Gamma 16: Insights For The Persevering Disciple

Discussion Questions

Question 1
What do you think are the main difficulties in the study of Revelations?

Answer
The main difficulties lie in the fact that the meaning of the book in communicated in terms of symbols which are alien to our culture hence makes it difficult for us to interpret because we don’t have the background. The symbols seem to us bizarre and fantastical and easily lend themselves to misinterpretation. These symbols are also presented in a series of visions which we will naturally take as a chronological sequence of historical events but we run into difficulties as these visions comprise of repetitive symbols. The last difficulty is how do we correlate these visions with events in history for it to make sense and relevance to our daily lives?

Hence when we read the book and come across a “beast” in Revelations 14 or the 4 “horsemen” in Revelations 6 are they literal or symbolise some entity?

When we hear the saints suffering for 3 1/2 years or 40 months are these literal time frames or are the numbers symbolic of some time period yet unknown to us. When we read of white robes “washed in the blood the lamb” how on earth can a robe made of white cloth be washed clean by red blood???

How can Jesus be both a Lion and a Lamb? How much of the writing is to be taken literally and how much of it is symbolic?

Then how do we interpret the symbols? Do we use our contemporary understanding or do we try to take a historical perspective of the first recipients of the letter in AD 90?

These symbols will seem bizarre to us as we in today’s world are totally unaccustomed to these every day imagery of life which happened 2-300 years ago. The error of many authors is to have re-interpreted these ancient symbols by noting their corresponding similarity to images and events of today’s modern world. This is not how Scripture is to be interpreted as doing this will be anachronistic.

Let me give you an example
Paul writes in Romans 1: 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation.

The Greek word for power is “dunamis” hence a modern interpreter will easily think Paul is referring to “dynamite” and then will understand the gospel in its explosive power for salvation. This is not accurate because when Paul wrote the letter he had no idea of what dynamite is and did not choose to use that word with that meaning in mind. We will have to therefore find out in historical record what Paul understood “dunamis “ meant in his world and his time. Our interpretation of “dunamis” as dynamite is anachronistic.

So the difficulties we have encountered through the centuries is reading it within the framework of our current culture and time frame and coming up with all sorts of fancy interpretations and predictions of the future which can be both scary and misleading to many of our readers.

The other issue is directly assigning events of history to the events predicted in the book of Revelations. John was never specific in his referencing of these events but some authors have taken the liberty to assigning the various events of the Tribulations to events of history either the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in AD 70 or events in Reformation history where the beast referred to in Revelations was understood as the Pope at the time . Hence some authors have taken the liberty of directly correlating events in history to specific symbols in the books of Revelations and caused confusion and crazy predictions of what will happen in the end times.

These attempts have either cause people to shy back from reading the book and being blessed by it or on the opposite end of the spectrum have bought into these imagine timelines and events with tragic effects when the end of the world has not materialised as envisaged by these authors.

Lastly, are all the event portrayed by the symbols like the 7 seals, 7 trumpets and 7 bowls consecutive historical events or are they recurrent themes of the same event ? How one approaches this question will also alter how one should read the book.

Question 2
The book of Revelations is part of a type of Biblical literature called “apocalyptic”. What does this mean and how does it help us in understanding it? Look at Daniel 2:28-29 and 45 are some of the basic principles we need to adopt when reading Revelations?

Answer
The main difficulties with the book of Revelations come from its nature. It is an apocalypse …which is a direct revelation of God as to things and events that have so far been unknown to the church. It is the unveiling of a mystery…in Greek “musterion” which is something not previously revealed. It is not something one can deduce or guess or discover on one’s own like Sherlock Holmes in the modern understanding of the word mystery…but “musterious” needs to be revealed.

Paul uses it in Eph 3 :(ESV) 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. What was not previously known but now revealed to Paul was that the Gentiles would share in salvation and all of God’s promises with Israel through Jesus as shown in the gospel.

The key Old Testament example of apocalyptic prophecy is in Daniel and revelations is anchored in Daniel 2.

Daniel 2: 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these: 29 To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”

Just as in Daniel King Nebuchadnezzar received dreams about the future which could not be understood but had to be revealed to him by Daniel to be interpreted. The dreams came in bizarre imagery with beasts and statues which in Daniel’s case were symbols which required interpretation which is why the poor king could not make head of tail of them nor could any of his courtiers. He required the prophet Daniel to unveil what was God trying to reveal to the king.

In the same way the difficulties in the book of Revelations are the same of Daniel as the book is full of symbols

Revelations 1: 1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw

The Greek is Semaino ..translated as “made it known” which is the same word used in the Greek version of the passage in Daniel 2:28-29 The word can also be translated as “communicated or symbolised “

So the nature of Revelations is similar to the nature of the book of Daniel and many of the symbols or imagery is repeated here. How we are to interpret the imagery is to go back to the similar kind of literature in the bible and use these as keys to interpreting Revelations rather than to use modern examples

There are about 278 out of the 404 verses in the book of Revelations have a reference to the Old Testament. The apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel, Ezekiel , Haggai, Zechariah, Joel and second half of Isaiah provide a rich background for which the symbols of Revelations can be read and understood as the first recipients of John’s Revelations would have been familiar with these books as it was their bible at the time and hence when John writes about the beast they would have immediately been familiar with the beast in Daniel. When John writes of the “Son of Man” the recipients would have immediately been familiar with Daniel 7 the Son of Man receiving dominion from the Ancient of Days.

So knowing that Revelations is apocalyptic in nature allows us to safely interpret the symbols with some accuracy and some historical basis.

There are other feature of Apocalyptic books.
They provide a God’s eye view of events on the ground. It’s like walking in the midst of mid town traffic overwhelmed by the noise and hustle and confusion of life in the trenches and then we climb up the 60th floor of the tallest building in KL and we see the same scene but from a bird’s eye view and the way we see things will come from a different perspective. The apocalyptic books endeavour to give us a God’s eye view of life and its problems.

The Visions in apocalyptic books are fantastical and unreal. The view of the future is often seen as something new brought by God directly as opposed by other biblical books like Esther where God is cast as deliberately silent but not absent because the seemingly impossible sequences of co-incidences ultimately point to the hand of God who is apparently silent but not absent. Revelations and apocalyptic books are completely opposite where God’s hand is seen directly behind human events.

Apocalyptic books are generally pessimistic about current conditions and place all hope in divine intervention and thus they encourage Jews during difficult times so the preserve their hope of the glory of their nation.

They also contain elements of judgement of surrounding nations and in the Old Testament like in Ezekiel they prophesy about the return from exile and Jews to rule from Jerusalem of all nations Apocalyptic books tend to be straight forward in its judgments of people and events it is either black n white not nuanced. The people have either the mark of the beast or the seal of God on their forehead whilst narratives like Genesis takes are deep dive in to the back ground of its characters like Abraham full of faith but deeply flawed, like Jacob the father of the 12 tribes of Israel but had a dubious character. What about David described as a man after God’s heart but was also a deeply flawed adulterer and murderer.

Question 3
Why should we bother to study the Book of Revelations given such difficulties?

Answer
We should endeavor to study because it is the Word of God and meant directly to be communicated to His church and is relevant to us even today despite some of the difficulties involved in gaining a complete understanding of it. The book allow us to unmask the rival powers at work in our world to gain some insight into the turbulent nature of our world affairs and politics. We will understand that despite the gargantuan forces that rule the world and crush all opposition persecuting the church, God is still firmly in total sovereign control. Hence the book reassures us gives us comfort in difficult tumultuous times.

Imagine living in Cambodia years ago when Pol Pot ruled and being marched off in to the countryside in his crazed back to year zero policy and witnessing wholesale genocide all around and the disappearance of all semblance of civility. The book of Revelations will suddenly seem so relevant because each tribulation unleashed by the Beast and his cohorts us understood as being permitted by God for a purpose and that He seals and protects His own despite the carnage. The book reveals what God means by sealing and protection and this gives comfort.

The book gives us understanding of what true victory is in life that it is not overcoming by the might of intellect or force of arms it is overcoming by the blood of the Lamb which is the Centre of God’s world. Our victory is patterned and based on what the Lamb did. The worship of Jesus in Rev 5 highlights this as Jesus is portrayed both as the Lion and the Lamb.

Finally the book gives us a wonderful glimpse into the world to come , the new heavens and new earth and the final destination for both sinner and saint which is vital to ground the way we live today because if we do not have this hope firmly entrenched in our minds we will not be able to live victoriously and make our live count today.

Question 4
Look at Revelations 1: 1-4 what kind of book is this and how does knowing this guide us in using it to our benefit?

Answer
It is Apocalyptic book

Revelations 1: 1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw

The word is “Revelation” is apocalypse which means it is the unveiling of something that has not yet been known by the church but now revealed by God. The technical term is apocalypse hence the book lies within the genre and traditions of other similar books in the bible from which we can use to help understand this book

Daniel 2: 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these: 29 To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”

The nature of apocalyptic books is that is is comprise of symbols that will need to be carefully interpreted and it tells of events in the future.

It is prophecy

John writes (ESV) 1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

The disclosure or apocalypse of these mysteries is also a prophecy in the sense that they will reveal events future to its readers in John’s time

It is a pastoral letter

Rev 1: 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

Rev 1: 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne

As you can see from the passage it takes the form of a letter as John writes to the seven churches. The greetings of “grace and peace” are the usual of many of Paul’s letters and the letter is meant to bless the churches.

Hence however way we read the book it is not about fancy speculations of the future but what is written has a specific purpose for its readers then and now to bless us which will happen then its readers hear it and act on it. The blessing does not come it is speculated on to titillate the imagination or to start endless debates and controversies splitting the church. The blessings come when its readers take heed of this warnings and act on it. Place the hope of future events in their hearts and the silent unseen sovereignty of God behind world events as spiritual comfort.

Hence the book of revelations is a book which is a revelation from God of things previously not known, it is a prophecy in the sense that it will tell us of what will happen in the future which will be relevant to the church firstly the seven churches in Asia Minor and also to the church today. It is a letter in church the aim is pastoral to strengthen the faith , to correct and put on the right path God’s people as they face the onslaught of persecution.

Question 5
Can you outline the main structure of the book of Revelations?

Answer
Prologue (Rev 1:1-20)
Letter to the 7 churches (Rev 1:21-3)
The Majesty of God (Rev 4-5)
The Seven Seals (Rev 6-8a)
The Seven Trumpets (Rev 8:6-11:19)
Deeper Conflict (Rev 12:1-15:4)
The Seven Bowls (Rev 15:5-16-21)
The Final Judgment (Rev 17-19)
The Millennium (Rev 20)
The New Creation (Rev 21-22:5)
The Epilogue (Rev 22:6-21)

Question 6
Are the visions in Revelations indicative of a Chronological sequence or are they a series of recapitulation? How do you justify your particular answer?

Answer
The visions given in the book of revelations are given in a definitive sequence but because many of the elements of these visions are repetitive it would be hard to conclude that the sequence of the visions is meant to indicate the sequence of events in chronological order. Each of the symbols used like the seals and trumpets and bowls indicate divine judgment and calamity but their nature is similar so they tend to be repetitive but the extent and severity is gradually ratcheted up with each progressive symbol when we move from the seals to the trumpets to the final devastation of the bowls.

The pale horse in Rev 6 :8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. He kills 1/4 world.

The 6th trumpet in Rev 9: 18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.

By Rev 9 1/3 mankind is killed off.
The 7th bowl Rev 16: 19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20 And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found.

The devastation is far more severe in this final bowl.

The picture of judgement is repeated in Rev 6-7,14, 16, 17-18 19, 20 it cannot be sequential as there will not be anyone left to judge.

Look at the judgment of Rev 14 (ESV) 19 So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20 And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia.

The blood of the killed flows out in a river 5 feet deep for thousands and thousands of miles and yet there is more judgment in Rev 17-18 19

It is more likely that the visions are a recap of judgement seen from different angles with a progressive ratcheting up of severity with each new symbol.

Another clue is the dynamics of the beast as it is introduced as rising out of the sea in Rev 13 but in Rev 11 it is already present attacking the church hence the sequence of visions cannot be the sequence of events Lastly Babylon is introduced in Rev 17 as a woman sitting on a scarlet beast but in Rev 14 and 16 it is destroyed. If the visions were to indicate chronological sequence then the beast should be introduced first not in Rev 17 but before Rev 14 and 16.

Once we have decided that the visions are a series of re-capitulation then we are relieved of the burden of trying to pin down the various judgments to real world events. Other wise we would be tempted to say the horsemen were operating in World War 1 and the Great Leap Forward by Mao must have been the 7th bowl of judgment.

Question 7
What are the 3 main positions as to when the events of the Tribulations of Rev 6-19 will occur. How will the taking of each view affect the way one lives and expects out of life?

Answer
The first is the futurist position which states these events of the judgment of the 4 horsemen, trumpets and bowls are in the future and they are a much more intensification of the trials we have already experienced. There are those who believe in the Rapture where Christians will be caught up in the clouds with Christ before the Tribulation and be spared the suffering and those who believe the Rapture will occur after the Tribulation and hence will have to suffer side by side with non-believers.

Those who take the first view of this position will bear comfort in being spared the suffering of the Tribulation by the Rapture but the trouble is one can easily see from the course of human history that suffering and persecution is very much part of the landscape of the Christian life and a view that isolates the Christian from such an expectation would place the believer in a vulnerable position when suffering does occur.

The second position is that these events have already taken place in the past historically with the main event with the fall of Rome in the first millennium after Christ and we are living way past the tribulations.

This again like the previous view would place the believer in a vulnerable position when suffering does occur. The third position is that we are now experiencing the tribulations of Rev 6-19 with some believing that the various events in church history have already played out as predicted in Revelations and the antichrist or the beast was the Pope. The other position is in the same vein is that the tribulations of Revelations 6-19 are continually being played out throughout history with atrocity after atrocity being ratcheted up as man kills man in an ever industrial scale. The message is the same throughout every age that is to persevere and trust that God is in control and Revelations has shown that it is in accordance to His plan and we have to wait for Him to act with finality with the final coming of Christ.

The first view of this position poses difficulties as there is no certainty with which we can safely pin point historical events to the various symbols of judgment in Revelations hence this view is not helpful any may even cause believer to spend endless hours speculating and even being involved with political activities to bring about these events though political means.

The second view is much better as it will fulfill the pastoral purpose for which revelations was written to prepare and preserve His people in the tribulations of this world

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
Do you think this letter written is written specifically and exclusively for the 7 churches historically or does it have wider application and why ? Check out Rev 2:7

Question 2
The description of whom the revelation is from is distinctively Trinitarian (reflects the three persons of God) but why is the Spirit cast as 7 instead of the one Holy Spirit? Look at Luke 12:11

Answer
Jesus is addressing the churches of the time where persecution is universal and the use of the number seven to describe the Spirit is not to confuse us that there are seven spirits instead of the one Holy Spirit but to use the number seven to emphasize an aspect of the Spirit that is relevant to the church at the time. It is to emphasize fullness and completion as 7 is that symbol which represents completion from the 7 days of creation to the 7 times Israel marched around Jericho before God brought its walls down, to the length of days from cleansing before a person who partake in worship before being clean and the number of times blood is sprinkled for cleaning in Lev 4:6, 17.

Luke 12: 11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Here Luke emphasizes the role of the Spirit in timers of persecution particularly relevant to a persecuted church.

Question 3
Look at the description of Jesus from Rev 1:5 and discuss why Jesus describes Himself in such terms?

Answer
Jesus is described in terms that are relevant to the recipients of the letter. For example if Roger Federer were to write a letter to a young tennis player or was quoted in an article of book designed to advise or train aspiring tennis players his relevant attributes would be mentioned first and foremost.

We would not write
“Roger Federer, husband of one wife and father of twins and wonderfully patriotic Swiss and very handsome fellow” would we ? Whilst these attributes are all true they are not relevant the particular audience of aspiring tennis hopefuls and they are more relevant if the description was to a group of parents in a PTA meeting.

Jesus describes Himself chiefly as

Faithful witness..
The Greek for witness is “martus” from which we today get the word “martyr” which is one who dies because he is faith to the end for a particular cause. In our world being a witness for Christ does not hold the same meaning of being a martyr unless one lives in China or in Iraq under ISIL. In the world of the early church being a witness and a martyr was often one and the same thing. So if Jesus is the Faithful Witness even to death as He testified as to Father and relationship with the Father which resulted in unbelief and persecution ultimately causing His crucifixion. So we as His disciples sought to take comfort we have a Saviour too who suffered as we suffer to bear witness.

First born of the dead

This refers to His resurrection and this is the singular hope of all suffering disciples as we need to fear nothing of which the evil one can do to us in this life when our transition to eternal life is secured in the realisation of Jesus death and resurrection.

Ruler of all kings of the earth

In a time where the Roman emperors persecuted the church, it would seem that the Empire was all supreme and what mattered in life was political power as it was everywhere. Through His death and resurrection Jesus was declared supreme and ruler of all earthly kings. In other words His overcoming was by way of death and resurrection forming the paradigm for the rest of us to follow and take comfort. No matter how difficult things get the one really in power is not the king it is Jesus.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

This king of kings actually loves us and the magnitude of His love is encapsulated in his singular act of dying on the cross for us to free us from our sins. This casts aside any human prevention of salvation by any effort of our own. We only need to rest in His finished work for us and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen

The final consequence of what he has done is incorporating us into His kingdom which means realising that we are citizens of a heavenly kingdom now present and active and more than that priests with direct access to God ministering worshipping to Him and mediating His influence and love to our world. This is no longer in the future tense but the present where we live under His rule and more importantly something we need to understand and appropriate in the way we live. We can live focussed directly on the political realities on the ground buffeted by the oppression of the kings and politicians or we can live understanding that our true identity as priests serving Him. Hence if we live solely in man’s kingdom we will strive to accrue political power , money, influence and all the trappings this society offers us. The alternative lifestyle is living as citizens of His kingdom meaning the purpose of our lives is to glorify Him and serve Him which is the total opposite of the citizens of this world. While they accrue power we loose power, while they oppress others ,we lift others up. While they focus on comfort and glory in their possessions we focus on the poor and down trodden.

Question 4
Look at the description of Jesus and compare it to Daniel 7:9-14 and 10:4-8 with Revelations 1:12-16 and see if you can identify similarities in the descriptions of both passages and why do you think that was important to the recipients of the letter then to us today to understand and make that connection?

Question 5
How does the vision of Jesus walking amongst the lamp stands holding the seven stars encourage you in your walk with Him?

Answer
The symbols are explained by Jesus, the Lamp stands are the churches and He is walking in their midst holding the angels in charge of each church in His right hand. The imagery is clear. The churches are to bear witness as they are lampstands and that is their primary function to bear His light to the world. In the final analysis of what a church is it is first and foremost His witness to the world and the fact that He is walking in the midst of the lampstand indicates that Jesus is closely monitoring the life of His church. He holds each angel in charge of each church in His right hand, means He directly is in control. Jesus is not on social media or sunning Himself in a celestial heaven where the affairs of the church might have been an afterthought. This vision assures us that He is totally focussed on what the church is and what the church does. There is therefore both accountability and comfort. Accountability in the sense of the churches need to be responsible for its mission and what He has tasked it to do and certainly Revelations 2-3 is all about Jesus pointing the many ways in which churches do stray away from their mission and comforted by Jesus on what some of them were doing well.

Question 6
The early church lived with the vibrant anticipation of the return of Jesus as prophesied in Daniel 7 but the contemporary church makes little to no attempt to keep that anticipation current and alive. Why is this so ? Do you think it is important to do so and why? How does this post ascension appearance of Jesus appear to you? What are you expecting to gain in your study of this epistle in Gamma this time?

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
Do you think this letter written is written specifically and exclusively for the 7 churches historically or does it have wider application to us personally or is it just for the church in general? Check out Rev 2:7

Answer
The letter historically is written to 7 churches specifically because John writes…
Revelations 1 : 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

However it is not meant to be exclusively to these specific churches because the message is equally relevant applied to the other churches because
Rev 2: 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Additionally, there is the symbolic use of the number 7 which represents completion from the 7 days of creation to the 7 times Israel marched around Jericho before God brought its walls down, to the length of days from cleansing before a person who partake in worship before being clean and the number of times blood is sprinkled for cleaning in Lev 4:6, 17.

It is also relevant to us as individuals because

Rev 2: 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

Jesus says to the “One” hence it applies to each individual in church as well, this is repeated in every instance when Jesus addressed each church hence it is a message to us

Question 2
What did Jesus commend the Ephesian church for? Why did Jesus hate the Nicolaitians refer Rev 2:14-15 and Numbers 25:1-3.

Question 3
What sin did the Ephesian church have? What does loosing your first love mean? How is this meaning further clarified by its remedy in vv 5? How are we too in danger of this most fundamental sin in our own lives?

Answer
Their sin was loosing their “first love”. It is the love which they are capable of because they had it before “first” which is interpreting the term in its temporal nuance. Another way to interpret this qualitatively as first can also mean a priority or the most important love but the idea of temporality is more relevant because in verse 5 the remedy is to “ Remember therefore from where you have fallen;

Hence it is the love they had before and with the passage of time and loss of focus had left behind and Jesus reminds them to go back to this. At first glance we would immediately conclude it would be like the first flush of emotion not unlike how we were floating on cloud 9 when we first fall in love. However it is more than the emotion because we need to look at the remedy and the warning.

The remedy is to ..; repent, and do the works you did at first”. The remedy is not to recapture their first love but to do the works they had done before. This might seem a little strange because the Ephesians had just been commended for their works in v 2 I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance.

It cannot be that they were not working because they have just been commended for their hard work and toil and endurance. Hence they must not have been doing the right kind of work perhaps? Hang on, isn’t all Christian ministry work important as it is all done to glorify God? There must be some work which they were not doing. Perhaps the warning given in the remedy will finally give us a clue “ If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

The church is described as a lampstand and in v 1 Jesus is described as walking amongs the lampstands and we know the imagery of the church as a lampstand is an imagery that emphasises the witness of the church of the gospel.

Hence it is most probable that the enthusiasm that they had at first when they reciprocated the love of Jesus was naturally expressed in terms of witnessing and sharing with others the glory and wonder of the cross, that had largely disappeared which is what Jesus meant by loosing their first love. The church was faithfully running all the activities of the church which are all important and commended by Jesus but their witness had waned and they were in danger of loosing sight of their number one calling which was to be a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The seminal event where by God reveals himself to us is by the cross which is the supreme demonstration of His love and it is by that event that triggers our love which is a response.

Love involves both cognition, emotion and action.
We cannot say we love someone without any underlying basis or reason and this is cognition as we are rational creatures. Hence we love Jesus because He first loved us even though we were unloveable and we were His enemies and helpless and evil. We love Him because He created us and not as animals but supreme beings endowed with his personal Image. Everything we do we do because of that fundamental fact. We don’t do it because we want to be saved in heaven and Jesus is only a means to an end.

