Spiritcode

REFRAMING ETERNITY: HOW VICTORIOUS WILL JESUS ACTUALLY BE?
Speaker: Scott Kardash
"...the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (those perishing)." (Slide 1)

Right, so we worship a mighty God who never changes. And you saw at the end there, every knee will bow. And that's a picture of how all this is going to end. And today I wanted to give you an idea of my journey. And so I want to talk to it from a more personal point of view of some changes I've made in how I view the Bible and what it teaches, and how all this is going to end, and even my view of God. And I want to take you through some elements which have been linchpins in that, in how I read the Bible. Hopefully you'll get something from that yourself, or at least food for thought. Over the last few times I've just summarised, when I've spoken here, what I've been talking about because it kind of leads into this.

THE PARADIGM SHIFT: VIEWING OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE DIFFERENTLY (Slide 2)

So viewing our Christian life differently is what I've been doing. And so previously I had a separation lens, and I think many of us have had that growing up in a traditional church where salvation is a legal loophole or transactional ticket to escape to a distant heaven. Prayer was calling up to the sky to reach a distant and perhaps reluctant God.

Discipleship was trying hard to obey the rules of a far-off boss. So it was an upward straining. And love was kind of a moral to-do list to be nice to others. You know, "I don't really like that person, but I feel like, you know, I probably should because God told me to." So if you look at that left-hand side... in a sense, it's all about sin management, right? So think of the Ten Commandments, it was all about sin management, where your heart necessarily hadn't changed, but you didn't do things because you were told not to do things, even though you wanted to.

On the right-hand side, the lens changes completely to where the law isn't written on stone anymore, it's written on our hearts. If I don't lust after a woman, I won't be committing adultery. If I'm out there working to generate income to give generously to other people, then I'm not going to be out there stealing. So I don't need a rule to stop stealing. If I'm not angry with people and I'm loving them, I'm not going to be tempted to murder them. That's the difference between living out of the law, where it's written on stone, and where the law is written on our hearts.

On the oneness side, there's a lifelong process of healing, transformation, and being united with God right now, not when we get to heaven. Tuning into the divine presence that is already holding you together. So nothing exists outside of God. In Him we have our being and we live and move in Him. There's no such thing as we're separated from God, He's separate from us, and we're existing outside of God. The Bible teaches that's impossible. He's everywhere, and without Him life isn't even sustained.

Waking up to the reality, to the vine. Who's the vine? The vine is Jesus. And allowing His life to flow through you. So that's the downward flow, not the upward flow of striving. And living in harmony with our shared biological and spiritual reality, we are members of one body. And ultimately, Christ is all in all. And in other passages, it says God is all in all.

So that's the end game. And we're all on a journey to get there. Everybody is on a different stage of that journey. Some haven't begun, some are going in completely the wrong direction, and others are well along the way of that journey. And it's the Holy Spirit which prompts us to do that. So we can ignore the Holy Spirit or we can follow Him.

MAPPING THE FINAL STATE OF CREATION (Slide 3)

And I wanted to present three common views of how this will all end. Eternal conscious torment... that was a view that I was firmly cemented in for most of my life, and I had good reasons for believing that. Annihilationism, where people get wiped out who are not saved, should we say, and restorative justice or ultimate reconciliation. And today I want to talk through what shifted me from that left-hand side to the right-hand side.

If we just look at what is the view of God's justice: eternal torment says retributive vengeance, right? So there's no restoration in view there. Annihilation: capital punishment, or being extinguished or deleted. And restorative justice: healing and setting broken things right. If we look at the Bible and the pattern of the Bible, it's all about restoration. So things get destroyed and then they're restored. That's a consistent pattern, whether He's talking about nations or people, we see that as the theme.

Purpose of divine fire: eternal torment says it's endless physical and spiritual agony. Annihilation: utter destruction of the soul. And restorative justice says it's purifying, consuming the dross, consuming those things in us that are in opposition to God.

The final state of evil: evil is memorialised and preserved forever in cosmic quarantine in the eternal torment view. So there's no total victory of Christ in this view. We have a whole segment of the population, probably a large number, in this eternal separation view. So some people would say eternal torment, others would say, "No, no, they're just separated from God," which, you know, I don't think the Bible teaches that at all. It's not possible to be separated from God.

And then annihilation: evil is uncreated, but death gets the final victory over a portion of humanity. We're told that death is destroyed, but annihilationism says death wins. And restorative justice: evil is eradicated, the image-bearer is reconciled, and God is truly all in all.

We will have all come from different backgrounds and come to our own conclusions. Today is just really about the journey I've taken and how I've got to this point. Because I was adamant that eternal conscious torment was taught in the Bible, because I read the Bible carefully, because I wanted to challenge that myself to see, can this possibly be true? Because we talk about a loving God, but is He really going to torment people endlessly with no hope of redemption? Well, if the Bible really teaches that, I'm prepared to believe it. But what I've discovered over time is that I don't think the Bible does teach that. And I think there are good reasons why we've been led down that path.

DECONSTRUCTING THE VOCABULARY OF THE GRAVE (Slide 4)

So we look at the vocabulary of the grave. Some of the confusion came in with the translations into English. Originally, the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek. It was then translated into Latin. So there were some issues in that translation where some of the meanings of some of the words changed, like "forever", and then from Latin into English. And so a lot of the English words were drawn from that Latin view.

But if we even just take the example of Sheol, or the Greek is Hades, the definition is the realm of the dead, the grave, a temporary holding place, not a torture chamber. So it was a neutral place in the Old Testament. But if you look at the King James Version, King James translates Sheol as "hell" 31 times, "the grave" 31 times, and "the pit" three times. So it can be confusing if you've got these different terms in the original language that are all translated as one word. And it translates Gehenna as "hell". Jesus mainly talked about Gehenna.

But if we look at Genesis 37 as an example, Jacob mourns, "I will go down into the grave unto my son." So that's the word Sheol. And in Psalm 139, "If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." If we've got these two views being presented to us, it can be confusing. And then we have in Acts, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." Christ Himself was in hell for three days. This is where we get some of this doctrine creeping in about hell, and it's not distinguishing what these places actually are in the original language.

THE SEQUENCE OF REVELATION 20 (Slide 5)

And then if we look at Hades and what happened with Hades, we're told in Revelation exactly what's going to happen, and it's not an endless destination. You remember the parable of Lazarus and the rich man? So they were in Hades, not in the lake of fire. It says Hades. And there's this chasm between paradise and where the rich man is, he's suffering. But Revelation tells us that Hades will be emptied out, and Hades and death will be thrown into the lake of fire. So Hades is not a permanent abode for anyone. It will be emptied and Hades will be disposed of.

So if we look at Revelation 20, "Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them." That's Hades, death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them. So hell gives up everyone it held, it's emptied for judgment.

Then there's judgment in Revelation 20:13, "And they were judged, every man, according to their works." Now, it's interesting because all the passages I see about judgment have got nothing to do with what somebody academically believed. It's got to do with what they've done in their life. So this universal accountability before the throne also says God has no partiality.

Destroyed in Revelation, the next verse, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire." Hell itself is thrown away. This is the second death. All right, so something that's emptied and then cast into the fire cannot be the eternal destination.

RE-MEASURING THE DIMENSIONS OF 'FOREVER' (Slide 6)

All right, so what about passages that speak of eternal fire and forever? So have a look at the original words there. If we look at aionios, which is the Greek, or in Hebrew, it's olam. They're both translated as "forever", meaning pertaining to an age or epoch. It describes the quality of the age to come, not necessarily infinite mathematical duration.

So it functions in a very similar way to the English word "tall". So you can have a tall man, you can have a tall building... they're not the same height. That's how this word functions. So if it's pertaining to God, sure, of course it's eternal, there's no bounds there. But if it's pertaining to other things, then there certainly can be bounds; in fact, there are bounds.

So if we look at Romans 16, it says, "since the world began," aionios, a time with a definitive beginning. So that didn't have an endless beginning, from the beginning of time until now. Jonah says the earth was about him "forever" (olam), but he was actually delivered exactly three days later. He wasn't in there actually forever. He was in there for a period of time. And Exodus 40 says the Aaronic priesthood ordinances were established "forever", and it culminated and ended in Christ.

So translating aionios strictly as endless duration creates a severe biblical contradiction. And in fact, it can be misleading for us when we read in our English Bibles where the translators just put "forever" against every single instance of this word. And there are some areas where they can't do that because it won't make sense. But in general, that's where a lot of our doctrines come from.

DISTINGUISHING ESSENCE FROM REACTION (Slide 7)

And another penny that dropped for me was God's essence being love. Love is what He is. And in 1 John, it tells us that's His essence. It's not that He does love. It's not one of His attributes. It's not like it's just something He does because He thinks He has to. He IS love. And so because of that, everything He does has to emanate from that place of love.

If we talk about anger, we talk about wrath... we can all agree with mercy, grace, faithfulness, holiness, maybe righteousness. But what about justice, anger, and wrath? If we can get our minds around the fact that they have to be generated out of who God is, not an action that we think in our lives, how we would interpret that. So if I was angry, my anger is probably going to be quite different to God's anger because I may not be loving at that time. Whereas it's not possible for God to not be loving. So these actions are always framed for the benefit of the person He's doing it to. Ultimately, that's what love is. Love is not doing something for your sake, it's doing something for the other person's sake.

If we look at wrath in this case, or anger from that framework, love is God's very nature and unchanging constitution. God doesn't change. But in His temporary reactions to sin or rebellion, or people's actions which are actually destructive to themselves or other people, "His anger is but for a moment," but it has a purpose. "The Lord will not cast off forever." So He's not going to abandon people.

When Jesus left to ascend, He said, "I will not leave you as orphans." And then He sent the Holy Spirit. So the benefit we have that nobody in the Old Testament had was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That's a key difference. So you can see why the law was important, because people couldn't change their hearts, they didn't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. We do, and we just think it's normal. But actually, my sense is that what people felt in their being before the Holy Spirit is going to be quite a different experience than the one we have now. And I think we kind of take it for granted a lot of the time. I know I do.

So wrath is His functional, temporary opposition to the sin that ravages His creation. Unending wrath contradicts His revealed nature. Divine wrath is a severe, restorative reaction serving the ultimate purposes of His love. Right, so there's a reason for this. It's not just we've offended Him because He's God and we're not. That's a medieval concept which has crept into a lot of our thinking about God.

THE MECHANICS OF THE REFINER'S FIRE (Slide 8)

Then God's described as a consuming fire or a refiner's fire. How does that work? And we can take the example of a silversmith because this is where that imagery comes from. So what are the mechanics of this? So we have the image-bearer, you and me, with accumulated sin or dross or garbage in our lives, or it could be a disordered or a corrupted soul that needs to be realigned. I've spoken before about the fact we are spirit and body, and our soul is the expression of those, right? So throughout life, our soul can get damaged.

This is what this refiner's fire is doing. It's described as a crucible or divine consuming fire. So in Malachi, it says, "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." And Paul used the analogy... you might remember there was gold, silver, and stone, and straw, wood, stubble, three things that burn. This is where it gets burnt. What it leaves is the gold, silver, and stone.

And then the output, output number one: destruction. Unworthy works, the false self, the weeds are burned up, and it's the ruin of the Adamic nature. So when we read "destruction", that's what's being destroyed. It's our false self.

And on the other side, the other thing that comes out is salvation, essentially. Salvation is not where you go when you die. Salvation is being restored to who God made you to be. That's what salvation is. It's being saved out of being a slave to sin and being a slave to Christ. Not walking in the flesh, walking in the Spirit. That's what salvation is. So the core person remains and is made in His likeness. "He shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." So that's what that's talking about. God's consuming fire destroys the sin and the false self, rescuing the image-bearer beneath.

Okay, that was a key concept for me, because we read "destruction" in the Bible. I used to read "destruction" and go, "Well, they're gone. They're destroyed. God's rejected them. If He doesn't really love them, why should I?" So that can generate a "them and us" mentality. Like, I'm saved, I've got the truth, I believe the right things, I'm going to go to heaven when I die. These other people, well, hopefully they'll find their way.

THE TRUE PURPOSE OF DIVINE JUSTICE (MISHPAT) (Slide 9)

And then justice or punishment. There are two words in Greek that were commonly used for punishment. One is timoria and the other one is kolasis. Now this was actually very key for me as well. Because timoria is retributive punishment. It's used three times in the New Testament. Paul used it twice when he was out there persecuting people and killing them, basically. He felt he had the authority to inflict timoria on these Christians who were basically blaspheming. It was retributive punishment. There was nothing restorative about that. And in Hebrews 10, it also uses that word too to say, these people who once had the Holy Spirit and experienced Christ and had come into the knowledge of truth, then trod over the cross all over again... don't you think they deserve timoria? There's a retributive warning there. So that was the author of Hebrews, but it's never described as what God actually does.

It's kolasis which is described that way everywhere else. So it says, for instance, in 2 Corinthians 5, "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body..." And the goal is biblical justice demands total accountability. Judgment is corrective pruning aimed at setting right what is broken, not immortalising evil in a cosmic torture chamber.

So the torture chamber is a bit of a characterisation, but putting somebody in hell forever and tormenting them serves no purpose. What purpose can it serve? It can't serve any purpose. They're there forever. They can't repent. Even if they did repent, it wouldn't matter. They're stuck there and they're just being caused to suffer by God. God's causing that. Well, to me, that goes right against the character of God. And the root of kolasis, it's an agricultural term. It means pruning. So when we prune a plant, it's for the benefit of the plant, so the plant will thrive and grow after the pruning.

ONGOING WRATH VS. ULTIMATE MERCY (Slide 10)

The restorative model, it's kind of almost offensive to some people. How does the New Testament hold together the ongoing wrath and ultimate mercy? John 3:36, "...whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." Okay, so it's pretty severe. But John there is describing a present, ongoing condition, not an irrevocable destiny. Wrath remains only as long as unbelief persists. So the purpose of wrath is to bring people into the knowledge of the truth. There's a purpose behind it. It's a redemptive purpose. That's why it's there.

And in Romans 11, there's a lot of kind of harder language earlier in Romans, but it culminates in this: "For God has consigned all to disobedience..." Why? "...so that he may have mercy on all." None of us go through this life perfect or unopposed to God. And we all have been disobedient, and the "all" means "all". So we're all consigned to disobedience, and He's going to have mercy on all. This is what the Bible teaches. The scope of the fall perfectly matches the scope of divine mercy.

THE SINGULAR INSTRUMENT OF COSMIC PEACE (Slide 11)

But we need to just make one thing really clear, because this concept of universal reconciliation never bypasses the cross of Jesus. In fact, it demands it. The blood of the cross is central. That's the things on earth, things in heaven, it encompasses everything. When we think of the scope of Jesus' mission, He wasn't just going to try His hardest to convince 10% of the people made in His image to believe in Him. His scope was cosmic. He came to reconcile all things, all people, and all of creation back to Him. That's why He came. He didn't come for just a few people that happened to be in the right place at the right time and heard the right sermon and put up their hand at the end of a service.

And by the way, He's got a lot of time too. God is endless, and He talks about more than one age to come. In Ephesians it talks about ages. So we don't know. We don't know how many ages there are to come. But God has actually got time on His side to show people who He is and wake them up to the reality that there is no life outside of Him. Because a lot of people just don't know that. They're walking around just thinking, "Oh well, I'm my own person, and when I'm facing God, I'm going to shake my fist at Him and tell Him exactly what I think." Well, I just cannot see that happening. You're standing in front of the Creator of everything, who's the sustainer of your life. And to have this kind of idea that you're going to be angry at Him, it just doesn't sit with me.

I was talking to someone the other day and they talked about their grandmother who was 83 and on a deathbed and about to die. And she had been opposed to God her whole life, a devout atheist, like just completely angry and opposed to God. He said a few minutes before she died, she looked up and said, "He's here, He's here." Then she could see Jesus in front of her, realised who He was. All that cynicism completely melted away because she had a first-hand revelation of who Jesus actually is. We can get all academic and theoretical about what we might say to God if we're angry at Him. I don't think that's going to be reality when we actually face Him.

