Lesson 24 - Revelation 11 Concl.

[Music] [Music] now we're still in Revelation chapter 11 but we will finally complete it today and as customary we're gonna begin by reviewing what we discussed last week now the focus on this chapter chapter rather is the mysterious and dangerous two unnamed witnesses who suddenly appear in Jerusalem and they prophesy for a period of 42 months on behalf of God now these are not only the first prophets anointed by God to appear since John the write of Revelation that John so far as the Bible reveals they will also be the last prophets humanity will ever encounter now the primary audience of these two will be Jews since they will be operating in the city where the Lord died on a stake we're told Jerusalem of course especially due to the instantaneous worldwide communications that are already in existence their words and their activities are going to be well known among the Gentile world as well thus their celebrity is going to be global now well no man can say with certainty just who these two witnesses for God might be the scriptural evidence points heavily towards them being Elijah and Moses now among Michael Bible academics among pastors the person of Elijah is generally agreed upon as a top candidate for one of them but the choice of Moses as the other is highly disputed because of belief that the passage within the book of Hebrews chapter 9 verse 27 ordains that it is appointed unto men once to die now while the Bible reports that Elijah did not die it also reports that Moses did so applying that passage as some take to mean to this situation then Moses becomes disqualified as a possibility however as we discussed I think the idea that this statement in Hebrews applies to such supernatural events as God sending these two prophesying witnesses ignores the context of that Hebrews passage in which the author intended to explain that the Messiah only had to die once for all humankind he didn't have to die a separate death for each sinner that is saved thus the author of the Hebrews simply begins with the self-evident undisputed statement that all men have to die once and then uses it as an analogy to Christ's atoning death that is the dying once statement is not meant as some kind of a rigid spiritual principle but rather it's just a simple illustration to explain the benefits for all humans of Christ one time death on the cross now these two witnesses will become hated because they have divine power and authority to stop the rain turn water to blood meaning blood red and to bring upon the earth some undefined plagues or blows that are most likely similar to what happened in Egypt so many centuries ago now coupled with the catastrophes brought on from all those seal and trumpet judgments you know it's not hard to understand why the Earth's population is going to be looking to blame it all on somebody and that someone is going to be these two witnesses they're gonna get the blame for all this of course the same world population is going to be looking for someone to solve it to bring an end to this seeming endless series of miseries and devastations and that someone will be the false messiah the Antichrist we read that at one point a beast arises from the abyss to challenge these two witnesses nobody else can the beast is either the Antichrist or the Satan or his spirit who is going to empower the Antichrist I want to state at this point that while many do I do not see the Beast of the abyss as the same beast that comes up out of the sea there we're gonna study later on when we get to revelations the revelation rather chapter 13 so the Beast coming up from the abyss this is the place where the unclean spirits are kept captive will be involved and will be involved with the Antichrist killing those two witnesses and then guess what he's gonna be hailed by the world as a savior for doing so now this might seem like a defeat for God just as it seems so when Messiah Yeshua was executed on the cross but what we also learn from this passage is God only allows this to happen in his timing these two witnesses cannot be harmed until the god-appointed duration of the three and a half years of their ministry has passed and their work is complete therefore clearly the Antichrist is going to be active during at least some of the time that the two witnesses are also active their time overlaps at this point in John's apocalypse we know little more than that about the two witnesses or the evil works of the Antichrist so after that summary now review open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 11 Revelation chapter 11 that's page 1542 if you have a complete Jewish Bible and we're gonna start at verse 7 page 15 42 revelation 11 7 when they finished their witnessing the beast coming up out of the abyss will fight against them overcome them and kill them their dead bodies will lie in the main street of the great city whose name to reflect its spiritual condition is Sodom in Egypt the city where their Lord was executed on a stake some from the nations the tribes languages and people see their bodies for three and a half days and do not permit their corpses to be placed in a tomb the people living in the land rejoice over them they celebrate they send each other gifts because these two prophets tormented them so but after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell on those who saw them then the two heard of loud voice from heaven saying to them come up here and they went up into heaven in a cloud while their enemies watched them in that hour there was a great earthquake a tenth of the city collapsed seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake the rest were awestruck and they gave glory to the God of heaven the second woe has passed see the third woe is coming quickly now the seventh angel sounded his shofar and there were loud voices in heaven saying the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord in his Messiah and he will rule forever and ever the 24 elders sitting on their thrones and God's presence fell on their faces and they worshiped God