Revelation Revisited

Revelation post 51

The Bowls of Wrath

Revelation 7 bowls

Chapters 15 and 16 of the Revelation present the seven bowls of God’s wrath.

An angel pours the first bowl out on the land, and ugly and painful sores break out on ‘the people who had the mark of the beast…’ (Revelation 16:2). The second affects the sea and kills all marine life. The third turns the rivers to blood. The fourth causes the sun to scorch the people of earth. The first four trumpets of Revelation Chapter 8 warned of impending calamity through the pollution of man’s environment, but here God uses these same elements to punish a humanity which just didn’t listen or care. Throughout human history, God has poured out punishment many times in response to entrenched rebellion and evil. Part Five of Revelation covers the whole time period between the first and second comings of Christ, but it focuses more specifically on the ultimate judgement of the very last days. These two chapters of Revelation therefore present a horrifyingly vivid picture of the final judgement of unrepentant humanity. Note particularly statements like; ‘they refused to repent and glorify him’ (Revelation 16:9), and, ‘they refused to repent of what they had done’ (16:11). These describe the response of ungodly men and women even in the face of ultimate judgement.

‘For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ Hebrews 10:30-31

It is also important to note that Chapter 15 of Revelation starts with a depiction of the church, the people of God, standing before His throne singing His praises. It is unsaved people who are in view in the balance of Part Five of the book of Revelation; those who bear the mark of the beast, not those who bear the mark of the lamb.

The fifth bowl of Revelation 16 pours out the darkness of spiritual deception, and the sixth summons the demonically empowered armies of the world to battle. Humanism and religion running rampant result in utter darkness and destruction.

I believe that the church is no longer on Earth at the culmination of this terrible time. This is alluded to in the statement; “Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.” (Revelation 16:15)

I am not talking about a secret snatching away of the church before the time of tribulation. I don’t see any hint in Revelation, or any other part of scripture, of two second comings, one secretly for the church and one with the church. No, the ‘rapture’ I see alluded to in Revelation 16 is right at the very end of an exceedingly difficult passage of human history when wickedness abounds and the very end of all things draws near.

Then, right before God pours out His judgment, the Lord comes in glory and draws His people to Himself in what is commonly called The Rapture.
The final revival has come, the final persecution of the believers has taken place, and the ‘rapture’ has occurred. Hell has ascended to Earth, and nothing remains but the outpouring of the terrible wrath of God in judgment and punishment! (ref. 2 Thessalonians 2:6-8) Pestilence, destruction, war, mayhem, darkness, and then, finally, the utter destruction of the old so that the new HeavenEarth may be created for the children of God.

John sees in vision three frogs (Rev 16:13-14) coming out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet (the second beast of Revelation 13). Pity… I rather like frogs … but here they are used as symbols of demonic influence over the people of the world. The ungodly are bewitched by satanically empowered miraculous signs and drawn into a final confrontation with Almighty God. The ‘place’ of this confrontation is given as Armageddon (Revelation 16:16) but there is no location by that name either in biblical history or modern geography. We shouldn’t be surprised because names symbolise deeper truths in the book of Revelation. ‘Har’ is a shortened form of a Hebrew word meaning ‘hill’ and Megiddo is an area in Israel where significant historical battles were fought. I have stood on a hill overlooking the Megiddo valley and seen just how strategic the area is, and I can understand why it is a place synonymous with great battles.

One final point of interest for those of you who have been following my references to the constellations in the book of Revelation. The last of the 12 constellation groupings is called Leo, the lion, and he is depicted as pouncing on the head of Hydra the dragon/serpent. Two minor constellations are positioned on Hydra’s back; Corvus the crow, the bird often associated with battlefield carnage, and Crater, the bowl of wrath.

Hydra

 

Next week, God-willing, I will show you how the Sun-clothed woman of Revelation 12 becomes the drunken Whore of Babylon … interesting and sobering stuff!

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Watching destruction

End-time harvests

End Time Harvest in Revelation Revisited

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ stands before the beasts of Humanism and Religion and proclaims the Eternal Gospel. This is vividly presented in Revelation Chapter 13 and the first 13 verses of Chapter 14, but then the scene shifts to two dramatic end-time events, the gathering in of the church and the judgement of the godless. The visionary picture John uses to present these events is that of harvest, the gathering in of the wheat and the crushing of the grapes.