In Colossians it says, "For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself..." So universal reconciliation does not bypass the cross; it demands it. Nobody is saved apart from the shed blood and finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ. It's quite different to the baggage that the term "universalism" carries with it, which is "it doesn't matter what you do, all paths lead to God," right? That's not true. Eventually, God will bring us all through that path, which is Christ, who is the vine.

THE ULTIMATE HORIZON OF 1 CORINTHIANS 15 (Slide 12)

We're told what the ultimate horizon is because Paul actually gives us this total view from the beginning to the end. In 1 Corinthians 15, he starts with the fall: "For as in Adam all die..." That's totally inclusive, right? There is nobody left that doesn't die. But the fall, Genesis chapter 3, we often start there, but we don't start at Genesis 1 when God created everything and ultimately said, "It's very good." Very good. He said it was good, good, good, very good. And then we get to chapter 3, and then we have the fall with the serpent. And my view is that God will restore everything back to being very good, right? He's not going to have pockets that are not very good.

So Stage 2, the reversal: "...even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Because that's a promise of what the work of Christ will do.

And Stage 3, the defeat of death: Christ reigns until all enemies are abolished. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." So ultimately, nobody will go through this painful experience of people dying, either those around them or them themselves. That's not part of the future plan.

And then the telos, the end state or the goal, is Christ hands the kingdom to the Father "that God may be all in all," right? So that means all things in all people. So we have this end-state view where Jesus has actually completed His work. So He starts out to save the lost, and the end state is that He hands the kingdom back to the Father. So I think a lot of us miss that. He hands it back to God and His job is done. He's not going to hand back, "Well, I tried my best and I got 10%, I hope that's okay." No, God has to be all in all, and we know that because 1 Corinthians gives us that view. So if billions remain in permanent death or endless torment, death is never truly defeated, and God is not all in all.

THE OPEN GATES OF REVELATION (Slide 13)

And then we move past that, because I think a lot of Christians think that Revelation stops at chapter 20 [1] when it talks about the lake of fire and they're in there forever and ever, and we talked about that meaning from age to age, perhaps. But they don't keep reading and read about the New Jerusalem, where the gates of the city of New Jerusalem "shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there." So where does the light come from? It comes from God, because He's there in the city. These cities in these ancient times had walls and gates for a reason, and it wasn't to keep people in, it was to keep people out. If the gates are open, it gives people an opportunity who are outside to come in. But the gates never shut there. So it's got gates, but they never shut. There's always an invitation to come in, as we'll see in a minute.

"The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Why do the nations need healing if they're already in the New Jerusalem? Well, obviously, the redemptive process still continues there. The nations and the kings of the earth are specifically referenced here as being in total rebellion against God, against Christ, throughout the whole story of the Bible. So that phrase, "kings of the earth and nations", is used consistently about people in rebellion to God. Prior to the thousand-year reign (and when Satan's final rebellion is consumed by fire at the end of it), it says they were slaughtered by the Lamb. [2] So Jesus slaughters them, and then the next view is the New Jerusalem. And so you could safely assume those people were thrown into the lake of fire. But then later on, they appear inside the New Jerusalem... same phrase, "the nations and the kings of the earth", inside the New Jerusalem, giving glory to God. Complete turnaround from where they were before. It's not forced submission, it's worshipping God because they understand who He is.

And look at the ongoing invitation: "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. Let the one who is thirsty come." This is right at the end of Revelation. So the gates are open. There's healing available inside. And it's not just God or the Spirit saying "Come", it's also the Bride. Who is the Bride? The church. The church is giving an invitation for those outside the city to come in through the open gates.

This view where it's only the church who are actually saved... well, yeah, we're the firstfruits. Believers are described as the firstfruits of what? A greater harvest. We're described as those who have come into the knowledge of the truth, and others have not yet come into that knowledge. So the gates remain open, the Spirit and the Bride still inviting those outside the city to wash their robes, because nobody gets in unless they wash their robes in the blood of Christ, and enter.

[Note 1 - Speaker Correction: While speaking, I accidentally said "chapter 19", whereas the lake of fire judgment is in Revelation chapter 20 (as shown on Slide 13).]
[Note 2 - Speaker Correction: While speaking, I said that the kings of the earth were slaughtered by the Lamb "at the end of the thousand-year reign." In Revelation, the slaughter of the kings of the earth by the Rider on the White Horse occurs in Revelation 19:19-21 (just prior to the thousand-year reign), while the final rebellion at the end of the thousand-year reign is consumed by fire from heaven in Revelation 20:7-9.]

THE FATE OF EVIL (Slide 14)

And I often get asked this question, and people like to pick edge cases when I talk to them, right? So, "What about the devil and his demons, right? Maybe everyone can get saved, but what about the devil? Like, he's too far gone, right?" And in fact, in 1 John, it says, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." So part of the reason Jesus came, and part of that restoration process, is to destroy the works of the devil. And what were his works? Steal, kill, destroy. They are not works of God, to destroy and kill. They're the works of the devil. And so God came to destroy that. And so when Jesus died and was resurrected, He conquered sin, He conquered death, and He conquered the powers of darkness. That's what He achieved on the cross.

The theological dilemma, though, for an eternal conscious torment view that I used to hold, was that if Satan and evil are preserved forever in endless torment, evil is memorialised and immortalised. If Christ truly destroys the works of the devil, evil must cease to exist entirely. Some people maybe interpret Satan or the devil to be kind of evil, the embodiment of evil, or an actual creature. I personally think that he's a specific being.

And so the resolution is: whether one views the devil as a creature who ultimately yields, or as the embodiment of evil that is completely eradicated, the biblical outcome is identical. God makes all things new. Evil is abolished, not preserved.

If we look at the most evil person we can think of, we've all got examples. And even in your past life, in your life, you might think, "I'm a completely different person to how I was back then." And we could probably all relate to that, how we've changed throughout life. Well, we are all made in God's image, but we've drifted out of God's likeness, right? So we're made in God's image and His likeness. Jesus' job here is to restore us back into His likeness. That's essentially the sanctification process. That's what the refiner's fire does, to get us back to how we were originally designed.

And my view is, it might be a bit controversial, but Satan was designed to be a really supreme being. And that ultimately, I think God will... I don't think he'll be deleted. Maybe he will be, we're not told what happens to Satan, but I can see the pattern is one of redemption, getting all of His creation back to the original design where things were very good. We all know people where that might be hard to accept, that that's going to happen to them.

THE RHYTHM OF THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE (Slide 15)

And if we look at the rhythm of the biblical narrative, like we step back and look at from Genesis to Revelation: Creation was inherently good. We had the Fall, fracturing not just people, but the cosmos. That's where we got thorns and thistles and that sort of thing coming in, and corruption, disease, and all this stuff coming in. And then Judgment, which is real, severe, and painful, but it's not where it ends. The end is in Restoration: ultimate, total reconciliation.

And there's a really good case study here because people say, "What about Sodom?" You know, the smoke was going up forever and ever. And in Jude, it says Sodom underwent the punishment of "eternal fire". And it sounds pretty severe. But we know that the fire is not still burning in Sodom. In fact, they found Sodom. They can see the evidence of the fire that was there, but the smoke's not still going up, and the fire's not still going up.

And then Ezekiel says, he explicitly says... this is God talking: "I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and they will return to their former state." Even Sodom and Gomorrah. So the stereotypical evil people in the Bible, He will restore them. This is the pattern of Scripture.

And we look at Scripture in these terms, and we can apply this pattern and understanding to passages that we're reading, particularly that talk about destruction, judgment, wrath, anger. We can then hopefully bring into view a restoration. And you remember the case where Paul said, "I threw this guy out of the church." He was committing sexual immorality and it was well known, and people were just accepting it. He said, "I booted him out of the church." Why? To hand him over to Satan, right? Okay, well, that's pretty severe. Yeah, that was severe. But why? For the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved. [3] And in fact, we see in the next letter that he wrote that he was restored. He actually came back into the church as a restored person in that area. That is the pattern of Scripture.

[Note 3 - Speaker Correction: While speaking, I misspoke and said "that his flesh may be restored." The actual wording in 1 Corinthians 5:5 is "for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."]

QUESTIONS TO PONDER (Slide 16)

And so I just want to leave you with perhaps three questions to ponder:

1. If Paul says God will ultimately be "all in all", in what sense is He all in all if a portion of His creation remains in eternal rebellion?
2. At what point does the Good Shepherd give up on the lost sheep? Does His pursuit end at the moment the physical body dies?
3. When John hears "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth" praising the Lamb (Rev 5:13)... who is missing from that chorus?

It's pretty comprehensive. "Under the earth" speaks of people who have passed away, and "on the earth" of people who are still living, and "in heaven", all these other beings that are there in heaven. It's all-encompassing, all-inclusive.

And the way the song ended there was a quote out of Isaiah 45, which is "every knee will bow". And Paul quotes that at least two or three times in the New Testament, Isaiah 45. But Isaiah says why: because they're swearing allegiance. It's not like God has got His foot on their neck getting them to admit that they were wrong. They are swearing allegiance. The kings of the earth are giving glory to God in the new creation. There's no pockets of rebellion left. Everybody understands. Everyone's coming to the knowledge of the truth. Truth is a person. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth..." He is the truth. Jesus is truth. Coming into the knowledge of the truth. And so once you've come into that knowledge of who God actually is and who you are in Him, then the whole mindset can change.

REFRAMING ETERNITY - PRACTICAL CONCLUSION (Slide 17)

From a practical point of view, what I found is it's changed the way I view who God is in my life. He's not this judge waiting to bring down the gavel on me every time I might make a mistake in life. But He does want to correct me. He doesn't want me to persist in whatever that is that's keeping me apart from Him. He wants to bring me back. He's searching for the lost sheep. If I'm perishing in some way, He wants to restore me back.

And my view of other people has actually changed as well, because I did have an "in or out", "you're either in or you're out" mentality. I lived in Japan for three years and saw all these millions and millions of people. They're all "out". God might get to them one day, but they're really unreceptive to the Christian message, and there are reasons for that. I think 1% of Japan are Christian. And I think one of the reasons is because of the way the gospel's been shared with them. Because they're into ancestor worship, if they accept the Christian message, then all of their ancestors are burning in hell forever. That's a hard pill to swallow.

And in fact, we all know people who have passed away that have not understood who Jesus is in this life. I count about eight reasons why the Bible tells us people cannot accept the gospel message in this life. Some of the reasons are God preventing them. God's preventing them. "He sends them a strong delusion that they may not believe," it says. Well, if that's the case, how can you then hold them accountable and burn them in hell forever? Well, actually no, it's an act of judgment, and the outcome of that is to restore them back.

So if I'm having a conversation, it doesn't matter who it is now, I don't view them as they're either in or out and I've desperately got to try to share the gospel so they don't burn in hell forever, they have to make a decision. There's a desperation in that conversation, which is very off-putting for somebody if they know you've got an agenda and that's the reason you're talking to them. But it's a sincere desperation. You can see a lot of the street evangelists have this kind of view. And they are very sincere about what they do, and I respect them for it.

But they also criticise the broader church for holding a view of eternal conscious torment, while not being out there actively warning anyone about it. A lot of people who hold this view are quiet about it and they don't want to make a fuss or whatever, so they don't want to rock the boat, so they don't say anything to people. Well, you know, if you really held that view, as Ray Comfort would say... Ray Comfort's out there every day. You might see him on YouTube. He's out there every day witnessing to people because he doesn't want anyone to go to hell. And he's very sincere about that.

But the gospel message is... it's got a carrot and a stick. It's mainly a stick. "Heaven or hell? Heaven or hell? Where are you going? Heaven or hell?" Because he wants people to not go to hell. But he's very critical of most of the church who actually are quite passive about sharing that fear with non-believers. And as I say, I think that kind of a gospel has done a lot of damage to those who accept it and those who reject it. Because we have a lot of Christians living in fear: "Have I committed the unforgivable sin, or have I done something which will prevent God from ultimately restoring me?" Well, it's pretty hard to do. There is the unforgivable sin, which is probably a topic for another day.

But what I've found is I can now have much better conversations with people, because I don't view the person as "they're outside and I have to get them in," like it's kind of my job to do that. No, the Holy Spirit convicts. And when I'm talking to somebody, I just see them as someone else who's on a different stage of the journey to me. Whether they're a believer or an unbeliever, we're all at different stages of that journey. And ultimately, that's why Jesus came, to bring us on that journey. The Holy Spirit is there to complete that journey. And that's what the sanctification process is.

Revelation Episode 15: Daniel’s 70 Weeks and Ten Kingdoms The Book of Daniel is a key book in the unlocking of revelation concerning the prophetic purposes of God, and the end-time events in the ‘latter days’ and today we will be looking at visions of Daniel that enlarge upon and explain Revelation. This episode becomes camera angle 6. Of the three and a half year times of tribulation

The prophecy given by God to Daniel actually pinpoints to the year that Jesus begins his ministry in 33AD.

Daniel 9:24–27 Seventy weeks are determined – marked out in history – to both judge and to save your people and your holy city,

God then tells Daniel of six things that must happen to Israel to wrap up every prophetic event until the Second Coming of Messiah and then the judgement of the Antichrist system.

John also relied upon Daniel’s image of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar to show the historical sequence of the nations that have ruled the world over thousands of years. - Especially the nature of the last day cruel oppressive kingdom that is being formed in this current era of time. So while we are studying John’s prophecy of Revelation today we will be drawing from the Book of Daniel

The prophecy of Daniel is called the 70 weeks prophecy – now Seventy weeks is an absurdly short period of time but that has been taken out of our hands because there is a theological precedent that states that each day is one prophetic year. That means 70 weeks becomes 490 years.

Ezekiel 4:6 I have laid on you a day for each year.

This 490 year timeline is needed to achieve key prophetic events in the 3 and a half years of the ministry of Jesus and the three and a half counterfeit ministry of the Antichrist, the Beast or the lawless zone.

2 Thessalonians 2:3–12 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

But when did these 70 weeks (490 years) start? An astounding specific sequence of events has been verified by historical records. Here is the flow of events:

1 In 443 BC. Artaxerxes the Persian King Decreed for Nehemiah to restore and rebuild Jerusalem —

Nehemiah 2:1–8 … let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the River, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall

Mathematical Calculation of the 69 Weeks The prophecy calculates the time "unto the Messiah the Prince" as 69 weeks of years, totalling 483 lunar years (360 days) which equals 476 solar years (365.3 days).

That brings the date of ‘unto Messiah the Prince’ to the year 33AD – Absolutely accurate!

Jesus then ministered for 3.5 years and was cut off – (in the midst of the 70th week!).

leaving another 3.5 years (tribulation) yet to come to fulfill the second half of the 70th week.

Prophetic Year Calculation — Details
Prophetic Year Length — 360 days
Total Prophetic Years — 483 years
Total Prophetic Days — 173,880 days
Converted Solar Years — 476 years
Starting Point — 443 BC
BC Duration — 443 years
AD Balance — 33 years
Result — 33 AD
Conclusion — The calculation concludes in 33 AD, the year of the Messiah’s appearance.

The objectives to be fulfilled in Daniel’s prophecy are To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, To anoint the Most Holy.

Objective — Status
To finish the transgression — Not yet fulfilled
To make an end of sins — Not yet fulfilled
To make reconciliation for iniquity — Fulfilled
To bring in everlasting righteousness — Fulfilled
To seal up the vision and prophecy — Not yet fulfilled
To anoint the Most Holy — Fulfilled

Daniel then says Daniel 9:25 that after 69 weeks Messiah will confirm a covenant with his people for one week (7 years) and then he will be cut off in the midst of the week (after 3.5 years) and bring an end to all sacrifice (the Cross). That leaves another 3.5 years for everything to be finished. That is the 3.5 years of the tribulation at the very end when another evil prince, the Lawless one (the Antichrist) will rule over people.

Daniel 9:27 then there will be an overspreading of abomination and the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary (3.5 year tribulation). The end of it shall be with a flood and till the end of the war desolations are determined.

That overspreading (wing) of abomination between those two 3.5 years has lasted for 2000 years up till now.