saying oh we thank you I'll deny God of heavens armies the one who is and was that you have taken your power and begun to rule the the nation's raged but now your rage has come the time for the dead to be judged the time for rewarding your servants the prophets and your holy people those who stand in awe of your name both groups small and great it's also time for destroying those who destroyed the earth then the temple of God in heaven was opened and the Ark of the Covenant was seen in his temple and there were flashes of lightning voices peals of thunder and earthquake and violet hail only when the two witnesses have completed their ministry does God allow their deaths they are so hated even by the Jews that the unthinkable happens their dead bodies are allowed to lay rotting on a city street in Jerusalem for three and a half days for Jews to allow the corpses of these two Hebrews which no doubt these two missus will be they'll be bruised for them to go unburied for more than three days that violates Torah and it violates Jewish tradition the law is they must be buried by sunset meaning the same day that they die but the people are so joyous at their demise just as they were so filled with hatred that their presence because the people assume that in some way or another they were behind all the horror that's been happening that they just let their bodies lie in the street apparently right where they were cut down in fact verse 10 states bluntly that the people living in the land rejoiced over them they celebrated over their corpses the people being referred to our Jews the land is the land of Israel so without doubt the statement about the people living in the land does refer directly to Jews to Israelis but it's not only Jews are going to be rejoicing the entire world will be ecstatic the ecstasy rises to the point that the Jews give one another gifts were told like this hint that the two witnesses are killed during Purim or Hanukah when gift-giving among Jews is customary I mean perhaps because I don't think a typical human response in modern times is for people to exchange gifts just because we're super happy that something happened to end our misery that's just not what we do it's not what they do over there either now while it isn't directly said in the passage I think we can use our common sense and see that while many perhaps most Jews will continue to reject the call to accept their Messiah Yeshua others will indeed understand the supernatural and divine nature of all that's been happening and of the two witnesses themselves and these Jews will become believers so here we have a capsule of the rather typical reaction of all people Jews and Gentiles to hearing the gospel some hears are driven to rejection and anger others are driven to repentance and submission to God some have their stone like hearts hardened even further some have their stony heart softened to flesh this is all the more important reason to make Jewish disciples of Yeshua and Israel right now I mean today immediately because it's gonna be those who will mentor what is likely to be thousands of new Jewish believers even in the midst of these apocalyptic calamities that we're reading about and even under the threat by the way of their own death which is bound to be the case at that time and this is why seed of Abraham ministries and Torah class exists especially and our two ministry is located in Israel for that dual purpose of making new Jewish believers and for helping and disciple those no new believers under very challenge challenging circumstances today even and I take just a moment to encourage you to please continue supporting us in those efforts through your prayers and through your gifts well suddenly all that exhilaration of the people of Earth over the death of these two witnesses comes to a sudden and horrifying halt because after three and a half days those dead bodies come to life again notice that the term of their lifelessness is 3 and 1/2 days now first this is days certainly not years that they lay dead in Jerusalem I don't think I have to draw you a picture of what happens to a body lying in a hot street for three and a half days but on three and a half years however the point is that whereas there is validity to the theological theory of the so-called 70th week of Daniel whereby a week just to be symbolically interpreted as meaning seven years a week of years this is not to be applied universally throughout Revelation whenever the time period is spoken of as a day and this amount of time 3 and 1/2 days is also not to be compared with Christ's three days and three nights in the tomb before his lifeless body was animated reanimated actually instead the three-and-a-half days is to once again alert us to the symbolism of three-and-a-half being half of seven therefore it indicates an incomplete work in this case oh there's more to come the additional work isn't that the two witnesses are going to continue prophesying or bringing on more damage and destruction it is that God isn't done yet with his process of judgment wrath and redemption of which the two witnesses have played a specific but limited role now in verse 11 it's interesting when we're told that the dead but now alive witnesses stand up on their feet this is all not a throwaway phrase or a redundant phrase rather this is a direct reference to a scripture passage it's to Ezekiel chapter 37 now since context is everything let's go to that scripture passage and read it turn your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 37 if you have a complete Jewish Bible its page 691 691 not gonna read the entire chapter but a good portion of it we read verses 1 through 14 zekiel 37 we're gonna read the first 14 verses with the hand of ATO and I upon me I don't I carried me out by his spirit and sent me down in the middle of the valley and it was full of bones he had me passed by all around them there were so many bones lying in the valley and they were so dry and he asked me human beings can these bones live and I answered out on Iola him only you know that then he