We come to chapter 19 of the Book of Revelation, and to begin, I'll read the first 10 verses, and then we'll pray. John writes, after this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heavens crying, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just. He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants. Once more they cried, hallelujah, the smoke from her goes up forever and ever, and the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, Amen, hallelujah. And from the throne came a voice crying, praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him small and great. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude like the sound of many waters, and like the sound of a mighty thunderpeels crying, hallelujah, for the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted to her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and he said to me, these are true words of God. Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, you must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus, worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Let's pray. hallelujah, Lord God, we praise you along with all your saints, and with the angels and archangels, the four living creatures, the 24 elders, we praise you and give honor to your name because you alone are the omnipotent God, and your reign is from everlasting to everlasting. We praise you in advance in anticipation of the great final victory that you will accomplish over all of your enemies. We thank you that we enjoy the first fruit of that victory even now, and in our own lives we have seen vanquished the guilt and the domination of sin, how we long for that day when that victory is complete. O Lord, we come to you today, and many of us are bearing special burdens. Lord, we bring those to you, and as you have called us to do, we cast those burdens upon you, only because we know you care about us. We pray, Father, be pleased to meet with your people here as we study and consider your word. Lord, take away our sins that our worship might be pleasing to you. We pray in particular for our pastor that you would keep him safe while he is stranded away from us. Bring him back safely in good time. We pray for Bob this morning in the preaching of the word, please arm him with the spirit and the gospel, and be with all of us in our individual needs this day in Christ's name. We ask it. Amen. Chapter 19, just to remind everybody, and I know that there are some visitors from the Malone class and maybe from elsewhere that haven't been with us. Chapter 19 comes in what part of the book? Well, the way that we have divided Revelation, we've seen the book Revelation in four major visions. Different people, of course, divided different ways. I think there's a natural division, a four visions of the book, and chapter 19 would come in the third of those four visions. If you would remember, each of those visions is introduced by a new encounter between John and either the risen Christ or one of the angels, who comes to John, and then John mentions that he is in the spirit, and in the spirit he is taken to some place, or he mentions the place where he is. And this vision started in chapter 17, 171 where one of the seven angels, who had one of the seven bulls, came to him and said, come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot, who is seated upon many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and with the wine of whose fornication the dwellers on earth have become drunk. So there, the angel actually introduced a theme for this vision, and that was the judgment of the great harlot. Of course, as we read on, we found out that the harlot, the great harlot was Babylon, the city Babylon. And of course, we wrestle a little bit with trying to figure out who Babylon was or is. What we've suggested here is that in John's day, Babylon was Rome. Rome in its, particularly its cultural manifestation, its materialism, its hedonism, its sensualism, its tendency to oppress, particularly oppress God's people, for the sake of supporting its lifestyle of wealth and opulence. Then we saw the the interaction between Babylon and the beast and the beast allies. We saw at the end of chapter 17 that the beast and his allies will one day have their way with Babylon and Babylon will be defeated by them, of course, the Lord God himself is bringing all this about. Chapter 18 then moved on to a series of mostly laments concerning the destruction of Babylon. We had dwellers of the earth, the kings of the earth, the merchants of the earth, and the sea lamenting the fall of Babylon where they got their, they got their riches off of her. But we're also told within that chapter 18, the saints are to rejoice, heaven is to rejoice because what was a lament for the dwellers on earth is an occasion of great rejoicing for God's people because the oppressor, one of the oppressors of God's people, had fallen. Well this occupied really all of chapter 18, it's magnificent in many ways, very poetic and artistic depiction of the effects of the fall of Babylon. Now we come to chapter 19, and for the first ten verses or so, this is still the theme. If still you might say what is immediately following on the fall of Babylon and more reactions to that fall. In particular, we are brought back into the heavenly scene, and we hear a number of voices, some identified, some not very closely identified, voices which all give a common theme. What would that common theme of proclamation be? Praise to God, right, right. And one word expresses that over and over. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Okay, as you probably know that comes from the Hebrew, even though this is Greek, it was transliterated into Greek, Greek-speaking Christians still used it as we do today, hallelujah or hallelujah. And that means in Hebrew God be praised, praise God, praise Godway. In fact, you could say that it is a chorus of hallelujahs, which we'll get to in a little bit, because it's hallelujah over and over again, four times in the first six verses, the word hallelujah, is said, and one other time, the word a different phrase, praise God, which is in Greek, but it means the same thing. So in effect, you have like five of these in the first six verses. Starting with verse one, John hears the voice of a great multitude in heaven, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just. He has judged the great harlot who crept it earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants. So there are two great themes, well, really free when we get to the last one, great themes of these hallelujahs, if we were to ask, what in particular is God being praised for? What is he being praised for? What would you say from these verses? He would be praised for any number of things, of course, but several times here, he's praised for his judgment, right, his judgment, his judgment on Babylon. That is one of the major themes here. And that ties in with what we've just seen in chapter 18. He's praised for his kingdom and salvation, for his great power, his redemption on one hand, and sort of the flip side of that is his judgment of Babylon. And when we get to the last hallelujah with verse 7 and following, another subject that belongs to this, another one of the great effects of the follow Babylon is the marriage of the Lamb, right, the marriage of the Lamb, and that his bride is made ready. So you see how beautiful and fitting this is, that the destruction of the great harlot is the occasion for the wedding of the pure bride with her husband. Well, before we get to chapter 2, verse 7, we have this first praise, the heavenly multitude in one through three that we just read. Then we have an echo in verse 4 of the 24 elders and the four living creatures. There's nothing really more set about God in that hallelujah. It's just an echo of the first. And then in verse 5, from the throne comes a voice, crying praise our God, all you have servants, you who fear him small and great. Now this is something that I really hadn't noticed until just the other day, one of those things you've read over a hundred times and never noticed, but in this hallelujah, I think it's interesting that it says that the voice comes from the throne and it says praise our God. It doesn't say praise God, it says praise our God. Now what voice could be coming from the throne and be saying praise our God? You would expect a voice from the throne to be the voice of God Himself, God the Father Himself. But I think this is very interesting, praise our God in the ideas. It could be the voice of Christ Himself. It could be the voice of Christ who is said to share the throne of God. If you go back to chapter 3, verse 21, where Jesus says that, as I myself have conquered and sat down with my Father on His throne, so it could be the voice of Christ saying praise our God, your God, your God and mine, that would not be unprecedented because Jesus after his resurrection in John 21 says, I have not yet ascended to my God and to your God, go tell Peter and the rest, I am ascending to my God and you, your God, identifying God, the Father as His God and our God, your God, He says. Here He says, or the voice says our God, now there, I think that would satisfy all the requirements there. Okay, now we have the definitive interpretation of the red letter addition, which says, no, that's interesting because that introduces another possibility, I mean there is one more possibility. Back in that, yes, well it could be the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Holy Spirit is heard in Revelation, particularly right at the end of Revelation, you have the Spirit and the bride say, come, verse 17 of chapter 22, the Spirit and the bride say, come and let him who hears say, come, that would be possible too, although I don't know if there's any other reference in Revelation to the Spirit being on the throne or sharing God's throne. Of course, we know theologically, that's true, no problem with that. But there is even one more possibility. Back in chapter 3, verse that I mentioned before, 321, this is in the promise to the conquerors at Laodicea, you remember at the end of each of the seven letters, Jesus gives a promise to those who conquer, to Him who conquers such and such a promise and this is the promise to them. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I myself conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. Now, it is a very awesome promise, one we don't probably think about very much, but the promise of sitting with Christ on his throne as he sat on his father's throne. Now I don't know how literally we're supposed to think of this, but sitting with, sharing that his throne with him could simply mean we share his reign with him, throne often simply stands for the reign. We share his reign. Well, that's a possibility. And if that's what is going on here, we would, well, we'd be seeing in effect that the promise he made in chapter 3, verse 21 is in realization, it's being realized. The saints do share with him his throne. Now, we've had other depictions of the saints in heaven throughout Revelation, a number of different ones, and one in particular is very memorable in chapter 6, the martyrs underneath the altar pictured there as sacrifices that have been, that have been slaughtered underneath the altar. Now I would say this is not necessarily inconsistent with the idea of the saints' reigning with God in his throne. There are just two different aspects of it, two different aspects. So it's a little bit hard to be dogmatic on this, but I do think it's very interesting it sort of prompts our meditation upon this, who is with God on his throne, encouraging us to praise him, praise our God along with that voice, Richard, did you have something? Well, Richard's bringing up that there are the 24 elders, who in some sense must represent the church, the church of the old new covenants, and they're depicted as being around the throne, so that wouldn't fit for them to be also on God's throne. And I think you'd have to say that the 24 elders depicting, well, not just the church, but I think the leaders of the church, the elders are those who govern, and there may be a certain aspect of the church that's represented by the 24 elders. That could, you know, a different aspect or a different focus of the church be represented here as being sharing God's throne. And I assume the four prehistoric parts of the entire creation, represent it also, so really what you've got is everything that's written in this room. That's right. In any way you look at it, it's the whole heavenly throne room. It's everyone surrounding the throne. And no matter where the saints are depicted here, they must be depicted within this great multitude, the voice that he hears in the first and the last hallelujah that are praising God. So the saints are there, but this is just a little bit intriguing, to me at least as to whether they're being depicted here, it also is sharing God's throne. Perhaps we oughtn't to press that too far, but at least I would say Christ is there depicted as calling us to worship and praise our God. Yeah. There's a sense in which that is the whole scene of the throne, that's possible. Because the 24 elders are spoken of in the verse just before, we tend to think it's something a little bit different. Yeah, well that's a good point. It says the four living creatures in the midst of the throne and around the throne, just how do you conceptualize that? Yeah. Because they're mentioned just prior to this in the chapter 19, I would think that it's another voice or person, but it is true that the throne is around the throne of God. There are some coalescing I think here. When we get to chapter 20, we'll see that the saints do have thrones, plural. He sees them seated on thrones, plural. Maybe that's about as far as I want to go. And then from the throne itself, right? And then in the last one, we're back with a great multitude. Good. In verses 6-8, we have another hallelujah. For the Lord, our God, the Almighty, or the omnipotent, as the old version had it, reigns. Now, of course, this is the inspiration for Handel's great hallelujah chorus. He combined this verse in that segment with a verse from chapter 11, verse 15, which reads, then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Now it's time for those choir members here to show their talents, Larry. You can hardly read these verses. I can't, without hearing the thundering chorus for he shall reign forever and ever. It's just some of the most marvelous music, certainly, in all of history. And I think Handel got it right in connecting these two verses. They do go together. They are uttered in revelation at a time when God's victory is not only sure, but it's made manifest. Of course, we know that he has reigned from everlasting to everlasting, but there is a point. There will be a time in history when that will be manifest to all. When both of these verses are uttered in the book of revelation, that's at a point when climax of history has been reached, and judgment day has come, and his kingdom is manifest to all. The reason that in verses 7 and 8 for this great hallelujah is the arrival of the marriage of the Lamb. For the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted to her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. That is itself a theme that we've noticed a number of times in revelation, the theme of fine linen or the white and shining garments of the saints. That is a metaphor, we've talked about this from time to time, a metaphor for the righteous deeds of the saints, for purity, for justice and good works, and often in revelation, the ultimate comes before eyes. The ultimate clothing that we have is that we're clothed in Christ's righteousness, and we're told in chapter 14, I believe, that the saints have washed their robes and made them white, how in the blood of the Lamb. That's how our robes ultimately are made white, and yet God is also pleased to look at our works and to consider them pure through the cleansing blood of Christ. So here the bride is dressed and decked out in pure white garments, befitting her good works, her righteous deeds. Ephesians 5, 26, 27 speaks of the same thing, really. Of Christ sanctifying his bride, of Christ sanctifying his bride, that he might, what, present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Notice the same sort of idea, the church is Christ's bride, but he is going to present her to himself without spot or wrinkle or anything. That looks to a climactic point, that looks to a wedding day, and that's what it's been