The strength of the Daniel 9:24–26 prophecy lies in its accurate prediction of the sequence of redemptive history, pointing to the earthly ministry of Jesus and the yet to come 3.5 year tribulation under the Beast

The Vision of the End Time Kingdoms

In chapter 2 Nebuchadnezzar had a dream where he saw a vision of a great statue that had a head of gold and shoulders and arms of silver and an abdomen and thighs of brass and legs of iron and feet and toes of iron and clay. And a stone was cut out from a mountain but not by human hands, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. This vision terrified the king, and he demanded that whoever was chosen to interpret the dream for him had to get it right or he would be killed. and when Daniel heard this, he prayed and asked for guidance and mercy from God and he offered to interpret the dream.

This vision may be one of the most important prophetic visions in the Bible since it lays the foundation for the rest of the book of Daniel and also the Book of Revelation or the apocalypse of John. This vision also gives an understanding of many other end-time events. Daniel said to the king ‘There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will come to pass in the latter days (aḥărîyṯ yom – time of the end) (Daniel 2:28) and the ‘latter days’ refers to what would happen to Israel and the Church and the world in the end times. This vision depicts the nature of the world kingdoms from Babylon down to the present day and history shows us the dates when these kingdoms ruled.

Daniel gives the king the interpretation that God showed to him.

Firstly Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he was the head of gold, representing the Babylonian empire from 606 BC according to history (v.12)

Secondly He told the king that the two shoulders and arms of silver represented the cruel double empire of Medo-Persia which would overtake his kingdom (in 536 BC - history)

Thirdly Daniel told the king that the kingdom of the abdomen and thighs of bronze would defeat the Medes and Persians. And history show that this was Greece –Alexander the Great, (331-333 BC)

Fourthly There were two legs of iron which would break in pieces and subdue all the other nations. History show us that this was the Roman Empire which would defeat the kingdom of Greece in 63 BC and rule the entire known world.

The significance of the two legs of iron is that the Roman empire would later be divided into the Eastern and Western Empires. And the political and cultural and religious disparity between East and West still remains.

The fifth and final worldly kingdom of the feet and ten toes of a mixture of iron and clay speaks of a ten-nation world power that will emerge at the end of the age. And we read the emergence of that divided and divisive kingdom in

Daniel 2:41 And as you saw that the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the fragile clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw the iron mixed with fragile clay, so they will mix with one another in posterity (zera), but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.

The iron in the feet is the expression of the increasing use of force that has replaced diplomacy in the current geopolitical warfare politics of today reflecting the nature of harsh dictatorial rule that represented the Roman empire in the statue. And the fragile earthly clay represents people. God made Man from the dust of the earth. And that clay speaks of vulnerable communities of people that once looked to elected governments to care for their domestic orderly and peaceful well-being.

That is ceasing to exist as witnessed in the oppressive and restrictive and intrusive mandates during the recent Covid pandemic.

But worse than that is the spectre of a resurgence of religious crusade wars the like of which were the greatest blot on Christianity in the Middle Ages when Rome sent the working farming communities into religious wars against pagans and Muslims and other religions – all in the name of Jesus, pillaging cities and slaughtering millions of people.

This has begun again in recent weeks with prayer rallies from the White House calling upon working class citizens by Christian leaders to fight religious wars against people in the Middle East. This is worse than the crusades of the Middle Ages because we have since experienced the reformation and the many moves of the Holy Spirit and blessed waves of evangelism and missionary ventures to the nations of the world. We are actually doing Jihad more ferociously than Islam and feeling holy and righteous about it.

This has become the modern-day replay of the ten toed kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar of the book of Daniel. The iron and the clay will not mix.

This is a picture of the fragile nature of our global political and economic community of today which is being sensationally and confusingly reported as ‘news’. There has not been seen this level of civil and civic and economic and military strife since the last two world wars.

Add to this the threats of nuclear warfare and plummeting energy crises and serious regional proxy wars all over the Middle East and the rudderless leadership of European nations in their feuds with Russia and we are left in a vacuum of floundering global uncertainty. God foresaw this before the foundation of the world and Daniel prophesied it and John warns us of it in Revelation chapters 13 through to chapter 19.

Add to this that Israel is under the mistaken impression that it is under the protective Old Covenant of Moses. That Covenant was abolished by God as seen in Hebrews 8:13. Israel, like everybody else on the earth since Jesus is accountable to the New Covenant under Jesus that he came to preach to them and which they resisted.

The Jewish apostles tried in vain to persuade Judaism of the New Covenant through Jesus. That new Covenant was prophesied to them through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31). That is why the two witnesses will preach to the Jews through the three and a half years of the tribulation, and some will obey the Gospel and others will take the mark of the Beast.

This issue will be resolved in the millennium, when God fulfills the Abrahamic promise of their land to them, which we will be studying next week.

And don’t forget the Lion and the bear and the leopard, also from Daniel’s prophecy that we can map onto America and Russia and China in our multipolar geopolitical competitors.

This ten-nation configuration of power is seen in the book of

Revelation 17:12 And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings.

These kingdom rulers will one day join forces from amongst the global prominent nations in Europe and Asia and Africa and the Middle East and the Americas and Oceania and the South Pacific – down under.

The Scripture says ‘they will mix with one another in posterity (Hebrew = zera = posterity which means planning together for a forever future. But we know they will not hold together despite the trade agreements and so-called treaties. So that ten toed kingdom is a configuration of ten nations that will plan to rule their world together forever, and this reflects their arrogance.

The precise geographic boundaries of their kingdom.

Whether the ten kings represent individual heads of ten literal modern nation states or rulers of political entities, or allies of a tenfold political confederation, or billionaire oligarchs

And it remains to be seen exactly when their authority is established.

Scriptural and Historical Evidence Strict Chronological Succession: The strength of any alignment lies in its sequence. History confirms the order of Decree of the Rebuilding of the Temple, the Messiah’s Appearance, the Messiah’s Death, and the Temple Destruction without any deviation.

Mathematical Precision: By applying the 360-day prophetic calendar (173,880 days), the 443 BC implementation date lands with pinpoint accuracy on the lifetime and ministry of Jesus.

External Validation: This interpretation is not a modern construct; Daniel Chapter 9 was always widely recognized as a Messianic countdown, proving that the chronological expectations were established long before the events of the first century.

In conclusion, the harmony and accuracy of the 70-weeks prophecy provides a compelling historical-prophetic map. The 2,000-year "gap" of desolation following the AD 70 Temple destruction serves as the current historical context, pointing toward a final 3.5-year period that will complete the "determined" plan of history. The timeline is precise, but the sequence of events in Scripture is the ultimate forensic proof of the prophecy’s accuracy.

Revelation Episode 14: Babylon and 666
Today we see the final conflict between the Kingdom of God and the Babylonian system. The final conflict is deeper than a
struggle between individual nations or political rulers. Revelation presents a profound conflict about who has the right to define
humanity, receive its worship and determine its ultimate destiny. On one side stands the Kingdom of God, a covenantal reality
established through humility and truth; on the other stands Babylon, humanity's attempt to construct an identity and establish
security entirely independent of God. (Camera angle 5)

Revelation 17:1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, "Come, I will
show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication,
and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication."

Babylon is more than just an ancient city. In Revelation it becomes the final expression of a system involving religion, politics,
economics, commerce, human power, spiritual deception and rebellion against God.
The story of Babylon begins in Genesis and develops progressively through Scripture.
Its pattern can be traced from the Tower of Babel to ancient Babylon with Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, to the Beast of
Revelation chapter 13, and finally to the worldwide Babylon of Revelation 17-18. At the heart of this system is the declaration in
Genesis 11:4: 'Let us make us a name.'
God creates humanity in His image and gives humanity identity in relationship with Himself. Babylon reverses that order.
Humanity attempts to create itself in its own image, establish its own identity and authority, and construct its own system of
worship.
The fundamental contrast between God's Kingdom and Babylon can be mapped as follows:
God's Kingdom — Babylon
Hallowed be His name — Let us make us a name
God's glory — Human glory
Dependence upon God — Independence from God
Servanthood — Power
The Lamb — The Beast
The Bride — The Harlot

The Origin of Babylon and Let Us Make Us a Name

The roots of Babylon reach back to the tower of Babel after the Flood in Genesis 11, with humanity gathering to build a city and
a tower reaching toward heaven. Their stated purpose was: 'Let us make us a name.' Humanity's identity becomes its own image.
The "Babylonian Principle" operates as a threefold structure of independence that seeks to occupy every sphere of human life:
• Religion: The use of spiritual language and ritual to serve human pride, authority, and institutional glory.
• Politics/Power: The establishment of universal systems of control and authority that demand absolute allegiance.
• Economics: A structure of commerce and prosperity where wealth is the ultimate measure of success, detached from divine
stewardship.

Babylon Is Not Merely a False Church

It is a comprehensive world system capable of incorporating religion, politics, economics, culture and commerce into a structure
of human self-exaltation.
Revelation does not identify Babylon as 'the apostate Christian church' or as any Christian denomination or organisation. It is
reconnecting people's souls to a primal darkness.
John describes Babylon as the great harlot, a centre of spiritual corruption, a persecutor of God's people, a power intertwined
with kings and merchants, and a system ultimately destroyed by the Beast and the final ten kings. Therefore we should
distinguish between the actual prophetic Babylon of Revelation and essential Babylonian characteristics.

A Christian organisation can display Babylonian tendencies if it becomes dominated by wealth, prestige, political power,
institutional ambition, manipulation, celebrity status, control, religious performance, empire-building and spiritual exploitation.
But even that still does not provide sufficient biblical grounds to declare any one Christian organisation to be the prophetic
Harlot.
The better question is: What does Babylon represent, and are any of us participating in its values?
This is particularly important because Revelation 18:4 declares, "Come out of her, my people." The presence of 'my people'
within Babylon indicates that God's people can become entangled with Babylonian values and must respond to God's call to
separate themselves from her ungodly culture and behaviour before that culture claims them.

Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon's First Great End Time Pattern

In Daniel chapter 3, the historical Babylonian kingdom provides a remarkable prophetic pattern. Nebuchadnezzar erects a great
golden image and commands the peoples, nations and languages of his empire to worship it. Political authority, religious
authority and enforced worship become united.
The pattern is striking: a powerful ruler, a humanly constructed image, universal political authority, religious worship,
governmental enforcement, economic and social consequences, and death in a fiery furnace being threatened for those who
refuse.
The Babylon of Daniel 3, and the demand of Nebuchadnezzar to worship his image gives us a model of Revelation chapter 13 for
the image of the Beast.
The three Jewish men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego demonstrate that God's people can exist within Babylon without
belonging to Babylon. They were physically within Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, but Babylon could not possess their worship.
They were thrown into the furnace, and while the attendants were consumed by fire, the king's aide said, 'Look! I see four men
loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth man is like the Son of God.'
This becomes an important principle for God's people in the final conflict: Babylon may surround God's people, threaten God's
people and try to destroy their bodies, but it cannot possess those who belong to God. The conflict is therefore not merely
political. Behind the visible structures of the final world system stands a spiritual power seeking to destroy God's purposes and
God's people.
The Woman, the Church, is found in the midst of this conflict, yet she is preserved by God. Revelation chapter 12 does not
portray the Church simply disappearing from the earth. The Woman is given the two wings of the great eagle and carried into a
'wilderness' - a prepared, vacant and 'marked out' place (topos), out of the way of danger but still in the midst - where she is
nourished for three and a half years. That is an important parallel with Daniel chapter 3: in the fire but unharmed. The central
question becomes: Can Babylon penetrate and possess the people of God? The answer is ultimately no. God preserves His people
even as the Babylonian system develops around them.

Revelation 13 and the Beast the Image and the Mark

Revelation 13 now brings the political manifestation of this system into view. The First Beast rises from the sea and receives
authority over the nations. The Dragon gives him his power, throne and great authority.
The second Beast, as the false prophet, exercises religious influence and directs humanity toward worship of the first Beast.
Here in Revelation, what we saw in Daniel 3 is brought to a final expression:
Beast -> image -> religious worship -> universal authority -> economic control -> persecution -> death for refusal. The Beast is
therefore not merely a political ruler. His system demands allegiance, worship and economic control (the two horns of the false
prophet). The mark of the Beast, 666, is associated with the right hand or forehead - what you do and what you think. We now
have two competing identities: the Beast's name, mark and number versus the name of God and the Lamb.

Babylon 66 and 666 and the Completion of Human Autonomy

This is where the connection between Daniel 3 and Revelation 13 becomes especially significant. Nebuchadnezzar's golden
image was sixty cubits high and six cubits wide: 6 and 6, or 66. Revelation 13 brings the pattern to its ultimate expression in 666.

Revelation 13:18 666 is "the number of a man."

Six can be understood symbolically as falling short of seven, the number associated with divine fullness and completion.
Within this theological framework, the three sixes can be viewed as representing humanity's attempt to occupy the whole field of
existence apart from God.

Humanity is tripartite, spirit, soul and body, so the Beast's system seeks total control:
• The Babylonian spirit says: "I will establish my own identity."
• The Beast says: "I will establish my own authority."
• The image says: "I will establish my own object of worship."
666 represents the culmination of that human-centred system in spirit, soul and body.

The Lamb as God's Answer to the Beast

Revelation presents the Lamb and His people as the true answer to the Beast's counterfeit kingdom, but this has wider scope than
the polarities of the two marks on the forehead that we saw in the study of the 144,000.
The issue is therefore not simply who controls the world politically. It is whose image and whose name humanity will carry.

Revelation 17 and the Harlot and the Beast

Revelation 17:15 Then he said to me, "The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are the people, multitudes, nations,
and different languages."

Only after the Beast's system has been established does Revelation 17 unveil Babylon in its fullest prophetic form - a woman
sitting upon a scarlet Beast having seven heads and ten horns.
The Beast represents the political and imperial power. The harlot woman represents Babylon's religious, spiritual, economic and
seductive dimension, and initially they cooperate. The woman, Babylon, rides on the Beast, showing that religious and spiritual
influence becomes joined to political authority. Babylon gives the Beast legitimacy and influence, while the Beast provides the
power by which Babylon operates. Yet this relationship is temporary and the very political powers supporting Babylon will
ultimately turn against her.

The Seven Heads the Seventh Kingdom and the Eighth

Revelation 17:9-11 Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.
There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a
short time. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition (lake of
fire).

This explains the mystery of the seven heads. The seven heads are associated with seven mountains and seven kings, which
represent successive world kingdoms associated with the Babylonian-Beast system.
These are Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome (the one 'that is' for John). Then there is the one to come who
continues for a short time: the Beast who has the likeness of the lion, bear and leopard, is of the seven geopolitical rulers, suffers
a mortal wound that is healed in a counterfeit resurrection, and is also the eighth who goes into the lake of fire.

The Ten Horns and the Final Coalition

Revelation 17:12 identifies the ten horns as ten kings who receive authority for a limited period with the Beast. They represent a
final political coalition united around the Beast. These are the ten toes of another image in Daniel chapter 7, which we will
consider in the next episode (15).

Revelation 17:13 These have one mind and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

This apparent unity is temporary.

The Great Reversal and Babylon Destroyed

The alliance between Babylon and the Beast eventually collapses.
Revelation 17:16 declares that the Beast and the ten horns will hate the Harlot, make her desolate and burn her with fire. The
political system that once supported Babylon eventually destroys her, and God has sovereignly permitted this to accomplish His
purposes.

The Final Contrast Between Babylon and the Bride
The destruction of Babylon prepares the way for the final revelation of the Bride.
Revelation chapters 17-19 establishes a profound contrast between two women.
The Harlot — The Bride
Seductive, wealthy, politically powerful, materially magnificent, spiritually corrupt, intoxicated with influence, practising persecution and finally destroyed — Prepared for Christ, faithful, clothed in righteousness, united with the Lamb and ultimately revealed in glory

Babylon can operate through religion, politics, economics and culture, but the final issue is not politics. It is religion and worship,
identity and allegiance. It is the question of whether humanity will receive its identity from God or create its own.