We cannot say we love someone without any emotion because are are creatures endowed with the ability to feel and it is our feelings that bring enthusiasm, excitement, joy into our relationships and propel our actions. Imagine a young mother and wife preparing a lovely meal..she can do it because she has to other wise her husband will give her a hard time or the children will refuse to eat and give her a hard time or she can do it because her emotions of love bring enthusiasm , tenderness and diligence. As she watches her family enthusiastically woof down the meals she so painstakingly prepared she smiles to herself with the quiet satisfaction because she has brought joy to the ones she loves. The squeals of joy from her offspring on encountering the meal is her reward. That is the emotion of love. Translate this to our relationship with Jesus, the works and ministry and endurance with which we live our lives need to be the expression of that emotion of love. It will lace all our efforts with enthusiasm and joy. We look forward to the pleasure of our Saviour as we lead bible study or feed the poor as we know that this will please Him. It is this that fuels our efforts and it is this that is our first love.

We cannot say we love him without any action …love in its totality, cognition, emotion must translate to action. Which is why in the judgement scene which Jesus paints in Matt 25 : 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’The act of ministering to the poor and sick and in prison is an act towards Jesus. He does not judge people on the basis of their feelings or their intellectual knowledge of realisation that He died for their sin and they merely agree with that statement. Knowing what He did for us will trigger the empowering emotion that will ultimately result in loving Him back in response and since all humans bear His image hence ministering to the ones that most need ministering to will be loving Him. Their greatest need will therefore be in receiving the gospel of Jesus Christ which Jesus assumes will happen as they minister.

All three cognition, emotion and action comes together right from the very beginning of our relationship with Jesus when we first found our He loved and died for us we committed our lives to Him and we very naturally began to share with others what a wonderful thing it was that had changed our live ,..we could not stop sharing the gospel.

Look at the Samaritan woman in John 4 who very naturally and excited told everyone she met about the Jesus who blew her away …John 4: 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?

Look at the results “John 4: 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”

She could not help herself.. her witnessed was enthusiastically fuelled by love and it is this that so commonly wears thin in the lives of believers with the passage of time and preoccupation with so many things in life. The love of Jesus that leads us to witness to the gospel is the one that most brings all disciples to suffer the pain of persecution which is what the churches of Asia Minor were no facing and while some did well in this area the Ephesian church arguably the largest and most established on failed in this area.

The sin of the Ephesians is a common sin for all of us as with the passage of time and gradual focus on things other than Christ we are caught up with the business of life with our careers and our worries and these take focus , become our idols and soon they dampen our love for Him. Gradually, the cross will just seem a distant memory, the thought of His sacrifice no longer triggers the feelings of awe and and wonder. The cross becomes somewhat of an entrance criteria into the religion. It does not become central to all that we are and do. Every calculation of life every decision is no longer moulded by the cross and its implications instead what Jesus wants no longer factors in the everyday decisions of life. We no longer struggle with ethical considerations or feel the pain of sacrifice.

Question 4
What are the warning signs that we have lost our first love? Please share.

Question 5
How do we keep our first love? Go around the group and share how do we do this?

Answer
A. Keeping our first love must necessarily revolve around keeping our focus on the most important feature of our spiritual lives the gospel which is what Jesus did for us on the cross. Our persistent reading and meditating on the Word is paramount to this end because Jesus is described as the Word of God and in Him lies the fullness of God. Hence as we read and understand the Word in its entirety the Spirit will enable increasing levels of understanding, showing us deeper levels of appreciation as to who Jesus is and magnify to us daily the true extent of his suffering for us.

In the same way understanding Him enables us to understand ourselves, the Word reveals to us the increasing depravity of our sin and unworthiness and as we bring that to bear next to our understanding of His holiness and the depth of His sacrifice this increases our love and our worship

B. Keeping our first love also involves living a life of faith …taking decisions in the light of the gospel which may be costly in terms of progress in society and yet trusting Him to bring us through these trials. I was speaking to a visitor to our church recently who was a believer who wanted to serve God by rearing chickens for consumption but in an ethical manner with minimal adulteration with the rampant antibiotics and hormonal abuse. The resulting loss of 10-120% of his flock decimated his profits and he had to close his farm. Taking the loss and trusting Jesus builds faith and reassures the believer of the authenticity of his love and faith and actually builds him up.

C. Keeping our personal worship time

D. Praying for the Lord to increase our love and help us experience more of this love.

E. Actually witnessing the gospel to friends and family keeps our love alive as when we testify we are increasingly vocalising our commitment to Him and our love and strengthening our own faith.

Question 6
How is the description of Jesus in this warning appropriate for the Ephesian church?

Answer
The description is of Jesus holding the 7 angels in his hands and walking in the midst of the 7 churches or 7 lampstands hence the focus is on the Jesus who is holding and guiding and living and moving amongst His churches in their mission of witnessing to the gospel. He is walking amongst the churches, he is close, He is at hand, involved. The image is of a priest of the tabernacle or temple tending to the flames of the lampstands ensuring they burn brightly and not loose their light. Ensuring there is enough oil, tending to the fires holding each angel in charge of each church in His right hand, His strong arm which means providing all the power and comfort each church would need to shine brightly in the world. He is not an absent God. He is always there. It is this image that reminds the Ephesians of their primary duty to shine the gospel light to all.

Question 7
Why is it that the persecution of the believers in Smyrna revolve around the folk who were Jews but yet of the Synagogue of Satan ? What did Jesus mean?

Answer
The Roman persecutors normally accepted or just tolerated Judaism in their colonies and at first the Christians skated under the radar because they were being considered as Jews and got a pass. Later on especially after Emperor Nero the Jews turned against them and reported them to the authorities as they did not regard Jesus as the Messiah. They considered worship of a criminal crucified on the cross as blasphemy as anyone hanging on the tree in the OT was considered cursed by God(Acts 26:9-10). Hence Jesus condemns them as not even being true Jews as true Jews given the covenant and Scriptures would have recognised that Jesus was the Messiah and instead function as the persecutor of believers putting them in league with Satan.

Question 8
For the church of Smyrna how did Jesus encourage them? Will they only have to be in jail for literally 10 days and after that will they be freed?

Answer
The believers in Smyrna will be persecuted and Jesus encouraged them by His appearance…described as the one who in Rev 2:8 The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

This is their God, Jesus who overcame death , the very death that the believers in Smyrna faced. Their life and death is in God’s hands not the persecutors. Secondly “10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested”. There is a divine purpose behind the work of the devil so the suffering of the Smyrneans will result in blessing and ultimate deliverance for them. They will be incarcerated for 10 days which in Revelations symbolism literally means a short time and after which they will be dispatched in death because Jesus says (ESV) Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life vv 10 b He wanted them to not give up His witness even on pain of death nor fear it because He will give them eternal life and He is the one described as the one “who died and came to life”.

Question 9
The famous Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand went through the most horrific torture behind the iron curtain wrote these words in the Midnight Bride “ Not all of us are called to die a martyr’s death, but all of us are called to have the same spirit of self-sacrifice and love to the very end as these martyrs had.” Can you share in the group what this could men for us personally?

Case Study 1
Casey belonged to the 3rd Baptist church which had a very robust evangelism program. As soon as he joined he had to undergo training with Evangelism Explosion and also learnt to share the gospel with the booklet 4 spiritual laws. Every week he would be attached to several members and they would go to the mall to hand out tracts and share the gospel with shoppers. He was given a target of talking or sharing the gospel with at least one person a day. If this target was achieved he would be promoted to group leader and put in charge of new believers. Once he was a leader for 2 years then he would be offered church membership.

What do you think about such a program to encourage evangelism do you think it is good to introduce to our church?

If you don’t agree with this method how does understanding that the love for Christ as the beginning and heart of evangelism affect our practice of it?

Answer
Pros
It installs discipline to regularly witness
It teaches the skill to present the gospel clearly
It keeps the mission of witnessing as a priority

Cons
It puts evangelism in such a way that it might discourages some of us from stepping out in it. It makes evangelism unnatural and a duty rather than an act borne out of genuine love for Jesus and others.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
Pergamum is the only city which Jesus castigates for having the throne of Satan why did He describe this city in this way? Can you describe from how Jesus overcomes guides his people to overcome this demonic stronghold?

Answer
Pergamum is the city that is famous for its religious devotions with its plentiful temples to both Emperors and Deities. There was a large temple and altar to Zeus at the top of the mountain which was regarded as the throne of Zeus who was the chief deity. When Jesus refers to the throne of Satan he is referring to this altar. Jesus commends the believers in Pergamum for resisting these demonic forces as represented by Satans throne by holding fast to their faith and not denying Jesus which means they did not swear allegiance to Zeus or the Emperor deities.

Rev 2:13 Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

The price they paid is martyrdom . Antipas was historically though to have been roasted alive for his faith

Question 2
One of the main criticisms of the Pergamum church is spiritual compromise and the two main sources of this evil are the influence of false teachings of Balaam and the Nicolaitians. Can you describe how these particular teachings lead to the spiritual compromise of the church?

Answer
Rev 2: 2 I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary

The Old Testament book Numbers 22-24 chronicles the story of the prophet Balaam who was initially hired by the King of Moab who was facing the wrath of the Israelite invasion. The people of God had defeated the nations surrounding the Moabites and were poised attack him so the King of Moab Balak decided to act in the spiritual realm as he realised his armies were no match for Israel. He hires the prophet Balaam who was given money to declare a prophecy to curse the people of God in order to for the King of Moab to triumph over his enemies. However each time Balaam attempted to do so the Lord intervened and he could only utter blessings not a curse which frustrated his benefactor to no end. So what resulted was three oracles of blessings in stead of curses. What Balaam should have done was let well enough alone but instead he advised the King of Moab that if he could not ask God to curse His own people he could instead tempt Israel to sin and then their own God would predictably destroy or punish His own people.

So in Numbers 25:1 1 While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel

Numbers 25: 8b-9 (ESV) Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. 9 Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

This dastardly plot was revealed later on when Moses led the people of God to victory over the Moabites and killed Balaam. He ordered the women not to be spared as they were the source of temptation.

Numbers 31: 15 Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? 16 Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD So the teaching of Balaam has to do with the sexual temptation of God’s people to sin against Him and incur the wrath of their own God.

The Nicolaitians are also mentioned in Jesus warning to the Pergamum church in Rev 2:14-15 and they are like their Old Testament counterparts in Number 25 :1-3 who lead Israel into sexual immorality and idolatry Historically according to the early church fathers Nicolas could have been the same Nicolas in Acts 6:5 who had converted from Judaism only to apostasize to a form of Gnosticism where the belief that what is done in the body is of no relevance to one’s spiritual well being hence the participation in sexual immorality or food offered to idols in temple sacrifice which would have included sex with the temple prostitutes which was a way of life with the contemporary society. The Ephesians to their credit has resisted when their Pergamum cousins had failed in this area

Question 3
What are the common reasons why Christians compromise with culture? Can you share with each other how we can together seek to overcome these pressures in our cultures?

Answer
The compromise lines up with our own selfish desires.

We are still sinners and tempted to compromise and compromise always provides us an easier path to navigate the problems of life. We get jammed up with the police and the easier path is to dish out a a couple of ringgit but the harder path is to own up repent and pay the fine. Having trouble with the building permit and the easier path to success in the project and money in our pocket is to grease the wheels.

They have not taken the trouble to be grounded in the word.

1 Peter 3: 13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Our passions because of our fallen state come from our ignorance of the world. We need to be fully grounded in the revelation of our Lord in His word to guide us away from compromise.

Fear of being “labeled”
We live in a society that has really no patience to parse who we are and what we stand for. If we behave in a way that is unlike their own our neighbours will instantly cast us as unreasonable backward “fundamentalists”, Bigots, religious nuts or naive We loose credibility, we loose opportunity, we loose the ability to communicate with them. They are immediately biased against us as we stand out from the crown and we compromise to fit in.

Misguided attempt to be relevant
Culture affects all of us in subtle ways in the way we tear our jeans just because others tear their jeans to the places we hang out in. It affects the way we speak and we learn to adapt and go with the culture in order to stay relevant. Suppose we live ion a culture where the women are accustomed to very revealing attire or the men converse in very coarse vulgar language. Our natural instinct would be to adapt and conform in order to fit in. We might not believe in these cultural norms but it is too tiresome to buck the trend and we compromise without looking first the biblical principles that should be used to first examine culture and guide our behaviour. There is nothing wrong in fitting in the culture as long as the culture does not contradict Biblical principles. Wearing an intentionally torn jeans is adapting to the prevailing culture and if that is accepted in society as clothing that is modest sure it is fine. Wearing clothing that is sexually provocative is another thing.

Look at what Paul says in 1 Tim 2: 8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; 9 likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works The biblical focus in on the behaviour of the women not their apparrel. We often get bent out of shape with the minor issues of how high the hem line is to be or how low does the neck line plunge to but really the focus is on who are are in character which is godliness and working for the good of our office mates and our friends. Our clothing reflects us and we adapt to what our prevailing culture regards as respectable, modest and self controlled.

Question 4
The slippery slope downhill is subtle so to help us recognise the gradual slide to compromise here are 5 steps taken from Pilgrim Benham from Calvary Chapel in 2018.
A. A failure to purpose in our hearts ahead of time to do the right thing.
B.. Underestimating evil (including the failure to recognize temptation).
C. Rationalizing.
D. A failure to consider the costly consequences.
E. A sudden, deliberate choice to give in to sin.

Do you agree or disagree with these steps? How does the understanding of these 5 steps place us in a better position to avoid spiritual compromise in our lives? Please share your experience with each of these steps

Question 5
There are subtle differences between adapting our theology or faith with contemporary culture in toe society in which we live and witness. Failure to adapt will marginalise Christians and limit their ability to be the “salt and light” whilst compromise will destroy their witness. In each instance below please state whether this action is contextualising our faith or compromising our faith and defend your answer.

A. Alvin is a church leader in the 5th Baptist church and he has always been good at interacting and welcoming new worshippers into the church. Of late a couple have joined the church worship and are participating in all there church activities and bible studies but they are not official church members. They are middle aged in their late thirties and are not married but live in the same address. They have recently indicated that they want to be involved in teaching Sunday School. Given the current climate of couples living together what does Alvin do? Does he ignore their marital and sexual status , after all it is just teaching Sunday school and not applying to be church membership which requires them to adhere to the churches statement of faith or does he bring the matter up and risk their indignation and wrath which may lead to them leaving? What do you think and why?

B. Henry was a young man who started working in a steel factory after his SPM exams and it turned out that his work mates were the usual round and tumble blue collar workers who would swear and curse with almost every breath. The “F**k word was natural with them and they were a little curious why Henry did not speak like them in fact they interpreted this reticence in using foul language as him being “too good” for them and a way of showing that he was better than them. Hence they began to give him a hard time and shun him. Should Henry adapt and follow them or resist? What can Henry do?
C. Just before the form 5 SPM exams a set of questions purportedly siphoned from the original question bank for the mathematics pater was being circulated and could be purchased for RM 100. Would you purchase it or not and why?

D. When preparing to send in your resume for a job you seek the help of someone more experienced in this process and he suggest that exaggerating your rather limited experience would be useful as well as adding elements of training and experience which you do not have in order to clinch the job. He says everybody does it and if you don’t do it you would be at a disadvantage. What do you do and why?

E. A 23 year old student from Alors Star got a place in Monash Uni in Sunway and in order to save money her boy friend offered to let her stay in his flat as there was a spare bedroom. She comes from a conservative Baptist church and he from a brethren church. They had been dating for 3 years.

F. You hire a foreign maid and there is an option for you to deny her one day of the week off in exchange for extra money which you can pay her so she can continue to work for your 7 days a week. Your reasoning is that you don’t want to give her the say off as you are afraid she might either run away or mix with unsavoury boyfriends. What would you do and why?

G. You love watching movies and you keep downloading them from the web and Bit Torrent even though they are copy righted and by doing this you avoid paying to view them. You rationalise that all your friends do it hence it must be right.

H. During the Covid 19 crisis there has been a virtual lock down of most shopping activities so many of your friends have turned to shopping on line as it is so easy and you can spend the whole day browsing through on line stores all over the world. Some how clicking on that item gives you a high and there is the excitement of receiving parcel after parcel. All your friends are doing it and you begin to compare your purchases with theirs but all this is quite part from the issue of whether these purchases are necessary or even useful but the retail therapy makes you happy. Is this adaptation or compromise?

J. You are a real estate agent and times are bad and some of the houses that you have to sells are in significant disrepair. As the prospective buyer comes to view the houses you eagerly point out the great features that are the major selling points but keep silent about some of the downsides of the house otherwise you cannot make the sale and earn your commission. You figure that it is the buyer’s own responsibility to look out for all the downsides and your job is just to sell a product.

K. Jacqueline has a 21 year old son called Tom who was an aggressive young man who somehow got on Tinder and after a couple of dates wound up sexually assaulting a young woman who reported him to the police. It was obvious that Tom was guilty but there came an opportunity for Jacqueline to pay a sum of money to someone to make the case go away. The person who approached Jacqueline with the offer said that since Tom was so young, putting him behind bars would ruin his entire life. Prison is no place for rehabilitation and in fact its where he will be even more influenced by the seedier elements of society and will come out worse than when he went in. There was no actual harm done after all the girl did not get pregnant and she was not a virgin anyway. Once the case is fixed Jacqueline can get all the professional counselling for her son Tom to rehabilitate him. How would you advise Jacqueline and why?

L. One of the young people attending the fellowship has begun to express support for the LGBTQ movement for marriage equality. She herself is not a practicing homosexual but is rather vociferous in her views. If you are a part of the church leadership how might you approach this issue with her of should you just leave well enough alone.

Question 6
For the church of Thyatira what was their sin? Why did Jesus use the name of Jezebel to describe that particular false teacher in their midst?

Answer
The sin of this church was toleration of false teaching and Jezebel was the vicious wife of King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom.

She married King Ahab son of Omri in 1 Kings 16:31 . Her father was Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians and they were direct descendants of the Caanites who occupied the promised land before the Israelites took over. The Phoenicians worshiped many idols chief of which was the fertility god Baal. Her father Ethbaal was according to historian Josephus in the Greek translation of the now-lost Annals of Tyre, served as a priest of Astarte, the primary Phoenician goddess and Jezebel was probably as priestess being his daughter. Due to her influence Ahab and the Northern kingdoms started to worship Baal and Asherah.

1 Kings 16: 30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him. 31 And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. 32 He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. 33 And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD.

Ahab marriage to Jezebel was a political alliance as it provided protection from powerful enemies and opened up new trade routes to the north giving access to Phoenician ports and cities. Phoenicia gain in exchange access through the Kings highway through the central Israeli hill country to the TransJordan. Hence Jezebel and her idols were tolerated as there was much to gain financially and economically, it was expedient like many of our current bussiness ventures a “ win win “ proposition.

However once the worship of Baal gained a foot hold in the life of Israel, Jezebel consolidated power and the worship of Ball instead of being a fringe religion tolerated in Israel along side the worship of Yahweh began to exert itself and take over even to the extent to attempting to exterminate the dominant faith of the land in this verse.

1 Kings 18: 3 And Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly, 4 and when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water.

Jezebels priests are defeated by Elijah in the climatic religious show down at Mount Carmel and she threatens Elijah who flees as he is exhausted and demoralised. She influences Ahab to illegally acquire land from Naboth by falsely accusing him of blaspheming God and king and commands that he be murdered.

Hence what Jesus is saying that the church is wrong in tolerating false teachers who subtly slip into their midst with doctrines what will ultimately draw people way to idol worship and to compromise with pagan religious practices.

Question 7
In Revelations 2: 21-23 Jesus issues a statement about what will happen to this false teacher and her followers if they do not cease and desist. Is this a threat or a warning? Does this action by Jesus demonstrate that He really is not that loving after all? Does this image here contradict that of the Jesus portrayed in the gospels?

Answer
Rev 2: 20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works There is a warning that they do not tolerate the false prophetess Jezebel and warning that they must repent and if they refuse then Jesus will cause them to be sick and go through much suffering and ultimately be killed. The pronoun used is “I will strike her children dead.”

A warning is like telling a child not to touch a boiling kettle because the extreme heat will burn his and and cause pain and suffering and the person issue it the warning is not the person causing the pain. He stands in an unbiased place and is not the cause of the suffering should the child touch the kettle and is warning out of benevolent concern. A threat is different in a sense that the cause of the subsequent consequence of suffering and pain comes directly from the person issuing the warning. In this case it a warning because it is given with the intent for them to repent and come back to godly beliefs and practices but it is also a threat because the consequences of non compliance will come directly from the one issuing the warning that is Jesus.

Jesus is given the place of judgement of all the world and the judgement is carried out with total justice and mercy and He is holy and hence the judgement is always impartial and correct and well deserved.

Jesus is described here as “The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze” in Rev 2:18

These symbols are those of judgement…the piercing flames that burn through all the false hood and done with purity as the feet of burnished bronze as symbols of purity. We are too used to only one aspect of Jesus person it is his love and we always see Him as the Lamb, gentle and slain which He is but in Rev 5 He is also the Lion.

Question 8
What are the kinds of false teachings that are commonly found in our churches to which we need to be aware and actively seek to root out ?

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
In way do you think Jesus considered the Sardis church spiritually dead? What is Jesus challenge to them to reverse their spiritual death spiritual?

Answer
Revelations 3: 1b I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up.

Jesus meant that although this church had a reputation for vibrancy, activity and lots of good works which on the out side gave the impression of your ideal church but spiritually they were dead of far from God. Good works are always good when they are done as an expression of one’s faith in God and one’s love for Him which is a response to His death on the cross for us. The core of the gospel preached to them was how God saved them from their sins by the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. There would be salvation in no other means. If one were to alter the message or modify it in anyway it would effectively render the message useless for salvation and the recipients still left dead in their sins.

One of the earliest ways of gospel distortion was encountered in the book of Galatians where adherence to the outward signs of the covenant and Jewish laws are included as a pre-requisite to salvation instead of relying on Jesus and what He had done exclusively. In this church it was works and for many of us this is the default error when we rely on our activities and works as a surrogate for spirituality and authenticity. This is why their works were not consider complete they were probably used as the means to salvation instead of relying entirely on Jesus hence they were spiritually dead not alive.

They are to remember what they have received and heard before and to keep it and repent. This obviously refers to the gospel which is the good news of what God had done for them in Jesus which was preached to them in the first place. It is a historical message and what was preached which established the church was the gospel but somehow through human sin and compromise it had been diluted and substituted with all sorts of other elements and teachings and in the end they were left with some moralistic religious principles which had no semblance of the true gospel. The true gospel is not about good living or moralistic teaching it is a bout sin and eternal death as its penalty and the need for Jesus death and life in our lives.

Question 2
There are three common errors that often lead to spiritual decay and death in church.

A. They are when reputation replaces repentance.
B. Performance is valued above perseverance.
C. Compromise is preferred to commitment.
Can the group share how some of these errors can trip us up in our work with Christ and how we too struggle with them?

Are they other ways in which we can be unknowingly lulled into a false sense of confidence too?