There were two major harvest times in ancient Israel; the grain harvest in April/May and the grape harvest in September/October. Passover was linked to the wheat harvest and the Feast of Tabernacles to the grape harvest. The two harvests of Revelation 14:14-20 draw on this familiar imagery.

John sees a vision of ‘one like a son of man’ harvesting the wheat. He has already applied this ascription to the Lord Jesus and the description he gives in Revelation 1:13 is very similar to Daniels description of ‘The Ancient of Days’ (Daniel 7:9-10). There is little doubt in my mind that Jesus himself, and not an angel, is in view here in the wheat harvest scene of Revelation 14.

This wheat harvest symbolises the gathering in of all followers of Jesus who are physically alive when He returns in glory. Matthew 13:24-29 records Jesus’ parable of the wheat harvest as representing the church and we can make a connection here to the harvest of Revelation 14.

The message conveyed by the grape harvest in this passage of Revelation is equally clear, but a lot more graphic. An angel swings his sickle on the earth and the grapes are gathered and thrown into ‘the great winepress of God’s wrath’. Once again, it is clear that the harvest depicted here is of people and not produce because it states that ‘they were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia’ (Revelation 14:20). The primary source of this imagery is Joel 3:12-14, and I am reproducing it in full here because it is worth reading in the context of Revelation 14.

‘Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side. Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow — so great is their wickedness!’

There is a small detail in Revelation’s description of the grape harvest that we need to note; the ‘trampling’ takes place outside the city. In Old Testament times Jerusalem was the ‘city of God’, the place of His temple which represented his presence in the midst of His people. The crushing of the ‘grapes of wrath’ references those who are not within the ‘city of God’. It is a judgment scene, a depiction of great punishment. We, as followers of Jesus Christ are often corrected and sometimes chastised, but we are not the objects of God’s wrath and judgement. The wheat is gathered and brought into God’s storehouse but the grapes are crushed outside of God’s storehouse. This is an important distinction to make as we come to the end of Part Four of Revelation because the next two chapters are all about the plague bowls of God’s wrath and we need to understand that believers are not in view here.

I want to return to Jesus’ parable of the wheat harvest that I cited earlier because it contains two vital lessons for us. It reads as follows:

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'” (Matthew 13:24-30)

Lesson 1

The first lesson to draw from this is that the church of our day contains both wheat and weeds, saved and unsaved, true disciples of Jesus but also those who are mere professors of His lordship. Just being a church member does not make one ‘wheat’, and nor does church attendance or adherence to rites and rituals. What makes the difference between ‘wheat’ and ‘weeds’ is the regenerating action of the Holy Spirit when He gives new birth into Christ. When we are ‘born again’ of the Spirit (John 3:1-11) then we are incorporated into the body of Christ and become His followers, His disciples, His family.

Lesson 2

The second lesson is that it is not for us to attempt to judge who within the church are ‘wheat’ and who are ‘weeds’, let alone attempting to root out those we consider weeds. We do not know the hearts of others (half the time we don’t even understand our own hearts) and if we attempt to do what Jesus has expressly prohibited, then we will damage the church. We will become critical and legalistic and will undoubtedly censure many people who are true believers passing through difficult spiritual times.

 

Perhaps you have heard the story of the man who died and went to heaven. When he arrived there he was greatly surprised to see so many people whose deaths had preceded his whom he didn’t expect to see in heaven. But what shocked him the most was the looks of utter surprise that appeared on their faces when they caught sight of him.

 

In my next post, I hope to introduce the 5th section of the Book of Revelation… why don’t you read chapters 15 to 18 in preparation keeping in mind that if you know Jesus as Saviour and Lord then you are not a subject of the Bowls of Wrath described in these chapters!

 

 

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Revelation Revisited Taurus

Why Religion is such a beastly word

Revelation Revisited second beastThe second beast of Revelation 13 is connected to the constellation Taurus, the great earth monster of the night sky.