said to me then prophesy over these bones say to them dry bones here without and I has to say to these bones I don't I Elohim says I will make breath enter into you and you will live I will attach ligaments to you make flesh grow on you cover you with skin put breath in you you will live and you will know that I am I don't I so i prophesied as ordered and while i was prophesying there was a noise it was a rattling sound it was the bones coming together each bone in his proper place and as I watched ligaments grew on them flesh appeared skin covered but there was no breath in them so next he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy human-being say to the breath that Adonai Elohim says come from the four winds breathe and breathe on the slain so that they can live so I prophesied this order and the breath came into them and they were alive they stood up on their feet a huge army and then they said to me human being these bones are the whole house of Israel and they are saying our bones have dried up our hope is gone we are completely cut off therefore prophesy say to them that Adonai Elohim says my people I will open your graves and make you get up out of your graves I will bring you into the Land of Israel then you will know that I might and I what I've opened your graves and made you get up out of your graves my people I will put my spirit in you you will be alive then I will put you in your own land and you will know that I I don't I have spoken and that I have done it zekiel 37 speaks symbolically but clearly of the restoration of the tribes of Israel to the Land of Israel the dry bones that grow ligaments and flesh upon them and are then reanimated by the breath of God represent a type of resurrection for the Hebrew people this is why we find the words of Revelation in in revelation 11 that say that the two witnesses were made alive again by the breath of God just as we find that same statement in Ezekiel 37 see these Israelites of Ezekiel who were scattered all over the world and died in exile from the promised land are in Ezekiel 37 resurrected and placed back into the holy land please note that what is depicted in Ezekiel is not only a spiritual resurrection but it's also a physical bodily resurrection similarly the two witnesses died and are resurrected in the land not just spiritually but physically bodily and the connection with Ezekiel 37 means it has to do with the restoration of the Holy Land to God's people now modern Gentile Bible scholars regularly say that this mass resurrection of Israelites in Ezekiel 37 is actually fulfilled in the resurrection of these two witnesses so there is no connection to restoring scattered Israelites to the land of their heritage in the end times a promise that a prophecy they believe has essentially been handed over to the Gentile church but no doubt John's Jewish readers immediately recognized the relationship of his vision of the resurrection of the two witnesses to the visions of the dry bones of Ezekiel 37 and it grave gave them the greatest hope that soon their land would no longer be overrun by pagan Gentiles but also that all the tribes of Israel especially those that are known today as the Ten Lost Tribes would eventually return from their long exile in triumph to the land that God gave to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and that is the correct interpretation of this passage when the doctrine of replacement theology is relegated to the pit from whence it came now while it's hard for believers to imagine after reading revelation what the natural or the scientific explanation for these two witnesses coming alive again is gonna be that the world is going to surrett so readily accept and they will we learned that most of the world will continue to deny God's hand in it amazing now those who know God will understand that once again it is he who has defeated death this is something no human Kant has ever can ever do yet we do not hear in these verses of thousands and millions marveling at what they've seen and experienced and finally laying down their crowns at the feet of the Lord we just don't hear of it in this resurrection of the two witnesses God has also defeated Satan and the Antichrist who killed them and they know it I mean if Satan and his stooge the Anti Christ can kill someone but they can't keep him dead how much power do actually have compared to God Deuteronomy 32 verse 39 see now that I yes I I am he and there is no God beside me I put to death and I make alive I wound and I heal no one saves anyone from my hand but the starting startling deliverance of God's two witnesses from death dozen in there and what can only be described as a rapture experience a voice from above shouts to them come up here now up here means heaven and so up they go on a cloud is those astonished people who wanted them to remain dead Gok and disbelief and disappointment I mean I can't know for sure but I suspect that when the global rapture of believable believers occurs it is going to be visible to non believers non-believers were left behind and it will not at all be as Tim LaHaye imagines as millions of people suddenly vanishing around the world and nobody sees anything it's my contention you know that the Word of God teaches that the Lord does not punish the righteous along with the wicked and yet the punishment of the wicked nearly invariably involves some amount of collateral damage to the righteous it is without doubt that since these two witnesses have been around for at least three and a half years they have experienced and they suffered greatly from the awfulness of the wrath that God has been pouring out upon the earth and it's rebellious residence these two witnesses are righteous so they are removed from the scene before even more severe damage is administered to mankind in the form of a high magnitude earthquake see from a biblical perspective earthquakes are often involved in God's judgment by verse 13 saying that in that hour an earthquake shook Jerusalem in the surrounding area it means that this judgment happened immediately