Question 3
A church member after visiting websites of famous preachers all over the world declared that he exercised faith in the “Key of David”. He believed he had authority over negative situations at work. The other day when he was on the verge of being sacked by his boss for laziness he quietly declared under his breath that he trusted in Jesus and that he had the key of David to unlock more potential in his life and by the next day the boss had reassigned him to another department. Is this how we are to understand the key of David?

Answer
There is a current false teaching in the understanding of the key of David. Some preachers have re-interpretered the Key of David as a tool to unlock prosperity and blessing from God. They say all we have to do is to claim the Key of David for our selves in adverse situations to turn things around.

The understanding of the Key of David needs to be based on the Old Testament back ground of the key of David taken from Isaiah 22:20-22 which refers to God choosing as His steward to administer the government under King Hezekiah when they were besieged by the Assyrians. The previous steward Shebna was let go and God chose instead Eliakim.

Isaiah 22: 20 In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

Hence in the Old Testament the Key of David referred to not an actual physical key but a symbolic one in which authority was given to a servant of God to unlock the processes of government under the administration of the Davidic king at the time King Hezekiah.

Jesus was also described as holding a metaphorical key which is the key to eternal life when He declared in Rev 1: 17 Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

The other symbol used in this verse is the “door” to which the key of David opens and closes and in the New Testament the idea of the open door refers to the opportunity for the witnessing of the gospel especially to the Gentiles in Acts 14:27 and also Paul who uses it in 2 Cor 2: 12 to mean preaching opportunities for the gospel.

The situation in the Philadelphian which was they were poor and small and oppressed by the Roman authorities and shut out by the Jews who no longer wanted the Christians to be registered as worshippers with them which had been in the past an effective shield from persecution. The Jews effectively shut the door on them. It would therefore seem that this band of beleaguered helpless Christians were locked out of all opportunisties for survival and ministry.

It is when we take all these three elements together that what Jesus meant by the Key of David was that Jesus is the one holding the key to their survival and prospering in ministry. He is the Davidic Son and Davidic King who holds the authority of His Father’s kingdom the authority over life and death over opportunities for the gospel hence He is the one they need to rely upon not the Jews.

Hence we can see how people again misuse Scripture to suit their own selfish needs. Perhaps the church member should just the transfer to reflect on his own efforts at work as a hardworking employee who aim as to please Jesus and not sponge of the efforts of others and recast all his personal inadequacies as spiritual opposition.

Question 4
What was the sin of the Laodicean church ? Do we see similar parallels to our own church situation in our community? Where do we place our personal security in our lives. What are the practical pressures that tend to marginalise Christ out of our lives can you share?

Answer
The sin of the Laodiceans was forgetting God and relying and focussing on their own personal power, health and wealth. They thought they were spiritually as rich as their gold had reflected and their focus in life was to be caught up in the activities of their very prosperous city. Here we have the beginnings of what we now see in our own society of the prosperity gospel where the overwhelming pre-occupation was on keeping up with the Joneses , promotion at work, upward progression in society and the result was Christ and His desires and mission being marginalised to be little to no influence in their lives. They are too comfortable in their big houses and too busy for Jesus. Their sense of value had been distorted as what was important to God was unimportant to them.

Question 5
Is God against prosperity? Look at Deuteronomy 8:11-17 and see how we should view prosperity in our lives. What is the purpose of prosperity if it does come to us? What is the danger of the prosperity gospel today?

Answer
The Lord is not against prosperity and in fact as we look at the Old Testament and in particular the passage in Deuteronomy , God saved the people of Israel from the poverty of enslavement and brought them to the rich lands of Canaan and this was meant to display His love and care for them and his loyalty based on the promise or covenant He made with their fore fathers. Instead they interpreted His gracious provisions as their God given rights obtained under their own strengths and abilities and because they considered their wealth as a function of their own efforts it therefore became easy for them to disregard God. In their disregard for Him they no longer felt obligated to serve Him nor be obedient to Him and hence their fall in to sin.

So God is not against prosperity but in the history of Israel provided it as an expression of His love and fidelity to be reciprocated by love and obedience but time and time again Israel proved that the prosperity became a snare that drew them away from God instead of towards Him.

We too are in danger of the same sin. It is a double edged sword used appropriately it will leave us on our knees in thankfulness and worship of Him and inappropriately it will lead us away. The danger of the prosperity gospel is that it feeds in to our own selfish desires. If God’s blessings are only cast as physical prosperity and health then believers will desire these blessings as a means in them selves and not see them as an extension of His love to be reciprocated. In order words we will encourage a whole generation of believers who are in it for themselves. Their love and worship of God are a means to an end. To their own selfish ends and this is the delusion of the Laodiceans church and our own delusion

Question 6
One of the most common verses that early evangelists used to quote when they challenged unbelievers to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour is Rev 3: 19 “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” Do you think this is the right way to interpret and use this verse? See Hebrews 12: 5-6

Answer
This verse is a challenge to Christians because the letter was to the Laodicean believers not unbelievers which is why Jesus says those whom He loves he reprove and disciplines. It is the believers which Jesus specially loves as God’s adopted sons and as sons they are subject to discipline and required to repent and renew fellowship as we read in the passage of Hebrews 12:5-6

Question 7
How do we practically express the value of our relationship with Christ? Here Christ is pictured as longing to enter into hearts that are insensitive to Him. How can we each practically open the doors of our hearts to let him in?

Question 8
Daniel was a member of the 3rd Baptist church and was recently taught on believers authority. He looked at Revelations 3:21 and declared that like Jesus we are conquerors. He was in trouble with his business as it involved airline ticketing and several restaurants he owned due to the Covid 19 crisis. His accountant told him to down size his business as he did not have the funds to sustain them for more than 3 more weeks under lock down. He refused to take his accountants advice and instead just relied on God. He took this verse and declared that it was Satan that wanted to destroy his business and he took the authority of Christ and asked to bind the demons that were destroying his businesses. He will conquer just as Christ conquered. Do you think this was the right use of scripture? Do you think this was what Jesus was trying to tell him in Revelations. What spiritual danger does this place Daniel in if he holds to these beliefs?

Answer
Daniel is like many of us because our default mode is to read scripture and interpret it according to our own situation and apply it directly to our problems. All Scripture needs to be interpreted historically first to extract the meaning which was intended to its first recipients and then only can be extract principles to apply to our own lives.

This verse Rev 3: 21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The context of this verse is that concludes Christs admonishments and encouragements to the 7 churches undergoing many spiritual challenges. Some were tempted to compromise their witness or shrink back from the stiff opposition and persecution and others were blindly accommodating to the prevailing culture and diluting their witness for Him.

The Laodiceans had depended on their own prosperity and abilities so much so that they were not depending on Him. They were blinded by their own wealth and had marginalised Jesus to almost irrelevance. Jesus challenged them to come back to Him and rely on His strength and see their own true spiritual state through His eyes rather than through the lens of their own abilities. It is Jesus who is the only one who can supply them what they need for a fulfilling life. It is He who can bring them the purity of faith as symbolised by the refining of gold, it is only He that can cover our nakedness exposed by our idolatry. He can give us His righteousness which we had foolishly cast aside for the lure of idolatry for the things of the world that we thought will give our lives cover but instead left us naked and ashamed. It is only He with the piercing flaming eyes that can see though the devils deceptions and appreciate true value in life. So the Laodiceans are loving coaxed to renew fellowship with Jesus. Only by opening the doors of our hearts to Jesus will we truly overcome our spiritual problems.

So we conquer or overcome our spiritual problems by inviting Jesus in to our lives in ongoing deeper fellowship and trusting Him and surrendering our own evil desires are his b and perceptions and accepting His. We conquer like Jesus conquered … look at the verse ……”will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered”.

The best verse to described how Jesus conquered is how Jesus is introduced to us in Revelations 1: (ESV) 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

Jesus was the faithful witness of God…there is a play on the words as the Greek for witness is Martus which is also the meaning of martyr as one who died for being witness. Then he rose from the dead and because of this He is the ruler of the kings of the earth.

As Christians we die to self and our desires for power and control and riches and we find all our power and riches and strength and value in Jesus and through Him we will overcome and rule with Him one day. Now this is a far cry from the simplistic interpretation by Daniel. He has ripped out God’s promise to His people from its proper context. What was intended to be used as a promise to reassure. God’s people of ultimate spiritual victory in eternal life by living and dying as Christ lived and rising and ruling with Christ is now interpreted as God guaranteeing Daniel business success which really has nothing to do with God’s purposes for us which are far greater and more consequential.

What Daniel is doing is putting words and promises in God’s mouth when Jesus is intending a radically different message and when Daniel does this he is opening him self to delusions based on a wrong reading of the bible. When and if his business falls apart because he had not taken prudent financial actions to restructure his loans of close his businesses then he would have falsely blamed God and either become bitter at God or loose trust in Him completely.

At times God in his infinite grace might on the other hand allow some miraculous financial relief for his businesses and Daniel will then have been unfortunately reinforced in his false beliefs and will be either setting himself up for a bigger fall later on or will feel so emboldened that he will share his beliefs with others with devastating consequences ultimately. If indeed God had been gracious and saved Daniel’s business it would have been an act of grace which God often grants in order that Daniel repent and learn and grow. Hopefully he will not have this act of grace misinterpreted as a vindication of his false beliefs.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
Look at the description of God in heaven and compare it to the various stories you might have heard others share about when they say they have had visions of heaven or been there in a near death experience , how is it different? What are the pros and cons of people sharing their near death experiences of going to heaven? (Luke 16:31 And 1 Cor 2)

Answer
The usual stories of people who have had a near death experience seem to focus almost entirely on meeting their loved ones and activities in heaven. Very few of them focus on what John here describes which is God on His throne in the Center of all Creation.

People should not use their testimony on their near death experiences as a definitive truth about whether there is a heaven or not or whether there is God or not or even whether Jesus is the only way to God simply because the bible never utilises this modality outside those experiences and descriptions by the various prophets like Ezekiel, Isaiah and Daniel and in this case John. Jesus in his parable of the rich man and the bigger in Luke 16:31 says that the proof of eternal life must lie within the testimony of Scriptures and not by any other witness from someone crossing over to the realm of death and returning to tell the tale. In the parable the rich man in hell wanted to have the beggar in heaven sent back to the physical world to warn them of the eternal realities.

Jesus said it would not make any difference to their faith. Paul in 1 Cor 12 talks about a man who went into heaven but declines to share about it for he did not use the event either to authenticate his own credentials nor verify the authenticity of the Christian faith. There are also near death experiences that have happened to 5-14% of Americans to date and they will include the testimony of non believers who have claimed to enter the realms of heaven without any faith in Christ as well hence using these supernatural experiences can be misleading and not helpful

Question 2
There is a combination of lightning and thunder from God’s throne and yet the appearance of a rainbow above God’s throne. What is the significance of having both these symbols associated with God’s throne?

Answer
The lightning and thunder symbolise both the magnificence and awesome power of God the Creator and Lord of all nature as well a judgement and this immediately puts puts the person in his real life context of existence. We are weak finite creatures and awful sinners to boot and suddenly we are confronted with an awesome all powerful God who has to punish all sins fairly. The frightening sights and sounds of the throne are balanced by the appearance of the rainbow which is the first sign God gave Noah after the flood that He would not again destroy mankind with the flood. Hence the sign is for both man and God to remember this covenant or promise God gave. Hence the rainbow is a symbol to us of God’s covenant of God’ promises to us as His people that in the midst of the tribulations of judgement that shall henceforth be inflicted upon mankind unrelentlessly from Revelations 6-20 God will never once forget His promises to us as that rainbow is always around the throne of God.

Hence these two symbols give us justice and mercy. This is the correct understanding of God because we can always create our own version of God in our own minds. What starts of as genuine faith is often degenerated into an unfaithful rendering of some attributes of God over others so we have a disfigured God a God of our own making to suit our own culture or proclivities. True revelation will have none of that and the Bibles portrayal of God whether it be in Ezekiel , Daniel or Isaiah or John is always consistent. It is always a Holy God of Justice, Righteousness and Mercy

Question 3
What is the significance of the symbol of having a sea described as glass in the scene from heaven?

Answer
In Hebrew culture the sea is often perceived as a place of chaos and evil where sea monsters come from. In Revelations the beasts come from the sea the place of chaos and evil. Hence the sea of glass is a calm sea where there is no longer the turbulence of the heaving waves emblematic of unrestrained evil. The presence of the still waters near the throne indicate the overriding omnipotence of God against whom even the evil turbulence of the sea is no match and is tamed. It therefore symbolised God’s total control of evil in the world despite the outward appearance of tulmult that we see on the streets and in our homes today.

Question 4
Who are the 24 elders around the throne ? Are they angels or believers who represent the people of God? Why the number of 24 why not 6 or 100? Please provide evidence of your conclusions What is the significance to us of having the 24 elders with their specific descriptions worshipping God around the throne?

Answer
The number 24 is significant as it was the number of king David’s 24 orders of priests (1 Chron.24:3-19), Levitical gatekeepers 24 (1 Chron. 26:17-19) and Levitical worship leaders also 24 (1 Chron. 25:6-31), Revelations 21: 12-13 tells us that the walls of the new Jerusalem have 12 gates named after the 12 tribes of Israel and the foundations of the walls have the names of the 12 apostles on them giving a total of 24

Then the fact that they have white robes is taken from Revelations 3:5 where the triumphant believers will have white robes indicating purity and in Revelations 2:10b Jesus reassures the beleaguered believers in Smyrna that they who overcome and endure in the face of persecution will be rewarded with crowns. Angels don’t win crowns In Revelations 15:2 the saints sing both the song of Moses from their salvation from their slavery in Egypt the first exodus and the Song of the Lamb from their second exodus from the slavery of sin. Hence it is most likely that the 24 elders represent the believers of the Old and New Testament which are represented by the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles the heads of both the old and new covenants.

The significance of their proximity to the throne is that since they represent the entire people of God, the church, we are placed in a position of power due to their proximity to the throne. In the midst of persecution and troubles we are never far from the center of all power and control as our heavenly counterparts are right before the King of Kings.

The proximity to the throne also means there is a heavenly dimension of the church already present right next to the throne of God. Therefore our weekly worship has a heavenly component as the scene reminds us of our heavenly existence and identity in worship. The Crowns, white robes and thrones anticipates victory of the saints when they persevere which will be ours too one day

Question 5
Why would they cast their crowns at the throne when they worship. Why is it that they have crowns and the 4 living creatures have no crowns? How does one win a crown? What is the crown a symbol of? What is the significance of the Elders laying their crowns before the throne of God? How does this act practically impact the way we see our faith and salvation?

Answer
The crowns in ancient culture can be symbols of authority like those used by monarchs or the prizes of athletes. In Revelation 2:10b Jesus promises the believers in Smyrna crowns if they persevere through the persecution hence crowns represent the reward for persevering faith and represent the victory that the perseverance brings. The 4 living creatures don’t wear crowns as they are angels and angels never wear crowns as it is symbol always reserved for the saints The crown is the symbol of persevering faith of believers tested by trials.

When the elders lay them before the throne what they are doing is declaring that even their best efforts, even their persevering faith is due to the provision of God. They are saying that they did not do it by themselves, they do not take credit as even their overcoming faith that resulted in external victory is owed to none other than to God.

When we realise that even our faith with which we utilised to take hold of the salvation provided by God originated from God it will naturally humble us and not allow us to usurp God’s glory by becoming proud of our achievements in the arena of faith. Whether it be an apostle a prophet or a lowly janitor who God uses to share the gospel and persevere in faith, the ability to do so comes from God hence there is no place for pride when we look back on our own record. Instead there will be humble and grateful acknowledgement which brings more glory to God. The humility will also allow a spirit of anticipation in the way we will want to wait upon God in ministry and see how He moves in church instead of powering ahead with our own ideas and agendas.

Question 6
Paul in 2 Tim 4:6-8 speaks of a crown that he will receive. How does this expectation enable his endurance? Does the prospect of gaining this crown motivate you personally as you navigate through troubles in your life? How does one keep this aspect of our faith clearly within our sights on a daily basis in order to to spur our obedience and endurance. What are the ways in which the expectation of this crown are often blurred and forgotten. What effects will that have on our lives . The picture of worship is the posture ..bow down, cast crowns and verbalisation what does this mean to us?

Question 7
Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer and canabalist who not only killed 17 people but also mutilated them and ate their body parts. He allegedly came to know Christ and asked to be baptised. The public reaction to the event was disgust and some people even said that if Jeffrey was in heaven they did not want to be in the same place. Why would people say that? What does it means to be “worthy” are we more worthy than Jeffrey Dahmer?

Answer
The fact that people say that they wont want to be heaven if Jeffrey Dahmer is there betrays their attitude towards the gospel in salvation. It is always a tendency at the back of our minds to believe that we deserve to be in heaven either because we did not commit many bad sins before we came to Christ..(low sin debt burden) so we are relatively “good “ people or that since our conversion we have been really do and deserve heaven.

The presence of Dahmer in heaven really cheapens grace as if there was a bar to entrance into heaven to be set so low that even a despicable creature like him could be afforded entry based on a simple claim to repentance and trust in Jesus. Comments like this in reality detracts from the beauty of grace because the sinner always gets to heaven not on the basis of the magnitude of his sin but the magnitude of God’s grace that even a dastardly serial like Jeffrey can be saved by the blood of Christ.

To be worthy is that it be morally beautiful and if believers like the ones in Sardis in Rev 3:5 are described as worthy it is not because they deserved it as they deserve like all we deserve God’s judgement and condemnation but that because of the blood of Christ it is morally beautiful in the eyes of God. It is morally beautiful because the sinner deserving of death gets life because of the sacrifice of Jesus to which the sinner clings on to dear life with the faith which God provides for him.

Question 8
Someone used the metaphor of a magnifying glass to describe our worship of God especially when we sing of how we “magnify “ His name. What are the pros and cons of using this term? Others use the metaphor of a telescope to describe worship. What are the pros and cons of using this picture to describe our worship?

Answer
Magnifying glass is a poor metaphor because it implies God’s goodness is on a microscopic level and we need to amplify it so people can see it. The metaphor of the telescope is better because we are trying to with the use of the telescope get a grasp of the enormity of God’s magnificence and the instrument enables us to do that without compiromising the actual enormity of God’s brilliance in the universe. The cons on using this term is the unwieldy ness of using this term, imagine saying “ Lord we telescope your glory in the heavens” sounds weird doesn’t it?

Saying we magnify your glory is easier and sounds better as long as the hearers understand and most do that we are making a big deal of God not that He is so small that we have to make a big deal out of Him but our perception of Him is so small and distorted that we have to amplify His attributes into consciousness of the people we are speaking or singing to

Question 9
When the elders worship God for His attribute but of all His attributes they specify the phrase “who was and is and is to come!” to describe God. Why is this particularly important to the elders and by inference the church ? Hint..the rainbow

Answer
The term refers to the externality of God as opposed to the kings and the most powerful people who have authority over us in the world today. This is important because these kings will pass away but our God and His purposes are eternal and permanent and will come to pass. The rainbow was set from the beginning of this world after the flood it is still in the skies as it is above the throne and the eternal God will never forget his commitment to us. We live in a world characterised by one important thing, that every thing changes which in effect makes things very difficult. How many business are still present in your neighbourhood after 10 year or 20 years? How many governments last more than 100 years..very few. The only constant with the history of mankind is change hence we cannot trust man but we can trust the eternal God.

Question 10
Look at the song of worship “(ESV) Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” Does it mean that God is lacking in glory, honour and power and that He needs us to give Him that? If God’s chief aim is to glorify Himself and the aim of his creation of the world is so that He be glorified, doesn’t that seem too egotistical or proud?

Answer
No it does not mean God is lacking in all these three characteristics or attributes. These three attributes are intrinsic attributes of God and He has them whether we see of recognise them at all. When we worship what we are doing is more subjective were are expressing verbally or responding to our perception of His glory, Honour and power. He already has them and we are as worshippers seeing it , experiencing it and now expressing it verbally to Him and in this sense we are giving Him glory, honour and power. We are not giving Him what He lack but expressing his qualities that we perceive and respond to verbally. There is not only the verbal expression but the physical expression which is falling down before God which indicates submission to His will and Greatness.

Hence worship is not only verbal expression of our appreciation of who He is but also physical in submitting to His will and His plans for us. There cannot be one without the other. We cannot be verbalising our praise and not submitting our will be cause that would be an inauthentic expression not heart felt. True worship is on our knees our lives in submission to Him.

God is the most perfect person in the universe and in the entire span of the universe there is only God and His creation. He is the most perfect morally person and everything else is beneath Him. If his aim is not to glorify Himself then He has to glorify His creation which would be idolatry as all creation is lesser than the Creator. To glorify the Creator is the natural obligation and privilege of all created beings.

If there was a person like the Roman Emperor who desired to be worshiped, that desire would in itself be egotistical and proud no matter how powerful of good he was he would still be a creature and sinful hence the desire to be glorified in this case would not be a morally fit proposition because he would be human and is exceeding his station in life. Only God deserves or is worthy to be glorified.

Question 11
What is the central focus of heaven in Revelations 4? Doesn’t How does this influence the way we live? How should we endeavour to have this aspect our our spiritual lives enhanced going forward?

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
Why is the scroll specifically described as having writing on the front and the back? What kind of scroll does this indicate that it was?

Answer
There is something unusual about this scroll as John takes time to describe it as there was writing on the front and back of the scroll. This is unusual because papyrus scrolls are made of strips of the reeds that are glued together to make up the scroll. On the front is the horizontal strips and on the back is the vertical strips of reeds and they are glued together. Therefore one would usually write on the front from right to left for Greek and left to right in Hebrew because it is in the direction of the horizontal strips. One would not normally write on the back of the scroll as your pen would be writing across all the bumps made by the vertical strips of reed at the back unless one was using Mandarin which writes in an up to down fashion instead of left to right. There were only two instances where one would write on both front and back which would be if one was very poor and could not afford to write just on the front or if it was a legal document which was a will or a title deed to a property or a prophetic document because one would want to get all the details of the assets on one papyrus. Hence this scroll is a legal document because it is not possible to say God was too poor and stingy and had to write on both sides. It was a legal document.

Here is an example of a prophetic document by Ezekiel 2: 9
And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. 10 And he spread it before me. And it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.
This last will and testament of Emperor Vespasian had 7 seals just as the one described in this chapter. The seals were used to authenticate the document and ensure they were not tampered with.

Title deeds to land were also written on both sides of the scrolls and the most famous one was the one Jeremiah got when he bought land near Jerusalem at the height of the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians which was an insane financial venture but it was instructed by God as a gesture of confidence that even though Jerusalem would fall the exiles would return in time and settle the land.

Jeremiah 32: 8 Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.

Jeremiah 32: 14 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time.

There was an open copy for all to read and a sealed copy to be stored in an earthen pot for next time when his relatives were to come back to Jerusalem they would retrieve the title deed in break the seals and enact the contents of the deed they would use the title deed to reclaim the land.

Question 2
Why is John crying when there was apparently no one who could take the scroll and open it? What is the scroll then ? What happens when the scroll is open.