Religion Bonding and Allegiance

I have been mentioning Religion quite a lot today, and I'd like to end with a few words about what religion means. Religion
comes from the Latin word religio (root word religare). Ligare means ligament. A ligament binds bone to bone and bone to
muscle. It allows bodily movement and it allows the inner bone and inner physical bodily framework to move into action and
strength.
Just as biological ligaments serve as the connective bonding that holds the body's framework together, true religion is a relational
bonding that ensures a person is anchored in belief and truth. Therefore, re-ligio is the re-bonding that occurs when the binding
has been lost, damaged or neglected.
When people get a revelation of the goodness and grace of God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they get re-ligamented, re-
connected to life and truth.
But when Babylon seduces people into a false belief that declares it will assure their spiritual and social and financial survival
and security they get reconnected to spiritual deception and darkness.
Babylon exploits the fundamental human needs for belonging, security, and identity to create a structure of personal bondage and
participation in something larger than themselves.
• Babylon says: Bind yourself to this system so that you may belong and survive.
• Jesus said: Take My yoke upon you, bonding you to Himself so that you may live.
The religious aspect of Babylon in the end times is reconnecting people's souls to a primal darkness that is beginning to exercise
its utmost destructive power.
The Holy Spirit in these days is reconnecting people's souls to Himself as our new Helper and giving us an abundance of grace to
become one with Jesus and with one another in the Spirit.

Dimension — God's intention — Babylonian corruption
Spirit — Relationship with God — Independence from God
Soul — Mind, will and identity — Ideological conformity
Body — Life belonging to God — Instrument of allegiance to the Beast

The Seven Kingdoms and the Beast
Head — Kingdom/system — Daniel/Revelation relationship
1 — Egypt — Early persecuting empire opposing God's covenant people
2 — Babylon — Daniel's first great imperial kingdom; archetype of Babylonian system
3 — Medo-Persia — Daniel's second kingdom
4 — Greece — Daniel's third kingdom
5 — Rome — Daniel's fourth kingdom; rules in John's era. Two legs of iron - East and West
6 — Final revived/composite Beast system — An emerging future manifestation
7 — Beast/Antichrist manifestation — Final geopolitical seven-ruler system
8 — The Beast himself — "Of the seven"; receives a mortal head wound and is healed in a counterfeit resurrection, then is destined for the lake of fire

REVELATION EP 13 THE 144000: We have been seeing Revelation 11–20 as progressively unfolding the final 3½ years, with different groups and events appearing as the conflict intensifies. The 144,000 have a very meaningful place in this intense buildup (camera angle 4 of the tribulation). This large mysterious group represents God’s company of the first fruits of Israel’s full salvation during the final crisis. They are not the whole of redeemed Israel, Firstfruits are always celebrated as a foretaste of future harvest.

Revelation 14:1 Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.”
The important point is that Revelation 14 presents the 144,000 as a distinct, identifiable group. They have already appeared in Revelation 7, where they are described as 144,000 sealed servants from the twelve tribes of Israel.
They are a literal or representative group of Jewish believers who are preserved and commissioned by God for the Gospel during the Tribulation. Here is a table of columns and rows showing how these fit our Revelation timeline compared to other groups and their roles and events

Group — Role in our framework
The two witnesses — God’s prophetic testimony in Jerusalem (Moses/Elijah)
The Church / woman — Persecuted and protected by God
Israel — Preserved through the final crisis Zechariah 13:8–9 (1/3)
144,000 — A specially sealed firstfruits company
Antichrist’s kingdom — Satan’s final earthly system
Three angels — God’s final worldwide warning
Harvest of earth — Separation and judgment
Seven bowls — Final wrath of non-redemptive judgement – no repentance
Babylon — Collapse of the world’s corrupt system
Christ — Returns in glory in Revelation 19

Zechariah 13:8–9 And it shall come to pass in all the land, Says the LORD, “That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it: I will bring the one-third through the fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’ And each one will say, ‘The LORD is my God. Then comes Zech Ch 14:1 Behold, the day of the LORD comes,
The same fiery trials of faith apply to all people, including Christians and Jews, as we saw in Revelation 12 about the Woman, the Church (Episode 11 and camera angle 2) where God said ‘do not measure those in the outer court/outer darkness’
That links with our emphasis on Israel, the Church and the nations all moving toward God’s ultimate redemptive purpose and the refining age to age fire of judgement.

Why 144,000?
The number is very highly structured: 12 × 12 × 1,000 = 144,000
Twelve is repeatedly associated with God’s covenant people:
• 12 tribes of Israel
• 12 apostles
• 12 foundations of New Jerusalem
• 12 gates
• 12,000 in each zone or group
• 144 cubits

Their relationship to the Church is important, as we can distinguish three overlapping communities in the final period:
The Church – The Woman as the Church protected by God through the tribulation
Israel - The covenant people who come under God’s particular protection and ultimately experience restoration (Romans 11:25) – … ‘and all Israel shall be saved’ …
The 144,000 This is a specially sealed firstfruits company within Israel, commissioned for God’s purposes during the final crisis. The Beast establishes his authority, and people receive the mark of the Beast, and the Beast’s followers identify themselves with the Beast. But here the 144,000 have the Father’s name on their foreheads. So Revelation gives us two competing identities:

Kingdom of the Beast — Kingdom of the Lamb
Beast — Lamb
Mark of Beast forehead mind owned and occupied by Beast — Name of Father – mind and owned and occupied by God
Babylon — Zion
False worship — True worship
Satanic authority — Divine authority
Economic control — Spiritual allegiance
Followers of Beast — Followers of Lamb

That speaks into the final spiritual confrontation between the kingdom of the Antichrist and the kingdom of Christ. The 144,000 will be the Jewish partners to the two witnesses in Revelation 11, Moses and Elijah, who have a very specific prophetic ministry, while the 144,000 have a much broader representative role. Then we have three angels with a final worldwide proclamation, and together they form an extraordinary picture of God’s testimony during the final 3½ year crisis. The 144,000 are an end-time Jewish firstfruits company, sealed by God and preserved during the final 3½ years. They represent a consecrated remnant of Israel who refuse the allegiance of the Beast and remain completely identified with the Lamb. Their appearance immediately after Revelation 13 provides the divine counterpoint to the Beast’s kingdom: while the Beast marks his followers with his identity, God marks His people with His name. The 144,000 appear to be evangelists because we saw in Revelation 7:9 that immediately following their sealing there was a vision of: “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation.

What is the meaning of ‘virgins’?
The 144000 are an Israelite covenant remnant. whose defining characteristic is not merely that they have escaped Babylon, but that they belong exclusively to the Lamb.

Level — Meaning — Biblical basis — Strength for your study
1. Literal — 144,000 are sexually celibate/unmarried males — Rev 14:4 calls them virgins; 1Corinthians 7, Matthew 19 — Possible, but difficult to establish as the only meaning
2. Spiritual — They are uncompromised in their allegiance to the Lamb — Revelation repeatedly uses sexual immorality/adultery as imagery for spiritual unfaithfulness — Very strong contextual connection
3. Holistic holiness — Their bodily sexuality and spiritual allegiance are both brought under the lordship of the Lamb — Rev 14:4–5; contrast with Babylon in Rev 17–18 — Probably the most fruitful formulation for your study

We are not compelled to have to choose absolutely between literal sexual purity and symbolic spiritual purity. This can be understood as presenting the 144,000 as a people characterized by exclusive fidelity to the Lamb, expressed in the striking language of virginity. Revelation itself establishes the larger symbolic framework. Babylon is portrayed as a prostitute who commits sexual immorality with the kings of the earth, while the people of God are summoned not to participate in her sins.  Here’s another table of rows and columns

THE TWO WOMEN / TWO RELATIONSHIPS
BABYLON — 144,000
Harlot — Virgins
Sexual immorality — Purity
Relationship with kings of earth — Relationship with the Lamb
Drunk with her wine — Filled with the Spirit
Compromise — Faithfulness
Follow the Beast — Follow the Lamb
Defilement — No defilement
Name of Babylon — Father’s name
Deception — Truth
Earthly luxury — Surrendered Firstfruits to God
Spiritual prostitution — Covenant faithfulness
Judgment — Redemption

This follows the architecture of Revelation.
Revelation 17–18 explicitly describes Babylon’s relationship with the kings and nations in sexual language, while Revelation 14 describes the 144,000 in terms of virginity, following the Lamb as a celebrated offering of firstfruits to God.  Revelation 14 is presenting the 144,000 as the complete opposite to Babylon.

Revelation describes a world in which sexual immorality has become intertwined with power, wealth, idolatry and Babylonian corruption.
That is explicitly in the text. Revelation 17–18 connects Babylon’s sexual immorality with kings, nations, merchants and luxurious wealth.  This intertwining of immorality with power, wealth, idolatry and Babylonian corruption can be seen in the exposure of the corruption of our current culture (large in scale)

The 144,000 are identified as Israel, which is being encountered within the theological reality of the New Covenant inaugurated by Messiah. So they retain genuine Israelite identity, and they belong to the covenant reality established through Christ. Those propositions are not contradictory.

Hebrews 8 is particularly important here because it contrasts the Old covenant with the superior New covenant through Christ and it quotes Jeremiah’s promise: Jemiah 31:31
Hebrews 8:8 … Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
Hebrews 8:13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.”

Consequently, the identification of the 144,000 with Israel does not require that they belong to the obsolete Mosaic covenant. The New Covenant itself was promised to Israel and Judah. Theologically, therefore, the 144,000 may be understood as an Israelite covenant remnant encountered within the reality of the New Covenant mediated by Jesus the Messiah. Their identity is Israelite; their covenant relationship is New Covenant; their allegiance is to the Lamb. The 144,000 are thus presented as a sealed people belonging to God, bearing His name, following the Lamb, refusing defilement and standing in contrast to Babylon’s corrupting influence. So rather than viewing the 144,000 as an alternative to the Church, we see them as God’s specific end-time allies arising from Israel alongside His wider people. And that shows us that Revelation isn’t simply describing catastrophe—it is showing God as separating, sealing, preserving and gathering people to Himself while the counterfeit kingdom reaches its rebellious demise.

Radical Intimacy

The Illusion of Distance
By default, many of us have this view of God where we're distinct. We're down here on earth. We're trying to pray up to God. It's a bit of a one-way prayer. We're shouting. We're hoping he's going to catch it. We're hoping he's listening. He's up there somewhere. He's dealing with other stuff and we're down here dealing with our stuff. But actually, that's not reality. It's just a perception that we have. And I actually think it's probably wrong teaching that many of us have had growing up.
So prayer becomes a struggle to bridge a massive gap. Separation though feels safe. It feels orthodox and it feels reverent. It's a reverent thing to stay separate. But the Bible teaches something different. It teaches indwelling is the reality. It's a mutual indwelling too. So existence cannot happen outside of God. Estrangement is real, but it is a rupture in relationship, not an absolute metaphysical absence. So, while we might feel God is distant from time to time, we'll talk about that. In reality, he's not distant.
Paul at Mars Hill
Paul went to Athens and he preached on Mars Hill and that's what it looks like today. But it didn't always look like that. This is an architect's impression. So, you can see the Acropolis up top and you can see Mars Hill. That's that platform down the bottom. It wasn't like a marketplace or place where people gathered, just ordinary people. This is where the courts were and the council and all the philosophers. And this is where they had the big debates about reality and the spiritual world and whatever deity they might worship. This is where Paul preached. And I might just get Zara to come up here and read what Paul actually said. So she's going to read out of Acts 17:16–28.
Reading of Acts 17:16–28
While Paul was waiting for Silas and Timothy in Athens, he was deeply troubled by the idols he saw everywhere in the city. He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all those who happened to be there. He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, they said, "What's this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he's picked up?" The others said, "He seems to be preaching about some foreign gods."
Then they took him to the high council of the city on Mars Hill. "Come and tell us about this new teaching," they said. "You are saying some rather strange things and we want to know what it's all about." It should be explained that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to be spending all their time discussing the latest ideas.
So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: "Men of Athens, I noticed that you are very religious in every way. For as I was walking along, I saw many of your shrines, and one of your altars had this inscription on it: 'To an unknown god.' This God whom you worship without knowing is the one I'm telling you about.
He is the God who made the world and everything in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn't need man-made temples and human hands can't serve his needs, for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything. He satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall and determined their boundaries.
His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him. Though he is not far from any one of us, for in him we live and move and exist. As some of your poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'"
God as the Environment of Existence
Quite an incredible statement. And if you look at Paul, who had the ministry to preach to the Gentiles, whenever he spoke to the Gentiles, this is probably the clearest preaching we hear from Paul or from anyone in the New Testament, preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. He ends with, "We are all his offspring." He's talking to people who never heard about God. Certainly not the God we worship. They worshipped all these other gods. We're all his offspring. Incredible statement.
When Paul speaks to the philosophers in Athens, he doesn't describe a god who occasionally visits from afar. He describes a God who is the very environment in which humanity exists. Life never exists outside of God. For in him we live and move and have our being, our very existence. We don't exist without God. We are in him and he holds us all together. This is quite different from the view that God's up there, we're down here, and we're completely separate.
And in fact, it's not just Paul who talked about this. This is a consistent thread throughout scripture. And it follows in several dimensions. There's the cosmic dimension, the entire universe. There's the sustaining dimension, where all things are being sustained in him. And there's the personal dimension. And this is the one that we want to actually realise and be awakened into.
Scriptural Dimensions of Divine Presence
In the cosmic dimension, quoting Jeremiah, God said to Jeremiah: "Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord." He fills heaven and earth. He's everywhere. We can't escape.
If we look at the personal dimension there, as David is speaking: "I can never escape from your spirit. I can never get away from your presence. If I go up to heaven, you are there. If I go down to the grave, you are there." So, it doesn't matter where we are, what state we're in, whether we're here on earth, whether we've passed away, God is always there. And we don't cease to exist when we pass away.
And in fact, in Revelation 14, Jesus is even present at the lake of fire. So, we think, "Oh, lake of fire. No, they've all been rejected by God. They're absent from God." It's in the presence of the Lamb and his angels. That's what's happening at the lake of fire. So, I'll let Paul talk about that more when he gets there in Revelation.
And then sustaining: Paul writes in Colossians 1:15–17, "Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities of the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He exists before anything else, and he holds all creation together."
So Paul brings us directly to Jesus Christ. Christ is the divine glue actively sustaining every atomic particle, every subatomic particle, every human heartbeat...everything. There is not this idea that we're separate and individual.
Distinction Versus Separation
I just wanted to make some crucial distinctions here before I go any further, because there are some confusing ideas out there. It centres around the difference between distinction and separation. Where is God?
There is a New Age teaching which says the creator and creation are identical. There's no distinction. So the creation is God and God is the creation and they're all the same. That's obviously false teaching because there's no distinction there.
If we look in the middle, the classical teaching is that there's a separation between God and us, and we have to figure out: are we good enough to get to God? Will he be interested in me?
And then on the right-hand side, the whole of creation exists within a distinctly greater God. We are distinct. Creation is distinct. It isn't God, but it's held together by God and exists within God.
I just want to really make sure there's a contrast that's understood here, because biblical union does not inflate the self. It requires the death of the false self to live in harmony with the truth. Remember from last time I said there is no resurrection without crucifixion. The death to that false self is required.
New Age spirituality ignores sin and avoids accountability, whereas God exposes sin as a rupture in the shared life of God. It skips the cross and dismisses absolute truth in the New Age view. But the biblical view is centred entirely on Christ, the cross, the resurrection, and surrender from us. There's a stark difference. On the surface, they might seem similar, but they are actually opposites.
Analogies of Indwelling and Distinction
How can we be fully in God yet distinct from him? Here are some analogies to help understand this a bit further.
The mind and the thought: a thought exists solely within the mind and depends on it completely. But the mind is far greater than a single thought. Without the mind, the thought doesn't exist at all. I think no analogy is perfect, but that's not a bad one.
The ocean and the wave: the wave is completely distinct in form, but has no independent life or substance apart from the ocean that sustains it. You can't have a wave without an ocean. You can't have us without God.
The author and the story: characters exist entirely within the author's imagination and sustaining presence. Yet, the author is not trapped in the book. The author isn't the book, he's not the characters, and the characters aren't the author. This helps us keep things in context and distinct. Even though we're not separated, we are distinct.
The Revelation of Participation
It goes even further because we often don't just view God as separate; we view ourselves as isolated individuals. But in Ephesians chapter 4, it didn't say that. The New Testament insists that shared human life is more fundamental than our divisions, and it's within Christ.
Modern Western teaching is very individualistic...what your truth is, is your truth, and it is the truth for you, but it's not the truth for me, and all this sort of stuff. What scripture teaches is that the body is one. The body within Christ is one and has many members. We are one body in Christ and individual members of one another. Paul writes this to the various churches in Rome and Corinth, and it's a theme throughout scripture. Even Jesus talked about it, and I'm calling this the revelation of participation.
If we look at Jesus' public ministry, he announced the arrival of the kingdom, and in Mark 1:15 he says, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is near." Repent doesn't mean think about all the sins you did, say you're sorry, and promise not to do them again. Repent is turn towards God. We're turning away from the old man, turning to the new man. This is metanoia, turning towards God.
Jesus stopped there in his public ministry. Until people repented, they couldn't move on to the next step, because the next step is the private revelation that Jesus gave to his disciples, which required repentance. Unless you've turned to God, you can't actually enter the next step, which is revealing that the life inside this kingdom is defined by mutual indwelling and shared divine life. If he tried to preach that to people who weren't even in the mindset of turning towards God, it just wouldn't make any sense to them. 
Woven into the Trinitarian Life 
In John 17, Jesus didn't simply pray for moral harmony or a corporate framework that's out of the flesh. He asked for humanity to be woven directly into the Trinitarian life. He prays that they may all be one...all of us being one. "Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us." That's pretty profound.
John 14 says, "On that day"...and that's the day of Pentecost Jesus is talking about..."you will realise that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." There's a mutual indwelling: us in him and him in us. I would encourage you to go and read from John 14 through to John 17, because there's a whole slab of scripture there that is just mind-blowing.
I've cheekily put us inside this diagram that's often used to represent the Trinity, because I'm not saying we are God at all. I'm saying we can participate in being in him, because Paul writes to the Corinthian church and says he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. There's this inclusive language that we're just not used to. 
Then this brings us full circle back to John 3:16. What is the gospel? That you can have eternal life. Jesus tells us what it is: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. That is eternal life. This is eternal life: full communion with God, being with God and God being with us. It's not just going to heaven one day and staying there forever. 
The Origin of Felt Distance
If we live in God, why do we feel so distant? We've all felt that God is distant. Scripture speaks of alienation and outer darkness. But sin is not relocating completely outside of God's existence. It's a rupture in relationship and perception. It's living out of the illusion of perception.
The old self comes into play. We become self-dependent. We view ourselves as independent from God. We decide what we want to do and set ourselves up as a little god in charge of ourselves. We lack that communion with God, and we're blinded by it.
In Ephesians 4:17–25, Paul captures this: "You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practise every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members of one another."
It's very inclusive language. It's a matter of waking up so we don't feel that alienation. We have to gain those spiritual eyes by taking our focus off ourselves and putting it onto him.
The Paradigm Shift
There is a paradigm shift required here.
In prayer, instead of calling up to the sky to reach a distant god, we need to tune into the divine presence that's already holding us together.
In discipleship, instead of trying hard to obey the rules of a far-off boss...the Ten Commandments...it is about waking up to the reality of the vine and allowing his life to flow through you. That is why you don't want to murder somebody: because you aren't harbouring anger toward people.
From the perspective of love, instead of maintaining a moral to-do list..."be nice to others because that's what I need to do; I really don't like those people, but I have to be nice to them"...it is living in harmony with our shared biological and spiritual reality. We are members of one body, and Christ is all and in all.
Prayer is no longer an attempt to project your voice across the empty cosmic void. It is the practice of sinking into the sustaining presence that is already holding you together...moving from reaching to abiding. 
Spiritual growth is not a frantic effort to close a gap, but a peaceful yielding to the faith of Christ already at work within you. How do we allow the faith of Christ to flow? Through our faith...we turn that valve on the tap to allow the faith of Christ to flow in us. 
From isolation to communion, we cease viewing faith as a purely private endeavour and begin viewing every human interaction as an event happening within the shared life of God. This is another dimension of how we participate in presence prayer.
The Present Kingdom
The good news is already here. The gospel isn't a roadmap for how to reach a distant, reluctant God. It is an invitation to participate in life itself through Christ. The illusion of separation is shattered, and we are invited to wake up to the presence that has held us all along.
Where is the kingdom of God? It is within us. The kingdom of God is not up there somewhere. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." The kingdom is within us through the Holy Spirit. That is the reality we have been given.
I'll now play a five minute video which brings all this together…

