated in history. In other words, the story of the seven seals showed what would happen when the Lamb revealed the gospel, which is the secret of God. And then the story of the seven trumpets showed what would happen as the secret of the kingdom of God would being fulfilled, by His people’s proclamation, as 10:7 says John was commanded to preach the secret of God after eating the little scroll which is the Word of God. And finally, the story of the seven bowls showed what will happened at the judgment of God.
4) And secondly, these all stories can be seen as a story of the war between two great powers as the gospel was unfolding, fulfilling and would be consummated. I mean, in chapter 2-5, behind all these stories, as the backdrop, it is recorded that Sovereign God and victorious Christ reigned, reigns and will reign whole worlds through heavenly reign and earthly reign through His church and the Holy Spirit. And then in chapters 11 to 13, it is recorded a story of the wars of the Male Child and the woman, who gave birth to Him and two witnesses against a dragon and the prostitute, the Babylon, and its followers, two beasts. And in chapter 17 to 20, it is recorded the prostitute and two beasts would be destroyed and also the dragon, Satan, being judged, would be thrown into the fire and also all people in the world will be judged according to their deeds, so those who are not written in the book of life will be thrown into the fire.
5) Regarding the images and symbols in these stories, we can interpret that in the first century, the male child represented Christ, the woman represented true Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament, and the two witnesses represented all the Saints, while the dragon represented Satan, the prostitute or Babylon represented the Roman Empire system that proclaimed Pax Romana, I mean, Roman peace, in the first century, and two beasts represented the Jews and Roman Emperors who persecuted Christians at that time. And also, regarding the 666, that everyone received a mark on their right hand or forehead and someone who did not receive it could not buy or sell, it can represent Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet, each, or since Christians who were excluded from the Jewish guilds at that time were not allowed to buy or sell or have jobs, so it can represent the Jews or the Jewish guilds. And in the modern times, the prostitute, named Babylon, represents the world system that tempts and opposes the saints, and the two beasts represent the Antichrist who opposes Christ even in todays and the god of Mammon as the materialism tempts the saints, or sexual immorality of these days. However, since the interpretations of these images are very diverse, I believe that we should listen carefully, discern well about them.
6) And thirdly, there are also various numbers in the Book of Revelation so that they also make us difficult to understand. For example, regarding “thousand-year” period mentioned in chapter 20, that is, the millennial kingdom when those who did not worship the beast and did not receive its mark on their foreheads or hands, will live and reign with Christ for a thousand years, there are four views on this millennial kingdom. First, as you can see on the screen, the historical premillennialism believes that Christ will return and reign for a thousand years before the millennial kingdom. In the early church, this theory was accepted as an orthodox doctrine, and it was supported by the martyr Justin and Irenaeus, a disciple of the apostle John and also even modern theologians like Charles Spurgeon, a British Baptist Calvinist preacher, and George Ladd, who was a professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, and even DA Carson and Douglas Moo of Chicago Trinity College. However, there is different opinions among them regarding the timing of Lord's Second Coming and the Great Tribulation. I mean, the historical premillennialism believes that the Lord will return after the Great Tribulation, while the dispensational premillennialism believes that the Lord will return in the air before the Great Tribulation, and then the believers will be raptured and have a wedding feast in the air for 7 years, and during this time, Jews and non-believers who remain on earth will go through the 7-year Great Tribulation, so during this time Jews will repent on a large scale, and then when the 7 years are over, the Lord will return to the earth with the saints and reign for 1,000 years. This dispensational premillennialism seems problematic since it says that the Lord will return twice, once in the air and once on the earth. And the third is postmillennialism, which claims that the Holy Spirit and the church will advance the gospel for a thousand years so that the world will be filled with the knowledge of God the LOR and the gospel will rule the world and in the end of this millennial kingdom, Christ will return. But, according to this theory, the world should be increasingly evangelized and filled with the peace of the gospel, but in reality, the opposite phenomenon is occurring, so recently it became the least popular view. And finally, amillennialism, which denies the literal thousand years and interprets this period symbolically or spiritually, views the entire period between Christ's first coming and second coming as the millennial kingdom. Origen, Augustine, and Calvin stood on this, and also Reformed scholars such as Kuyper, Bavinck, Lewis Berkhof, Geerhardus Vos, and Hendrickson etc stood on this view, so our Reformed churches support mostly this amillennialism. So, even though historical premillennialism and amillennialism are generally most widely supported, but some scholars criticize that amillennialism interprets the images too symbolically, while some criticized historical premillennialism interprets all symbols too literally and there’s a difficulty that during the millennial kingdom, unbelievers who have not yet died will coexist with resurrected saints on this earth. Therefore, I believe it would be better to understand the two as complementary, not exclusive so that when reading and interpreting the Book of Revelation, I believe we should keep in mind the Bible’s teaching as Acts 1:7 says that “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” and 2 Peter 3:16 says that “as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
7) And, as today’s text of chapter 11 says, we remember that the most important theme of this Revelation is that the Lord’s church will fight and win against the dragon, that is, Satan and its followers. In other words, we have to keep in mind that what we see with our eyes is different from what is real. I mean even though, today's text, 11:7-8 says that “And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified,” but, we have to know that their joy was too early, because verses 11:11 and 15 say that “But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. … And the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” As such, in the Revelation, at 1:18; 2:8; 5:9; 6:2; 11:15; 12:19; 14:1&14; 15:2; In 19:16; 20:4; 22:3, etc., a total of 12 verses describe Christ as a victor or conqueror, and also it says, a great multitude of saints in white, with their robes washed in the blood of the Lamb (7:14), came out of the great tribulation, (11:11), were killed and yet raised again, and were persecuted by the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet(14:1), yet will eventually stand victoriously on Mount Zion, and their number is 144,000. Therefore, we can be sure that we will ultimately win even in situations that seem like hopeless defeats.
8) And also, we have to remember that the blood shed by the saints and the prayers offered have great significance in God’s redemptive history. I mean, in Revelation 6:10, when the souls who were killed because of God’s word and their testimony prayed under the altar that, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?,” as God told them in 6:11, giving each of them a white robe, to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been, we have to remember that the blood shed by the saints and their prayers will be responded by God so that they will bring ultimately God’s final judgment as 8:3-5 says. Therefore we who heard the word of ultimate victory of Christ, as the Lord began in 1:3, saying, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near,” and also ended in 22:7 saying that “And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book,” should keep the Words written in the Bible in faith, no matter what tribulation or temptation attack us, since we have heard the end of redemptive history, that is, the restoration of the rule of God and Christ and the ultimate victory of the Saints with Christ.
Key Questions as Small Group Activity
Q While hearing the Lord’s messages about the things will take place, if there are any messages which comforts or prick you, after thinking what/why was that, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.
Love you. Thank you. God bless you.
Prayer Note
Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!
Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or even during the week )
Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!
Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),
please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized ).
I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon )
Please help me to live in that ( learned way of life )
I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.
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