Answer
This scroll was a legal document and symbolised the title deed to the earth and all its inhabitants. The opening of the scroll and slitting its seals would symbolise the setting into motion God’s eternal plan for judgment and blessings and salvation for the people of the world. Once the seals were opened in heaven then a set piece of history would be triggered.

Take for example Revelations 6 : 1 Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.

The Lamb opens the seal to the scroll and then the living creature commands the emergence of the white horseman of the apocalypse who brings about war and conquering in the earth below..history is enacted.

Question 3
Why is it important to identify the person taking the scroll the be the Lion of Judah and Root of David ? Why is the person also identified as the lamb as well and a lamb that was slain? What is John trying to convey with the description of the lamb with horns and eyes.

Answer
The qualifications of the person having the right to take the scroll is of utmost importance as evidenced by the fact that there was no single living creature in all the universe that would have the credentials to take the scroll from Gods right hand. The person who ultimately took the scroll was identified as the Lion of Judah and Root of Davids from two Old Testament references to the coming Messiah who will rule an eternal kingdom. It is the Lion of Judah and the Lamb which has its Old Testament background.

Genesis 49:9-10 (ESV) Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? 10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

This is the prophecy that the Messiah shall come from the tribe of Judah because it is written, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah,”. The septre is the symbol of a Kings power and authority and this confirmed by and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

Then there is the other Old testament messianic prophecy

Isaiah 11:1-2 (ESV) There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him.

Jesse is the father of David and the Messiah comes from the lineage of David where it was promised to him by God that there will be an eternal Davidic king one day.

Hence Jesus is that Davidic King, Jesus is that Lion of Judah ..he fits the lineage and the prophecy directly . He has total eternal legitimacy to inherit the eternal kingdom of God. The prophecies prove that the coming of Jesus was not a our of the moment unplanned event but one on God’s mind from the beginning of time hinted at by the prophecies and fulfilled by Jesus.

The person who took the scroll was also a Lamb that was slain indicated that this person was slaughtered and the fact that he is a Lamb would naturally indicate that this was not a casualty of war or accidental death but a deliberate sacrifice and offering for sin in the Jewish history and faith.

The horns are symbolic for strength and authority over others and if there are 7 horns means the Lamb has complete authority over everything and is omnipotent. As in the description of the 4 living creatures who were full of eyes here the Lamb has 7 eyes which means he has complete knowledge , wisdom and understanding ..omniscience and complete measure of the Spirit as symbolised by the seven Spirts of God sent out into all the earth. Hence John is telling us this is no ordinary Lamb who was sacrificed for sin , he is all powerful and omniscient.

Question 4
Why is the Lamb also the Lion are they the same person of different and it does not make sense? What is happening here . Why qualifies the Lamb to take the scroll?

Answer
This is an example of mixed metaphors which is a unique feature of Apocalyptic prophecy. This allows the author to tell us several things about the object at the same time. Hence the one who takes the scroll or is qualified to take it. In a title deed the person who redeems the property like in the case of Jeremiahs title deed would need to be a relative as in Israel all land was carved up between the 12 tribes and the land could not be sold outside the family hence the redeemer of the land would have to be a relative. The person must be willing to redeem the land and able to redeem it which means he must have the financial resources to do so.

In this case Jesus fulfills all the criteria. He must be related. If you would remember the prophecy of Daniel 7 in the last days there will be one “like the son of man” which means human a person sharing our nature as humans related to us.

Daniel 7:13-14 (ESV) I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him;

In Revelation 1:12-13 (ESV) Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.
Jesus is described as “ one like the son of man”

The next criteria would be that the Redeemer must be willing and Jesus said in John.

John 10:11 (ESV) I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus lays down His life voluntarily. The description of Jesus as the Lion of Judah and the Root of David clearly identifies Jesus as the promised Messiah who would rule over the eternal kingdom of God. He comes willingly and specifically to redeem Gods people.

The third criteria is that Redeemer must be able to pay the price. The better translation from the NIV in verse 6 is “ Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the 4 living creatures and the elders.
To come from the center of the throne means he has the status equal to that of the one on the throne God Himself. John expresses this in the same way in the gospel.

John 1:1-3 (ESV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 Jesus paid the price by being the sacrificial Lamb who was slain.

Jesus fulfilled all the criteria and He is the only one in the whole universe that is able to take the scroll because He paid the price..the Lamb who was slain not just an ordinary Lamb the Word of God

Question 5
What does the bowls of incense held by the Elders symbolising? Why are they only now offered when the Lamb takes the scroll

Answer
The bowls of incense symbolised the prayer of the saints and they are offered only after the Lamb that was slain had taken the scroll which means the redeeming sacrifice for sin by the Lamb has not enabled God to answer the prayers of believers of all history. If God were to react human sinners before it must only be with condemnation and judgement because that is what we deserve but now because the Lamb was slain for us the prayers are like sweet smelling incense to God who will enjoy the prayers and love to answer them.

Question 6
There are 4 features of the atonement that we can see from the song after the Lamb takes the seal in Revelations 5:9-10 what are they and why do they matter?

Answer
We learn 4 things from the song which is about the nature of the Atonement of the Lamb:
1. It is a bloody atonement
2. It is a broad atonement
3. It is a directed atonement
4. It is triumphant atonement

1. It is a bloody atonement

The lamb is “slain” better translated slaughtered indicating a violent death and by “blood”. Blood signifies life as in Genesis 9 the prohibition of eating blood is that it symbolises life Genesis 9:4 (ESV) But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. The blood for redemption symbolises a life violently taken …blood spilt emphasising the costly nature of our redemption. If the picture of the Lamb that is violent slaughtered upsets our usual sensitivities it is supposed to because it points us towards the awfulness of our sin

2. It is a broad atonement
The bloody atonement of Christ redeems people “from every tribe and language and people and nation”. It is a redemption without distinction but not a redemption without exception which means not everyone is redeemed but the redeemed comes from every ethnic group which is why Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations. In every city, every nation there are people who God has chosen and who will respond to the news of this atonement.

In Acts 18 Paul is told by God despite the persecution to remain in Corinth to preach the gospel because there are many in the city who belong to Him who will respond to the gospel.

Acts 18:9-11 (ESV) And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, 10 for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”

3. It is a directed atonement
Note the verse says “your blood you ransomed people for God”. We have sometimes miscast the whole issue as that it is just about how we should get into heaven and Jesus becomes the means to that end. This is why you will often hear people say that “ I have received Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour”.

It is individualistic and Christ is the means not the goal. It empowers egocentric goals in life ..we can be anything we want to be and Jesus will get us there . After the initial conversion experience there is little mention of sin and repentance anymore because we want to focus on positive things, confess positive things and people are not taught to admit weakness and failure and pain are not part of the process because it is not fulfilling. The atonement by the lamb was to redeem a people –to God where knowing and enjoying and glorifying God is the goal not a means to a goal of our own self fulfilment. We are redeemed to be a people for God and the whole point is the process of becoming a people for God.

2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV) And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

We are redeemed as a people for God and this involves a process where we keep our eyes on God where we are excited, enthralled and in the process become more and more like Him and this is done by His Spirit. It is a process, it is like climbing up the glacier, foot by foot a gradual process and in the process we are transformed

4. It is triumphant atonement
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

The atonement make us a people for God and we are to be a kingdom, a people, priests. We are described not as individuals but our destiny is to be a people Gods own people a kingdom where God’s Spirit rules in our hearts and priests. NT Wright describes a situation when he was a child and sick in bed. His mother used to keep the door to his bed room slightly a jar and placed a mirror at the side of the door. When he looked at the mirror he could see his mother in the kitchen working and feel reassured that she was still in the house and he was never alone. On the other hand with the same mirror his mother could see NT Wright in bed because of the way the mirror was angled at the edge of the door so she could feel reassured that her child was alright.

This is the best description of us as priests. God has put us as His people His priests like angled mirrors in the world . As mirrors we reflect God to world and world to God. Our God can project His love, care to the world through us so that the rest of the world can praise the Creator when they can see His hands through our lives.

Every time we look after creation and bring God’s restorative healing and justice to creation we are reflecting God to the world. On the other hand we represent the world to God when we present to God the praise and the worship of the world to God. As priests we reflect the needs, worries and requests of the world to God in intercession for the people we love. What we do in part now we shall do fully in new heavens and new earth. This is not a future calling it is a current reality which we must recognise and exercise our authority as we are God’s kingdom we have His authority even though the world cannot see it but we must believe it an act on it because in heaven it is celebrated as a reality.

Question 7
If Revelations 4 shows us that we should worship God for who He is then Revelations 5 show us our worship needs to be directed towards the Lamb for what He has done. What role does this new song in Revelations 5:9-14 play in our lives?

Answer
The new song in revelations 5 is a summary of the gospel, it is the proclamation in heaven that the victory is already won and the crux or basis of the victory is the sacrifice of the Lamb who has now set into motion God’s eternal plan to redeem a people for Himself, of priests and kings from every tribe and language and nation. This is the overwhelming agenda of heaven in fact for all of creation as the physical creation can do nothing but metaphorically groan until the saints are glorified in the last day. Hence the role of this song is the role of the gospel in our lives. We worship God for who He is (Rev 4) and we worship God for what He has done for us in the Lamb in Revelations 5. These two are to be our purpose and this gospel should fuel our endeavours and be on every waking moment of our lives just as the song is sung over and over again in heaven. How can we sit still and not proclaim His victory to every corner of the world how can we keep silent.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
What are the 4 horsemen released by the opening of the seals? What do they symbolise? What is the function of these judgements? (Supplemental question only if the group wants to pursue controversial issues) Why is the first white horse as a conqueror, controversial? Who do you think it is and why? (Zechariah 6:1-8 gives you some background of how the OT uses the symbolism of the judgement horses).

Answer
They are symbols of a series of judgements that Jesus will unleash that will affect the world. It is Jesus alone who can open the seals and call forth the horses.

These judgements serve to purify the saints, punish the unbelievers, and shock them out of their blind idolatry as they prove that their reliance on idols are simply useless in protecting from God’s wrath.

The main controversy is that there are those who think the rider of the white horse is Jesus himself and His conquering is the gospel success all over the world.

The pros for this interpretation

a. This is based on the fact that there is a white rider in Revelations 19 clearly identified as Jesus.

Revelations 19: 11 “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.”

b. The ones in white of which there are 14 references in Revelations always refer to saints and the good guys.
c. Ps 45:3-4 refers to the messiah who conquers.
The cons for this interpretation

a. There are other references to evil symbols like the beast conquering as well, not only Jesus conquers.
Rev 11: 7 “And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them”
Rev 13: 7 “Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them”
b. The Seals, Trumpets and bowls are all parallel minor depictions of judgment so it is discordant for it to be Jesus in one of the horses meting out minor judgments when He is the one with the final judgement in Rev 19. The 4 horsemen come in a set together and represent evil forces that hurt mankind and to put Jesus with these other agents would be discordant.
c. How can Jesus open the seal and also be the first horsemen?

d. The white horsemen can possibly Satanic force for deception-white appears righteous.
e. The horses of judgement in Zechariah including the white horse pulling the chariot are all homogenously symbols of judgement sent by God.

Question 2
Why is the 5th seal important? How does this seal relate to the beleaguered churches of Asia Minor especially the Smyrna and Philadelphia churches? How does this seal relate to Christians all over the world where one in 8 are persecuted even today? How does it relate to Ps Koh in our nation who was “disappeared” in 2017? How are the pleas of these saints answered? It would seem that God is rather cruel in insisting on a quota of Christians to be martyred before He will act or is He? What does this mean?

Answer
The 5th seal is very important because most of the churches of Asia are undergoing some sort of persecution to varying extent and it reminds them that the martyrs of the faith are close to God, right under the sacred altar in close proximity to God.

Their lives lost in the violence of persecution are therefore with the symbolism of an altar and considered a holy sacrifice acceptable to God. They have given up their most precious commodity, their lives as an offering of faith to God and this is not lost on God. He hears their cries of pain and demand for justice.

This is very important to persecuted Christians today, that they are not forgotten to God and their lives are right next to God. He is pleased with them and He will answer their pleas for justice.

Hence we don’t know exactly where Ps Koh is but God knows where he is and if he has been martyred, he will be in the presence of God and his cries for help and justice shall not go unnoticed by God nor His church.

The pleas of these saints are answered by God directly. That they are to be patient that one day the requisite number of martyrs will be reached which implies that there is more suffering that needs to occur.

This does not mean that God is sadistic and wants more blood spilt from His precious saints before He will act. But rather that there will be a well defined limited period during which persecution will be allowed to happen all over the world. John can easily write in answer to the saints that more time is needed but more lives lost is a more dramatic way of stating the same thing. In any case it indicates two more things, firstly that God is a God of long suffering and grace and desires no one to perish. Hence the delay in judgement always implies time given for mankind to repent.

In Genesis 15: 16 “And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” This on the surface sounds like there is a certain quota of sin that the Amorites would have to breach that would trigger God’s massive judgement and this would take 4 generations. Abraham’s offspring would have to be in a foreign nation under slavery for all this time because God was waiting for this to occur.

Gen 15: 13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions”

So the language of “iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” on the surface seems to indicate there is a quota or magnitude of evil to be reached before God can even consider to judge. It is just another way of God speaking to Abraham telling him that God waits for 450 years before He allows the Israelites to come into Canaan to evict its inhabitants forcefully as by then they would have been given enough time in God’s long suffering grace before He will judge.

Hence the fact that there are more saints that have to die before the final judgement is a dramatic way of indicating that God’s long suffering love towards mankind in His desire for them to repent has a costly metric measured by the blood of His saints. It also indicates the way of victory for the church is paved with sacrifice of more saints, not military might or political power. The way ahead is to be like the Lamb —faithful witness (martyr, first born of the dead and ultimate ruler).

Question 3
How will the judgement in the 6th seal occur? Does it mean the actual stars will fall on the earth? How is the 6th seal related to the 5th seal?

Answer
The 6th seal indicates the final judgment of mankind because the symbolic language of destruction is total compared to the larger chapter where only a certain percentage of people are killed or a third of the stars are fallen. The world faces final judgment.

The 6th seal is the answer to the 5th seal when the saints ask how long…God answers with a certain number of future martyrs but in the 6th seal there is final judgement when there is massive judgement to the persecuting world.

Question 4
What does the sealing in Revelations 7 :1-4 symbolise? What is it in anwser to? What does sealing mean? Does it mean we will be shielded from the judgements?

Answer
The sealing of the 144,000 is the answer to the question of Revelations 6: 17 “for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Even though the world will be deluged with judgement, the saints are sealed with the name of the Lamb and the Father and these seals are protective. The picture in Rev 7 is the withholding of the forces of nature that wreak judgement and havoc on the world till the 144,000 are sealed. These are Christians because in Revelations the imagery is very stark and clear as there are only two kinds of marks or seals: the one of the Lamb or the one of the beast 666. There are no in between.

It does not mean that whatever catastrophic events that occur in the course of judgement will not affect believers who are sealed. The sealing is akin to our contemporary branding of cattle or sheep. They will join all the other animals but the branding allows the owner to know who are His and preserve them. Our sealing guarantees our spiritual salvation despite the fiercest catastrophies of life.

Question 5
Who are the 144,000? And are they different from the multitudes seen on Rev 7:9 who have come out of the great tribulation? In the Premillennialism Dispensational view if the church is raptured before all these tribulations occur then this must refer to ethnic Israel as a nation in fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel in the Old Testament. On the other hand, they could be a symbolic expression of the church. Discuss the evidence of either interpretation and how then is this passage relevant to the Christians in Asia Minor and to us?

Answer
The 144,000 is Israel simply because Revelations states that it is Rev 7:4 (ESV) 4 “And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel”

Then there is a whole list of tribes to hammer home the point. While this is a reasonable assumption on the surface, there are plenty of evidences that this 144,000 is actually the church as the true Israel and written about or recast symbolically as Israel because this will imply that the church will receive all the fulfilment of God’s promises to ancient Israel. This means the 144,000 and the multitude of saints in Rev 7:9 are two symbolic ways of recasting the same group of people to emphasise two different theological points.

It’s like a person who is a soldier in the Malaysian army who comes from a Baba Nyonya family. In one photograph he is taken with the traditional Baba Nyonya garments holding a dish of Otak Otak which is emblematic of that culinary cuisine and when we look at him we are reminded about the culture and how he fits in to the culture in all the ways he acts and eats and socializes.

In another photo we see him in full military gear with his helmet, medals, battalion insignias, boots and M16 gun and here we see the same person but he is sending another message that he is a warrior, a fierce brave soldier and a loyal Malaysians not to be trifled with. Both picture are of the same person but both pictures sends two different messages.

Same here in Rev 7. There are two pictures of metaphors for the one group of people of the church One picture is that of Israel as God’s chosen people inheriting all of His promises evidence of the integrity of God’s covenant promises coming to pass.

The other picture is the picture of the worldwide church incorporating the whole of humanity in all its diverse ethnic and social groups and this illustrate the majesty and power of God over the whole of creation and not just one nation.

There are many reason why we say these are two descriptions of the same group of the church. They are
1. The description of the 144,000 are in answer to the last question at the last judgement of Rev 6: 17 “for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” Hence it is the ones who are sealed. The 144,00 who can stand on the day of judgement and we know in Revelations we either have the seal of the lamb or the Mark of the beast.

2. The use of numbers in Revelations is largely symbolic hence the 144,000 is 12x12x1000 which symbolically is used to represent Israel but it is not to be taken literally. Even common sense will tell us there are way more than 144,00 Jews in the world today.

3. The other place we see the 144,000 mentioned in Revelations is in Rev 14 where they are described here as having the Lamb’s and Fathers name on their foreheads Rev 14:1 ..”who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads”. Only believers have seals on their foreheads. Then look at how they are described Rev 14:3 “No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, 5 and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.” This 144,00 are the redeemed from the whole earth and from humanity not one tribe.

4. The redeemed 144,000 in Rev 7 and Rev 14 are the same as the redeemed in Rev 5 :9b “for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, The description of both groups of 144,000 and those redeemed in Rev are the same it must be the church”

5. The way the 144,00 is presented and then the multitude in Rev 7:9 are presented is the same way in which the Jesus is presented in Rev 5. John hears the elders say Rev 5: 5 “And one of the elders said to me Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” What he hears and what he sees are two different presentations of the same person. He hears the Lion of Judah and Root of David which is the majestic powerful title of royalty but what he sees is a Lamb that was slain Rev 5: 6 “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with..”

Likewise it is the 144,000 is what John hears in Rev 7: 4 “And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel”

What he sees is Rev 7: 9 “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb”

The reasons it is the same group with two different depictions is the use of mixed metaphors in Revelations, same technique to say different things about the same people.

6. It is unlikely that John is going to cast the ethnic Jews in a special light because in the earlier chapters in his address to the Smyrna and Philadelphia churches, the ethnic Jews were cast as belonging to the Synagogue of Satan rather than God’s chosen people in Rev 2:9 and Rev 3:9. In both references these Jews were cast not really Jews as they belong to Satan.

7. In Galatians 3:28-29 Paul says that the true Jews or offspring of Abraham are in fact those in Christ not ethnic Jews.

8. The list of Tribes in Rev 7 is not even complete as the tribe of Dan is missing and the top of the tribe list is not Ruben the first born but Judah obviously to point the Mesisah being the Lion of Judah.

9. Most Israelites today cannot even trace their lineage to any of the lost tribes of Israel.

Hence if John is only referring to the 144,000 being sealed, then it would be unlikely that it would have any relevance of the churches or Asia Minor nor to us today.

Question 6
Look at the language of the description of the multitudes around the throne in Revelations 7:9-13 and compare it to Isaiah and Revelations 21-22. What pattern do you see and what conclusions can you draw?

Answer
The description of the group in Rev 7:9 is similar to Rev 21-22
Revelations 7: 9-13 description of the multitude

Before God’s throne
White robes
Washed with blood of the lamb
No more scorched by sun Springs of living water
God will wipe away all tears

Revelations 21-22 description of the church in new heaven and new earth

Dwell in Gods temple (Rev 21:22) Washed robes (Rev 22:14)
No sun (Rev 21:23)
Spring of living waters (Rev 21:6)
God will wipe away all tears (Rev 21:4)

They are the same group of people

Question 7
The description of the multitude in Rev 7: 7-13 says that they are in in the midst of the Lamb and the shepherd ..Rev 7:17 (ESV) 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide.” How is Jesus the Shepherd and the Lamb at the same time? Look at Ezekiel 32: 21-23 and John 10:11-12.

Answer
Here is another example of mixed metaphors where John is communicating two things about the same person.

In Ezekiel, God is reacting to the false shepherds who are the leaders of Israel leading his people astray and He promise to install His own Shepherd who will truly look after His sheep properly and this shepherd will be from the lineage of King David and God will directly shepherd His sheep through this ultimate shepherd.

In John 10 Jesus assumes this mantle of the true Shepherd of God.

In Revelations 7:17, it is the ultimate picture of fulfilment where the church of God will be cared for by their true Shepherd who is also the true Lamb because the way the true Shepherd looks after the lambs is by self sacrifice on the cross as it is the Lamb who was slain. The only way we will be Gods people around His throne in the end is when there is a Lamb to die on our behalf to become our true shepherd.

Question 8
Why is it significant that the term used to describe God through the Lamb who will shepherd his people this great multitude in Rev 7: 9-17 “to springs of living water and wipe away away their tears?” We see this same term applied to the people who are saved in Rev 20 : 4 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Look at Isaiah 49:10 and 25:8.

Answer
The significance is that these are promises God specially and specifically makes to Israel to be fulfilled when the Messiah comes and now these promises become the promises of God’s multitude. His church that is us where we can look forward to this. Israel was the light of the world through whom the Messiah comes and the Abrahamic covenant is fulfilled when the blessing passes to all the nations when the multitude stands around the throne won by the blood of the Lamb.

Question 9
How do you think the vision of the 144,000 and the great multitude affects you when you are undergoing pain, trouble and persecution? How does that make you feel to know that you have been sealed and will stand around the throne one day to worship Him, what about your family?

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
The opening of the 7th seal triggers silence in heaven. What is the significance of this?

Answer
The silence has dual significance. Firstly silence in the OT is associated with the judgement of God as it is meant to induce an atmosphere of sheer horror in anticipation of what God will do. (Zep 1:7-8 and Isaiah 47:5-6). Secondly , it metaphorically shows the attention God will pay to prayer of the saints which are cast as incense offered to God as a pleasing aroma.

Question 2
What is the significance of the incense and why does God accept these prayers?

Answer
Incense is also a symbol of prayer acceptance..an aroma pleasing to God. The saints prayers have already been accepted because of the Lamb.

Further background data if you require.
In OT and NT incense always associated with sacrifices. It was added to burning sacrifices to make it acceptable to God (Lev 16:11-19) The fragrant odour is metaphorical for what is acceptable to God. Angel brings the prayers of saints in Rev 6: 9 to God as they are agents of divine will it means God has accepted

Question 3
Which prayers are the Lord answering in Rev 8?

Answer
The prayers that are the burning of the incense refer to the prayers of the 5th seal of the martyrs asking God to act on their behalf their cries for justice.