following the rapture of these two resurrected witnesses so that the two events would be seen as linked now we're informed that a tenth of the city collapses and seven thousand people died but there's also good news here verse 13 says that those who survived the earthquake were so in awe of all that just transpired that they turned to God and give Him glory rather than others who simply continued to curse God for their troubles now anyone who's been to Jerusalem knows that it's a substantial size setting however the Jerusalem of New Testament times is what is today called the old city the old city is a fraction of the totality of the entire modern city of Jerusalem most of which has been constructed post-world War two the part that is of recent construction is the much larger part and it is called by the locals appropriately the new city now it's hard to tell by the scripture passages just where to draw the boundaries of Jerusalem as regards what part of its collapse the old the new some of those hard to know but I suspect that while John was of course envisioning only what we call today the old city because it's all there was in his era that Jerusalem in its modern totality and nearby suburbs is what's going to be involved when this earthquake happens now that the earthquake we're told kills seven thousand people ought to catch our attention round numbers that especially involve the number seven usually carry much symbolism with them as does around a number frankly like the Tim like a tenth now what I think is being portrayed here is that it is only a portion of the city that is destroyed both of its inhabitants and its structures now Jerusalem in John's era was a large city with perhaps two hundred thousand people living there there in the immediate surrounding area that combined could rightfully be called Greater Jerusalem but today that number approaches a million so while the loss of seven thousand people is significant it doesn't come to a wholesale wiping out of the residents or a Sodom like total destruction of the city that said some multiple of that seven thousand is going to be injured a tenth of all structures destroyed leaves ninety percent standing and you can bet that of that ninety percent the mini that remains standing are gonna be pretty severely damaged and you can bet that of that that if one was to look around wherever you happen to live and say that in some kind of a disaster of one out of every ten structures is destroyed that we would say that amounts to a pretty significant number it's not minor but beyond that it means from a percentage standpoint the vast majority of people and buildings are going to survive this earthquake so it seems to me that the symbolism behind those numbers is that God is predetermined to limit the extent of the death of the damage and so this is sort of a shot over the bow so to speak when it comes to his judgment on the now wicked city of Jerusalem it is meant to warn and to punish but also to induce repentance and as we read in verse 13 indeed there was much repentance I want to say one more time the focus of what happens in Chapter eleven as regards these two witnesses into the earthquake centered at the city of Jerusalem is the Jewish people this is the land of Israel this is Jerusalem this is mainly about Hebrews not Gentiles and this is apparently a rather local although very violent earthquake not particularly widespread so God's judgment seems to be laser-focused on Israel the Jewish people and even Jerusalem in this case well the words of verse 14 say that the second wall has passed but that the third woe which is the same thing as the seventh trumpet judgment is coming quickly now recall that the sixth trumpet judgment that was pronounced back in chapter nine is the same thing as the second woe now what we read about concerning the sixth trumpet judge in Chapter nine is primarily about this demonic army of 200 million soldiers crossing the Euphrates and into the area occupied by Israel so then chapter 10 does not seem directly associated with the sixth trumpet judgment also known as the second woe chapter 10 was an interlude of some sort that told us of some other happenings occurring in parallel with maybe maybe before the full brunt of that sit of the sixth trumpet judgment but now in verse 15 chapter 11 comes as the blowing of the seventh shofar seventh trumpet and the accompanying judgment is announced and the first thing we see is that while after the interlude between the sixth and the seventh seal judgments there was silence in heaven here call that so there was silence in heaven for about a half hour just the opposite is the case after the interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpet judgments here we're told not just that there's voices in heaven speaking but they're loud and what we read what follows it seems that the loudness it's not a private product of righteous anger and judgment it's of unbridled joy now there's a lot of disagreement in theological circles about whether what follows to finish chapter 11 is part of the seventh trumpet judgment or it happens in concert with it what we see are songs being sung in heaven the first one being the last part of verse 15 that pronounces that the kingdom of God is no longer coming rather it has arrived in its fullest the Messianic rain has begun with Yeshua is king this is a fulfillment of too many New Testament verses even quote them all but also it's a fulfillment of several Old Testament prophets including Daniel I'll quote one of the most famous ones now the lead-up to this passage I'm about to read to you is when Daniel is interpreting the dream of king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon about this statue made of several different kinds of metals starting with a head of gold ending up with the feet at with with the feet that are made of a mixture of iron and clay and Daniel ends his interpretation of that dream by saying this Daniel 2 verses 44 and 45 in the days of those kings the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed and that