A Deeper Perspective on Union and Panentheism
Most of us grew up with a very specific geographic assumption about how the universe works: God is up there completely outside of the world, and we are down here separated by a massive, unbridgeable gap. This worldview is often called classical theism. It paints a picture of a creator who is completely separate from his creation, looking down on reality from a safe distance.
That perceived distance takes a real emotional toll. When God feels far away, prayer starts to feel like trying to place a long-distance phone call into the sky, hoping the signal somehow reaches him. It also turns the entire concept of salvation into an escape plan. The ultimate goal becomes abandoning a doomed earth so we can cross that cosmic divide and reach a distant heaven. Under this framework, the spiritual life devolves into a relentless, exhausting exercise. We spend our days striving, reaching, and trying to close the gap between ourselves and a completely unreachable entity.
Because we are so used to that distance, introducing words like oneness, indwelling, or union makes a lot of Christians immediately uncomfortable. It is easy to see why. For many, that language sounds uncomfortably close to New Age mysticism or eco-spirituality. It triggers a fear that we are simply glorifying the self. The deeper theological concern is that embracing oneness compromises God's holiness. It feels as if we are blurring the line between the creator and the creation, pulling God down to our level.
What if our extreme caution has a massive blind spot? What if avoiding these mystical-sounding words means we are accidentally rejecting the language of the Bible itself? In our desperate attempt to protect a safe, distant orthodoxy, we might be ignoring what the scriptures literally say about the nature of our reality.
The Biblical Case Against Separation
The moment you look closely at the text, the idea of a distant god starts to crack. Take Paul's speech to the philosophers in Athens in Acts 17. Paul uses incredibly specific, radical language. He tells them that God is not far from any of us, stating plainly that in him we live and move and have our being. He doubles down on this in Ephesians 4, describing one God who is above all and through all and in all. God transcends creation yet is intimately present inside every part of it.
Jesus takes this even further in John 17. The night before his crucifixion, he prays for his followers, asking explicitly that they may all be one just as he and the Father are one. The Bible explicitly portrays a reality where humanity exists inside God's presence. These are not isolated metaphors; they completely dismantle the concept of a detached "man upstairs."
This dynamic illustrates panentheism: the universe existing entirely within God's sustaining presence. Contrast that with pantheism, which collapses the distinction, claiming creator and creation are identical. To grasp panentheism, think of characters existing entirely within an author's imagination while the author remains infinitely greater and distinct from the narrative. This framework balances the biblical text. It preserves God's absolute holiness and distinction without requiring him to be physically distant from the reality we live in.
The Illusion of Disconnection
This raises a glaring question: if we exist entirely inside of God, why do we experience such profound feelings of isolation, darkness, and sin? The answer lies in the difference between distinction and separation. We are distinct beings, but never truly separated from the one holding us together.
Sin isn't physical separation from God. It is a rupture in our relationship, a distortion in our own perception, a life turned away from the truth. Sin is the tragic illusion of living as if we are completely disconnected from the very source that is currently sustaining our existence.
Recognising this ongoing presence dictates how we must interpret Jesus' public command to repent. The original Greek word he used is metanoia. It requires a total shift in perception and a completely new way of seeing reality, rather than a simple moral clean-up.
Jesus explained this intimately to his disciples when he called himself the vine and us the branches. A branch lacks independent life. Its entire existence relies on a shared, participatory connection with the vine. The gospel is not an evacuation plan to a distant heaven. It is a radical invitation to wake up to the divine reality that is already surrounding us here and now.
This awakened state extends directly to how we view each other. If every single human being exists within the exact same sustaining presence, then ultimate isolation is a physical and spiritual myth. We are, as Paul wrote, members of one another. This gives entirely new weight to the command to love your neighbour as yourself. This directive goes far beyond simple advice for getting along. Loving others is not a moral checklist; it is living in perfect alignment with the physics of reality, recognising that we all share the exact same source of life.

 

Revelation Episode 12: The Satanic Trinity of the Dragon, Beast and False Prophet

Today I’m talking about the Beast—the Lawless One, often called “the Antichrist”—and the False Prophet, who are both spoken of in Revelation 13. We see that, just as God is a Trinity, so too will the last-days manifestation of Satan be in triune form. The Beast and the False Prophet are empowered by the Dragon, Satan, whom we spoke about in the last session as the one who tried to destroy the Woman and the Man Child (Revelation 12:3, 9).

Satan cannot create anything but can only copy, and the appearance of the Beast (or Antichrist) will be a counterfeit of the ministry of Jesus, even to the three-and-a-half-year length of his “ministry” on earth. The False Prophet will be a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit and will speak for the Beast (Revelation 13:11–18).

This episode will deal with the work of the Satanic Trinity in its spiritual conflict with the Kingdom of God for control of the geopolitical realm of the world. This is distinct from the spiritual conflict in the last episode, where we saw the existential struggle involving the Woman as the Church of Revelation chapter 12, how the Prince Power of Darkness had been put under our feet through Jesus as Head of the Church, and how the Church was given divine protection.

We see in this episode that the Dragon, Satan, who is a counterfeit of the Father, has always worked through world powers and will do so until the end.

Matthew 4:8: “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’”

Ephesians 2:2: “We once walked according to the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

We also saw that the Dragon had seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head. The seven heads here were seen as last-days heads of nation-states, but horns in the Bible speak of power. The ten horns therefore speak of last-days strategic corporate entities of power that influence nation-states and ultimately give rise to the Beast’s rule over the earth during the three and a half years. I mentioned in the last session that we might perhaps expect to witness surprising structural and influential changes in national leadership, even over the next few years, because of the current political instability.

THE BEAST
The Beast comes in the image of his father, the Dragon (see also Revelation 17:3, 10–12).
Revelation 13:1: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The Dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marvelled and followed the Beast. So they worshipped the Dragon who gave authority to the Beast; and they worshipped the Beast, saying, ‘Who is like the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?’”

Here we see that the Beast comes in the image of the Dragon (Revelation 12:3), except that there are ten crowns on the horns rather than seven crowns on the heads. Horns speak of power, and crowns speak of authority. This speaks of the Antichrist giving authority to the ten heads of the ten powerful nations that will rule the world kingdom at the time of the end.

John describes a single “Composite Beast” because this represents the gathering of all previous imperial, tyrannical, and dominating traits of history into one final, unified global entity. John describes a Beast that is “like a leopard,” with “feet like those of a bear” and a “mouth like that of a lion.”

This vision of John’s is based upon a vision of the prophet Daniel, which gives us the code that unlocks the identities and characteristics of all those imperial nations and rulers of biblical history. What we will seek to decipher and explain today are the historical and ongoing prophetic lines from the Book of Daniel concerning the geopolitical struggle of the kingdom of darkness against the Kingdom of God.

The following prophetic Scriptures from Daniel form very strong lines of historical and biblical continuity across the six hundred years from Daniel to when John wrote Revelation. In fact, we will draw just as strongly from Daniel in further episodes of Revelation concerning the latter parts of the three-and-a-half-year Tribulation and the return of Christ.

Daniel 7:3: “And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’”

“After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The Beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it” (4 = global dominion).

“After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth Beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words.”

TRADITIONAL IDENTIFICATIONS IN DANIEL 7

SYMBOL — TRADITIONAL IDENTIFICATION — CORE CHARACTERISTIC
- Lion (with eagle’s wings) — Babylon — Sovereignty: Represents imperial majesty and dominion (parallel to the “Gold Head” of Daniel 2).
- Bear (raised on one side) — Medo-Persia — Crushing Power: Characterised by the command to “Arise, devour much flesh … and it ate three ribs,” emphasising its massive appetite for conquest.
- Leopard (with four wings/heads) — Greece — Speed: Four wings—leopard’s natural speed, Alexander the Great’s rapid expansion, and the four successor kingdoms. A leopard is pale yellow with black spots.
- Fourth Beast (iron teeth/10 horns) — Rome — Imperial Destruction: Described as “terrible and extremely strong,” using its “iron teeth” to crush and devour all opposition.

These established ancient identities are not merely historical footnotes; they serve as the necessary archetypes for understanding how power is projected throughout history.

Note the progression of Lion, Bear, and Leopard, because John reverses this sequence in Revelation 13:2, where we see the leopard, bear, and lion qualities of the Beast first.

This is because John is looking back into history, from Rome to Babylon. But what we must remember is that John is also looking forward prophetically into history from two thousand years ago.

It will be useful, amongst the bewildering range of symbolic descriptions of the “Beast Nations” of history, to remember the sequence of three recurring symbolic nations of history—the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard. These have been the prelude to a sequence of dreadful “composite beasts” throughout history and will feature significantly in the last days, when they become the ultimate ogre of the “Composite Beast” at the Second Coming of Christ to the earth. Remember the sequence: Lion, Bear, Leopard.

One of the greatest counterfeits that will be perpetrated by the Beast, the Lawless One, will be a counterfeit resurrection in verse 3, which will delude many.

Remember, in 2 Thessalonians 2, that God would send strong delusion for people to believe a lie.

His mouth will speak great things. He will be a great leader and statesman who will sway the multitudes. He will receive power from the Dragon, Satan, to overcome those saints who endure the Tribulation. But their martyrdom will be to the glory of God. These saints are encouraged by the angel of Revelation 14:7. Daniel 7:8 speaks of one powerful, persuasive person as a horn of power who will arise at the end: “And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words.”

So we have strong lines of scriptural formation from Daniel to John, but in the two thousand years from John until now, we have reached beyond the time of John, when Rome was the “Composite Beast,” into the description of a much more awesome and devastating Composite Beast that Rome represented. John’s final Beast here has seven heads as well as ten horns.

And I have to say this—but wait, there’s more.

In Revelation 12:3, in the last episode, we saw John describing the Dragon, representing Satan: “Behold, a great red dragon … having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads” (diadems are jewelled headbands).

So the sequence is:
- Revelation 12:3—Dragon: 7 heads crowned + 10 horns
- Revelation 13:1—Beast: 7 heads + 10 horns crowned
- Revelation 17:3, 12—Beast: 7 heads + 10 horns; then ten kings receive authority

This is not a repeated description—John changes the locations of the diadems.

That fits prophetically and purposefully with the progression from Satanic authority being delegated to a Beastly political authority, and then to a final ten-kingdom coalition.

Chapter 13 portrays the Beast receiving and exercising the authority previously associated with the Dragon. It is like the Father giving Jesus His authority.

We will cover the progression of power when we come to those chapters later in Revelation.

To this point, with John’s veiled vision of what he was observing in the geopolitical power plays of his day, we have strong and true lines of scriptural continuity through which to understand the nature of the Lion, Bear, and Leopard powers of his time.

If we seek to understand the prophetic imagery that he lays ahead into the future, at least up until now, we can only interpret the identities and conflicts of his visions by insight and eyesight as to the current geopolitical landscape. In other words, who are the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard today? I can’t go further yet into what the grotesque, final Composite Beast vision that comes up out of the sea is, but I will in further episodes, where we see the intricate dance of crowns swapping with horns and diadems, chapter after chapter. The sea, by the way, speaks of the nations—the global ocean of humanity.

So anything I say about the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard that John left us with will be by exercising eyesight, with some insights into the strategic power of current geopolitics. But I do not have a strong line of scriptural alignment as John did. He left prophecy to unfold itself within a continuous blend of the historical national traits of dominance, hegemony, cruelty, lies, and destruction. My thoughts are speculation, and I do not claim to have divine revelation about them. I will take the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard in their original order. As we are not looking back as John was, I am mapping their original history.