Question 4
What happens when the prayers of the saints are accepted by God?

Answer
Judgement happens in answer to the pleas of the saints under the altar in the 5th seal in Rev 6. The judgments are symbolised in lighting , thunder and earth quakes. The trumpets are the judgements God metes out in response to the prayer of his martyrs.

Question 5
How are the trumpets related to these prayers? Look at Ezekiel 10:1-7. Can you see any similarity to what happened to Israel and how it was expressed?

Answer
The result of the prayers is God moving to judge the world and these judgements are symbolised by the 7 trumpets. The Ezekiel vision is a vision from heaven that showed judgement from heaven from beneath the wheels of the cherubim or angels where one angel is asked to take burning coals from beneath the wheels and throw them from heaven into the city of Jerusalem as God’s judgement. This is a cosmic depiction of judgement.

Question 6
What background do trumpets have in the Old Testament? Remember the fall of Jericho and Zep 1:14-15.

Answer
The trumpets are use to sound the charge before a battle like in Jericho , where Israel wages a holy war the trumpet sounds to initiate God acting on their behalf as well as the start of God’s judgements.

(In Zep 1:14-15 it heralds the start of God’s judgements hence it is a very appropriate imagery to employ to illustrate God’s actions in judgements)

Question 7
Compare the 4 trumpets with the 4 seals. Can you detect any differences in the way judgements are cast in these two sets of judgements?

Answer
The seals depict judgement and suffering in terms of the effects on mankind in terms of war, civil unrest and economic collapse leading to death of a portion of people. These are tangible real life depictions felt on the ground where the emphasis is for the seals. The trumpets on the other hand focus on the judgement not from the perspective felt on ground level like the seals but from the heavenly dimension hence the heavy use of the language of cosmic upheaval. This is to keep in line with the imagery of God responding from heaven to the prayer and judgement flashing out of heaven to the earth.

What they both have in common is the effect on mankind. The seals inflict death and starvation and violence on man. The trumpets destroy the environment and famine will result and cause the starvation and death will be the result.

Question 8
Are the cosmic events like the falling of the mountains, hail and star falling on earth to be taken literally? Why not?

Answer
The cosmic events are judgements cast symbolically of devastation to man and his environment. Hence there will not be a whole star falling on the earth. It is judgement language.

Question 9
What is the effect of the 5th trumpet and how do we see it today?

Answer
The 5th trumpet releases a whole host of demons from hell itself. These demons afflict torture on mankind but do not kill them hence it is mental torture and anguish.

Question 10
How are the trumpets similar to the great plagues of Exodus?

Answer
The great plagues of Egypt at the time of the the exodus was a direct challenge to the idol gods of Egypt. The Egyptians believed their gods controlled the forces of nature like Ra the Sun god and Yahweh shut our light for 3 days in the 9th plague to show the Egyptians the impotency of their idols. The trumpets like the great plagues challenge mankind’s reliance on their own idols they worship to let know that reliance on their own gods are useless.

Question 11
Are the end results of the trumpets similar to that achieved by the plagues of Exodus?

Answer
The net effect in vv 20-21 is that Mankind did not repent and this was the same with Pharoah.

Question 12
As Christians, we are often reluctant to speak of God’s Judgement. We will speak of His love and His grace but do we shy away from sharing about his Holiness and judgement? What is the danger of doing this and can you explain these three roles of God’s judgements on us? A. Judgements show us who God is B. Judgements point us in the right direction in life C. Judgements are at the heart of the gospel

Answer
The danger is that we are not presenting the true God to non believers and they wind up with a lop sided image of God. A God of love but not of righteousness. A God of forgiveness and not of justice. Hence we would be encouraging idol worship as any description of God that is lopsided is an idol and a false idol.

A. Judgements show us who God is

There is a useful quotation which states that “The mural of God’s character are painted in the landscape of judgment. If we avoid preaching on judgment then we will hiding God from our people”

Erik Raymond
Unless we talk about and incorporate the correct understanding of God’s judgement we will not be able to comprehend Gods character. What he means is that unless we understand our own sinfulness and our evil and the consequences of that sin that deserves judgement and death we will not even begin to understand God’s character of love and mercy and grace when He reached out to save us in Christ.

Unless we understand Gods’ power and uncompromising justice in judgement of sin we will not gain any insight nor experience of His majesty and holiness.

B. Judgements point us in the right direction in life.

Judgement shows us that we are on the wrong path and it causes us to correct our paths. Consequences allow us to learn. Human stubbornness and evil require that we only respond when we are shown we are wrong seldom if we are told we are wrong. God’s law tells us the right path and where are are wrong but we often refuse to listen and Gods’ judgements show us we are wrong and nudges us towards the right directions in life and godliness.

Judgement shows us the Futility of idols. We each grapple with our idols of money, power and sex and only when we face judgement over the consequences of our preoccupation with these idols and experience the emptiness that they bring will we decide to move in the opposite direction. Judgement also serves as a warning of worse to come if we do not heed it.

C.Judgements are at the heart of the gospel

The whole reason Jesus came to earth was to glorify God by taking on Himself the judgment we deserve and thus paying for our sins by the sacrifice of His own life.This is the gospel. “God desires that his churches reflect his character. In order to do this we must know who he is. Part of this involves preaching on God’s judgment. If we are allergic to his judgment then we will also be allergic to his glory, for God is glorified, not only through salvation but also judgment.

Question 13
What happens when we present a gospel which is just about a loving God and we leave out the reality of judgment?

Case Study 1
Whenever disaster strikes, it is commonly linked to God’s judgement. Hurricane Katrina was claimed by some Christians to have been God’s punishment for abortion or homosexuality, by a Muslim official as Allah’s punishment for the US’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and by a former Israeli chief rabbi as punishment for President George W. Bush’s support for the dismantlement of Israeli settlements in Gaza.

Well known rugby star Israel Folau in Australia got into trouble when he preached about the recent catastrophic bushfires in Australia that killed 6 people and that they were God’s judgement for the legalisation of same sex marriage and abortion. He said “Look how rapid these bush fires, these droughts, all these things have come in a short period of time. Do you think it’s a coincidence or not? God is speaking to you guys — Australia. You need to repent and take these laws and turn it back into following what is right by God. What you see right now, it’s only a little taste of God’s judgment.”

Others have equated the Covid 19 pandemic to similar moral failings of mankind.

Do you think Israel was right or wrong? To point this out.
Can you discuss any alternative ways in which Christians could have better handled the issue of disasters?
(Daniel : 9:3-5 and Luke 13:2-5)

A great write up on approaching this is in this quotation below

‘God created the world with love and beauty, and humans introduced sin and ugliness. This requires a just response, which theology calls God’s judgment. Injustice demands justice; ask any victim. God’s judgment is how the Bible describes the bringing of justice. The Bible records that this has happened with specific events from time-to-time, but it does not claim that every disaster is the direct act of God. Various theologians have provided justifications for why God allows disasters to continue. The Bible claims that someday this will end and the world will be restored to how it should have been. Meanwhile, living in this imperfect world, God uses suffering and disasters to call people back to himself and to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him (Micah 6:8).

And when Christians are hit by disasters, their belief that God can bring good from a bad situation should provide hope and resilience. Disasters should cause all of us to reflect deeply on what matters most in life. They remind us that we are not in control in this world, and will all ultimately face death. The Bible rejects the tendency to speculate about disasters as God’s judgment on past behaviour, but instead calls on people to reflect on where we each stand with God.

Christian Theology and Disasters: Where is God in All This? Chapter 3 p 41-42
Dónal P. O’Mathúna in Disasters : Core Concepts and ethical theories by DónalP.O’Mathúna· ViliusDranseika BertGordijn Editors

In general, if we take the view of revelations having a series of recurring judgement cycles we correctly understand that the troubles and tribulations of life are due to the sinfulness of man incurring judgements that are often partial in order to alert us to act quickly to avoid the eternal judgement that is due to everyone who sins.

It will be too judgemental however for us to pick a specific calamity and say that it is happening to this particular set of people simply because of their sins. The first thing unbelievers will react to is the better than thou superiority attitude of believers.

In Daniel 9: 3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.

Daniel approaches the catastrophe of exile humbly coming before God in prayer and fasting and beseeching God for mercy for the corporate sins of his nation. He confesses on behalf of the nation admits complicity in all their wicked deeds.

In Luke 13 :2-5 “2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The first response of the average person is to place the blame of the specific tragedy on the victims themselves and try to differentiate the victims from themselves as they must have been particularly evil to have merited such a horrendously painful mode of death. This is self justification. Jesus will have none of that and states that all tragedies are reminders to everyone that they are all sinners and deserve death and eternal separation. The correct response is not to point fingers but to humbly acknowledge our helplessness and humbly repent.

Hence when we take both these passages as well as Revelations 9 in consideration, we conclude that life’s tragedies including our environmental pain are precursors to the final judgements and remind us that our reliance on life’s idols of wealth, power and self indulgence are ultimately the wrong things to base our existence upon.

We should express our solidarity with our friends and neighbours on the tragedy of Covid 19 and express to them that we believe in the one God and this time of tragedy is our time to come to Him and ask for forgiveness and mercy and trust Him for our future and safety. The wrong approach would be to say that it is specifically God judging them and imply you are better off and more holy.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
What are the detailed characteristics of this Angel with the scroll and why is he described this way?

Answer
The angel is described with characteristics of authority ie …wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire all of which is like the description of Jesus. His feet are on dry land and sea indicating authority and dominion over all. However he is not Jesus as he swears by God the Creator and he is described by John as an angel. The description is to focus the readers on his message. There are some parts of the message that are not to be revealed and some to be revealed.

Question 2
Why is it that God never reveals all details of prophecies to us? What is our great temptation in this area?

Answer
This is an area of God’s sovereignty, He always gives us the general trajectory of prophecies like the coming of Jesus for his ministry but not the full details as He wants us to wait in anticipation and in faithful trust. Our great temptation is to over read the signs and do newspaper prophecy and second guess what God is doing especially for the second coming of Jesus so that we can be caught up with all sorts of wild speculations and miss out on what is really important which is the fulfillment of the gospel in verse 7 which is to be fulfilled without delay.

Question 3
What is the mystery of God mentioned in verse 7? And what does it mean that it is to be fulfilled at the 7th Trumpet?

Answer
The mystery comes from the Greek word “Musterion” which means something that was hidden but now revealed. Our common everyday contemporary understanding of this word mystery is some complex puzzle to be worked out with careful study which completely misunderstands the word.

The “musterion “ refers to the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the trumpet call of the 7th angel the gospel will be fulfilled which means the “good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ His son will finally come to fruition or completed.

For years and years the plain trajectory of prophecy was that there would be a Messiah coming to save His people and the clues were straight forward enough as Gen 49 stated he could come from the tribe of Judah and Isaiah 11 from the line of Davidic kings and Micah prophesied he would be born in Bethlehem. This part most folk understood and they assumed he could come in power and be crowned king and rule the nation. What they did not understand despite years of history and exile would have taught them that the main problem in their lives was not the tyranny of the colonial powers in Rome but their own slavery to sin as seen in the repeated idolatry of Israel with the exile of both Northern and Southern kingdoms. When Jesus did come he ruled indeed but not in the manner that they had expected he came to die in their place to pay for the penalty of their sin and free them from the grip of slavery to sin. This was the hidden part of the “musterion”. They never saw that their sins would need the Son of God himself dying for them they simply assumed He would come and wrap up all the conflict and rule with an iron fist must like what a human king would do.

In retrospect, the clues were there all along as way back in Genesis we saw the ram being caught in the thickets being provided for the sacrifice instead of Isaac . We say the blood of the lamb being painted on the doorway of the the houses of the Israelites in Egypt being protective of the first born of the family whilst those Egyptians without this blood on their doorways were killed by the angel of death. We saw the sacrificial lamb and the sacrificial system both in the tabernacle and temple all rituals given by God to the Israelites for them to understand the holiness of God and the need for sacrifice to atone for sin. God provided the clues in the manner of “types” or “images “ hence the lamb was a type of the Messiah that was to come. The temple was a type or image of the Messiah that was to come. The message was embedded in these types which they knew of but did not make the connection to the messiah as they thought it was just something that it was required that they do , they sacrifice the lamb etc. That the Messiah would be both king to rule and the sacrificial lamb to die at the same time was the part of the mystery that they could not understand and now in the NT we all understand. However that is not all of the gospel as the gospel is the good news of what God had done for us in Jesus and the good news would need to be presented and witnessed to and those who accept it will be saved from impending judgement by the blood of Jesus and those who refuse to repent will face the judgement. Hence the gospel or musterion is both salvation and judgment.

The fulfillment of the gospel is salvation for those who believe and judgment for those who did not and this is fulfilled in the final 7th trumpet which is why John writes “ 7 but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets”

Question 4
Why is the scroll sweet to the mouth but bitter when it hits the stomach?

Answer
The scroll of sweet to the mouth as when we take in God’s words it gives us comfort and peace and Joy to understand the beauty of God’s righteousness and love. In times of trouble and pain, the fact that He cares for us and provides for us and is with us is welcome news to us which is metaphorically described as sweet to the mouth.

However the bitterness comes when we consider the entailments of God’s word. God’s word demonstrates His righteousness and when we measure up to it we fall woefully short. When we endeavour to be obedient to it we feel overwhelmed by its standards. It is all very good to say it is such a wonderful concept that we are to love our enemies and if everyone did this in the world there would be absolute peace which the world really needs but this involved us forgiving our enemies and reaching our with our hand in love not retaliation and we will find this very very hard emotionally to actually put into practice. It is easy to say we are to endure but it is really hard for us to love our persecutors and we struggle with all his commands as we struggle with our own sinful selfish nature.

The other way in which the word causes us bitterness is that the Word changes our attitudes towards sin. When the word is assimilated it changes the way we think and feel . Pornography in the past might be gratifying and exciting but once the Word of God comes in we learn the true purpose of sex, we learn to have compassion for the people forced into these blue films and our feelings for gratifications are replaced gradually by feelings of revulsion and indignation which actually marginalises us from the rest of our unbelieving friends who cannot understand why we have to be so “holy”.

Question 5
What is the significance of John being asked to measure the temple, the worshipers and the altar but to leave the out courts to be trampled?

Answer
The act of measuring is a metaphor for God protecting and preserving His people spiritually. What is not measured is the outer court and that is the part that will be persecuted for a time. Hence this metaphor is teaching us the paradoxical nature of God’s protection.

On one hand we are in His presence and He protects us spiritually and keeps us faithful to Himself and on the other hand He actually allows us to undergo physical persecution which is metaphorically cast as leaving the “outer courts to be trampled on” and this happens for a short time 42 months.

The two things can happen at the same time. Persecution and Protection. Why is it that the people of God are both measured and allowed to be persecuted why can’t God protect His people and now allow them to be persecuted? This is a paradox that the church has struggled with for centuries. The answer lies in the metaphor of the two witnesses

Question 6
Who are the two witnesses? Are we to expect two actual people to come in the future or do they symbolise something? What is the rationale for your answer (Zechariah 4)

Answer
The short anwser is that the two witnesses symbolise the witnessing church. The reason for this the sentence it self
Revelations 11: 3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” 4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.

Firstly we see the connection, the two prophetic witnesses (humans) are two olive trees and two lampstands. Here we have the language of symbolism because we have mixed metaphors just like Jesus described as Lion as well as the Lamb these two prophets are also described as olive trees and lampstands. Hence the rationale for believing John is taking about symbolism and not actual persons.

Secondly, the mention of the two olive trees and lampstands is a reference to Zechariah 4 which details a vision of the two olive trees representing Zerubabbel the governor and Joshua the high priest at the time of the rebuilding of the second temple on return from the Babylonian exile. God makes the connection just as the two olive trees supply the oil for the lampstands God will use Zerubabbel and Joshua to lead Israel to complete His temple and over come all the obstacles they are facing in re-establishing the temple which is the focal point of the witnesss of God in Israel on its return from exile.

So here is the principle of the Zechariah vision that it is God who will enable the rebuilding of the temple despite all opposition through the work of His two witnesses just like olive trees supplying oil to light the lampstand in the vision.

Thirdly, the use of lampstands in Revelations is to represent the ”church” as we can see in revelations 1 so John has changed the metaphor slightly as in Zechariah the two olive trees supply oil to the one lampstand.

So in this Revelations passage, the two witnesses are symbolic of the witnessing church which stand in the presence of God. They are protected and enabled by His Spirit to over come all resistance and establish God’s witness to the world. Just like how God enabled Zerubabbel and Joshua to re-establish the 2nd temple after the return from exile.

Question 7
Looking at the vision of the two witnesses what is God communicating to us?

Answer
In the first few verses of Rev 11 we see how God is both protecting and allowing persecution of His people and we naturally ask the question why? If He is going to protect us why allow persecution? The ministry of the two witnesses answers this question and gives us a theology of suffering.

The main reason that God both protects His people and allows their persecution and suffering for a short period of time is for the sake of their witness of the gospel the “musterion”. The gospel must be fulfilled without delay the message must go out and God’s church must be both preserved for the specific purpose of its witness of this gospel and yet allowed to be persecuted in order to actually bring the message both in word and deed to an antagonistic world so that those who respond will be saved and those who do not will reap a well deserved judgement. Only when this is accomplished will the gospel be finally fulfilled and the judgment phase of the gospel will ensue.

There are 6 lesson we can draw
The witnessing church is
1. Eternally secure in the presence of God
2. Can undergo harm but God will repay
3. Come with the authority and power of God
4. Protected to finish her mission
5. Will seem defeated in the eyes of the world
6. Hated by the world
7. Ultimately will be vindicated by God

1. Eternally secure in the presence of God

The commentary presents the two witnesses (representing the church) as standing in God’s presence even while suffering. They draw their strength from the Spirit. The oil from the olive trees and the light from the lamp flow through them, empowering their witness to the unbelieving world. This paints a picture of the church’s need for utter dependence.

The most important verse from Zechariah 4 is verse 6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.
The issues we need to ponder over is
To what degree are we personally dependent on the Spirit? In what measure are our churches dependent? How do we express this dependence? What is the role of personal and corporate prayer? One thing is for sure: when the time of testing or opposition comes, the degree of our dependence will be revealed.

2. Can undergo harm but God will repay
The church is allowed to be persecuted and undergo harm

REV 11: 5 And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed.

The reason for vulnerability of the church is twofold

1. It is because the gospel needs to be presented in love where the church embodies the message. The reason we share the gospel is because we love the world and we want them to be saved. It cannot be forced on others by the point of the gun. The message is presented in humility, gentleness and dependance of the power of God. Hence the people who present the gospel are always vulnerable and seek to win the hearts of unbelievers with their love empowered by the Spirit.

2. At the same time when the light of the gospel comes into the lives of unbelievers it more than often causes a violent response because men love darkness instead of the light.
John 1:9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.John 3: 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

The violent response as well as the denial of the truth of the gospel will result in judgement on those who reject the gospel. The harm meted out to the witnessing church will have its consequences on its persecutors who will have no excuse at the judgement seat at the end of time.

3. Come with the authority and power of God
Look at Rev 11: 5 And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. 6 They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.

The witnessing church assumes the power of the ancient prophets like Elijah who caused drought on the impenitent Israel and Moses who turned the waters into blood when the Egyptians refused to release the Israelites.

While these actions may not necessarily be literal but they do indicate that God backs the witnessing church with authority as the people who oppose them will come under the judgment of God.

4. Protected to finish her mission
The witnessing church will be persecuted and harmed but no matter what the church will complete its mission on bringing the gospel to all the nations and this mission will not thwarted. No matter how intense the persecution the church will complete its mission

5. Will seem defeated in the eyes of the world
The persecution will cause the apparent defeat of the church where in many places it will seem to have been defeated which metaphorically here is seen as the witnesses being killed by the beast which embodies the world controlled by Satan opposed to the gospel. They will rejoice at the apparent defeat of the church. There will be little sympathy

6. Hated by the world
The reason the unbelieving world hates the church is that they will be tormented by the church as the gospel is presented and men are made aware of their sin and unrighteousness and impending judgement from God. This insults and provokes the unbelieving world. The world laughs at the weak and mocks the poor as stupid and is angry when the church instead values the poor and pours itself out to serve the poor and yet subconsciously the noble actions of the church puts the world in an uncomfortable position where their conscience is pricked and they know the church is right to help the poor and this action shows up the world for what it is …uncaring and unloving and they hate to be put in an uncomfortable position as their unrighteousness is obvious to all.

The world turns values on its head. They make black white and white black. Take for example, homosexual relationships which are immoral but they now re-cast it as a human rights issue and the moral church is now cast as an uncaring vindictive intolerant group of people which is open to ridicule and hate.

7. Ultimately will be vindicated by God
The death and resurrection of the witnesses and their ascension to heaven by the power of God is the metaphorical way in which the witnessing church is vindicated by God. This occurs at then end. During the course of human history the church will often seen as powerless and defeated and humiliated like the dead bodies of the witnesses being left on the streets rotting and defiled. The church needs to take heart and believe that this will be rectified.

God will vindicate them at the end. They do not have to resort to violence or even use the same means as the world like political power to overcome their enemies, their hope lies in the personal vindication of God.

It is in the understanding of all these 7 points illustrated by the vision of the witnesses that we are able to understand the role of the church in the world. We can see how we are protected and yet persecuted and that the main reason for the paradox is the nature and primacy of the gospel.

Question 8
After the church is vindicated by the vision of the witnesses ascending into heaven, the earthquake destroys a tenth of the city and 7,000 people are killed resulting in the remaining people giving glory to God. Does this mean these people finally repent and believe in the gospel? Check out Phil 2:10-11

Answer
No, this is the unbelieving worlds final realisation of the sovereignty and power of God and the authenticity of the gospel. They are forced to acknowledge this by the turn of events in history probably grudgingly but not willingly and certainly not coming to faith in Jesus.

Supplemental Question
Sid Roth is a well known televangelist and self styled prophet. He said that many prophets had received confirmation that the Lord would have President Donald Trump serve a second term. He used Amos 3:6-8 as justification that the Lord always reveals to prophets whatever His plans are. Take a look at the passage and see if you agree that this is what the passage actually means when you compare it with Revelation 10:4?

Answer
To be handled by groups if they want more depth otherwise please do not try this question.

There are many false prophets that will plague the church in the last days and this is a classic example of one. The passage in question deals with the impending judgement of Israel due to idolatry.

Amos 3: 1 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: 2 “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

Their unique privilege of being the chosen race came with the heavy responsibility of obedience which they had rejected and this incurred judgement and ultimately it will come in terms of foreign powers in this case Assyria coming to conquer her people and enslave them. The entire passage is a poetic rendition of this warning. The focus of the passage is the inevitability of impending judgment when a warning is given. The warning is real and not to be ignored as the warning is tied to the judgement event.

Amos 3: 3 Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet? 4 Does a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? This parallel pair above indicates the inevitability of action that will follow warning. Two people will not walk together unless they have agreed to meet and a lion does not roar unless there is prey. It is common sense.