This ‘load of bull’ depicts Religion in all its forms and anyone who has been following this series already knows what I think of religion.

The word ‘religion’ itself is mostly used in a benign way as a label for the various ways humans worship God and seek to serve Him, but I use it in an entirely negative sense as man’s attempt to make a god in our image and then to prescribe a way of worshiping this idol. In essence, religion is the enthronement of Satan and the denial of God.

The bull was the animal associated with the Canaanite god Baal and this was why the Israelites made a golden idol in the form of a bull when Moses didn’t return to them from the mountain. Here are three strong clues from Revelation 13 that the Earth Beast represents Religion:

  1. The beast looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon. The lamb is an animal chosen to symbolise Jesus, and the Earth Beast cunningly presents itself as The Christ, but it’s evil and destructive words betray its real identity.The lamb is an animal chosen to symbolise Jesus, and the Earth Beast cunningly presents itself as The Christ, but it’s evil and destructive words betray its real identity.
  2. It operates under the authority of worldly leaders and governments (the first beast) yet it leads its followers to worship humanism. Religion and Government have always been powerfully evil partners. Worldly authority enables religion to operate, protects, and even funds it, and religion endorses and elevates worldly authority to almost god-like status. The idea of separating church and state in national affairs is a recognition of the danger of unholy alliances of this kind.
  3. It performs deceiving miraculous signs. Miracles are not necessarily signs of god-approved spiritual activity, yet most people think they are. Miracles are wrought through the application of spiritual power and the devil is spiritually powerful. This is why we are instructed to ‘test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world’ (1 John 4:1)

John gives another important feature of the work of the Earth Beast when he writes that it forces every unregenerate person to ‘receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead’. (Revelation 13:16). Now, instead of trying to argue that in a future cashless society we will all have to have a smart-card chip embedded on the back of a hand and foreheads, it is far more productive to seek to understand what John had in mind here.

Devout Jewish men of John’s time wore little boxes, called phylacteries, when they went to pray. These little boxes were bound with leather strips to their right hands and to their foreheads and contained small portions of the Jewish scriptures. This custom arose from a literal interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18  where they had failed to see that God was simply instructing them to keep His word in their hearts and minds. Nevertheless, the association of God’s Word and the forehead and hand symbolism became a religious cliché. So, to the original readers of Revelation, to bear the mark of the beast on hand and forehead was a symbolic way of saying ‘think and live according to Satan’s word and not God’s word’.

Paul used the ‘seal’ imagery in a positive sense when he stated that born-again Christians are sealed by and with the Holy Spirit.

A follower of Jesus thinks and acts under the prompting of the Holy Spirit and according to the Word of God; a follower of the devil thinks and acts under demonic prompting and instruction.

Disciples of Jesus are sealed with the Spirit of God while disciples of Satan are sealed with his evil spirit.
One last point of interest in this chapter of Revelation is the unveiling of the Unholy Trinity. The Holy trinity consists of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the unholy trinity consists of the dragon, the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth. The dragon represents Satan, the beast from the sea represents the False Prince, and the beast from the earth represents the False Prophet. Put another way, the devil tries to stand in the place of God the Father, the False Prince (sea-beast) tries to stand in the place of God the Son, and the False Prophet (earth-beast) tries to stand in the place of God the Holy Spirit.
“But Christopher, you haven’t even mentioned the infamous number of the beast, 666!”
O that … well I hate to tell you this, but you are going to have to do a little work to get my take on this subject. So, if you are interested click HERE  to download my book ‘Revelation in the Stars’, and then go to pages 178 to 180 where all will be revealed…

 

 

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Beastly Sea

Two Beastly for words

Revelation 13 Beast

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and perhaps that is one of the reasons why John linked the book of Revelation to the star sign pictures in the heavens. For instance, look at this depiction of the constellations of Aries, Taurus, Cetus, and Orion; what a story it tells.

Star chart

Orion, a star picture of an angel of the Lord, confronts two huge beasts, one a land beast (Taurus) and the other from the sea(Cetus). Right between these two monsters is a small ram, who’s ancient name, Taleh, actually means ‘the lamb’. This picture almost says it all, doesn’t it?