MODERN GEOPOLITICAL ANALOGIES (FUTURIST)
SYMBOL — TRADITIONAL BIBLICAL IDENTITY — MODERN GEOPOLITICAL ANALOGY
- Lion — Babylon — Britain, the “Anglosphere” (USA/Europe). The Lion took eagle’s wings, flew away, and landed with a human heart and the wings plucked (Daniel 7). USA becomes a Democratic Republic. Has a mouth speaking pompous things.
- Bear — Medo-Persia — Russia (culturally the bear). Daniel 7: “Arise, devour much flesh … lay on one side—ate three ribs.” Recent conquests: Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine?
- Leopard — Greece — Afro-Asia: the rapid spread of geopolitical/civilisational/trading significance. The Leopard is pale yellow with black markings. First colonised by Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal. Greece split into four national regions after Alexander: Egypt, Greece/Macedonia, Persia to India, and Turkey (Anatolia).

THE FALSE PROPHET
Revelation 13:11: “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon.”

The False Prophet—the counterfeit of the Holy Spirit—speaks for the Beast (Revelation 13:11–18).

This person is described as a lamb, speaking of a meek and docile appearance, yet inwardly a ravenous wolf. He is seen to have two horns, speaking of the two thrusts of his power. These will be religion and commerce. In verses 15 and 16, he causes all the world to worship the image of the Antichrist, thus establishing a new world religion. He also causes everyone to receive a mark on their foreheads or right hands as a condition of being able to purchase or sell any goods or commodities. The mark is 666, speaking of satanic power over man’s spirit, soul, and body. Compare the image of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3:1.

He counterfeits the great prophet Elijah by causing fire to come down from heaven onto the earth in the sight of man (verse 13). It would seem that he has power over the elements as well as over people, according to verse 12.

CONCLUSION — THE FOUR GARDENS
We could picture the Garden of Eden as a biological, botanical, and zoological garden, where God walked with His earthly family of Adam and Eve, giving Adam authority to name the animals. There was nothing but blessing in the earth that God had dominion over and shared with His family.

We would then see a tangled garden of chaos as sin and death enter the world, ending up with the botanical, zoological, and biological garden of Daniel’s time, which had beasts, conflict, destruction, and spiritual interference from angels of darkness under the headship of Satan.

We then come to the continuation and progressive chaos and corruption of Daniel’s time, leading to the greater malice and destruction of the garden of the time of the Apostle John.

We are now, two thousand years later, inhabiting the most grotesque jungle of a garden and awaiting the return of the King of Kings in His appointed time.

That will usher in the most beautiful and majestic garden on the earth, which will last for one thousand years. In this millennial Garden, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, there will be no more thorns and thistles, and the groaning of this current earthly creation will have been heard and healed from the curse of human sin.

Romans 8:21: “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”

This earth will be ruled by the King of kings, who will be crowned with many crowns, topple all other kingdoms that stand in His way, and invite us to once again rule and reign with Him upon an entire blessed earth that far supersedes the Garden of Eden. He also has a crown laid up for us if we follow on to know the Lord.

Revelation Episode 11: The Woman, the Church and the Manchild

Today we are doing Revelation episode 11, which talks about the Woman, who represents the Church in the last days, and her experience of being attacked by the Dragon and protected by God during the three and a half years, or forty-two months, of the Tribulation.

Reading from Revelation 12:1: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon 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…”

The Dragon of Revelation is out to destroy the Woman and her Man Child. We will look at him in a moment. Most traditional viewpoints identify the Woman as Israel bringing forth Jesus. However, that is a historical event—not a future event during the three and a half years of the Tribulation. Revelation chapter 12 describes the narrative of the Woman over the Tribulation period of 1,260 days, or 42 months, or three and a half years. This event is of great significance in Revelation for the Church, regarding its ongoing future conflict with the Dragon and his rebellious angelic following, and the divine protection of the Church throughout the Tribulation.

Remember, in the last episode on the Two Witnesses, we saw that Revelation chapters 11 to 19 deal with all the events within the final 3½ years. The events are not all presented as a single, uninterrupted chronological sequence. They are explanatory “camera angles,” or parallel perspectives on the same period—like watching a movie and thinking you’ve arrived at the end of the story, where everything is about to be resolved, and then a caption comes up on the screen saying, “Three and a half years earlier.” From Revelation 19, we can move progressively toward Christ’s return.

Today we are identifying the Woman as the Church—camera angle three on the grid below.

PERSPECTIVE — FOCUS OF THE VISION — SPECIFIC NARRATIVE SYMBOL
- Heaven — Declaration of God’s Kingdom — The Seventh Trumpet (Revelation 10)
- Israel — The prophetic ministry/testimony — The Two Witnesses (Revelation 11)
- Church — Conflict and protection of the Church — The Woman (Revelation 12)
- The Beast — The political/religious authority — The Two Beasts (Revelation 13)
- God Blesses — Choosing of an anointed group — The 144,000 (Revelation 14)
- God Judges — The outpouring of divine wrath — The Seven Bowls (Revelation 15)

The foundational blueprint for the overarching journey of the Woman as the Church travels from Genesis to Revelation starts in Genesis 3:15 (God to Satan): “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This promise of a coming deliverer who will bruise the serpent’s head finds its prophesied goal in the corporate body of Christ. While the initial fulfilment is enacted in the person of Jesus on the cross, the apostolic vision of Paul in Romans 16:20 confirms a final delegated work from Jesus to the Church. Paul says to the Church, “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” This shift to the corporate phrase “your feet” signals the transition from Jesus on the cross to the Church as the feet in the execution of judgement. To understand this fulfilment, we must first analyse the celestial “Woman” of Revelation 12—a spiritual fulfilment whose seed is prophesied into history from Genesis 3:5.

We saw the Woman dwelling in the fulness of the Godhead in the sun, moon, and stars. The sun speaks of the glory of the Father; the moon is the reflected glory of Jesus; and the stars speak of the Holy Spirit in Christians. Twelve stars represent the twelve Apostles of the Book of Acts—the number twelve speaks of order and authority. The Woman, the Church, is about to bring forth a Man Child.

The identification of the stars representing the Holy Spirit in Christians is seen in the following Scripture references.

Firstly, through Abraham—Genesis 22:17: “I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies” (Matthew 16:18—the gates of hell shall not prevail).

Then, through Daniel—Daniel 12:3: “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

Then, through Paul—1 Corinthians 15:37: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory” (God on display).

THE DRAGON
This Dragon is Satan. Revelation 12:3: “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.”

The seven heads speak historically of seven world kingdoms down through the ages, spoken of in Daniel. These are Egypt, Assyria, Media, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the final fearsome ten-toed kingdom (covered in Revelation in a later lesson). The seven heads here are seen as last-days heads of nation-states, while horns in the Bible speak of power. The ten horns speak of last-days strategic horns of power that give rise to the Beast’s Antichrist rule. We will see later that the crowns change place between Revelation 13:1 and Revelation 17:9, speaking of significant corrupt political and spiritual power-brokering in the final days.

Even today, we are seeing radical changes in the power dynamics of political, military, and economic hegemony, where some nation-states are in desperate decline while others are gaining economic and military advantage. Unexpected alliances of strategic horns-of-power groupings are being formed to dominate nation-states, and these power groupings leverage and threaten with no regard for diplomacy. We can perhaps expect to witness surprising structural and influential changes in national leadership, even over the next two years, because of the current political instability (next episode).

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE DRAGON, SATAN, AND THE WOMAN, THE CHURCH
Revelation 12:4: “His tail swept down (syro from 138, drawn to oneself) 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 Man 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.”

The tail of the Dragon draws the third part of the stars of heaven (verse 4). This “sweep” refers to the deception of “fallen saints” rather than original angelic rebels. We saw earlier that the stars represent Christians. Later, in verse 9, the Dragon, Satan, falls with ALL of his rebellious angels. According to the typological key, we see what happens here in Isaiah.

Isaiah 9:15: “And the prophet who teaches lies is the tail; for those who guide this people have been leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up” (bala—engulfed).

So these are Christians deceived by false prophets and lying wonders, as Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians:

2 Thessalonians 2:3: “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time (the Holy Spirit). For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way (mesos; in the midst—how is the Woman out of the way?). And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one (the Beast) is by the activity of Satan (the Dragon), with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

The Dragon now prepares to devour the Man Child because this is the fulfilment of the prophesied “seed of the woman” (Genesis 3:15), who will completely destroy him, the Dragon (Romans 16:20). When the Man Child is caught up, the Dragon is cast to the earth with all of his angels. This is distinct from the one-third of the stars being swept by the tail of the Dragon, meaning fallen saints, not angels.

All the angels are cast down after Michael defeats Satan.

THE MAN CHILD
Revelation 12:5: “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.”

The identity of the Man Child is one of the controversial issues of the Book of Revelation. Like the Book of Revelation itself, teaching on the Man Child has become sectarian and divisive. This would be precisely what Satan, the Dragon, would want to see for obvious reasons. I simply propose that the Man Child is a certain corporate group expression of Christ that rules with Him, with a designated sphere of influence and authority.

We will compare Moses, Jesus, and the Man Child in their ministries and note the progression.

FEATURE — MOSES — JESUS — MAN CHILD
- Birth — Natural birth; old creation from old creation — Supernatural birth; new creation from old creation — Miracle birth; new creation from new creation
- Conflict — Children slain by Pharaoh; Moses picks up serpent by the tail — Children slain by Herod; serpent bruises Jesus’ heel — Children?; Man Child bruises Dragon’s head (Romans 16:20)
- Ministry — Ministers at Tabernacle; supernatural feeding (manna) — Ministers in Temple; feeds people in the wilderness — Ministers in spiritual Temple; feeds Church in Woman in wilderness
- Authority — Shepherd who ruled with a rod — Great Shepherd; the measuring rod — Rules all nations with a rod of iron
- Translation — Translated bodily into heaven — Translated bodily into heaven — Translated bodily into heaven

WAR IN HEAVEN
Revelation 12:7–9

In verse 6, we saw that the Woman flees into the wilderness, where “they” feed her for three and a half years. This is the “taking out” of the Church and is expanded in verse 14. We will deal with this event in a moment.

The Dragon is now cast down to the earth from his place in the heavens. Michael the Archangel is seen here in his role as warrior, conquering the evil angels (compare Daniel 10:13).

The power of the Dragon, Satan, is in his deception. He is called the Father of Lies and always desires to work under cover. But now he is exposed and seen for who he is, shifting the battlefield from the heavenly to the earthly realm. The saints who are left on the earth during this time of Tribulation will no longer be deceived by him and will overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, which is their newfound love of the truth (verses 10–11). Satan now knows that he has but a short time and is bent on the destruction of the earth and its inhabitants. His first target is the Woman, the Church—his greatest enemy.

THE ESCAPE OF THE CHURCH
Revelation 12:14: “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place (out of the way, in the midst, mesos?), where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the Dragon.”

The Church is supernaturally taken into a protected place or spiritual state of existence on “eagles’ wings” (see Exodus 19:4), as Israel was taken out of Egypt. This will be a place on earth, but protected from the judgements upon the earth (Isaiah 16:1–5; Isaiah 26:20–21; Psalm 55:6–7; Isaiah 49:25). Also compare the 42 months of Tribulation with the 42 encampments of Israel in their wilderness journey. Whether or not this wilderness refuge is an actual geographical place, or a state of spiritual protection within the general community, remains to be seen. But the miraculous protection and provision are clearly indicated, just as they were in the spiritual protection of the symbolic Noah’s Ark during the 150 days of protection in the midst of the flood. We compared this with the 150 days of spiritual protection from the demonic, tormenting spirits set free from the pit of the Euphrates in Revelation chapter 9.

The Dragon cannot destroy the Woman, so he goes to war against the remnant—made of the same cloth, but a smaller piece not woven into the garment. These are the saints who did not comprise that Bride company. See the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25) and the parable of the invitation to the wedding feast (Matthew 22). A remnant is made of the same type and quality as the original garment but is not able to be used in the making of the garment. It is always a smaller piece than the cloth used for the garment. It would seem that God’s mercy will ensure that a greater number of His people will escape the Tribulation, while fewer will be martyred in that time for not taking the mark of the Beast.

The outcome of this conflict was settled at the dawn of history. The narrative concludes by pointing to the foundational promise in Genesis 3:15, where God declared the seed of the Woman would bruise the serpent’s head. This is confirmed for the Church in Romans 16:20: “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”

We don’t know what “shortly” means, but it signifies a progressive movement from an earthly struggle of trials of faith to a Heavenly Wonder, where the Church is seen in divine glory, and then to a Cosmic Conflict involving the birth of a governing body (the Man Child) and a war in the heavens. Although the Dragon attempts to destroy the Church through deception in the end times—and through a full-on attack at the very end—God provides a Supernatural Escape into a protected place for the Bride. While the Remnant must face a final test of faith, the ultimate victory and the crushing of the serpent are historically and prophetically guaranteed. We are to see ourselves as having Satan under our feet at all times. The bruising for us is small compared with the mighty crushing of his power in the earth.

2 Corinthians 4:17: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

REVELATION 10 THE TWO WITNESSES 

At the end of Revelation 10, we reached the great prophetic climax. The mystery of God is being brought to completion, and the seventh trumpet is about to sound. We are at the point toward which all the previous judgments have been moving.

Today we’re talking about where we belong and with whom we belong and to whom we belong. We all belong to an idea, and people think it’s their idea but there are many thousands of ideas out there that many thousands of people want you to belong to. Those ideas promise to give you what you want for yourself, but it is what they want for you. 

 

Who is they? They are the powers of darkness that work through the minds of influential people who are blinded from what God’s idea is for us. They persuade people to want to belong to their ideas and belong to their values. The problem is that if people are not sure about belonging, they will seek to pressure them to belong in various coercive ways, financially, personally or ideologically or threateningly because they want their ideas expressed through people’s lives so that they have control over their lives. 

You fill in the blanks – it’s for everyone 

For Christians it’s not about which denomination or which church we belong to. God simply says you belong to him – we belong together with him. He has his unique idea of you which he implanted into your spirit before the foundation of the world –his logos DNA seed word spoken into us by Jesus through the Holy Spirit the Spirit. Jesus said That you might have life and life more abundantly’ John 10:10. Jesus also adds that the thief comes to rob and to kill and to destroy that life. God’s idea for you is that you come to know him and express his life through your soul and live his values into this world. He draws you by his love and truth and grace – not by coercion - and you receive willingly and thankfully. This is where today’s word from revelation Episode 10 begins and ends as we also belong with the two witnesses we’re discussing today.

Revelation chapter 11 to chapter 19 deals with all the events within the final 3½ years. But the events are not all presented as a single uninterrupted chronological sequence. Some sections are explanatory “close-ups” or parallel perspectives on the same period. And from Revelation19 we then move progressively toward Christ’s return. 

It is like watching a movie and you think you’ve arrived at the end of the story where everything is about to be resolved then a caption comes up on the screen saying ‘Three and a half years earlier’. I think the movie producers learned this technique from the Apostle John.

We are watching the same final act of the movie from several different camera angles. The story keeps returning to the same final period, but each “camera angle” reveals another dimension of what is taking place until the return of Christ brings the whole story into the open. Everything belongs in its order to the one narrative, and we belong together to that narrative wherever it is up to now, every day of our lives.

 

So in Revelation 11 the two witnesses are introduced, Moses and Elijah, who minister during this final three and a half year period and bear prophetic testimony in the midst of a rebellious world. 

 

The seventh trumpet then announces that the kingdoms of this world are becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

 

Then Revelation 12 depicts a woman representing the church, being pursued by the dragon, Satan. She is given wings like a great eagle and protected in the wilderness for 1,260 days—three and a half years.

 

Revelation 13 then introduces the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth, and They exercise authority during this same final time period and demand allegiance from the world.

 

But Revelation 14 gives us a contrasting picture. While the beast gathers his followers, the Lamb stands with a select group of 144,000 people, and three angels proclaim God’s warnings to the world: 

Then comes the harvest of the earth—a picture of the gathering of humanity for judgment as the age reaches its climax.

 

Revelation 15–16 then brings seven final plagues and seven bowls of God’s wrath of divine judgment upon the kingdom of the beast - preparing the way for the final confrontation.

