REVELATION
#45 – The Fourfold Hallelujah
We’re in Revelation Chapter
19, talking about God’s judgment.
19:1 After these things I head, as it were, a
loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying. “Hallelujah! Salvation and
glory and power belong to our God; (2) because his judgments are true and
righteous; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with
her immorality, and He has avenged the blood of his bond-servants on her.” (3)
And a second time they said, “Hallelujah! Her smoke rises up forever and
ever.” (4) And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down
and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”
(UNRECORDED PORTION)
Q: If someone kills a bunch of kids, we catch them and they get the gas
chamber and they get the death penalty, can we rejoice… in justice?
A: We can rejoice in justice, but how do we know what happened to that
person spiritually?
Q: Oh no, I’m talking about the overall of God’s judgment. But not of
that person per se.
C: Because God’s judgment was carried out.
Q: Even if he became a Christian, we say praise God!
A: That’s my point. That men who do horrendous deeds can become
Christian, they can be saved by God. There’s a real danger if the person does
not make a profession of faith; but knows what happens in the last instances of
that person’s life. It is God who saves, not the man. So if God chooses to
save that person in the last second of his life before the switch is thrown, the
gas is dropped or whatever, then that’s God’s business, and amen there’s
another soul in heaven. But the point is that we cannot understand that from our
perspective so yes, we do praise God for His justice in the laws that are
carried out, in the state that carries out those laws.
C: One thing I have to say that really bugs me when I get into these
discussions with friends or at work or whatever, is that they’re just appalled
at the thought that Hitler before he died could have been saved. You cannot
possibly fathom your own depravity and how much you deserve God’s wrath, just
as much as Hitler does. So I think that’s one thing that we all have got to
try to keep in mind is we’re despicable creatures in God’s sight, apart from
His blood, I know I am.
R: If people really admitted to themselves what they are like without
God’s grace, each of us would be a Hitler.
C: You know, we’re bad, Hitler was worse…
R: That’s where most of us…
C: A kind of an attitude I’ve found is you say you’re more deserving
of heaven, that you’re in someway, somehow, some portion of you is deserving
of heaven.
C: And they think that God gave us up.. you know, I mean sometimes… my
gosh what could I possibly be capable of without the grace of God.
C: There’s a lot of Christians today with good testimonies that say how
depraved they were before Christ came into their lives. You hear them and their
testimonies, they’re very powerful ones.
So here’s the church then, praising God (2)
BECAUSE HIS JUDGMENTS ARE TRUE AND
RIGHTEOUS; for He has
judged the great harlot… Because
HE
HAS AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS BOND-SERVANTS ON HER.”
(3) And a second time they said, “HALLELUJAH!…” (4) And the twenty-four elders and the four
living creatures fell down… What are they doing?
Worshipping! How do we worship? We don’t fall down very often, do we. Why not?
Our clothes might get dirty… we might be embarrassed… yes… It’s a
humbling position. Think about Abraham out in the desert in his flocks, here the
Angel of the Lord, the Malach YHWH comes walking up and what does Abraham do?
Boom! Face down in the dirt. What I’m doing here is suggesting that maybe a
little bit of tradition has overwhelmed us and when we come to worship, we
don’t really come with the understanding of where we are. We don’t really
have a good sense that we are before the throne of the living God. That’s why
we see people in worship whispering and doing other things… not paying
attention… because they are not at that moment thinking, ‘I am before the
throne of God.’ That’s what we need to understand.
C: I would say that possibly verse 2 – to remember that and I think he
really emphasized that, but I can tell you that I was reading Calvin’s
Institutes and going through what he was talking about in the section on prayer
and it really had an impact on me to read what Calvin was saying when you’re
afraid, and it really burdened me because it emphasizes my children, and when we
stop to pray like if we’re in a rush to pray so we can eat dinner, etc. it’s
hard for me to do it just to get it out of the way and I want my family to
understand that we’re going before God Himself and entering into His presence
and need to have respect for Him. Calvin was talking about even letting your
mind wander. If during the worship service I’m sitting there thinking about
what I have to do when I get home and I’m convicted, I don’t know how it is
you can stop that, but having that emphasized makes me reflect on it. So
obviously it’s a concern when we do that, continually remind people. Say ‘we
are entering the presence of God.’
C: That’s the purpose of this context
R: Yeah I do and that’s the reason. I may not make it as forceful and
maybe I should, but I do constantly remind people this is worship, this is a
little slice of heaven, we’re coming before God. You need to focus on God
here.
The point here is that what we see in Revelation again as Chilton and
others have pointed out, is that Revelation is a picture of what worship in
heaven is like. The whole thing can be shown to be a picture of what heavenly
worship is like. So again, that’s a reason to read and study Revelation. What
is worship really like? Well, they had the twenty-four elders, they had the
twenty-four courses of singers like they had in the temple. They had people
around the throne praising God, falling down and singing new songs and all of
these things that we see in Revelation about worship.
(4)…and worshiped God who sits on the throne
saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” Again,
Amen is just a Hebrew word for truly, verily. In King James when Jesus says
verily, verily I say unto you, in Hebrew he’s saying amen, amen.