A series of examples are given until this last couplet
Amos 3: 6 Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?
Again and again there is a pairing of the warning with the judgement. Like a modern city, an air raid siren will definitely warn you of an impending air raid by bombers in WW11.
In this context
Amos 3: 7 For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. 8 The lion has roared; who will not fear?The Lord GOD has spoken; who can but prophesy?”

Hence before judgement falls on any city and in this case the nation of Israel the Lord will reveal it to his prophets and in this case Amos so the Lord is cast as the proverbial lion who has roared and the roar is not to be dismissed but to be taken seriously as the next action will be the deadly strike of the lion.

If one understands the context of the verse which was given one can easily understand how Sid Roth has torn the text out of its context and given it a global meaning covering all circumstances.

The text talks about prophetic warning against Israel on impending judgement and if we apply it to our circumstances all prophecies warn us about sin and rather need to repent and God certainly tells us of this time and time again and we must heed it. The warning cannot apply to predict who will win the presidential race. Just because someone uses Scripture does not legitimise its use.

Revelations 10:4 even states that there are certain things or even judgements that God does not allow disclosure which discounts Sid Roth’s wrong interpretation of Amos 3:7 that God discloses all things to prophets including who will win political races. Also the in 1 COr 14: 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets.

It is clear that prophecy needs to be subject to other prophets it cannot be unfettered. We need to be very careful about deception and false prophets.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
What happens when the 7th trumpet is sounded?

Answer
There is a declaration from heaven that the kingdom of man is no more and is taken over by the kingdom of the Lord and this is an everlasting kingdom.
There is judgement of man.
There is thunder lightning earthquake and hail which are prophetic cosmic signs of judgement

Question 2
Is this the final judgement or another minor judgment? Please give reasons for your answer? Compare this with judgement in Rev 6 the 6th seal

Answer
This is the final judgment because
A. There is declaration of the end of mans kingdom and the beginning of the eternal kingdom of God in vv 15b.
B. There is judgment and reward of mankind vv 18

Question 3
What is the significance of the appearance of the ark in the midst of the final judgment of the 7th trumpet?

Answer
The vision of the ark in heaven signals not only judgment but also God’s gracious presence with his redeemed community and his provision of grace by atonement. On the OT Day of Atonement the sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat of the ark as a covering for the nation’s sins. This ensured God’s continued presence with his people. This was the significance of the ark residing in Israel’s tabernacle and temple. Though the ark disappeared during the Babylonian captivity, some Jews expected its return at the end of time, when God would graciously restore Israel, dwell in the midst of its people. So this serves as the most important expectation for God’s people as not only judgement but there will be mercy because of the atonement of the blood of Jesus of which the ark is the image that prepared people for Jesus

Question 4
Who is the pregnant woman and why do you think she is such?

Answer
The pregnant woman is the symbol of God’s people both in the Old Testament and the New Testament as she has 12 stars representing the 12 tribes of Israel.
The appearance of the sun and moon which Joseph describes Jacob and his wife.
The woman gives birth to the child who will rule the nations with an iron rod. This is referenced in the Messianic psalms 2.
When the woman gives birth then Satan makes war on her off spring in vv 17

Question 5
How does this vision be a fulfillment of Genesis 3:15?

Answer
Gen 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.

Right after the fall of man, God foretells that the woman will give birth to an offspring who will defeat Satan (bruise his head =fatal blow) and Satan will bruise his heel which means cause temporary injury a lesser injury. This is a metaphorical way of indicating the defeat of Satan by a means that will be costly too for the off spring of the woman who is Jesus

Question 6
Why is the default colour of the beast, Satan and the Harlot all red?

Answer
The colour red is based on the blood of the saints in which Satan becomes drink on which indicates the grotesque blood thirsty zeal with which Satan hates and kills the saints.

Question 7
What is the event that resulted in the casting down of Satan from heaven? What is the vision trying to tell us?

Answer
The event that casts Satan out of heaven is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Our entire debate of sin and slavery to it is paid entirely by Jesus hence Satan no longer has any place to stand in front of God to accuse us of sin and our need to pay for it with death nor accuse God of being corrupt because He did not judge all the saints in the OT with death. His fall out of heaven means he has no status no place no power of the people of God.

Question 8
What is the reason for the ferocity in which Satan is violently attacking the church? How does this affect us when we undergo persecution?

Answer
The ferocity of Satan is the sign of his defeat hence he has to do as much damage as possible because his time is limited because of his defeat. So when we undergo fierce persecution it is a sign of his defeat not his victory hence we must bear heart and take courage. Satan’s time is limited.

Question 9
In spiritual warfare how do Christians conquer over Satan and his cohorts? How do we do this in practical terms? How do Christians commonly misunderstand spiritual warfare?

Answer
The way to overcome Satan is by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their courageous testimony in the face of persecution. The victory of the saints is patterned after their Saviour. In practical terms we need to constantly depend on and rely on the sacrifice of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. We must not substitute this with our own adherence to the law or even obedience to the Law or performing rituals to gain merit before God.

Paul faced this in the letter to the Galatians when Jewish believers led by Peter behaved in such a way as to include Jewish rites and circumcision in addition to Jesus as the way to salvation. Paul re-emphasised that it is in Christ and Christ alone that we are saved and we have to hold on to this as our only source of salvation. Good works are all evidence of our truth faith in the blood of the Lamb not the means by which we are saved.

We need to be constantly sharing the gospel with our community no matter what the price as it is only in this that we overcome Satan.

Question 10
How does the Serpent pours out water from his mouth to overwhelm the woman? What does this mean? How do we overcome this?

Answer
The outpouring of water is basically the use of deception and persecution to overwhelm the church. The earth opens up and swallows up the flood and this is symbolic of God’s intervention on behalf of the church not unlike the waters swallowing up the army of Egypt as they catch up with the fleeing Israelites over the Red Sea. We overcome using God’s truth ..His Word

Question 11
What are the common ways in which Satan attacks the church in this vision? How can we counter this?

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
How does Daniel 7 help us to interpret the nature of the beast in Rev 13?

Answer
In Daniel’s prophecy the imagery used to depict evil kingdoms and kings was in the form of predatory animals used to tearing and destroying their prey. John uses the imagery in the same way in that the beast has feature of “leopard; its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth” Hence in Daniel this was the description of Babylon, Persia and Greece and now this beast in revelations 13 has features of power and cruelty of each one of these kingdoms in the past.

If there was no Daniel prophecy then we would be free to let our imaginations run wild and speculate as to the nature of the beast.

Question 2
What features of this beast tell us of his great power and authority?

Answer
The beast has 10 horns and 7 heads and 10 diadems.
Horns represent power and diadems represent authority as diadems are crowns and 7 heads is the number for completion so the beast’s power is complete.

Question 3
What does it mean that this first beast was given a mouth but used it to utter blasphemies against God?

Answer
The charge of blasphemy was committed by the beast as emphasised 3 times in vv 5-6. Blasphemy is equating oneself to the status of God. Hence this person cultivated worship of himself and assumed the status of God. The Roman emperors like Augustus took the title of Son of God and Domitian used titles like our Master and our God. These are blasphemous as mere humans assume the title and privileges of God. The irony is that they use the very mouths given by God to them to blaspheme God in return which was the ultimate act of treachery.

Question 4
Why does the beast have a mortal wound that was healed which is a contradiction of terms.

Answer
The dragon, beast and false prophet is an attempt of the devil to parody the Trinity. Just like Jesus received a mortal wound in that he was crucified but rose from the dead. The beast parodies that in his own re-emergence from near death.

The most likely meaning is that the re-emergence of successive dictators or empires with the ultimate anti-christ showing up as a world power in the end. The other possibility refers to Genesis 3:15 of the prophecy where the off spring of the woman will crush or defeat Satan but he will bruise his heal. Hence this is the defeated foe the beast who is already defeated being dealt a mortal blow and is on borrowed time.

Question 5
What is the role of the second beast from the earth? How does he does this? How is he different from the first beast?

Answer
The role of the second beast is to convince the people to worship and pay attention to the first beast. He works deceptively like the dragon as he has the voice of the dragon and looks like a lamb with two horns which means he uses religious means or casts himself as a religious person. He works subtly. He is not loud and in your face like the first beast.

He uses signs and wonders to convince people of his authenticity and by some means manages to convince people of the first beasts powers by making his image speak. He causes persecution for the people of God.

Question 6
How does Revelations 13:9-10 provide comfort for the believers undergoing persecution?

Answer
The verse tells us that God has the future and fate of each believer firmly in His hand. If someone is determined by God to be captured he will not be able to avoid it he will be captured. If his fate is death by the sword and it is decreed by God then he will not be captured but he killed. God does not promise his saints immunity from troubles. The seal on the saints foreheads is the mark of ownership by God and indicates that He will be with them through the tribulations, that He has a predetermined plan and even their fates are sealed in His hand so they need not worry when they are persecuted. They have not been abandoned. God is not powerless He sees the onslaught of trouble and each man’s fate is in His hands. This gives comfort to the saints and boldness to witness for him and to endure till the end.

Question 7
How do we deal with anti-Christs and government authorities that persecute believers? Romans 13:1-4 and 1 Tim 2: 1-2, 1-Peter 4:19 and Rev 13:10b

Answer
We are told by Paul that we are to obey governmental authorities as they are installed by God to preserve order and ensure peace. We are to pray for our leaders However when these authorities become corrupt we are to hold them accountable in justice. We are to participate in elections in our country and in the governmental process to ensure peace and justice. If it persecuted the believers , we are to endure faithfully and not compromise our faith and entrust ourselves to God who will deliver us.

Case Study 1
Jason was very worried about receiving a particular brand of Covid 19 vaccine because each vial had a bar code and this consistent of a serial number which he thought constituted the 666 number. He would not take the vaccine. Jeremy was offered a bargain to buy a property at Damansara Heights but he found out the address was 666 Jalan Termeloh. He had to go to great expense to get the land department to change the number to 665A.
A. Do either of these brothers have the right understanding of the mark of the beast?
B. What does the mark mean?
C. Is it a physical mark?
D. What does the mark do?

Answer
A and B. The mark of the beast is the mark of a persons worship of the beast. One cannot just become a worshipper of the beast by accidentally wearing the mark of living in a house with the number 666. The number of mark is the outward sign of an inward reality. The mark by itself does not make you a worshipper of the beast condemn you. The mark is the outward manifestation of an inward reality. It only shows you out to be a worshipper of the beast.

C. Since the mark of the Lamb on the foreheads of saints is not physical but spiritual we suspect the mark of the beast be in the same way consistently spiritual and not physical. The same was as the book of life. Those who have the mark of the beast do not have their names in the book of life so those who have the seal of God will have their names in the book of life. Is there a real book of life or is it a symbol? Who uses books nowadays, it is in God’s Hard drive or Google drive or USB?

D. The mark is a symbol for the economic exclusion of believers from the main stream of economy as a form of persecution.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
Who are the 144,000 ? How do you support your answers?

Answer
The 144,000 are the complete people of God cast as Israel as the use of 12x12x1000 from the 12 tribes of Israel. They are described the redeemed of the earth so they are all those redeemed by the blood of the lamb which has to include Christians and not only Jews. The new song they sing is the same one the elders. They sang “you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

This identifies the people of God. The song is also mentioned in Rev 15 : 2 And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. 3 And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.

Those who have conquered the beast were the ones who sing the `song of Moses which is the song of the Lamb. The song of Moses was the song the Israelites sang after God delivered them through Moses from Egypt in the Exodus. Now the Song of the Lamb is the new song just like the Song of Moses because it too celebrates the deliverance of the people of God from the beast. Only the victorious ones by the blood of the Lamb can sing this song.

Question 2
Does it mean that only virgin men are God’s people who will be with Him in Zion in the end? Doesn’t that make God misogynistic?

Answer
In the past Israel had very often betrayed their Lord by worshiping idols and this very heinous act was cast metaphorically as spiritual adultery. In the passage John picks up this imagery hence that His people will be completely faithful and not be enticed or succumb to idolatry. It is the use of the metaphor of prostitution as idolatry which then casts faithfulness as virgins and men who had not been defiled by women which in this context is not women in general of as a gender but as prostitutes who lead men astray like idols.

It does not make God misogynistic as John is using the image symbolically in a way the reader at the time will understand and grasp due to their culture.

Question 3
What does first fruits mean?

Answer
The first fruits was the offering to God that signified that the whole crop belonged to Him hence the people of God were the first fruits as a sign they belonged to Him. They are a new creation as well and hence the beginning of the anticipated new heavens and new earth. It does not mean that group were the first installment of people saved by God and there will be more to come.

Question 4
Does it mean that only those who have never told a lie will ever be saved?

Answer
The metaphor used in “(ESV) 5 and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.” is that of integrity and the fact that the people of God will be blameless but not sinless. The “no lie” is not literal but is used to indicate their integrity which follows that of their saviour the Lamb and the most integral part of their integrity is that they declare that Jesus is their Lord.

Question 5
The first angel declares the eternal gospel one final time before judgement what is this gospel and what does he want the unbelievers to do? How does this inform us when we share the gospel? What will happen if we only presented a one sided gospel or a uni-dimensional God, the God of love alone?

Answer
Just before judgement goes out into the world , the long suffering of God permits one more time the announcement of the gospel. Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water This challenge to fear God and worship him in the light of the impending judgement could be seen as a forced acknowledgment of the sovereign power of God by a people who need not necessarily be converted to love Him. However in the New Testament every time the word gospel is used it means the good news of what God had done for us in Jesus Christ and it would only seem natural to take the meaning here in the same way as a last minute act of grace to the people of the world.

The fact is true gospel requires the dual element of God’s grace of what He has done for us in Jesus on the cross but also the eternal consequences of refusing Jesus. There is no third option in the gospel. We often present a one sided gospel of the love of God but almost never speak of the terrible consequence of not accepting Him.

If we present to people a unidimensional God who is just the God of love it means

A. We are getting people to worship an idol as the real God is not just the God of love.

B. The god they would be worshiping would be the kind of God who would exist to serve the people and meet their needs and not the other way around. The holiness, majesty and enormity of God would be diminished. It would be so much easier to commit sin or compromise. The willingness to sacrifice and endure persecution would likewise be diminished simply because the nature of this kind of god would not foster that kind of adoration.

C. The people would fail to see the terrible eternal consequences of their refusal of Jesus. They would have been lulled into the false belief that they would have had a third option of not accepting Jesus and still be alright through another religion of option in life.

Question 6
Please share about the time when you heard the gospel how was it presented and did you know about much about judgement . How should we present judgement in our gospel presentation?

Question 7
What is the Babylon the Great the second angel was warning about was it about the literal Babylon at the time John wrote this prophecy at AD 90? What was the sin of Babylon?

Answer
The use of the “Babylon the Great “ is basically a symbol. By the time AD 90 when the book of Revelations was written the great Babylon was already destroyed and only a small village remained amongst its ruins. So John could not be possibly be referring to the fall of Babylon. At its peak Babylon was a huge legendary metropolis by ancient standards as large of Chicago with the famous hanging gardens of Babylon which was one of the 7 wonders of the world. It was the symbol of man’s independence from God and center of idolatry where materialism was the main culture.

At the time of Revelations, Babylon would be the symbol for the idolatrous city of Rome and today it would represent our modern city culture of idolatry to materialism.

The sin of Babylon was described as the one ‘’ who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality” so the sin of Babylon was couched in the imagery of “intoxication to wine” and prostitution which was ‘sexual immorality’. These two images provides us a picture of a loss of control ,addiction hence an incapacitating slavery of once a participant takes a sip of this temptation it entraps him. The prostitution imagery always conveys idolatry which is a betrayal man’s duty to worship God and God alone. Worship of idols is like prostitution.

Question 8
How has hell been variously described as in the bible? Do you think hell is an actual place or a symbol of suffering that is even more frightening than we can ever imagine? Why?

Answer
It has been variously described as:
Outer darkness
Lake of fire,
Place of weeping and gnashing of teeth
Place of eternal separation from the blessings of God
Prison
Place of torment where the worm doesn’t turn or die

It is a symbol of great suffering because the metaphors use are contradictory as it is described as place of fire and yet at the same time Is a place of darkness. These symbols are used are cast in categories which would be easily comprehensible to the culture of John’s’ time to convey the concept of unending torment.

Question 9
Why is it some people do not think God will actually let sinners suffer for all eternity (they suggest annihilation)? How does this passage and other passage in Revelations (Rev 20:10) indicate otherwise.

Answer
The reasons for believing in annihilation given are:

1. If Gods is so loving how can He punish a finite sinner who had committed a finite sin for all of eternity. Hence the concept of eternal punishment is excessive and contradicts the notion of an all loving God.

2.Fire as symbol consumes so it makes more sense that the people are annihilated.

3. If there is a hell it would mean that there still a pocket rebellion against the sovereign God of the universe.

This passage specifically indicated that in verse 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night. This indicated that the suffering is eternal.

Revelations 20: (ESV) 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

This verse will confirm that sinners who unrepentant will be punished for ever and ever. There is no indication of annihilation. Additionally, the punishment of the crime is not based on the finiteness of the sinner but the punishment is based on the the person on whom the wrong was committed against. Sin against the infinite God deserves a infinite punishment.

Question 10
Why is it hard for people to accept God’s wrath.

Answer
It is hard for people to accept God’s wrath because the only concept of wrath we have is based on our own experience of wrath. Human wrath is based on the volatility of our moods, it is often unjust and a loss of temper which is more often an instinctual reaction against a perceived wrong without wisdom and thorough investigation.

It is because of this wrath is seen as a blemish on a persons character. God’s wrath is not like human wrath it is his steady opposition against evil and sin. It is based on justice Imagine if we were to encounter the evil of a robber killing one of his victims in the course of a robbery. Letting the criminal off free would be doing an injustice to the victim.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
What does it mean that the 7 bowls are the last judgements?

Answer
The word last could mean
A. Last in terms of the sequence of judgements
B. Last in terms of history
C. Last in terms of how the seals, trumpets and bowls have reached their goal
D. Last in terms of how the wrath of God is finished

It is probably last in sequence as well as in terms of how the wrath of God is finished.

Question 2
What are the important focus of the Victory Song that the saints sing ? How does this influence the way we worship God and choose our own songs.

Answer
The focus of the worship is on
A. Who God is
B. What He had done
C. Our response to the revelation of A and B

This principle should guide us in our own worship rather than modern trends of worship which mainly focus on how we feel or other man-centered focus.

Question 3
What is the significance of the emergence of the 7 angels from the tabernacle in vv 5?

Answer
The tabernacle especially the holy of holies contain the 10 commandments which Moses received from God directly and form God’s testimony to us. They form His requirements on us if God is to be our God and we His people. The testimony of God is not an optional extra bit of information for our idle interest, they represent His desire for how His world is to be lived in if we are to be in His image. We are created for that purpose and our lives must conform to that end. The flip side of God’s testimony is that because they are mandatory for us, failure to conform or to live according to our design will necessarily entail judgements and these judgements appropriately come from the sanctuary of the tabernacle.

Question 4
Why is it that no one could enter the sanctuary until the 7 plagues were executed?

Answer
There is the execution of God’s judgement and wrath which is sure and cannot be averted and we need to know that it is indeed terrible to fall into the judgement of God.

Question 5
How are the bowls different from the previous trumpets?

Answer
The bowls focus more on the effects on unbelievers and form a wider picture of the scale of judgements.

Question 6
What is the unbelievers recurring response to God’s judgments? How does this inform us when we are witnessing the gospel? Look at Luke 16:27-30 at the parable of the rich man and the beggar in the light of this, what is needed to save these people?

Answer
There is a continued recalcitrance on the part of the unbelievers as they are instead of being remorseful and frightened of God they instead react belligerently and curse God in their impenitence.

The parable of the rich man and the beggar also underscores that what is really needed is the gospel , that is us sharing the truth with them and nothing else will change their minds if they are going to be changed. The Word of God is enough.

Hence we are not to be discouraged that we have not done it well enough or dressed up the gospel better in more appealing terms for them to accept. Even in the face of something as dramatic and miraculous of someone coming back from the dead or in this case in Revelations of horrifying pain and suffering unbelievers will not repent. Hence the point is that it is not the scale or dimension of the miracle of suffering or clever arguments that are necessary, it is the Word of God empowered by the Spirit. The response of unbelief is common however disheartening but expected.

Question 7
Look at the plagues of the first bowl and the third bowl, what is John trying to convey here?

Answer
The first bowl is poured out on those with the mark of the beast and they are marked with sores in their body. The third bowl is poured out on those who have shed the blood of saints and they reap the harvest of blood in kind. That is they too will suffer and die as they persecuted God’s people in similarly grotesque manner. God’s judgment is just and proportionate

Question 8
What does the evil frog like spirits do to incite the kings of the world to mass for open rebellion against God?. What evidence do we see in today’s society of the influence of these spirits in deception? In your work place or family? What can we do about them?

Answer
Notice the language of the passage. The evil spirits come from the mouths of the unholy trinity of the dragon, beast and false prophet. They are like frogs croaking loudly and incessantly to symbolise that their main use here is to use their sound, their voices to sow confusion and plant conspiracy theories to the people. There is similarity to the Exodus plaque and the use of the frogs there was to show the impotence of their own goddess Heqt who was the goddess of resurrection who could not save them as the Egyptians died in that plague as well.

We can see the main threat to civil society to day comes from deception and disinformation. From totalitarian regimes we have propaganda and the truth is what the dictator of government tells us that it is. There may be rebellion and opposition but these like in Hong Kong are easily quelled.

From democracies, their very freedoms particularly freedom of speech is used by these spirits to sow disinformation and lies that change people’s mindsets. There is no longer any unbiased news media the left will listen to left wing media and the right to their own right wing media and the social media will micro target each person sending them news that suits their listening pleasure to keep them on line because they can make money from them.

The ultimate tragic consequence of these lies is the mass open rebellion against God as seen in them gathering for war at Armageddon. Right now we can see world opinion has changed so much so like on the same sex marriage issue in the West that if one holds a biblical world view on it immediately society will turn on them. The biblical stance is now thought to be be bigoted stand and the same sex marriage view is the loving righteous stand. Once the church is cast in such light we are not given a chance to be heard as it is always the frogs that do all the talking.

Question 9
What do these bowls tell us about the character of God? Why is God’s justice precious to His saints and helps them live their lives?

Answer
The bowls are the last of the judgments and they tell of of God’s true character. For much of today’s society including the church have only thought of God as only a God of love and hence they will interpret the bible in terms of love and love alone. Any talk of sin and judgement or the wrath of God is instantly frowned upon and thought to come from a very unloving place not characteristic of God.

God’s justice is precious to the saints because

1. It shows us how we should live. We know His character and His will and the most important imperative for us today as His saints already washed in the precious blood of the lamb is to walk in holy righteous lives. The aspect of holiness and good works in evangelical circles is often down played in our efforts to focus on justification by faith. True faith results in good works and righteousness in living. We are to love justice as God is holy and just and we often don’t want to think of God in such terms as sinners. In our efforts to focus merely on his love we often bring God down to our level. We lower His standards and think that His love will mitigate His justice as if He is that divine celestial policeman who because He is jolly and a nice guy will let us off with a nod and a wink but will punish the other guy.