Kingdom will not pass into the hands of another people it will break to pieces and consume all those kingdoms but it itself will stand forever like the stone you saw which without human hands separated itself from the mountain and broke to pieces the iron the bronze the clay the silver and the gold the great God has revealed to the king what will come about in the future the dream is true its interpretation is reliable but perhaps the most enduring prophetic prophetic remembrance of a future kingdom of God comes not from the prophets but from Christ and what has come to be known and Christendom as the Lord's Prayer our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom what come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven so when xiu'er was still living he was anticipating the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth but here in Revelation 11:15 the future has arrived were there we just entered the city limits now let us take a look at the words of this first saw because it speaks of a diet of a dramatic change of kingdoms it says the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and His Messiah Satan has been Prince over the kingdom of the world for a long time but there's a change now at this point the book of Revelation not only of the underlying character of the kingdom that dominates the earth but also of its leadership saying the kingdom of the world is meant in the same sense as the term world is used throughout most of the Bible that is the world is the opposite of heaven the world consists of everything that was corrupted at the fall of Adam and Eve the world is carnal the world is subject to the influence of the evil one the world is temporary the world is fallible it is sinful and it's decaying so the kingdom of the world has been replaced as of relation 11:15 with the kingdom of heaven now notice that the kingdom is mainly to be thought of in the sense of government that is you know a nation can regularly get a new government with different policies different leadership but the nation is still the same nation occupying the same piece of land so the kingdom of the world needs to be thought of as the form of government and as the governing dynamics and all of its policies that has ruled the earth for millennia when revelation 11:15 happens it represents a complete change of government leadership and governing dynamics you know it's so important for correct doctrine that we recognize that all throughout revelation we get separate mention of God and Messiah or of the father and of the son or of the ancient one and of the Lamb that was slain here the term in this song is the Lord and His Messiah God the Father is always preeminent god the son is always the servant of God the Father always as we recall the Lord's Prayer he has talked about Christ said what thy kingdom come thy will be done referring to the father he didn't say our kingdom come our will be done as though they share power or they're co-equal in authority a good earthly model keep this one in mind cuz that's what it was put there for in the first place a good earthly model of what this is portraying is Joseph and Pharaoh in Egypt recollect that story the kingdom belong to who Pharaoh but Joseph Joseph was given full charge all the authority of the Pharaoh to run it did Joseph was not the Pharaoh he did not have the title of Pharaoh and Egypt sure didn't belong to Joseph in the same way the son Yeshua is given full charge and full authority over the kingdom of heaven but the son is not the father and the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the Father and not to the Son and yet the father has not given merely temporary or provisional rule of his kingdom to a son he's given it over to him to Messiah Yeshua to rule forever so next now in verse 16 the 24 elders in heaven have their say as they worship God and this hymn concerns the unequivocal establishment of God's kingdom in its completed form there's nothing more to add to it in this song we also get some clarification of a phrase that's used in earlier chapters of Revelation including those first chapters that concern the letters to the seven believing congregations in Asia notice that the god of heavens armies is said to be the one who is and who was but in those earlier chapters of Revelation the reference was to the one who is who was and who is coming who is coming we find this for instance in Revelation 1:8 but no longer in revelation 11 is the is God the one who is coming he's here he has assumed power thus now he is and was I want to be clear now this is all still a future event for us and therefore a future description if you would of God for us in our time the kingdom of heaven is still coming God is still coming God and our day remains the one who is who was and who is coming now as the 24 elders continue their praise verse 18 begins the raged well doesn't actually appear in the Greek New Testament manuscripts because is a Hebrew word rather the Greek word that's used here is ethnos it means a group of people or a nation saying the nation's raged could rightfully be translated as the Gentiles raged or even better yet because it gets to the heart of the matter the pagans raged a pagan is a person who does not worship the God of Israel the one true God biblically a nation is seen as a group of Gentiles and Gentiles are inherently pagans the one exception is those Gentiles called God fears mean that they bow down to Israel's God so effectively the terms nations Gentiles and pagans all seek to communicate the same idea and the idea is this is speaking of every living person on earth except for Hebrews Israelites what today we would say Jew so the picture is of the Gentiles of the world the non God worshipers who formed the governments who formed the elite and the general populations of those nations where they live they are enraged as against God so they're also acting against his people this isn't very hard to imagine is it since to a fairly high degree this is the case right now right now I mean the West today consists entirely of