I wrote about Orion in my posts on Chapter 10, but here in Revelation 13 the focus is on the two beasts. Let’s explore the first beast: John describes the first of these as ‘coming out of the sea’. It has 7 heads, representing nations, rulers, institutions and the like, and 10 horns representing power and authority. Cetus, the beast from the sea, represents worldly power and authority and so the label I attach to him is ‘humanism’, the sum of science, medicine, philosophy, economics, technology, military power, politics, and hedonism. The physical description of this beast as being part leopard, part bear, and part lion comes from Daniel’s prophecy concerning three major world powers of the ancient world (Daniel 7:1-7) and John notes that their power and authority are given by the dragon, Satan.

Revelation 13:3 contains a detail that has provided endless stretches of imagination for many commentators: ‘One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the wound had been healed.’ Fanciful explanations have ranged from State presidents who have survived assassination attempts, like Regan, to Gorbachev who is unfortunate enough to have a red gash-like birthmark on his head. However, it is far more in keeping with the purpose and style of Revelation to understand this verse as a reference to the hydra-like nature of humanistic powers. For instance, the USSR fell apart as surely as the Berlin Wall, yet we are currently observing how Russia is once again becoming a power player on the world stage. Humanistic ideas, institutions, and forces don’t die out, they simply re-brand themselves.

Unregenerate  mankind worships the beast of Humanity and its master the devil (Revelation 13:4), and their blasphemous hymn of praise, “Who is like the beast?” is a parody of Exodus 15:11 and Psalm 89:8.

Think for a minute on the sources of truth and authority drawn on by the majority of people – science, philosophy, the military? And their sources of power are economics, technology, and politics. Although they wouldn’t own to this, don’t these people, in reality, worship at the altar of humanism?
The 42 months during which this beast exercises its demonic authority is the church age, from the first to the second coming of Christ as described in THIS post.Revelation 13:7 is set within this context and states the unpalatable idea that humanism has the power to conquer the church. Of course, when we consider this carefully, there is no real surprise here. The world seemed to conquer Jesus when the Romans crucified Him, but Jesus rose from the dead! Again, the world seemed to conquer the early church when Saul hunted down Christians wherever he could find them, but all the persecution did was to scatter Christians all over the known world and to spread the Gospel through them. John’s final comment on the beast from the sea’s assault on the church is; ‘This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints’ (Revelation 13:10b).

In my next post, I want to describe the other beast, show you the relationship between them, and perhaps include some information on the infamous number of the beast!

 

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Revelation Revisited

A dragon outmatched by an eagle and a fish

Revelation Revisited Post 46

I was challenged to write my previous post on the current crisis in South Africa when I read Revelation 12:11

‘They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.’
We as Christians testify to the salvation and lordship of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who shed his blood for humanity and who rules now as lord of all. Furthermore, we are expected to place such a high priority on the calling to witness that our own comfort, even our very lives, are secondary.

Now those who hold to a futurist interpretation of the book of Revelation will think that I am quoting Revelation 12:11 out of context because they believe that this portion of scripture refers only to future end-time witnesses. By the same reasoning, they project verse 10 into the future: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God.’ Surely this is a grave error? True, the Kingdom of God awaits a final glorious manifestation, but the Kingdom came when Jesus was born to Mary, and it is present here and now in salvation and power. The devil no longer has any authority, and he has no access to heaven – he has been cast out, ‘hurled to the earth’. Part of our ‘word of witness’ is to proclaim the truth that Jesus reigns over all… right now.

I wrote about this in a previous post but I think it is worth repeating a portion of it here:

‘In Revelation 4:8 God is described as The One ‘who was, and is, and is to come’. His Kingdom has come, is coming, and is yet to come; the Lord Jesus came in person about 2,000 years ago, He is active now through The Spirit and the church, and He is coming again soon to judge the living and the dead. Jesus responded to His disciples’ delight that demons obeyed them with the words, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18) yet we know that the devil’s expulsion from heaven came when Jesus rose from the dead some time later. Time is not linear and one-directional in the spiritual realm as it is here on earth, but even so we can understand Jesus’ words as meaning that in His life and ministry on earth He was bringing about the devil’s expulsion from heaven; a ‘ministry’ that reached its dramatic climax when Jesus rose from the dead, and which continues to be manifest in the ministry of the church’.