2. It shows us what it really means to fear God. The knowledge of His holiness and justice and our sinfulness will aid us in how we approach Him. Not flippantly and casually but with increasing reverence and care as He deserves. We have lost the aspect of the sacredness of God.

3. We can rest easy when it comes to the wrongs people have done against us, not only persecution but ridicule and discrimination at the work place because no matter what the atrocities committed against the church whether it be blowing up church buildings in China or disappearing people like Pastor Koh in our own nation, one day the perpetrators will be brought to His justice. We need not therefore be consumed by anger and desire for revenge because we have a God who will repay on our behalf.

4. We can look forward to our reward when we sacrifice and work for Him because He is just and will repay us with eternal glory and reward on the last day. Nothing will be overlooked and nothing belittled. God notices everything.

Question 10
What does it mean that Jesus is saying that he is coming like a the in the night? Does it mean he comes stealthily without us knowing? What is nakedness a symbol of ? What is Jesus telling us in our efforts to persevere during this time of great tribulation with the bowls?

Answer
The metaphor about Jesus coming like a thief in the night is not that he will not be noticed but that he comes suddenly , when you least expect it, when you feel secure and not even anticipate His return.

Nakedness is a symbol of God’s judgement on sin. The imagery is of spiritual adultery like physical adultery it is shameful as the picture of nakedness is supposed to convey. We are to be vigilant all the time, we are not to be lulled into the false complacency the His coming is too far in the future for us to bother with and we can just live our lives without any regard to sin and compromise in our lives. The judgement will not affect us we think.

We need to disavow ourselves of any such notions and live each day expectantly with one eye towards the heavens for His return it is this hope that will enable us to persevere and triumph in the end.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
Why is the symbol of the Prostitute being used by John as compared to the symbols of the Beast in the same chapter and in Rev 13?

Answer
John in the last 3-4 chapters have been outlining the array of evil forces that are mobilised against the believers. Each evil force is described and how they oppress the believers are detailed to prepare the believers. The Beast sways people by his power especially in government and his ability to survive and come back each time. The False prophet works by authenticating the Beast and using religion as he is seen with horns like a lamb. The power of the prostitute is in the allure and attraction she poses to everyone which is similar to the deadly moral danger a real prostitute poses to men as she enslaves them with her beauty and sexuality.

Question 2
What does it mean that the kings have committed adultery with the Prostitute? Can you compare your answer with the description of the 144,000 in Revelations 14?

Answer
The 144,000 which are the people of God in Revelations 14 are cast as virgins because the metaphor of spiritual adultery is used. The people of God had not committed spiritual adultery by worshipping idols and this was symbolised by them being chaste like virgins In the same manner, kings commit adultery in the sense that they have fully participated in the idolatry of the Prostitute. She seduces them using their own lust for power and status and at the same time participating in immoral acts and oppression of people.

Question 3
The Prostitute is also cast as Babylon what similarities do these two symbols have in common?

Answer
The Prostitute is also cast as Babylon because the city was the most famous city in ancient times with legendary beauty and majesty at the height of its ascendancy with King Nebuchadnessar. The city is similar to the Prostitute as both of them attracted people and kings to partake in its greatness and beauty as well as its ugly immorality and adultery.

Question 4
Compare and contrast the image of Babylon as described in Revelations 18 in the funereal dirge with the new Jerusalem as described in Revelation 21. How does this description of Babylon resemble the Malaysian dream of success or the American Dream in populate culture?

Answer
The image of Babylon is one of opulence and luxury.

Revelations 18: 3 For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”

Revelations 18: 7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, I sit as a queen,

Revelations 18: 9 And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her.

Revelations 18: 16 Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! 17 For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.” The image of the new Jerusalem is also one of opulence.

Revelations 21: 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

Revelations 21: 18 The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. 19 The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. 21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

The difference is the new Jerusalem has the “glory of God”

Revelations 21: 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

The description of Babylon is not unlike our cities full of opulence and the latest attractions but as in Revelations 18 the ultimate destiny is ruin and destruction because they are not based on the truth and the glory of God but based on idolatry.

The lesson for us is that we too can be so easily sucked into the pomp and pleasure of the cities as the bastions of man’s efforts to live a life independent of God. The warning is that such luxury and opulence is always short lived

Question 5
Consider the grounds for Babylon’s judgment in 18:1-8. Which of these is most likely something that marks your life? How do Christians heed the warning of 18:4 without separating entirely from non-Christians? Look at John 17:14-18 and 1 John 2:15-17

Answer
She had enticed the kings of the world to sexual immorality which is a metaphor for idolatry which is probably decadent materialism as Rev 18 : 3b.. and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.

Rev 18: 5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. 6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.

She had committed lots of sins and probably used people and oppressed people, in large cities usually it is slave labour and the poor. The usual practice is to use people to gain wealth, huge profits at the expense of the Heath and well being of employees as seen in Revelations 18: 7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury.

There is the sin of pride and love of status as well
Revelations 18: 7b since in her heart she says, I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’

We are made in the image of God and we are to reflect Him ans live in submission to God . The kind of life style symbolised by Babylon is a self centered ,selfish life that has no desire either honor God nor serve the fellow man.

Looking at John 17:14-18 and 1 John 2:15-17, Jesus is not asking us to run away from the community and live like monks. He wants us to embed in society but be set part by the values we hold. We are set apart by the truth which is the gospel.

The issue is also about who we love…it is either we love God or we love the world and it’s attractions which the Babylon symbolises. We are to be a witness to the world by our values

Question 6
Compare Revelation 17:14 with Psalm 2. What parallels do you see? How does Revelation 17:14 show the balance between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility? What other passages would you point to that illustrate this balance?

Answer
Both Revelations and Psalm 2 describe the usual state of play in the world where the kings and people are always arrayed against God but no matter how they rebel in the end when God sets. His Messiah, He will crush them. There is a balance as God allows human choice and the people can choose to rebel as the kings do but in the end God is still in control and His purposes are brought to fulfilment.

Take for example the Genesis account of Joseph. The brothers are responsible for their evil in attempted murder and ultimate selling of Joseph to slavery but the evil as allowed to happen to Joseph but Gods sovereign power elevated Joseph from slavery and prison to the right hand of Pharaoh and this ultimately saved not only Egypt from famine but also Israel.

Question 7
What does it mean that we are too easily pleased by the things of this world? What kind of pleasure should we strive for? How can Christians pursue faithfulness to Christ when so much of our society seems caught up in “Babylonianism”? How can we protect against the prostitute’s seduction?

Question 8
What examples can you give of people looking to Babylon to provide satisfaction, joy, and meaning? This chapter shows the inability of sin to provide lasting pleasure. How have you seen the deceptiveness of sin in its failure to provide lasting joy and security? When examining your own heart, what are some of the things of this world that tend to distract you from God and His good plan for you?

Question 9
How is our heart revealed by what we weep over? What causes you to weep?

Question 10
Why does love for this world lead to destruction with the world? How does the worship of God make us more like God, and the worship of idols and Satan make us more like them?

Question 11
This passage provides a strong warning against falling in love with this world. What role does warning play in our evangelism and missions?

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
In this passage there are three occurrences of the word “ Hallelujah” which are the only occurrences in the entire New Testament. What is the Hebrew background to the term? What must we be mindful of when we use the term?

Answer
The background to the term Hallelujah is the Hallel psalms of 113-118 which are read out aloud during the Passover meal and they specifically praise God for salvation from slavery in Egypt. These are psalms with specific intent to glorify God for his judgement of Egypt and in the same process salvation for Israel. So the first part of the term comes from these psalms “Halle”. The second part of the term is “Jah” is the shortened form of Jehovah or YHWH. Just like names that end with “Jah” reference God like “Elijah”. It is good to be mindful when we use the term to remember the context that it is used to praise God for saving us through His Son Jesus and not trivialise the term for every day use when we get an unexpected free parking slot in front of the supermarket as trivialising the term empties it of its beauty and depth of meaning

Question 2
Why is it that when we bring up the subject of God’s judgement many of us feel uncomfortable ? Why is it counterintuitive to praise God for His judgements? Is there a difference between justice and revenge? How has this coloured our concepts of what kind of God we worship?

Answer
The topic of judgement is often counter intuitive to all of us as judgement has a two way street. We all too often find that our selves self condemned for the very sins we so self righteously condemn others for. It is much easier and unifying in our experience to speak of love and reconciliation and forgiveness as cast judgement as vindictive and a product of a narrow minded attitude out for payback.

There is a difference between justice and revenge. Justice is the impartial upholding the law and revenge is going beyond the law and exacting punishment or retribution based on one’s own biased judgements rather than the truth. Judgement is upholding the truth whilst revenge is hijacking the truth and bending it to justify our imperfect desires for retribution.

So on top of our misunderstanding between the nature of justice and revenge our natural culpability for our sin causes us to shy away from thinking or even rejoicing about judgement. Most churches tend to focus their teaching and exhortation on love and the long suffering of God and this may results in a lop sided one dimensional concept of who or what God is. If this is the case the danger is worshiping an idol as that kind of God is not the God revealed in the bible but one made up out of our own preferences.

Question 3
Why is it important to worship God for His judgements on sin and why is there glory in this for us to worship God for?

Answer
We worship God for His judgements because His judgements are a demonstration of His fairness and unyielding commitment to truth. If God were like any corrupt human government that has a two tiered system of justice, one for the rich and well connected and one for the poor and down trodden then He would have proved Him self neither just nor fair and consequently He cannot be a “good” God worthy of our worship.

Secondly, it would make a mockery of His Word and Law by which He rules the universe if sinners got away with their sins or if some sinners did selectively and others did not then His Word would not be absolute and we would have a capricious God acting on His own whims and fancies and the universe would not have the stable platform of rule from a consistent God and He would not be worthy of our worship. We all have confidence in the way we live and plan based on the fact that this world is ruled by a set of immutable laws set but an immutable God. Scientists will design a rocket shot in to the far flung reaches of the universe based on the immutable laws of physics God has put in place, so the craft will go exactly to where it is planned based on these laws. Imagine an unstable God who wakes up every morning and changes his mind? We praise God for the very fact that He is fair and His judgements are not seen as evil. If He was not fair like our own legal system in the way it is administered then we would be unable to really praise Him and He would not be worthy of our worship.

There is also glory in his judgement of sins for us personally because His judgement of sins falls fairly on every single sinner. However on our part when we place our faith on Jesus, the judgement of God falls squarely on Jesus and not us. In this way God is absolutely fair and just and His glory is seen in His fairness. He did not close one eye and let us off. Instead for us who place our faith in Jesus our judgement fell on His own shoulders. This is the glory of God in judgement. Like when the fire and brimstone fell on Sodom and God rescued Lot. If you were Lot you would be praising God for His unmerited favour there is glory in judgement in that evil was properly addressed and yet we like Lot were shown grace

Question 4
Why is it that the imagery used to depict our final union with our Saviour is a wedding dinner?

Answer
The imagery of a wedding dinner, is entirely appropriate because the wedding represents the final consummation of love between a man and a woman. There is joy and ecstasy which a wedding represents and this represents our joy and ecstasy in the consummation of our love with our Saviour. There is a union where the two become one and this too helps indicate our own union with Jesus who takes upon Himself our sin and pain and we take His righteousness. There is celebration in the meal and the wedding and this will indicate to us the same celebration in heaven.

There is much anticipation for the wedding in its preparations and long waiting period for it to happen and this captures our own perseverance under persecution to look forward and live in anticipation towards this event. In fact for each prospective bride and bride groom they live each day with the wedding at the top of their minds. They work eagerly towards this, they save money, undergo hardship, forgo simple pleasures and sexual consummation in order to have it fulfilled in the right manner on the wedding night and this is reflected in the way the saints should look forward to the final event in heaven. There are no wedding couples who are too busy preoccupied with other worries and events unrelated to their wedding it is the chief event of their lives they live for and Jesus wants us to think of His union with us in heaven in the same way. The wedding garment of the bride in white also indicates righteousness and faithfulness. No groom anticipates marrying a prostitute who has squandered her sexuality on every one else. The chastity and faithfulness of the bride is what makes her beautiful and desirable to the groom and that is what Jesus is looking for wards to us in our exclusive love for him.

Question 5
In the light of the importance of the institution of marriage in capturing our understanding of the joy and reward of heavenly union with Jesus, in what ways is this institution attacked by Satan in terms of deception today? What can we as believers do in terms of preserving this most important institution in our community?

Answer
The institution of marriage is now attacked in our community by the sexual revolution where the sexuality of the couple no longer need to be within the bonds of marriage. There is sexual freedom in adultery or premarital sex or polygamy and this is the akin to idolatry as sexual freedom tells us that we need no longer be faithful to one God we can have other gods in addition to God.

The rise of acceptability of divorce too strikes at the heart of the institution of marriage that it is no longer permanent and reliable. Again this strikes at the heart of our relationship with God that it is okay to break up and have other gods there is no longer any exclusivity. Our relationships with Him is now cast with the same casualness with the way we conduct our own marriages. The same goes for the issue of same sex marriage it too undermines the nature of the institution each one of these sins chips way at the only institution that forms the bedrock of how we view our relationship with God.

Question 6
It is interesting to see that even the apostle John can so easily fall into the error of actually worshiping the angel in his vision. Why do you think John made this mistake? What does this tell you of the danger that we too will face in our own walk with God?

Answer
John like us are most easily impressed by power and beauty which would what an angel would possess especially after presenting such a wonderful image of the final Marriage supper of the Lamb. We like him would be so easily tempted to bow down to power and beauty and worship this.

We often subtly worship leaders in church or in the community as we are awed by their charisma, their power , their miraculous exploits and we are much less interested in the truth of their message but in the charisma of their personalities as that is what is so easily seen from the outside. We see this kind of uncritical spirit in the church today having many led astray.

Question 7
How does the angel correct John’s attempt to worship him? Why does he tell John that “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy”.

Answer
The angel corrects John and tells him to worship God , worship God alone Both the angel and human prophets are on the same plan they are stewards or servants. They have no importance or relevance apart from the message they bear which is the testimony about Jesus which is in other words the gospel. The gospel is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. That is the testimony of the prophets from the OT all the way to the NT and that is the important thing that both angels and human prophets bear.

Question 8
Much of the focus of the Protestant movement ever since Martin Luther was that we are “justified by faith alone”. Look at this passage and you will find that “for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” apparently contradicts this idea that we are justified by faith alone. How can we reconcile justification by faith and the need for good works?

Answer
True faith is never alone. Faith is what binds us to Jesus hence there is no merit in that faith. Faith is the instrument we use to bind us to grab hold of Jesus to be in union with Him. True faith that truly binds us to Jesus will result in a spiritual transformation that results in good works. What Martin Luther meant was that we are justified by faith alone not good works is that we are saved by the kind of faith that is real and transformative and will result in good works. We are not saved by a combination of faith and good works like a batman and robin kind of dynamic duo. The good works that we do must come out of a real faith that has its motive and roots in true faith because good works can come from a false sense of our own ability to do good works to earn acceptance or merit before God.

Two brothers can both sacrifice their time to help feed the poor. One does it because he feels it is because he is a good person intrinsically or God will look upon him favourably and this is salvation by works. The other does it because he believes in Jesus and it is out of this belief that his feeding the poor is feeding Jesus , he does it out of his love for Jesus realising that nothing he actually does will in any way earn him passage to heaven but his good works are a natural consequence of his union with Jesus. It is like petrol in the tank of a car. If the petrol is faith then all we have to know about whether the car has petrol is to see if the car will run when the accelerator is pressed. We don’t have to look in to the petrol tank we just have to see if the car runs. Faith is like the petrol if it is in the tank and if it is not fake, the car will run and we will do good works and symbolically in Rev 19 we will clothe ourselves with good works.

Question 9
The second coming of Jesus culminates in a feast of a different kind. Can you compare and contrast the two feasts of Revelations 19 and discuss why these two feasts are placed side by side? Compare and contrast the two comings of Jesus and explain why they are so different? Look at Titus 2:11-13

Answer
The challenge of the passage is basically consistent with the literary structure of the book of Revelations as everything is cast in a duality of contrasts. You are either going to choose to be in the splendour and joy of the supper marriage of the Lamb where you are feasting hand having your fill or you become the supper of the vultures when Jesus comes again to destroy and kill all unbelievers. The contrast is stark and compelling we need to make a choice to live now for ourselves and join in the pleasures that Babylon and the Harlot gives you or forgo these short term pleasures and focus on to endure faithfully and have the eternal supper of the Lamb.

The first coming of Jesus is the coming of grace as described in Titus 2:11 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. The first coming was on a donkey in peace and in forbearance as Jesus came quietly and peacefully to live a righteous life on our behalf and die on our behalf to enable us to come back to God in to a right relationship.

He came not that we deserved it but by grace to offer salvation and peace hence the manner in which He came was quiet, showing love, healing the sick reaching out to the down trodden and the whole purpose was to bring us back to a right relationship with the Father. The second coming is the coming in glory.

Titus 2: 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

This coming is not to provide a way back to God in righteousness but to bring us back to Him. To bring back a transformed people who loves God and love to be rightly related to Him. Hence this second coming is the triumphant coming where judgement must be meted out to those who refuse His Son and refuse to be His people.

Question 10
Why do you think that in addition to all of the names that describe the magnificence and splendour of Jesus that there is still a name of His that we will not know? How do we each feel about the Second Coming of Jesus and what accounts for your current feelings about this?

Answer
In ancient times a person’s name indicates his character and destiny. Also knowing the name can in some instances enable you to have a certain sense of power over the person. Hence having an unknowable name will indicate the kind of sovereignty of Jesus as God whom we can never quite understand or get our arms around because He is so wonderfully immense.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
What are the 4 major views on how to interpret the Millennium at Revelations 20?

Answer
The Millennium refers to the period of 1,000 year reign of Christ mentioned in Revelation 20:3. The exact timing and nature of what is meant by the Millennium is debated between 4 viewpoints: Amillennialism, Postmillennialism, and Premillennialism ( historic and dispensational ). Each term is distinguished by a prefix attached to the word “millennium,” which is a compound of two Latin terms, mille (thousand), and annus (year). The reason for this nomenclature is because, over time, each view began to be known by its interpretation of Revelation 20:1-10, particularly the timing of the return of Christ with reference to the period of 1,000 years mentioned therein. Therefore, amillennialists expect no millennium (The prefix –a means, “no”), postmillennialists believe Christ returns after the millennium (the prefix –post, means “after”), and premillennialists believe Christ returns before the millennium (the prefix –pre, means “before”).

Amillenialism Amillennialists interpret the millennium as describing the present reign of the souls of the deceased believers with Christ in heaven. They understand the binding of Satan as being in effect during the entire period between the first and second comings of Christ, though ending shortly before Christ’s return. They teach that Christ will return after this heavenly reign.

Amillennialists believe we are presently living in the millennial kingdom, which is characterized by the simultaneous experiences of gospel victory and suffering for the gospel. This obviously indicates amillennialists interpret “one thousand” figuratively. The gospel is victorious because Satan is bound, rendering him incapable of preventing the spread of the gospel; yet he is not utterly powerless from persecuting the Church. Just before the end, Satan will again be permitted to deceive the nations and persecution will increase dramatically. Christians are awaiting the visible, bodily return of Christ, which brings an end to all their suffering. The second coming occurs concurrently with the general resurrection and a public rapture of the Church, who immediately returns to earth with Christ. Christ then judges the world, and finally ushers in the eternal state.

Important to the amillennialist understanding is the tension of “already/not yet.” Christians presently live in the inaugurated kingdom, as Christ reigns from heaven; yet, they await the kingdom’s full realization, when Christ will reign on Earth eternally. The inaugurated kingdom endures tribulation and suffering, but also victory as the Gospel spreads; in the consummate kingdom, the new heavens and new earth, there will be eternal rest.

Amillennialists base their interpretation of Revelation 20 as recapitulating or that it represent the events described in Revelation 19, rather than following it in chronological succession.

Postmillennialism Postmillennialism holds to the view Christ will return after the millennium. As with amillennialism the terminology falls short. In a strictly chronological sense, the amillennialists and the postmillennialists agree that Christ returns after the millennium. In fact, amillennialists were known as postmillennialists until the twentieth century. Postmillennialists generally agree with the amillennial interpretation of Revelation 20.10 The two agree the millennium is figurative, not a literal one thousand year period, and that it “is a time in which the gospel is preached throughout the world” as Satan is currently bound. They also agree on the general course of events in the end times: When Jesus comes, then, the general physical resurrection of the righteous and the wicked occurs, followed by the final judgment, and culminating with the new heavens and new earth.

What distinguishes postmillennialism from amillennialism is not the timing of the second coming in relation to the millennium but the nature of the millennium. Whereas amillennialism expects the Church to experience both victory and suffering simultaneously until the second coming, postmillennialism maintains a gradual end to much of the Church’s suffering before Christ returns. They expect a golden age of righteousness on earth, the millennium, in which the church experiences increasing prosperity and great influence on the culture. This golden age is what the postmillennialist understands as the millennium.

Postmillennialism is that view of the last things which holds that the kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals, that the world eventually is to be Christianized and that the return of Christ is to occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace commonly called the millennium.

Premillennialism There are two premillennial systems: historic premillennialism and dispensational premillennialism. Historic premillennialism is labelled such because it more or less resembles the premillennialism held during ancient times known as chiliasm. Dispensational premillennialism derives its name from the theology developed by John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century that divides biblical history into a series of ages or dispensations. Both forms of premillennialism follow a chronological and more literal reading of Revelation 20:1-6 as subsequent to the return of Christ and final battle in Revelation 19:11-21.

Premillennialism is, “the doctrine stating that after the Second Coming of Christ, [Christ] will reign for a thousand years over the earth before the final consummation of God’s redemptive purpose in the new heavens and the new earth of the Age to Come.”

According to historic Premillennialists, the present age will continue until a brief period of tribulation, after which “Christ will return to earth to establish a millennial kingdom.” At the second coming there will be a resurrection of believers and a public rapture. These resurrected believers reign with Christ, who will, “be physically present on the earth in his resurrected body, and will reign as King over the entire earth.” During this period, Satan is “bound and cast into the bottomless pit so that he will have no influence on the earth during the millennium.” After the millennium, Satan is released for a brief time, during which he leads astray a portion of the world’s population in rebellion to Christ. Christ destroys this rebellion, judges the world, then ushers in the eternal state. This interpretation assumes, in contrast to the amillennialist and postmillennialist, that the events described in Revelation 19 and 20 are chronologically successive.

The above answers is excreted from an article by Alan S. Bandy from the gospel coalition https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/views-of-the-millennium.

Question 2
Look at the vision of what the angel does to Satan in Revelations 20 and compare this with what happened to Satan in Revelations 12. Is there a difference in what is being done? Some commentators think that they are two different actions in which Revelations 20 follows Rev 12 whilst others think they are recapitulation, that is Revelations 12 and Revelations 20 give different pictures of how Satan is constrained today, what do you think?