 

In Revelation 17–18 , still within the same time frame, from another camera angle as it were, we see Babylon, the great harlot, riding the beast—a picture of the corrupt spiritual, economic and political system that has allied itself with the beast. Babylon ultimately collapses under God’s judgment.

 

In Revelation 19, the narrative catches up with itself, with the announcement of the Kingdom of Christ - heaven rejoices, the marriage of the Lamb is celebrated, and the Bride is prepared then Christ appears as the rider on the white horse. He comes as King and Judge, defeats the beast and the false prophet, and brings the Antichrist’s kingdom to its end. Rev. Ch. 19 and Rev. Ch. 20 concern the second coming of Christ and the first and second judgement seats, separated  by the one thousand years millennium.

Rev. Chs. 21 and 22 deal with the heavenly Jerusalem. 

The purpose of these repeated perspective from chapters 11 to 19 is to show us not merely what happens, but what is happening simultaneously from heaven’s perspective, Israel’s perspective, the Church’s perspective, the Beast’s perspective and God’s judgment perspective. 

Before the Two Witnesses are introduced in Revelation 11:3 , which I’ll be focusing on in a moment, an Angel is commanded to measure the Temple and Altar and Worshippers, with the measuring rod, (Revelation 11:1,2).

Measurement is an important principle of God for us in the Bible. Paul tells us to examine ourselves to see whether we are ‘in the faith’. (2 Corinthians 13:5), and he mentions four area of measurement (metron) that we need to attend to, because whatever is not measured will never get changed, and be neglected. 

Firstly, there is measure of faith for the operation of his spiritual gift for serving God and others (Romans 12:3). Secondly, there is the measure of grace for the operation of that gift (Ephesians 4:7). Thirdly, the measure of our stature (character) in of Christ – (Ephesians 4: 13). Fourthly, the measure of our sphere of influence. (2Corinthians 10:3).

 

The measuring of the Temple here in Revelation is for the ultimate measurement that Christ has for his church

Ephesians 4:13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

Eph2: 21 - being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,

This refers to Christians who are the temple of God and are living in the truths of  worship, intimate relationship with God in Spirit and in truth, and ‘going on to perfection (telos – completion, salvation/healing of the soul) – a bride being made ready.

NB. There is speculation about a rebuilt last days actual temple which would require additional interpretation and application for Israel (a known or an unknown unknown)

 

The outer court is not measured, but these people belong to God, and they must experience persecution by being trodden underfoot by unbelievers (ethnos/ nations) during this time of tribulation (forty two months);

 

Some of these outer court people are Christians who have already heard the Gospel, and the call to the Marriage Feast (Matt 22: 1-14), but who have not pursued that promise. Matt 25: 1-13 tells the parable of those who were not prepared for the wedding feast who did not keep oil in their lamps, perhaps like the five foolish virgins and they found the door shut to them from the Marriage.

These outer court people are referred to later in Rev. Ch. 12:17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (see also Matt. 8: 12, Matt 5: 13).

It is God's people, Israel who are the main constituent of the outer court in this chapter who have been preserved for this time, to hear the testimony of the two witnesses and believe and be saved 

Rom. 11: 25-27 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved

 

TESTIMONY OF THE TWO WITNESSES.

These are two actual people, who bear testimony to the work of Jesus during His three and one half years of ministry (sometimes seen as ‘the Two men in White) . They will be known and recognised by the people of Israel, and they will be believed and trusted, and tell of things that describe

1. The Ascension of Jesus into Heaven (Acts 1: 10)
2. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead (John 20: 12)
3. The transfiguration in Glory of Jesus before Calvary (Luke. 9: 28-31)

d)   and
possibly other major events in Jesus’ life. EG The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness (Matt 4: 11) 

 

 

ANOINTING OF THE TWO WITNESSES.

Rev. 11: 4    "These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth."

The mention of olive trees refers to the anointing of the Holy Spirit that these men have, (Zech 4: 3), and the olive trees now speak of both Israel and Christians. They are called candlesticks also, because the Church has also been the candlesticks for the world. 

 

PARALLEL MINISTRIES OF MOSES AND ELIJAH.

Rev. 11: 5,6   "And if any man will hurt them, fire proceeds out of their mouth, and devours their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. 6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days
of their prophecy; and have power over waters to turn them to
blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as
they will."

Apart from the similarities seen here between the end time ministries of the two witnesses, and the past ministries of Moses and Elijah, their ministries both feature the following similarities:

 

 

1.Both had revelation on Mt. Horeb with fire. 

Moses (Ex. 24:16) Elijah (IKings 19: 8)

2, Both fasted 40 days and nights. 

Elijah (IKings 19: 8) Moses (Exodus 34: 28 - 10 Commandments)

3. Both erected Altars lit by God. 

Elijah ( IKings: 18 ) Moses ( Lev.9: 24 )

4. Both sent to wicked Kings and persecuted.

Elijah (IKings 17: 1 ) Moses (Exod. 6: 27 )

5. Both used sword against idolaters. 

Elijah (1 Kings 19: 1) Moses(Exod. 32: 27 )

6. Both miraculously divided waters.

Elijah ( 2 Kings 2: 8 ) Moses (Exod. 14: 21 - red sea )

7. Both went up to Heaven beyond Jordan. 

Elijah (2 Kings 2: 11 ) Moses (Deut 34: 6 )

8. Both had anointed successors who also divided Jordan. 

Elijah (2 Kings 2: 14 ) Moses ( Josh. 3: 16 )

9. Both saw fire consume enemies. 

Elijah ( 2 Kings 1: 10 ) Moses (Num. 16:35 – sons of Korah - Dathan and Abiram)

10. Both appeared on Mt. of Transfiguration. (Lk.9: 28 )

 

NECESSITY FOR MOSES AND ELIJAH TO SEE DEATH.

Rev. 11: 7  "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and kill them."

Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection -1 Cor 15: 20 "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept."

A. Moses

Therefore anyone whose body has been glorified in Heaven having experienced death before Christ, would therefore be the firstfruits of ‘those that slept’.

Moses’ body had been glorified (Luke. 9: 28-3,Deuteronomy 34:6, Jude Vs. 9,), and so to conform to scriptures he must again see death. "Moses was faithful in all his house as an attendant, for a testimony of the things to be spoken afterward" (Hebrews 3:5) - a servant whose faithfulness is explicitly held for later declaration...also - apart from us they should not be made perfect" (Hebrews 11:39). They belong together with us.

B          Elijah. Elijah went straight to heaven in a cloud with his chariot, so he has yet to see death (2Kings 2:11 Elisha was given the mantle that Elijah had used to divide the Jordan when he ascended, and Elisha also divided the Jordan river as he returned from tha tplace.).  People thought John was Elijah but Jesus said, after John was already dead: “Elijah indeed comes and will restore all things” (Matthew 17:11). Future tense. 

John carried Elijah’s commission in his generation but Elijah is seen here as part of a future generation in restoring the Kingdom.s.

 

The Bible says that it is appointed for every man to die (Heb 9: 27). The only exceptions that scripture itself makes to this are:

1)     Enoch (Gen 5:24, Heb 11: 5) 

2)     The prepared End Time Church generation. (1 Thess 4: 15, 1 Cor 15: 51,52, 

Ps. 102: 18-22 This will be written for a generation to come, That a people yet to be created may praise the LORD.For He looked down from the height of His sanctuary;

From heaven the LORD viewed the earth, To hear the groaning of the prisoner,

To release those appointed to death,

To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem, when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the LORD.

 

John is showing us that, despite everything about to happen on earth, God knows exactly who belongs to Him. We are purposed and declared to belong – together with one another - to him. The world that belongs to darkness may appear to be taking control, but God is still measuring, identifying and preserving His own. We don’t just live like we know he is going to win – we live as ones who know he has already won. We belong together in his victory every moment.

As we continue our journey through the Book of Revelation, we are moving into one of the most dramatic transitions in the entire prophetic narrative. The first four trumpets have progressively affected the created order—the earth, the sea, the rivers and waters, and the heavenly bodies. But when we arrive at the fifth and sixth trumpets, something fundamentally changes. The judgments are no longer primarily directed against creation. They are directed against humanity itself. And even more significantly, Revelation begins to pull back the veil and show us what lies behind the rebellion of humanity: a supernatural kingdom of darkness, a counterfeit kingdom that seeks to imitate, corrupt and ultimately replace the Kingdom of God.

We saw how trumpets one to four struck creation – the trees, the seas, the rivers and the darkening of the sun and the moon and the stars. And now the fifth trumpet releases supernatural powers that torment humanity. Revelation 9:1 Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fall from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only to harm those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads – they had no authority to kill those people, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days those people will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

THE FIFTH TRUMPET — THE ABYSS IS OPENED

Then the fifth Trumpet sounds. John says: I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth. And to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. He says “to him.” The star is a personal being identified as Abaddon, in Hebrew, or Apollyon, in Greek. Both names mean Destroyer. This is therefore a supernatural ruler of the abyss. The abyss is opened, and smoke rises from it like the smoke of a great furnace. Then something terrifying emerges. Locust-like beings appear. But John repeatedly says they are “like” something. They have human-like faces. They have hair like women’s hair. They have teeth like lions. They have breastplates like iron. Their wings sound like an enormous army. And they have tails like scorpions. The picture is deliberately unnatural and chilling. These are supernatural demonic powers released from the abyss, a demonic army under the authority of Apollyon/the destroyer. But what is extraordinarily important is that God remains sovereign, and the demons are not given unlimited authority. They are told what they may do and not do. They cannot destroy the vegetation. They cannot harm those who possess the seal of God. And their period of torment is limited. They are given five months. This does not necessarily mean that believers experience no challenge of suffering, but it tells us that God’s people are never outside His protective care. The five-month period is significant - 150 days the same as the 150 days during which the floodwaters prevailed in the days of Noah and God’s people were preserved. The days of Noah were characterised by corruption and judgment, but God preserved Noah and his household. And Revelation here again presents humanity facing a world of escalating judgment while God continues to preserve those who belong to Him – It’s Psalm 91 again.

And next is the sixth trumpet - unleashing an unprecedented force of destruction in which one-third of humanity dies.

Then, between the sixth and seventh trumpets, Revelation chapter 10 gives us a remarkable prophetic prelude to what will happen in the Tribulation. John is shown that God’s apparent and puzzling delay in revealing the enigma of the history of the world is coming to an end. The history of mankind while blessed with the goodness of God is a confusing and often unhinged narrative of human disasters. But the mystery of God in all this is approaching its unveiling and fulfillment. And finally, with the seventh trumpet, the great declaration is made: The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. So Revelation 9–10 is not simply a catalogue of frightening events. It is a movement toward the final confrontation between two kingdoms—the counterfeit kingdom of Satan and the true Kingdom of God.

THE UNVEILING OF THE SATANIC KINGDOM

To understand Revelation 9, we must understand the biblical story of human rebellion. Behind the visible structures of human civilisation lies a deeper spiritual conflict, describing the development of what can be called the satanic kingdom—a kingdom born from Lucifer's rebellious ambition. The rebellion is therefore not merely evil behaviour. It is usurpation/overthrow. And that same ambition eventually appears here in Revelation in its fullest form to construct a counterfeit of God’s Kingdom. The biblical picture becomes almost like a dark mirror.

God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The satanic kingdom is portrayed through the Dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet. The Dragon represents Satan. The Beast receives worship. The False Prophet directs humanity toward that worship.

The result is a counterfeit kingdom with a counterfeit ruler, counterfeit worship and counterfeit authority. This is a counterfeit trinity, with the Beast receiving the worship that belongs to Christ and the False Prophet directing humanity toward worship of the Beast and global economic control. This is why Revelation is so concerned with worship. The final conflict is therefore spiritual before it is political.

FROM TORMENT TO DEATH — THE SIXTH TRUMPET

So the fifth trumpet brought all that torment without death. Now the sixth trumpet brings death on an unprecedented scale. Four angels are released at the Euphrates. The Euphrates is not an arbitrary detail. It represented the boundary of the land promised to Abraham. It was associated historically with the great enemies of God’s people, and the Euphrates also becomes significant because of its association with the ancient world of Genesis and the traditions surrounding the angelic watchers and the Nephilim giants, and the Mesopotamian traditions represented by the Epic of Gilgamesh.

GILGAMESH, THE NEPHILIM AND THE ANCIENT REBELLION

This brings us to a fascinating theological connection. There is a Biblical account in Genesis ch. 6 that speaks about angels coming down and procreating with women in the earth. Genesis 6:4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. This is also mentioned in Jude And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day (Jude 1:6). The Bible records this as ‘evil crossing divinely established boundaries’ which led ultimately to the corruption of humanity and the judgement of the flood of Noah.

But another reality reverses that claim and establishes a deliberate and deceptive ancient Mesopotamian worldview of surrounding nations in the Middle East that were not only corrupted by these angels, but who admired and eventually recognised them as demi-gods. The ancient Mesopotamian world produced stories of supernatural beings, superheroes and angelic-human interaction. One of these superheroes named Gilgamesh was praised in a document called ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ which presents Gilgamesh as an extraordinary figure, described in Mesopotamian tradition as partly divine and partly human.

This occultic worldview is being adopted by many in today's culture. Documents and scrolls have been found that draw upon the Book of Giants traditions associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, where Gilgamesh and Humbaba are identified in connection with the Nephilim tradition. The tomb of Gilgamesh has become a place of real interest and artifacts have been taken from the area surrounding his tomb and the US government officially handed it back to Iraqi authorities during a repatriation ceremony in Washington, D.C. in September 2021. It is interesting that there has been a rise in occultic practices and satanic rituals being practised globally in recent times but as these things get called out and exposed the hearts of the people involved in these things are becoming even more hardened.

This is what is called theological inversion.

Mesopotamian culture celebrated supernatural heroes and beings as the bringers of wisdom, civilisation and political power, and magical crafts. They were traditionally viewed as supernatural semi-divine philosophers and sages. But what humanity celebrated as greatness actually represented Satanic rebellion against God.

But the Bible in Genesis 6 presents what the ancient world calls “divine wisdom” as corrupted supernatural knowledge, and what is celebrated as heroic power was actually part of humanity’s descent into violence and corruption that brought on Noah’s flood. This provides an important backdrop for Revelation. The final conflict is not simply about modern politics. It reaches back into the ancient spiritual rebellion and overcomes it, and Revelation presents that rebellion and its final expression.

THE TWO HUNDRED MILLION

John then sees an army of extraordinary magnitude. Two hundred million. Humanity is confronted with a force of unprecedented destructive power. One-third of humanity is killed. First, creation is struck. Then humanity is tormented. Then humanity is killed on a massive scale. So the judgments are escalating. But then comes one of the most sobering statements in the entire passage. The survivors do not repent.

After everything they have witnessed, they continue worshipping demons and idols. They continue in murders. They continue in sorceries. They continue in sexual immorality. They continue in theft. This teaches us something profound about judgment. Judgment does not automatically produce repentance. Pain does not necessarily soften the human heart. Fear does not necessarily create faith. Even witnessing supernatural intervention does not guarantee surrender to God. The human heart can become so hardened that even catastrophe becomes an opportunity for further rebellion – the great warning of Revelation. The problem is not simply that humanity needs better circumstances. The problem is that humanity needs redemption.

REVELATION 10 — WHEN HEAVEN ANNOUNCES THAT THE DELAY IS ENDING

After the sixth trumpet, before the seventh, John sees another mighty angel. The angel is clothed with a cloud. A rainbow is upon his head. His face is like the sun. His feet are like pillars of fire. The imagery is majestic and Christ-like. Yet John calls him another mighty angel, so the emphasis is that he functions as a heavenly representative of divine authority rather than being identified directly as Jesus. And then John hears seven thunders speak and is about to write what they say. But heaven tells him: “Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.” There are things God reveals. And there are things God deliberately does not reveal. Revelation means unveiling—but even Revelation contains mysteries that remain sealed. We do not know everything. We do not need to know everything. God remains God.