I know I am not the first to say this, but it is a mistake to think that Satan has any real authority over anyone, least of all over Christians. It is equally mistaken to think that he has no power. Many people confuse authority and power and treat them as though they were two words for the same thing. Authority is the right to do something and power is the ability to do it. The devil has no right to do anything to anyone, for Jesus made it clear that He alone holds all authority when he declared that, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18) Yet it is biblically and practically undeniable that the devil is powerful. The book of Acts records how Jesus ‘went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil…’ (Acts 10:38). We underestimate our adversary when we think of him as a toothless pussycat rather than a roaring lion, but we overestimate his ability to harm us when we assume that he has the right to do so. When we become aware of demonic activity affecting us we have the delegated authority of Jesus to command that they cease and desist. We are not helpless victims, we are Christ-authorised and Spirit-empowered over-comers.

Revelation Revisited Star chartRevelation 12:13-17 contains a dramatic summary of 2,000 years of satanic activity on earth. The devil has two main targets in his sights; the Jewish nation and the Church. The ‘woman who had given birth to the male child’ (verse 13) represents Israel who ‘birthed’ Jesus the messiah through their finest example of womanhood, Mary. The reference to the ‘wings of a great eagle’ (verse 14) is drawn from the constellation of Aquila and symbolises the divine protection of Israel over two millennia of persecution. The devil has hunted down Jews wherever they have prospered, yet despite his most heinous and devastating onslaughts the Jewish people continue to flourish and the existence of the state of Israel continues to be a powerful testimony to the providence of Almighty God.

John draws on another star sign, Aquarius, to describe the satanic onslaught against the Jewish people and the protection that God affords them. He writes that ‘from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.’ (Revelation 12:15-16) The brightest star in the constellation of Aquarius is Sa’ad al melik, which is an Aramaic phrase meaning ‘the record of the pouring forth’; its Hebrew name means ‘the river’. The water pouring from Aquarius is depicted in the star sign as being swallowed up by a fish whose name is Piscis Australis, and the brightest star in this constellation is named ‘the mouth’. Of course, the fish has from the very beginning been a symbol of the Church of Jesus Christ. Antisemitism among Christians is an anathema for we are called to stand in unity with the Jewish people and to protect them when they are persecuted.

The chapter ends with a graphic depiction of how the devil has rechannelled his hatred from the Jewish people to the disciples of Jesus; ‘Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.’ (Revelation 12:17). But take heart fellow Christians. Peter wrote that our ‘enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings (1 Peter 5:8-9). And James added; ‘Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’ (James 4:7). Jesus, of course, summed things up when He said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John16:33)

In my next post, I plan to start explaining the infamous beasts of Revelation chapter 13 and I am sure you will be fascinated and ultimately encouraged by what happens to them.

 

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About Me

My name is Christopher Peppler and I was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1947. While working in the financial sector I achieved a number of business qualifications from the Institute of Bankers, Damelin Management School, and The University of the Witwatersrand Business School. After over 20 years as a banker, I followed God’s calling and joined the ministry full time. After becoming a pastor of what is now a quite considerable church, I  earned an undergraduate theological qualification from the Baptist Theological College of Southern Africa and post-graduate degrees from two United States institutions. I was also awarded the Doctor of Theology in Systematic Theology from the University of Zululand in 2000.

Four years before that I established the South African Theological Seminary (SATS), which today is represented in over 70 countries and has more than 2 500 active students enrolled with it. I presently play an role supervising Masters and Doctoral students.

I am a passionate champion of the Christocentric or Christ-centred Principle, an approach to biblical interpretation and theological construction that emphasises the centrality of Jesus

I have been happily married to Patricia since the age of 20, have two children, Lance and Karen, a daughter-in-law Tracey, and granddaughters Jessica and Kirsten. I have now retired from both church and seminary leadership and devote my time to writing, discipling, and the classical guitar.

If you would like to read my testimony to Jesus then click HERE.