Answer
In Revelations 12, Satan was cast out of heaven down to the earth which symbolised his defeat Revelations 12: 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

The result of this fall or defeat is that Satan persecutes the saints. Revelations 12: 17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

So, there is ongoing conflict where Satan roams to attack the saints. His attacks consist of deception because he is described as “deceiver of the whole world.”

In Revelations 20: 2 “And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended.” The devil is thrown from earth where he roams into the confines of a pit whilst in Revelations 12, he falls from heaven to earth and roams the earth to persecute the saints. The language is tough and absolute because he is bound, the pit is shut and sealed which is completely different from the Revelations 12 scenario. The effect is not to be able to deceive the nations.

So looking at these two chapters there is a dramatic difference in both of these chapters. The main modus operandi of Satan is deception. In Rev 12, he is allowed to persecute and deceive and in Rev 20 he is not allowed to deceive. Hence it is unlikely for these two chapters to be about the same event cast in different angles.

Question 3
In the Post Millennial view and the Amillennial view, the binding of Satan in Revelations 20 is explained by their proponents who suggest that this binding refers to what Jesus said in Matt 12:28-29: the binding of the strong man in the inauguration of the kingdom of God. They propose that the binding only refers to the opening eyes of the nations so that people all over the world have been able to receive salvation. Can you assess this view with Peter 5:8, 1 John 5:19 and 2 Cor 4:4 and the actual language in Revelations 20?

Answer
The proponents of the Post Millennial view and the Amillennial view harmonise the binding in Revelations 20 and the fact that Satan still has significant activity and threat in Peter 5:8, 1 John 5: 19 and 2 Cor 4: 4 as the binding mentioned is a partial binding applying to the nations only not to the individuals.

However, our understanding is that there is a two-tier system where there is an initial inauguration of the kingdom of God by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus which is symbolised by Revelations 12 in which the spiritual battle caused Satan to be cast down from heaven to earth. The Matt 12:28-29 binding as well as Luke 10:18 : And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” refers to that inaugural event of the cross where the power of the kingdom breaks into the world. The continuing persecution of the believers is symbolised by the dragon going after the offspring of the woman in Revelations 12 and is consistent with the continuing Satanic activity where the default mode of unbelievers is to fail to see the glory of God (2 Cor 4: 4). In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

In the same way in 1 John 5:19, we know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, shows the battle is not over.

The actual language in Revelations 20 is strong, absolute language: “bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him.”

This is very hard to harmonise with “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” in 1 John 5:19.

1 John and Revelations 20 are written by the same author hence how can “bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him” and “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” in 1 John 5:19 mean the same thing?

Question 4
Will there be an actual Millennial period of 1000 years or a long period of time before the new heavens and new earth? Why do you think so? What are the problems that we encounter in believing that there will be an actual interim period of Christ’s rule before the final new heavens and new earth?

Answer
If one believes there will be a Millennium you would have to ask the question why there is no evidence of this in the rest of Scripture? This is the main drawback. However the language of Revelations 20 is very clear about the Millennium, if we say the Millennium is equal to the church age between the first and second coming of Christ, then the rest of the symbolism of the 3.5 years or 42 months all makes no sense as symbols and can just mean anything and everything just because they were trying to explain one part of the scripture.

Question 5
Who are the people who will be resurrected and rule in this Millennium and will this include us if we have already passed on at that time? Why do you say so?

Answer
These people are the saints who have been martyred as well as all believers because it includes those in whom there have no mark of the beast. Revelations structure is binary. One has either the mark of the beast or of the Lamb. Thus it will include all believers.

Question 6
Some people point to the passage in Isaiah 65:20 where there is a period of human longevity but persisting death. Do you think this is a reasonable assumption?

Answer
Let’s look at the passage. (ESV) For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. 20 No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. In verse 20, Isaiah says there will be no more tragedy of premature death or births. There will be no more cases of people not living up to a ripe old age for the expected life span would be 100 years old. So the clues about this idealistic period refers to the Millennium because there is still death. Hence it is not the perfect new heavens and new earth period which is eternal life. At the end of the Millennium, there is still death. However the argument against this is the context of the verse in Isaiah 65:17 which specifically states that “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” The context is the life during the new heavens and new earth which is the Revelations 21-22 period Isaiah had in mind. If that is the case, how would we reasonably account for the people still dying at 100 even though that is a ripe old age? Death is death even if it is at a ripe old age. We could probably harmonise verse 17 and verse 20 by suggesting that the language of long life in verse 20 is symbolic of eternal life as it is painted in idealistic terms, easily comprehensible to the average mind of Isaiah’s audience. A long life of 100 years which is almost 3 times the average age of the Hebrew man (which would be around 40 years at that time) would not unreasonably be suitable to indicate a long life which is eternal life.

Question 7
What then is the first resurrection? Why do you say so?

Answer
The first resurrection is a physical resurrection simply because the Greek word used for it is “Anastasis” and this world in almost all instances in the New Testament refers to a physical resurrection and not a spiritual one. The only reason one would say that the first resurrection is a spiritual one would be to explain the Millennium.

Question 8
Satan is released after the 1000 years and deceives the nation to attack Jerusalem and are defeated by God from a single blast of fire from heaven. Is this the same battle as the battle in Revelations 19? If this is another battle, how is it that there will still be people left over to fight since they would have all died in the last battle of Revelations 19?

Answer
The Amillennials would see Revelations 16, 19 and 20 battles as the same battle and is basically a recapitulation which is consistent with the rest of the structure of the book. The Pre-Millennialists however see Revelations 19 and 20 as two different sequential battles. The outcome of the battle in Revelations 19 is that the beast and false prophets were both thrown into the lake of fire. In Revelations 20, Satan is thrown into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophets are. The language looks sequential. The Amillennials sees the language of the combatants to be quite inclusive. Revelations 20 : 17 Come, gather for the great supper of God, 18 to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great The outcome of the battle is that the beast and false prophet were thrown in to the lake of fire and the rest killed. Revelations 19: 20 These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. 21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh. Hence it is not unreasonable to conclude that if all the combatants were killed there will be no more to fight in the Revelations 20 battle. This is not convincing because women and children normally do not engage in combat so even if all the eligible men were killed off in the battle of Revelations 19 the younger folk would grow up under the rule of the saints in the Millennium and form the bulk of the rebellion in Revelations 20.

Question 9
How will the people be judged in the last judgement at the great white throne of God? How will Christians fare in this judgement or will they be judged at all? What is the final outcome?

Answer
It is important to note that the people will be judged on what they had done and this includes everyone. Christians will face judgement too but their faith in Jesus will result in righteous deeds. heir names would have been written in the book of life. Their foreheads would have borne the mark of the Lamb

Question 10
What are the take away lessons of Revelations 20 that we can all agree on that practically affects us?

Answer
Satan will be defeated either with or without the Millennium no matter what view we take. Sin is an ever present problem despite a Millennial rule of Christ himself which totally justifies the judgement of hell. What we do with our lives matter, works matter but they need to be as the result of whom we have faith in. There is no room for an intellectual faith that only comprises of mental assent with no change in the way we live. There are only two eternal outcomes and they are either we have our names in the book of life and have the mark of the Lamb or we don’t.

Discussion Questions

Question 1
How does the doctrine of the new heavens and the new earth contradict the popular misconceptions about heaven among Christians or the wider culture? What are the implications for us?

Answer
The popular misconception is that heaven is somewhere out above the clouds or in the clouds or in space and certainly not on earth again. The doctrine contradicts that misconception because it shows that the earth is important and our mandate to have responsibility over the earth and creation (which was an original mandate) still will apply in the new world. It moves us away from the concept of what we do in the world today does not matter as we will all be in the clouds up in heaven. It is a misconception that will result in a callous disregard of our fellow man and the earth, and we will minimise our responsibility to the environment, and our care for people will not be wholistic. We will care for their souls but not whether they have food in their stomachs or protection from their enemies. It moves us away from God’s prime directive to rule over creation which is a mandate which we should engage in even today.

Question 2
What are the parallels between the most holy place in the Old Testament and the new Jerusalem? What do these parallels tell us about this city? What does the astronomical dimensions of the new Jerusalem of 12,000 stadia or 1500 miles intended to convey?

Answer
The dimensions of the new Jerusalem are a perfect cube in the Old Testament and John describes a very oddly shaped city in the manner of a cube of 12,000 stadia or 1500miles in equal measure across all its dimensions mimicking the cube of the holly of Holies which would be a fact not easily lost to the early Jewish readers of the epistle. It tells us that this city will have the holy presence of God himself and its inhabitants will be in direct contact with God himself in his unshielded glory. There would not longer be the year long wait outside the holy of Holies before only a single high priest as the representative of his people could enter the holy of Holies. It would be the direct unimpeded entry of every single believer. The astronomical dimensions of the city of Jerusalem is meant to convey both the glory and enormity of God’s city and the fact that it will encompass the multitude nations which will stream into it. It will not be just the nation of Israel.

Question 3
What do you think it means for us that God fulfils His promise to us to “be our God and we be His people”?

Answer
The recurring theme of the bible is the original creation intent where God creates a perfect world but man sins and does his own way and reaps disaster which is hurled upon the whole of creation. The singular act that brings all woe into the universe is the act of rebellion where Adam and Eve refuse to be His people and God to be their God because in taking the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil they are deciding to be their own God.

The Biblical story is the saga of how God used one man Abraham through faith and subsequently his progeny Israel to redeem mankind back to the original garden of Eden where man lived under submission to his God as His emissary and representative to rule over creation. The long road back is based on the promise that God again will be our God and we His people is when we come back in total obedience to Him reflecting His values, His behaviours and His actions and this is through His Son.

Question 4
What does the name of the 12 apostles on the foundations of city wall intended to convey? What does the presence of the 12 precious stones that make up the foundation intended to convey? Why is such a combination important?

Answer
The presence of the 12 precious stones that make up the actual foundation of the wall is to reflect the origins of God’s people which is the chosen nation of Israel. The name of the 12 apostles on the foundations is to reflect that fact that the totality of God’s people and His church is built upon the foundation of the 12 apostles who are responsible for the Bible.

The combination of the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles is important because it gives context to God’s plan of salvation, that it has its roots in Abraham and then the 12 tribes of Israel before culminating in the ultimate revelation of God in His Son Jesus who chose His 12 apostles whose writings form the foundation of faith for the church.

Question 5
Why is the new heavens and new earth also portrayed as the “Bride of the Lamb” in Rev 21:2 and 9? How does this fit in to what Jesus said that there will be no marriage whilst in heaven?

Answer
From the previous chapters like in Revelations 19 the symbol of the Bride is used for the Redeemed people of God. There are also other symbols like the 144,000 used in Rev 14. Now the imagery is a little more complex and has become a mixed metaphor. What is referred to as the bride is also the new Jerusalem. One symbol is that of an inanimate city and the other of a group of people and these metaphors communicate two things at the same time, that our ultimate destination would comprise of residing within an unimaginably glorious place as well as a perfect pure and beautiful redeemed community.

Rev 21:2 emphasised the preparation aspect of the city. Rev 21:2 “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” The time, patience and elaborateness of preparation of a bride is reflected in the perfect city.

Rev 21:9 the city is directly the Bride, the wife of the Lamb which refers to the community of the redeemed by the Lamb. Hence the house is not a home until it is filled by people. So we are going to be in the midst of God’s people, holy, pure, faithful washed by the blood of the lamb. It emphasises the love, the camaraderie, the intimacy of the redeemed community which will likely exceed that between a husband and a wife hence there will be no marriage in heaven. What beauty of relationship bonding, joy and fellowship felt by the earthly marital couple is only going to be a foretaste of millions of such relationships between people of the redeemed community which will provide an eternity of friendship and fellowship and joy. A beautiful mansion to live in is nothing if the people you have to live with are an unsavoury lot hence the double imagery tells us it will be a beautiful wonderful house and a home where love reigns supreme.

Question 6
Why does the New Jerusalem require walls when the gates are perpetually open?

Answer
The imagery of the new Jerusalem is supposed to portray the glory of a city. It’s like gazing at the skyline of a great city like KL or New York and being exhilarated by its dimensions, the tall sky scrapers and imposing structures. Cities in the ancient times are the same and what differentiated a city from a village or town is the presence of a city wall which provided protection from marauding brigands who would raid the villages. Walls are a symbol of security and the glory of the city hence the presence of the walls as part of the vision is to convey that sense. The gate being perpetually open gives a sense of security. There is no fear of evil coming in as it is such a safe community. Additionally there are angels at the gates standing guard and the nations are streaming in because of the glory of the new city and the presence of God.

Question 7
Why is the greatest blessing to be able to see Gods face? See (2 Cor 3: 18) Why do you think that in Revelations 21: 1-5 that the only two heavenly activities that we will be eternally engaged in, will be to worship and to reign? What is the connection between service and worship in the Christian life? How do you practice both of these? Look at Romans 12: 1-2. How is all this in line with our original mandate in the creation of man in Genesis 1:27-28?

Answer
The greatest blessing is to be able to see God’s face because we are made in His image and as such, our direct knowledge of Him in a face to face encounter is not only going to be beautiful and engaging but also transformative which is the same process we now undergo as seen in 2 Cor 3: 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Imagine if we are transformed by beholding the glory of God in a limited manner now because we cannot see Him and we can only behold him by faith and in the Words of Scripture which gives us a glimpse and yet we are transformed by the Spirit. Imagine what it will be like when the veil is removed and we are exposed to the full glare of the indescribable glory of God, how our hearts and minds will be captivated by His sheer beauty. It is only out of our interaction with Him, our awe inspired hearts will enable us to respond. Worship and service are intricately related because worship becomes the well spring and motivation for our service.

Look at Romans 12: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

In Romans 1-8 Paul outlines the grand scheme of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ who died to redeem us. Hence when he says that he appeals to them by “the mercies of God,” Paul is laying out the implications of God’s merciful salvation to us. Our expected response is to reciprocate love with love and that is to worship. To worship is to present our minds and our bodies to serve Him, and to serve Him in a manner that is consistent with His will and His character, not an unfettered flurry of activities on our part. Worship entails action, a change in mind and lifestyle.

The original mandate of Adam and Eve was to be God’s image and that has a representative function in the created world. They were to have dominion over the world and serve as God’s viceroys reigning over the world on His behalf. This original mandate for mankind stated in Genesis 1 is not reinstated in Genesis 22

Question 8
Why is it that in the new heavens and new earth that there will be no temple and no sun? Is this literal? What will happen to earth’s rotation and the alignment of the sun? What was the purpose of the temple in the OT then?

Answer
It would probably not be literal as we know the language of Revelations is symbolic. The main meaning that God and the Lamb will provide the light instead of the sun would be that no longer will the sun provide the light by which we will live under but it is the glory of God that provides the light and meaning to our existence.

There is no more night, means there is no more evil. We will live under the full glare of the glory of God. We will live under His watchful eye, pleasing Him, guided by Him, motivated by Him, relishing in His approval every single day of our eternal life.

The purpose of the temple in the Old Testament was to give us some approximation of His majesty and character and our relationship to Him. The sacrifices reminded us that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. The distance of the people from the holy of Holies as well as the intricate washing rituals before people or priest could approach the tabernacle or temple would reinforce the concept of the Holiness of God and our distance due to sin. The absence of the temple in the new Jerusalem would then indicate that the old temple has done its job. It had pointed people to the real presence of God which is in His Son Jesus. Hence in the new temple, it would be incongruous for there to be a symbol of God’s presence when there is the real tangible presence of God that makes any symbol entirely redundant.

Question 9
What are the struggles we have with the doctrine of this new heavens and new earth? Why does heaven seem so remote and unreal to us? Why do we have difficulty in keeping this hope in the foreground of our lives? What role does this doctrine have in how we live our lives (look at Hebrews 11: 9-10). Can you share with each other how we can live like this or how we should live like this? What does your tent look like or are you building your Babylon here?

Answer
The main problem we have in our community today is that we do not keep the concept of the new heaven and the new earth in the foreground of our teaching and our meditation. It becomes an irrelevant pie in the sky. It is an esoteric concept which is easily overwhelmed by the complexities and troubles of life. Other beautiful things, whether it be our own families or our careers or our cities capture our imaginations and our desires and when we focus on these things, the eternal hope recedes into the back ground and we tend to hold more dearly to our temporal hopes more than our eternal hopes.

Abraham provides us the best picture of faith. He lived in tents and as a foreigner or alien simply because he had placed his hope on the eternal city of Jerusalem which he could clearly see in his mind’s eye and when this is clearly kept in the horizon, it enabled him to live simply and not be tethered to the short term objectives and aspirations of this life.

Question 10
Look at the list of sins in Revelations 21:8. Do you think that you too have engaged in such sinful activity? What qualifies you to live in God’s perfect city in future? What does the metaphor of thirst intended to convey? Look at John 7: 37-38 and discuss what John means by these rivers of flowing water? How does one quench one’s thirst? Is this a one time event when you said the sinners prayer or does it describe an ongoing activity and need? What does this mean for you personally today? Can you share your struggles with this?

Answer
What qualifies us is not that we have not engaged in sinful activities of the list stated in Rev 21:8 but that we are thirsty. We have insight of our great spiritual need, we are acutely aware, embarrassed, condemned by our sins which are not dissimilar to the list in Revelations 21: 8. We are aware of our need for righteousness to even approach the Holy God so in that sense, the physical metaphor of thirst adequately communicates this concept. It is the poor in spirit as Matthew writes in the sermon on the mount that are in the kingdom because they recognise their spiritual poverty or in this case, dehydration and then thirst for God’s righteousness provided by Jesus and it is received by faith.

Once we drink from the water provided by Jesus, we receive eternal life. We can enter the perfect city. This is an ongoing event. It is not a one time sinners prayer although it is inaugurated by the sinners prayer or conversion event. However it is an ongoing desire to be filled with the things of God and if there is a river flowing in our hearts, which is the metaphor of the eternal life of the Spirit flowing through our lives, then the presence of sin diminishes and we will not be like the ones who cannot enter the eternal city because they have instead satisfied their thirst by getting drunk with the wine of the harlot.

Question 11
What is the problem with prosperity gospel preachers like Joel Osteen’s messages that our best life is now? Is this message biblical? What happens when we emphasise that our best life is now? What is the dangers of such a belief? Are such beliefs common today in KL? Does it mean that Christians are to deliberately seek to suffer and live in poverty? How do Christians deal with the good times and bad times of life?

Answer
The slogan our best life is now indicates that what happens after we die will be much worse than what we have now. It is the total opposite of Abraham in Hebrews 11 because he deliberately did not live in the luxury of the city but roughed it out as an alien in a tent simply because he wanted his best life to begin after death in the new heavens and new earth. The danger of such teaching is we strengthen our bonds to the things of the world and take upon this short sighted view of life that would hinder our full commitment and diminish our capacity to sacrifice for Him and compromise with the world. Our best life now places the entire focus of living in the here and now. Hence we cannot live by faith, we live by sight.

Question 12
What John really mean by being the one “who conquers”? How does one conquer? Does this describe you? How do we cultivate a spiritual thirst?

Answer
The one who conquers is the one who is continually thirsty for the things of God. The one who is excited and treasures the things of God as foremost in his life. This is the secret to victorious Christian living. To be always hungry for the Word of God, for prayer, for living by faith in Jesus, living in the power of the Spirit, and ministering to the world. If we hunger and thirst and satisfy that thirst with our own passions, comforts and desires for our life now instead of for His purposes, we will likely not persevere in the face of temptation and trials. The end result is always defeat and ruin. Hence for the believer, the constant struggle with the thirst for more and more of God is the only sure way to ensure that we will conquer and be like Paul in the end who said that he had run the race:

1 Tim 4: 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

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Discussion Questions

Question 1
What does John mean by stating that we will be blessed if we keep the words of the prophecy?

Answer
The blessing is the spiritual benefits that derive from taking the prophecy to heart which means that taking heed of the warnings not to compromise. Taking heed not to be swept away by the drunken immorality of the city symbolised by Babylon which is materialism, love of luxury, marginalisation of the poor. Focussing on good deeds which we take into the new heavens and new earth as we have to leave all other things behind. The blessing will be participating in the eternal joy in His perfect world when He comes

Question 2
What assurances did Jesus give us that he is coming soon?

Answer
Jesus is the root and the descendant of David which is based on the prophecy in Isaiah 11 which was fulfilled in His first coming when he came as David’s greater Son in fulfilment of the prophecy of the coming Messiah then. If that prophecy was fulfilled then the Isaianic prophecy of his second coming (Isaiah 60:1-3) of which describes His coming again as the rising of the morning star will also surely come to pass. Hence we can trust in His return and live and sacrifice in anticipation of His return

Question 3
Why is it that we have a tendency of worshipping or placing inordinate amounts of trust in people rather than God? What should our attitude be if someone in whom we place a lot of trust in falls into sin like in the Ravi Zacharias scandal how should it affect us? How do we minister to others who are affected?

Question 4
What did John means by writing “let the evil doer still do evil the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right and the holy still be holy in the light of His coming? See Daniel 12:10 for help.

Answer
The prophecy of the impending return of Jesus will inevitably provoke an expected response from people. The gospel especially when it warns of judgement will always provoke a sharp reaction amongst the people who hear the gospel. For those outside the kingdom who are evil doers then will not heed the warning and will continue to do evil. For those who really seek for God and righteousness they will respond to the message even more faithfully and the message will serve as to encourage and strengthen them to persevere till the end. So the Gamma course on Revelations will achieve one of two ends, the ones who are spiritually deaf and uninterested will be even more turned off and those who are indeed thirsting for God will be strenghtened and encouraged and changed by the book.

Question 5
Read Revelations 22:18-19 , does this mean that if we alter the actual reading of the book of Revelations then we will suffer eternal punishment? What does this verse mean? Look at Deut 4:2-4 where a similar warning was given , why would people on purpose add or subtract to God’s words? What about us have we been tempted to do this and how do we commonly do this. Does it mean that if we tamper with God’s word we will loose our salvation?

Answer
The verse is very clear the warning is to the hearers of the word not the scribes who copy or translate the word of the prophecy. Hence it is of direct relevance to us when we read His word we are not to add or subtract concepts and ideas that are not in the bible which we like or dislike. For example, the Pharisees added a whole slew of extra regulations to govern the Sabbath whilst ignoring the real spirit of the law. The proponents of the prosperity gospel only take the verses in the bible that speak and promise of blessing and material gain but conveniently leave out those that require sacrifice.

We all so this because like in Deut 4 it is part of idolatry we worship the god or idol that fits our needs instead of we fitting the demands and character of our God we always attempt to remake God in our image. No the verse does not mean that we will loose our salvation. You must remember that the church in the NT like the church today is made up of “wheat and tares” like in the parable and those who do distort the message of the gospel and wind up “loosing their salvation” were probably never born again genuine believers in the first place because the prophecy will cause those who are righteous to continue to persevere to do righteous deeds and those evil doers will continue to do evil hence the separation of the wheat and the tares become more obvious as we see people’s fruits which will be evidence of their true faith.

Question 6
How do we practically cultivate a longing for His coming again? Discuss