depicted here in chapter 19. The great wedding feast of the Lamb is announced, and it comes right on the heels of the destruction of Babylon. Now I think that this also can be significant when we get to chapter 20, and we're talking about the millennium in relation to the second coming of Christ and all. Notice that the wedding is announced here as come, the bride has made herself ready, and the marriage of the Lamb has come, verse 7. We're not actually told any more about the wedding, about the presentation of the bride until chapter 21, chapter 21, where it's very clear that the presentation of the bride to Christ comes after the great judgment, in other words, you have the judgment here, and right after that in chapter 21, you have the bride prepared for her husband, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride prepared for her husband. So here we are in chapter 19, and we're told that the marriage has come, and what we have in chapter 20 is the millennium. This would be one indication that the marriage, because it comes here after the judgment comes after the millennium, that is, it's the climax of the millennium, it comes after the millennium, and there's not a thousand years between the marriage has come, and the bride has made herself ready, and she's adorned like a bride for her husband. Well maybe this will make more sense next week when we talk about the millennium, but just one more thing to tuck in the back of the mind there, what I'm suggesting is that when we get to the millennium it's going to be another one of these recapitulations, it's going to throw us back to a time towards the first coming of Christ, so that when we get to the end of the millennium and the bride coming, it's the same event that's already been talked about here at the end of chapter 19, and I can see by the looks on your faces that this is something we'll have to, we'll take up again next week. Any questions on that at this point? It would be in the Omelini of you a figurative number, right? Standing for a long period of time, right, exactly, exactly, yes, yeah. That's a good tantalizing bit for next week, as we'll go into all the various views next week. Yes? Right, exactly, and in fact the judgment is the victory for the saints, right, and Richard's pointing out that throughout Revelation you have, well you have, when God brings his ultimate judgment upon the wicked, that is the victory for the saints, and it's fittingly portrayed here as the time of the marriage of the Lamb and his bride, yeah, yeah, that's good. Well, once again, we're dealing with very symbolic images here, as we're tipped off to by the righteous deeds of the saints, the fine linen of the bride, okay, that shows we're talking in symbol. Also if you were to think this through, we're told that those are blessed who are invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb, but we're also, we are also the bride herself. So the saints are the bride, and yet they're also invited to the marriage feast, the bride and the guests. In verse 9, John is told to write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and told these words are true words of God, and then we see this very curious action on the part of John, one which I really don't think I have an adequate explanation for, that is he falls down to worship the angel. Now you can go into all the, imagine if it were happening to you, and you see this awesome angel, and in many ways you can look throughout scripture where the angel of the Lord really stands for the Lord, does his bidding, and is often practically identified with the Lord. You can think of the life of Abraham when he's visited by the three visitors and so forth, many times. So maybe we shouldn't be so quick to cast blame at John here, and he might himself be confused as this, the Lord himself, but in any way he falls down to worship the angel, and right away of course the angel puts a stop to that and says, you must not do that, I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. You kind of think of Paul and Barnabas when in one of their early missionary travels they were thought to be Zeus and Apollo, and they were being worshiped and they said, no, no, you must not do that. We are men just like you, here we are servants, I am a servant just like you, worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, that's a very interesting statement. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. I think what that means is that the whole essence of prophecy, the goal of prophecy is Christ, the testimony of Jesus, and so the angel is getting the focus off of himself and upon Jesus and the testimony of Jesus. I think of John chapter 16, verses 14 and 15, remember where Jesus is describing the future work of a spirit and he says, when a spirit comes, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth for he will not speak on his own authority but whatever he hears he will speak and he will declare to you all things that are to come. He will glorify me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine, therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. The spirit's work is to glorify Christ, the spirit's work is to glorify Christ. That's a very important principle, you know, when we look around and we have to discern from time to time, what is the spirit's work and sometimes a claim that such and such is the spirit's work and we have to evaluate that. Well, this is a very key thing, isn't it? The spirit's work is to glorify Christ. So that's one major test. We always have