THE LITTLE SCROLL — SWEET IN THE MOUTH, BITTER IN THE STOMACH

Then John is commanded to take the little scroll and eat it. It is sweet in his mouth but it becomes bitter in his stomach. The Word of God is sweet because it reveals God’s purposes. It is sweet because God’s Kingdom is coming, and because Christ will triumph and because evil will not have the final word. But the message is also bitter because before the Kingdom comes, judgment must unfold, and before restoration, rebellion must be exposed, and before the final triumph, the darkness must be confronted. So the prophet has to carry both dimensions. Sweetness and bitterness, Hope and warning. Judgment and restoration. The Gospel is good news, but it is good news precisely because the powers that oppose God will ultimately be defeated.

THE MYSTERY OF GOD

Then we come to one of the most important statements in Revelation 10: “In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished.” What is this mystery? It is a remarkable collection of biblical mysteries converging toward the final consummation. Mystery of Marriage: The union between Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). Mystery of Babylon: The condemnation of the "great prostitute" and the Beast (Revelation 17). Mystery of Iniquity/Lawlessness: The working of Satan and the revelation of the "man of sin" (2 Thessalonians 2:7). Mystery of the Gospel: The shared life with Jesus to be understood by all (Ephesians 6:19). Mystery of Israel: The partial hardening of Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in (Romans 11:25). Mystery of the Resurrection: The instantaneous change of the living and the dead at the last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:51). Mystery of Godliness: God manifested in the flesh and preached among nations (1 Timothy 3:16). Mystery of the Kingdom: Truths given to believers but hidden in parables from those outside (Mark 4:11).

These themes are not isolated. They converge because the story that began in Genesis is moving toward its finality and the rebellion that began in the heavenly realm moves toward its final confrontation. The covenant purposes of God move toward fulfilment and the Gospel moves toward its universal proclamation and victory. The Bride moves toward her wedding while Babylon moves toward judgment. The Beast moves toward destruction and the Dragon moves toward defeat. And Christ moves toward His Kingdom - His victory is not just the destruction of His enemies. It is the restoration of God’s order.

JUDGMENT AND RESTORATION

This is why we should not read Revelation simply as a book of catastrophe. Running underneath the judgments is a deeper biblical theme: sifting and restoration. God is exposing what cannot remain and bringing hidden rebellion into the light. He is exposing the counterfeit and separating truth from deception. He is judging the powers that have corrupted humanity and is ultimately restoring what was lost. The final Kingdom is therefore not merely about the end of something - It is about the beginning of something. The end of Satan’s counterfeit kingdom becomes the beginning of the visible reign of Christ.

So as we move forward in our study of Revelation, we need to understand what Revelation 9 and 10 are really showing us.

It is God’s victory over the satanic kingdom and human rebellion — from Genesis to Revelation God’s purpose: God desired a human family on earth to love Him and be loved by Him. And He appointed angels to serve and minister to humanity (Ezek. 28; Heb. 1:14).

Rebellion 1 — Lucifer and Eden: Lucifer rebelled against God and beguiled Eve, drawing humanity into rebellion through Adam and Eve. God declared that the seed of the woman would ultimately crush the serpent’s seed (Gen. 3:15).

Rebellion 2 — Genesis 6: Other rebellious heavenly beings violated the boundary between heaven and earth, taking human women and producing the Nephilim. Their rebellion contributed to the corruption of humanity and the spread of violence and evil, resulting in the Flood. The particular angels involved were subsequently judged and imprisoned (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). But Gilgamesh mythology praises the fallen angels' progeny as great demigods as explained before.

Rebellion 3 — Babel and the nations: God restarted humanity through Noah, but the human heart remained rebellious. At Babel, humanity again resisted God’s command to fill the earth. God confused their languages and scattered the nations. Deuteronomy 32:8–9 describes the nations being allotted according to the sons of God - lesser divine beings. These angels subsequently rebelled and became associated with the nations’ idolatry and corruption (Ps. 82).

God’s response — Abraham and Israel: God called Abraham to become the father of a covenant people through whom He would reclaim the nations. Israel was brought out of Egypt and into Canaan, where it confronted nations associated with idolatry and, in some cases, the Nephilim/Anakim (Num. 13:33; Deut. 2–3). The preservation of Abraham’s seed was central to God’s redemptive purpose, ultimately bringing forth Jesus through Mary.

Christ reverses Babel: Jesus sent out seventy disciples to announce the kingdom and confront the powers of darkness (Luke 10:1, 17–20). Through His death and resurrection, Christ defeated the powers and reconciled humanity to God (2 Cor. 5:14–19). At Pentecost, the Gospel was heard by people from many nations in their own languages (Acts 2)—a powerful reversal of Babel’s division.

Rebellion 4 — Revelation 9: In the final period of judgment, those previous demonic powers are released from the Euphrates and unleashed against humanity (Rev. 9). Their rebellion reaches its climax, but Christ ultimately defeats them and consigns the rebellious powers to an awaiting final judgment.

Rebellion 5 — after the Millennium: After the thousand years, Satan is released once more and deceives the nations into one final assault against God’s people. God intervenes with fire from heaven, decisively ending the rebellion (Rev. 20:7–10). The story is therefore not simply the history of humanity’s rebellion. It is the story of God progressively defeating every rebellion—human and angelic—and ultimately reclaiming the nations for His Son.

And then they show us something even greater and the delay is ending. The mystery is approaching completion. The prophetic Word must be proclaimed. And the seventh trumpet is waiting to be sounded (Revelation 11:15), and as Revelation unfolds from chapter 9 toward chapter 10 and beyond, we are watching the collapse of the counterfeit and the emergence of the true. The darkness becomes darker, the rebellion becomes more open, the judgments intensify, but the purpose of God becomes clearer. History is not spiralling out of control – it is simply the worldly kingdoms being shaken. And ultimately, the declaration of heaven will proclaim The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ—and He shall reign forever and ever. Amen.

REVELATION EP 8- The Seven Trumpets and a Map of Time

The book of Revelation is, in many ways, a summary of the unfolding work of God in redemption and redemptive judgment.

It begins with the seven letters to the churches, moves into the opening of the seven seals, and then into the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the first four seals we see the release of forces that have shaped the world we know—conquest, war, economic scarcity and inflation, famine, disease and death.

These events describe the progression of human history toward the final period of God’s dealings with the earth. We have already experienced many of these things in measure, including global pandemics, giving us a foretaste of what Revelation describes as ultimately coming upon the earth.

But then we arrive at something extraordinary: the seventh seal contains the seven trumpets, and the seventh trumpet ultimately contains the seven bowls or vials of judgment. Revelation gives us a series of summaries within summaries.

Seven speaks of completion and fullness. What we are seeing is not merely a sequence of catastrophes, but the completion of a divine process that brings God’s purposes for humanity to their appointed goal.

“Receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.” —1 Peter 1:9

The final movements of Revelation therefore concern not simply judgment upon the earth, but the completion of God’s redemptive work in His people as Christ brings history toward His return. This brings us into the final three-and-a-half-year period that repeatedly appears throughout prophetic Scripture—a period culminating in the second coming of Christ.

THE SEVENTH SEAL, THE CENSER AND THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

Revelation 8 begins with one of the most remarkable moments in the book:

“When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” —Revelation 8:1

It is the only explicit period of silence described in heaven in Revelation. After the worship, thunder, voices and activity surrounding the throne, suddenly everything becomes still. It is as though heaven pauses before the next great movement of God’s purpose.

John sees seven angels standing before God, and seven trumpets are given to them. Before those trumpets sound, however, another angel appears with a golden censer. He is given incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne. The censer is then filled with fire from the altar and thrown to the earth, producing thunder, lightning and an earthquake.

This gives us an important principle: the prayers of God’s people are not disconnected from the purposes of God in the earth. Heaven receives the prayers of the saints, and those prayers become part of the unfolding divine purpose.

The golden censer is particularly significant because of its connection with the Day of Atonement. In the Old Testament, the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year carrying incense and blood into the presence of God. Leviticus 16 describes him taking burning coals and incense behind the inner curtain, creating a cloud over the mercy seat, and then sprinkling blood before it.

“Into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood…” —Hebrews 9:7

The imagery of Revelation 8 therefore takes us directly into the symbolism of the Day of Atonement. The seventh seal opens a prophetic picture of cleansing, sanctification and preparation, and connects Revelation with the prophetic pattern of Israel’s feasts.

THE FEASTS — A MAP OF REDEMPTIVE TIME

The Church has historically experienced the great movements represented by Passover and Pentecost, but we have not yet experienced the prophetic fullness represented by the Day of Atonement and Tabernacles.

Passover speaks of deliverance. The blood was placed upon the doorway, marking out a people delivered from judgment and slavery. Christ is our Passover; His blood establishes the boundary of salvation and justification.

Pentecost speaks of covenant relationship and the giving of the Spirit. What was external becomes internal. God’s covenant is written into His people, and believers learn to walk by the Spirit in conscious obedience to God.

The Day of Atonement speaks of deeper cleansing, transformation and sanctification. Before Israel entered Tabernacles came Atonement, so prophetically it becomes the preparation for the fullness of God’s dwelling.

Tabernacles represents the fullness of God dwelling among His people.

So the movement is: Passover → Pentecost → Atonement → Tabernacles. The story is moving toward the completion of God’s dwelling with humanity.

The final feast season begins with the Feast of Trumpets:

“In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets…” —Leviticus 23:24

These initial trumpets are not the judgment trumpets of Revelation 8–11. They are prophetic trumpets announcing that something is about to happen. They call God’s people to attention and announce a season of preparation.

Ten days later comes the Day of Atonement, followed by the Feast of Tabernacles: Trumpets → Preparation → Atonement → Tabernacles. This gives us a prophetic picture of the preparation of the Bride of Christ.

THE BRIDE, THE BLOOD AND TRANSFORMATION

Paul writes:

“That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word… that she should be holy and without blemish.” —Ephesians 5:26–27

This is not simply about becoming better Christians. Paul describes a deeper work of transformation in the Bride. The Church is being prepared for union with Christ.

“This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” —Ephesians 5:32

The Day of Atonement gives us a prophetic picture of this deeper cleansing. On that day, the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place with blood:

“Then he must take some of the blood of the bull… and sprinkle it seven times…” —Leviticus 16:14

Seven speaks of completion. At Passover, the blood was placed at the doorway. At Pentecost, covenant relationship was established with God’s people. At the Day of Atonement, the blood enters the Most Holy Place.

Doorway → People → Presence
Deliverance → Covenant → Transformation

The Day of Atonement therefore points toward the fullest application of Christ’s redemptive work in His people—not another sacrifice, but a deeper manifestation of the power of the one sacrifice already accomplished by Christ. The goal is maturity—the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

The Day of Atonement was also called a Sabbath of Sabbaths—Shabbat Shabbaton. Israel was commanded to “afflict” or humble their souls, but Isaiah 58 reveals that God was never interested in religious suffering for its own sake. The people were fasting while still oppressing others, fighting, quarrelling and maintaining bondage.

“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?”

The ultimate fast is therefore not simply abstaining from food. It is becoming free. It is allowing God to break the internal bondage that prevents us from loving God and others freely.

God is not trying to crush the soul. He is trying to heal it.

THE TRUMPETS AND THE WITNESSES

Numbers 10 says:

“Make two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece you will make them.”

Silver is associated with redemption and atonement. There are two trumpets, yet they are made from one piece of silver. This gives us a picture of Christ and His people—the one new man created in Christ.

The trumpet represents the prophetic voice of God. God speaks to His people, and He also speaks through His people.

This imagery provides a fitting parallel with the two witnesses of Revelation 11, who prophesy for 1,260 days. Their ministry belongs to this final prophetic period and corresponds to the ministry of Moses and Elijah. Their witness becomes part of God’s final testimony before the culmination of the age.

SABBATH REST

The Day of Atonement also opens another major biblical theme: rest.

The Sabbath was never merely about stopping work one day each week. Israel was commanded to allow the land to rest every seventh year. Leviticus 25 describes six years of cultivation followed by a seventh year in which the land was not cultivated in the ordinary way.

The people had to trust God. They had to stop striving to produce and believe that God could sustain them.

But Israel failed to fully enter this dimension of Sabbath rest. 2 Chronicles 36 says Israel went into Babylonian captivity:

“Until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths… to fulfil seventy years.”

The seventy years correspond to seventy unobserved Sabbath years—a period traditionally calculated against 490 years: 490 ÷ 7 = 70.

Hebrews takes this principle beyond agriculture and national history:

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God… He who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”

This is the spiritual reality behind Sabbath. The issue is not merely whether we stop working. The issue is whether we have learned to trust God.

Rest is faith. Rest is the cessation of self-powered striving. Rest is learning to live from the faith of Christ and the flow of grace.

Sometimes the very thing we call spiritual activity becomes a substitute for spiritual rest. We can become so busy trying to manage ourselves, fix ourselves, control ourselves and prove ourselves that we never become still enough to allow God to transform us.

FROM PASSOVER TO TABERNACLES

The journey from Passover to Tabernacles can be understood as the journey of a building becoming a home.

At Passover, the people come through the doorway. At Pentecost, they learn covenant relationship and Spirit-led living. At the Day of Atonement, they are brought into the deepest place of cleansing. At Tabernacles comes the fullness of God’s dwelling.

The Church is therefore not simply being rescued. We are being prepared for habitation.

Salvation → Maturity | Forgiveness → Transformation | External religion → Internal reality | Striving → Rest | Knowing about God → Becoming a dwelling place for God

The Sabbath also points beyond itself. In Revelation, the return of Christ is followed by the thousand-year reign described in Revelation 20. The final three-and-a-half-year period culminates in Christ’s return, and the Millennium becomes a prophetic expression of the greater Sabbath rest of God’s kingdom.

Six days → Seventh-day Sabbath | Six years → Seventh-year Sabbath | Redemptive history → Millennial Sabbath

The Sabbath becomes a picture of the ultimate cessation of rebellion, striving and self-rule under the reign of Christ.

A MAP OF TIME

When we step back and look at Revelation 8, we begin to see something much larger than a series of judgments. We see a map of time.

The seals bring us through the broad progression of history. The seventh seal opens the trumpets. The trumpets move us into the final prophetic period. The golden censer takes us into the imagery of the Most Holy Place and the Day of Atonement. Atonement points toward the cleansing and preparation of the Bride. The Bride is washed by the Word and brought toward maturity. Beyond that lies Tabernacles—the dwelling of God with His people—and finally the return of Christ and the Millennial Sabbath.

Seals → Trumpets → Atonement → Bride → Tabernacles → Christ’s Return → Millennial Rest

Underneath the entire progression is one great purpose: God is bringing His creation back into His rest.

THE BUILDING BECOMES A HOME

This may be the most important application for us personally.

We can spend our lives building—reputations, theological knowledge, religious activity and systems designed to make ourselves feel safe. But God’s ultimate purpose is not merely to build a structure. He wants a dwelling place.

The journey from Passover to Tabernacles is the story of a building finally becoming a home. We are still under construction. The Word is washing us. The Spirit is working within us. The blood of Christ has already accomplished the foundation of our redemption. But God is bringing us into a deeper experience of what Christ has already purchased.

Perhaps the question is not simply “How much am I doing for God?” but “How much am I resting in God?” Not “How hard am I trying to change myself?” but “Am I allowing God to transform me?” Not “How much religious activity can I sustain?” but “Can I become still enough to hear His voice?”

Sometimes our greatest obstacle to entering God’s rest is the very activity we believe is helping us get there. There comes a time when the noise must stop, the striving must stop, the self-protection must stop, and the endless attempts to manage everything must stop.

In the silence of the inner sanctuary we discover that grace does not merely forgive us; it transforms us. The blood does not merely bring us through the doorway; it brings us into the presence. The Word does not merely inform us; it washes us. The Spirit does not merely empower our activity; He teaches us to rest.

The Bride is not ultimately prepared by striving harder. She is prepared by allowing Christ to do His work within her.

The seventh seal begins with silence. That is fitting. After all the noise of the seals, wars, judgments, trumpets and shaking of the earth, heaven becomes silent.

When the noise finally stops, we discover that God has been working all along.

The building becomes a home. The Bride becomes ready. The people of God enter His rest. The journey that began at the doorway of Passover finds its fullness in the dwelling of Tabernacles and its great Sabbath rest.

And ultimately, Jesus reigns.