Good News/Bad News. Book of Revelation.

 

We are living in the era of the sixth church, Philidelphia, and the sixth seal will be opened soon; the signs we studied in chapter one of this book prove it.  Will you be holding fast to the truth of Jesus or will you be tested and perhaps fail to turn to God?  On which side will you be standing when the seventh church era begins and the seventh seal is opened?  Can you be sure you will choose to be on Jesus’ side before your probation ends?

I know you are probably ready to read about the seventh church and the seventh seal; ready to find out what is going to happen at the end of the world.  We could do that, but we would understand only part of what we are reading about if we did that right now.  You see, what has happened in the past has brought us to where we are now; and what has happened in the past is going to happen again.  Therefore, it is important to spend some more time learning what happened to a couple of churches in the past so we will know what to expect when it is our turn to go through times of trouble.

Did you ever have to give someone bad news?  If you loved that person and cared about his or her feelings, you probably tried to soften the blow by giving some good news first, or at least tried to find something positive to ease the pain of what was to follow.  Our God is a merciful God, and when Jesus was giving John visions of what was to come, he made sure to give John good news before giving the bad news, which would give hope to those believers who would read Revelation and go through the troubles described.  Jesus followed the pattern established with Daniel and the visions about world empires – successive visions with each vision adding more detail than the last.  So what we have in the remaining chapters of Revelation are words and visions of hope followed by more and more detail regarding the times of the churches – including the seventh and last church.  But we are going to follow the story chronologically, so as we discuss each topic you will find we are jumping from vision to vision, collecting the pieces and putting them together into one continuous storyline.  At first we will skip parts of the good news, or the words of hope, because they refer to the end of the story.  We will address them in their proper time.

In Ezekiel 3:1 we find that Ezekiel, a prophet for God, was told to, …eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.  In Revelation Chapter 10, before John is given more information as to what will happen to two of the churches we looked at in the last chapter of this book, an angel holds a book and John, also a prophet of God, is told to take the book and eat it.  He is also told that, …it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey. (Verse 9)  This confirms what we discussed in the previous paragraph where our merciful God mixes good news with the bad news that John must relate. 

Now we are ready to read what John was shown.

 Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff; and someone said, “Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it.  Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months.  Rev. 11:1, 2

Since 70 CE, when Titus and his army destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, no other temple has been built to replace it, and the New Jerusalem does not have a temple (Rev. 21:22), so we can eliminate both of these as the holy city that will be trod on for forty-two months (1260 years, see Appendix 2). 

 In the previous chapter of this book we saw that a woman stands for a city, which stands for a group of people that have something in common.  In 1 Cor. 3:16 Paul says that Christians are the temple of God.  So what we learn here is that true believers will be safe spiritually even though they may be harmed physically (trod under foot). Jesus said, Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.  Matt. 10:28

 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.  These are the two olive trees and the two lamp stands that stand before the Lord of the earth.  Rev. 11:3, 4

We saw in Revelation Chapter 1 that the seven churches are represented by the seven lamp stands surrounding Jesus– one lamp stand for each successive church.  So why are only two lamp stands mentioned in Rev. 11?  What happened to the other five?  There are only two lamp stands in this vision because the events that are being described apply to only two of the churches – Thyatira and Sardis.  These two churches existed during the 42 months, the 1260 years, mentioned above in Rev. 11.  This time span lasted from the time the Bishop of Rome achieved undisputed authority in 538 CE until the Pope was put in prison in 1798 CE. 

 The two olive trees are the Holy Spirit and Jesus (see Appendix 2) and they are with the churches throughout their experiences.  Even though they have the power to …devour their enemies…to shut up the sky…and to strike the earth with every plague… (Rev. 11:5, 6) they do not do so during this time.  Why not?  Because whenever true believers were brought to trial and forced to defend themselves, they became powerful witnesses for God’s truth.  Some who saw their bravery and heard the truth in their words became believers themselves.