secular human governments all of us most of the elite who govern or who influence those who are governed are the same now in the East that consists largely of Islamic based government systems that are by nature worshipping a false god Russia China their satellites those are based on the entirely godless communist system and it is all these various nations I just spoke about that by their actions against Israel and against the Jewish people show just how enraged they are against your whole a God even though some think that they can deny it and get away with it it's these nations that are being called out in verse 18 now these nations or nations like them have engaged in warfare against God for a long time but now God's rage and the form of his wrath has come and these nations are being judged but more importantly they're being condemned to eternal destruction now something that we ought to notice is that since this passage says that it is time for the judge for the dead to be judged then this has to do with the final judgment that some Christian doctrines label as the great white throne judgment but even more these final words of Revelation chapter 11 are based entirely on Psalm 2 listen as I read part of Psalm 2 to you starting with verse 1 why are the nations in an uproar the people's grumbling in vain the Earth's Kings are taking positions leaders are conspiring together against Adonai and his anointed they cried let's break their fetters and throw off their chains he who sits in heaven laughs Adonai looks at them in derision then in his anger he rebukes them he terrifies them in his fury I myself have installed my King on Zion my holy mountain I will proclaim the decree ad and I said to me you are my son today I became your father ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance the whole wide world will be your possession you will break them with an iron rod shatter them like a clay pot therefore Kings be wise be warned you judges on the earth serve ah don't I with fear rejoice but we're trembling kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish along the way when suddenly his anger blazes oh how blessed are all who take refuge in him God is going to destroy the nation's because they have troubled his people endlessly rebelled against him endlessly and ultimately have ruined the earth the God created God is destroying the destroyers at last and yet in the midst of all this judgment of the wicked there's also vindication for those who have loved him and had been faithful to him whether they're dead or alive or with him in heaven but make no mistake there's gonna be many believers on earth at this time who came to faith after the rapture and during the time of God's terrible wrath and they're gonna suffer greatly for their faith unfortunately the only mercy they're going to receive will come after their physical deaths probably very unpleasant deaths now I want to say right now that it is common for Bible commentators to attempt to place the timing of verses 14 through 19 is something that happens more or less all at the same time I don't see it that way from a purely literary perspective verses 14 through 19 are given to us as songs and we've talked about songs before the underlying nature of song is poetry and the underlying nature of poetry is to express something in a memorable way usually by rhyme which does not focus on details it does not focus on precision of information but rather in words that elicit deep emotion and soaring truths so how and precisely when sequentially speaking each of these actions and those verses these actions of God takes place that's not the point rather is that these actions are part of the divine plan and therefore they're 100% assured so don't ask me where exactly the place the incredible drama of these verses on a time line I can't and neither do I think we should devote much time to do so because it's just gonna divert us away from the foundational message and besides we're almost assured to get the timing wrong anyway well in this chapter we're given a glimpse of the heavenly temple of God being opened and in it we find the Ark of the Covenant now on earth the Ark of the Covenant went missing at or before the time of the Babylonian destruction of the temple and the Jews exile a new Ark I think kind of surprisingly was never built and so since around 600 BC the Jews have not possessed the Ark of the Covenant rather even since the rebuilding of the temple up to and including the time of Christ the Holy of Holies has been just an empty space all during Christ's time all all during the years leading up to him the Holy of Holies was empty there was no arc in it I have heard it said that God took the ark and moved it to heaven and it is this that's being revealed to us here in verse 19 and to that I say no heaven contains nothing physical in it whatsoever so what we see in this verse is figurative of the purpose of the ark on earth and this it is representative of the covenants that God made with Israel and of his divine presence they say it again the ark is representative of the covenants that God made with Israel and of His divine presence so the site of the Ark in heaven says that God's covenants God's promises remain intact and in fact all that's happening now at this point in Revelation is a culmination of the purposes of those covenants of God but the process of judgment and restoration it's still not over so we are told that accompanied with the revealing of the art in heaven our lightning voices thunder and earthquake and violent hail all of these represent God's wrath that's ongoing fact I would argue that where our modern Bibles in this chapter it's an unfortunate error in judgment that does no favor to chapter 12 verse 19 of chapter 11 much more appropriately belongs as the first verse of chapter 12 where it says now a great sign was seen in heaven and will study Revelation chapter 12 next time [Music] you you

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Length: 60min 22sec (3622 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 20 2018