to apply to something that's said to be the spirit's work. Is it something that's glorifying the Christ? Well, I think that ties in with what the angel's saying that it is the ultimate end, it's the goal of prophecy to testify to Christ, to glorify Him in some way, and the whole intent of what I'm doing here as the revealing angel is to focus attention on Christ. Okay, we come to verse 11, verses 11 through 21 of chapter 19, just like with the other major visions, which I think have a kind of an aftermath section. In other words, there's the main vision and then there's an aftermath, something that seems to follow upon that vision. When we think of the first vision, there was a vision of the risen Christ and then John is told to write letters to seven churches, that's the sort of aftermath. In the second vision, we have chapters 4 and 5 where John is taken up to the heavenly throne room and he witnesses the worship of God and the Lamb. And then, as a result of that, we see all these things that are happening in heaven and from heaven to earth and judgments, trumpets and bowls and seals. Now in this vision, which we're told is a vision, chapter 17 verse 1, a vision of the judgment of the harlot. That section really has come to a close now. Can I get a hallelujah from you guys before you can? No, okay, there goes the chorus. The judgment of the harlot is said to be the thing. We've seen that in chapter 17 and 18 and first part of 19. But there's still a sort of aftermath here. What's going on? I think what you see throughout the rest of this major vision, the third vision, is the judgment of the rest of God's enemies after Babylon, not necessarily after in time either. But Babylon, for whatever reason, seems to be the focus as introduced by the angel. But that is also the occasion then for the prophecy to be given about the destruction, not only of Babylon but of all God's enemies. And we're going to see them in order. And in fact, we'll see them in sort of the reverse order from which they were introduced to us. If you look through the book of Revelation, you basically have death and Hades introduced in chapter 1, then you eventually have the dragon, particularly in chapter 12. And you have the beast and false prophet, chapter 13. They're mentioned, beast is mentioned before, that there's a really described in chapter 13. And then you have Babylon, mentioned in 14 but really not until 17 that we have a lot on Babylon. Okay. Now what we're seeing in the last part of this vision, we've seen Babylon. Meet its doom. And then we're going to see the beast and the false prophet, the dragon, and death and Hades in order, in reverse order, being destroyed, meeting their doom at the hands of God. This last section then of chapter 19, verses 11 to 21, is the depiction, Revelation's depiction of the final destruction of the beast and the false prophet. Now as we see it this way, one point I would try to make at the beginning is that we shouldn't necessarily see these as separated from each other. That's the way they're presented, but they're presented, remember this is very pictorial and symbolic. It's almost as if we're seeing the destruction of one enemy, the next and the next and the next, but that doesn't necessarily follow each other in time. You see what I mean? Each one is singled out for their special focus. So we come to verse 11 and how is the destruction of the beast and the false prophet depicted? Well, of course the beast, we've talked about before, seems to signify statused political governmental power arrayed against God's saints, well it's very fitting then that the destruction of the beast would be depicted as a great war, right, as a great war and that's how it is. In verse 11, John sees heaven open once again and behold a white horse. He who sat upon it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems. He has a name in scribe which no one knows but himself. He is clad in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of God. There's no doubt now about who this is, the writer on the white horse, he's called the word of God. And the armies of heaven, now this is interesting too, it's not just Christ alone, is it? The armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, another link to the bride, right? The saints arrayed in fine linen, just really interesting, the bridal garments are described in the same way the battle garments are described, right? Followed with him on white horses from his mouth, issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread at the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God, the Almighty, makes you think back to chapter 14 where the judgment is depicted as treading out of the grapes, right? He had the blood flowing up to the horse's bridal and had his calculations of how far that would be at all. But he is the one, and this is very significant, he is the one who will tread out the grapes. He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God, the Almighty, on his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed king of kings and lord of lords, that's who he is, and that's who and how his identity will be manifest on that day. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds the fly in mid-haven come, gathered for the great supper of God 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 slave, both free and slave, both small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him, against him who sits upon the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with at the false prophet who in its presence worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image. Okay, this is throwing us back to chapter 13 in particular, the mark of the beast, and you remember how the second beast caused the world to worship the first beast. Well, they are captured. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur and the rest. I take that to mean all the rest who are with the false prophet and the beast were slain by the sword of him who sits on the horse, the sword that is used from his mouth, and all the birds were gorge with their flesh to the end. That is the end of the beast and the false prophet, their throne, into the lake of fire, which is the second death we are told elsewhere. Okay. Well, it is a very awesome description, is it not, of the coming of Christ. Now I have said the coming of Christ, and that is why I think it is a description of. A lot of Christians certainly don't agree with that. There is another interpretation of these verses, which I think we had to know about and certainly some within the Reform Camp take, and that would be to say that this is a depiction, not of the coming of Christ, the second coming, but a depiction of anybody, no? Right, right, the gospel going forth, and the conquest of Christ and the gospel, conquest of Christ and the gospel. And to support that, well, you do have some things, some very interesting descriptions. How does it say that he slays those who are with the beast? The sword from his mouth, right, the sword from his mouth. That is obviously not a literal, there is no sword that big, this is not a literal sword, the sword of his mouth. So his word, in some way his word is going to bring about the victory, sharper than a two-edged sword, good. And in fact, when we were back in chapter 6, you remember the four horsemen, not the football players, you remember the four horsemen, and the first horsemen was riding on a white horse and he was sent out conquering and to conquer. And one of the interpretations of that, and I actually, I take that view, that that is a depiction of Christ and the gospel going forth to conquer. So wouldn't that fit in with this in chapter 19, and couldn't that be a description, just a further, more elaborate description, of the ongoing conquest of the gospel over the nations? Well, as I said, I think there are certainly some reasons why people take that view, and there are some tie-ins. The reason I don't take that view is that, first of all, I think it is right to tie those things in together, but I think what we have in chapter 19 is the climax of that conquest. In other words, don't completely separate the two. Don't say, well, the second coming has nothing to do with the preaching of the gospel. Now, think of it as a continuum, and think of it as the climax, the dramatic finish of that conquering work of Christ, which he now accomplishes through the gospel, through his word. It's the far end of this phase of his reign, when he finally defeats climatically. Because there are several elements in the text that, in fact, well, they show us a climax, don't they? The beast and the false prophet are finally defeated. They're finally defeated. They're thrown in the lake of fire. What other event could you compare that to in the history of Christianity, the history of the preaching of the gospel? That has to be the final conquest. In 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 8, 2 Thessalonians 2, 8, that's a section where Paul is talking about the man of lawlessness, remember the man of sin, and he says in verse 8, then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming. And that's very similar, isn't it? He'll destroy the man of sin with the breath of his mouth. And that's true that some predators would identify the man of sin here with maybe Nero, but that would put the whole thing in the first century, and I think that's got to be out of the question. But what I'm pointing to here is the similarity. When Christ comes to judge the man of sin, the Antichrist, he does so with the breath of his mouth, and that ties in with what we read in chapter 19, the sword that comes from his mouth. Remember also what Jesus said in John 12, 47-48, he said, he who rejects me and does not receive my sayings, has a judge, what is it that will judge him on that day? The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day, the word that I have spoken. So here it is definitely talking about the last day, the last judgment for those who reject him. And he says he doesn't put it in terms of blood and gore and steel and so forth, but he puts in terms of his word. Christ's word will be his judgment. John 12, 47-48, in Revelation itself, in a letter to the church at program moment, 216, Jesus says, repent then, if not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. There it may or may not be depicting the last judgment, but it's probably not, but at the same idea of Christ warring with his mouth against those that turn against him. Well, this does not, of course, give the impression, that aspect of it, does not give the impression of a literal battle with blood and gore, horses and so forth, even though that's the way it's depicted. I think, again, we're dealing with a very symbolic representation. Do we conceive of stables in heaven, housing those horses? I don't know, but I don't think that's the way we're supposed to think about it. Symbol of swiftness. Yeah, I suppose so, swiftness, and what else? Yeah, right, right, right, right, and yeah, there's something about Solomon, and multiplying horses and chariots, wasn't there, and another story. But apparently, recently, these struggles back and up and down, but then all of a sudden, when Christ really enters the scene, it's just bam, you know, and the devil doesn't stand against the dirty teeth for the sake of anything. Yeah, all right, good. Yeah, it does happen, it's described very quickly here. There's another thing that we get in principle at the cross, the whole thing. The victory. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Yeah, Richard's pointing out that all this really happened in principle at the cross. The powers, the principalities, and the authorities were overcome, and triumphed over by him in the cross. And this is the working out of that victory that has already been won. And here we're seeing another depiction of the climax of that victory in terms of the status, power, the beasts, and the false prophet, as I would read that. We also have an indication, I think, of this, in the fact that Psalm 2 verse 9 seems to be alluded to, when he's described as ruling them with a rod of iron, ruling with a rod of iron, that, to that particular phrase, I think, has to do with the final expression of his rule, the destructive presence of his rule against his foes, and that the source of it, you know, goes back to Psalm 2 verse 9, Psalm 2, which I think was a very important Psalm in the life of the early church. Let me just read this through quickly, and tell why I think that. Psalm 2, why do the nations conspire in the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds of sander and cast their cords from us. Sound familiar? Of course it does. This Psalm is quoted in the life of the early church with respect to what? One particular with respect to the crucifixion. And in Acts chapter 4, the apostles gather together, and they quote this Psalm with respect to the nations and the people conspiring together against the Lord and his anointed Christ, and they have put him to death, okay? But then the Psalm goes on. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord has them in derision, then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, I have set my king on Zion my holy hill. I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you, ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. What is that? Well, that's obvious. That's the ascension of Christ to his throne in heaven, and the Father saying, rule in the midst of your foes, I have given you, I have set my king on Zion my holy hill. You are my son, I have begotten you, ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage. And that is in one sentence, one capsule, that is the mission of Christ in this age, to make the nations his heritage, and that he is answering into that heritage. He is realizing that inheritance, the nations are his heritage, and then the next verse, you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. That's the phrase we're looking for. You'll break them with a rod of iron, dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. I think that is the climactic expression of that gaining of his inheritance, that he will finally break all opposition, and he will scatter his enemies. He will have the defeat over them. And then we have in the last couple verses of a song, a sort of alter call, if you will, this is the sort of after he has gone through, he has given us a quick picture of the whole Christian age here, from crucifixion, ascension, reign, and final coming, in judgment. And then so what, so therefore, now therefore O Kings be wise, and be warned O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, with trembling kiss the sun, lest he be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled, blessed are all those who take refuge in him. That's the so what, that's the call to everybody to repent and to fear God. So when we find Psalm 2 9 quoted, he will rule them with a rod of iron, I think that's what it's depicting, it's the culmination of his reign as he comes in judgment. We find that not only in the New Testament, but several early Christian writings cited that way as well. In Romans 9.2, as the poet of God wanted to show his wrath to make his power known and endured this much long suffering, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, he thinks that he's referring back to that same Psalm 2 and the vessels, because it follows all the potter and clay kind of properly. Yeah, it does, it has the, right, the potter and clay theme, which there are other verses for two, but yeah, the ultimate, the he will break them as a potter's vessel. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Well, anyway, that's why I think this is depicting not just the ongoing conquest of the gospel. That's what it is, but this is the climax of that conquest when Christ returns and the beast and false prophet finally have their end in the lake of fire. There are a lot of other aspects we can go into, the saints fighting along with Christ, coming with him, but we'll have to stop here. Any final questions, thoughts? Okay, let's close in prayer. Hallelujah. Lord, we praise you again for the great victory which you have won over our hearts and which you are winning day by day and soul by soul throughout this world. Lord, we pray for the endurance to stand in an evil day and be faithful in confessing the testimony of Jesus. And we long for that day when we will participate with you in the last conquest in Jesus' name, amen. We are welcome, my parents and grandparents stand again, they are greetings and hallelujah.