Q: HE HAS AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS BOND-SERVANTS ON HER Do we have any other Scripture
that would show that kind of terminology being used for some other location
other than Jerusalem? 2nd question is if this is Jerusalem, views
that would be different than yours, what’s that state for them if they have to
admit that this is not Babylon or Rome, but that it is Jerusalem? What do they
lose in their acknowledging?
A: As far as the first question are there other passages that talk about
avenging the blood of his bond-servants on her, right off the top of my head I
don’t know of any that refer to anybody other than Jerusalem. In Matthew 23 we
did look at where Jesus talks about that. I haven’t got to it yet but we’re
going to take a look at Luke 21 and again at Deuteronomy 32 in a moment and see
how that fits into that passage. But in answer to your question, I don’t know
of any other passages right off the top of my head. I can research it if you’d
be interested but right off the top I don’t know. As far as your question as
to what’s at stake theologically, I think it’s the same thing that’s at
stake in any other situation where someone has a misunderstanding of Scripture.
For instance, a Baptistic view. What’s at stake is do I believe what I’ve
believe all my life and been taught by people that I looked up to and honored
and respected, or do I believe what I’m being taught now. As I told you, the
last time I taught Revelation was in the church in Artesia and there was an
older woman in the class and in the second week she left the class. She didn’t
come back to church for a couple of weeks. It turned out that she was very upset
at my teaching Revelation from the preterist point of view. The reason she was
very upset was because her father had been a minister who was a
dispensationalist who had taught Revelation from a pre-millennial dispensational
point of view. So she was placed in a position of realizing that her father who
was a minister had been teaching it wrong, all his life, and all her life, or I
was wrong. So there was this choice that she had to make. I went to her and said
‘Look, I’m not trying to change your mind here. All I want you to do is read
the Bible. Don’t listen to what Dave Crenshaw says. Don’t listen to what Hal
Lindsay says. Don’t listen to what anybody else says. Listen to what God
says.’ The last week of the class she came up to me and said ‘I’ve been
doing what you said. I’ve been reading the Bible.’ I just praised God
because that will convince her of the truth.
Q: I understand that in general but what I was getting at was specifically
in their theology, their systematic way of going through the Bible and
Revelation. What part of their arguments will not fit in with this being
Jerusalem. Do you understand what I’m saying?
A: Yes I think I understand the question. If this is really Jerusalem and
not Rome…
C: Can I give you a quick example? Say if there is in your doctrine a
general resurrection or that there’s a thousand year separation between the
two, if you find out that your wrong and in fact there’s one general
resurrection, then what’s at stake is their doctrine of a rapture of people
afterwards. Pre-millennialism is if one general resurrection is true, then
pre-millennialism is proven wrong, that’s what’s at stake.
R: There are people who believe in a modified preterist point of view who
believe that Rome is Babylon the great. I did until recently. I held to a
modified preterist point of view for several years as I said, before I actually
read the passage very carefully and saw that it couldn’t possibly be talking
about Rome. It’s talking about Jerusalem. So I don’t think that particular
thing is going to change the theology quite so much. If it’s Jerusalem, then
obviously the whole book is talking basically about the destruction of
Jerusalem. So I think that whole house of cards comes tumbling down. You find
that they establish a whole theology based on a few verses.
In chapter 2 John goes into
several quotes from the Old Testament and also from Luke 21. He’s talking here
about God’s judgment. Remember that Luke 21 is a parallel passage with Matthew
24 and we went through all this at the beginning of this class. Jesus says Luke 21:20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded
by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand. Matthew 24: When you
see the abomination of desolation standing before the temple, flee.
So this is parallel and notice that here Luke is talking about armies. (21) “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the
mountains, and let those who are in the mist of the city depart, and let not
those who are in the country enter the city; (22) because these are days of
vengeance, in order that all things which are written may be fulfilled.”
A couple of things. One is that’s the title of Chilton’s book, Days
of Vengeance, coming right from Luke 21:22. Notice something else, these days
(we’re talking about the days of 70 AD.) are days of vengeance, in order that
(purpose – what’s the purpose?) all things which are written may be
fulfilled. Not some of them, all of them. What Scripture is Jesus talking
about? The Old Testament! So he’s saying all the Old Testament prophecies were
fulfilled in the events of 70 AD.
C: You still have a general resurrection to get to so, that’s not
fulfilled.
R: Where in the Old Testament is that?
C: Daniel, Job, Wasn’t it Daniel 12:2? Job, from my flesh, obviously
God… You’re testing me on my resurrection!
R: I’m testing you, amen!
C: Daniel 12.
C: Plus all doesn’t always mean all!
R: In regard to the final resurrection you’re right. Obviously that
hasn’t happened. But remember the Old Testament is what? It’s saying all the
events are about Christ. Everything pointing toward Christ. The New Testament is
everything was done in Christ.
C: I’ve got it. Daniel
12:2 “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these
to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.” My cross reference in here is
to Job 19:26. So you didn’t get me!
R: We can talk about that later, because it may be talking about something
else.
What I want you to understand
here is that what Jesus is saying is that, I’ll modify my stance here a bit
for you, is that the majority of the Old Testament, the prophecies, in
particular the prophecies about Jesus and the prophecies about Jerusalem, were
fulfilled by the events of 70 AD. Obviously the events of Christ’s life…
Q: …all the prophecies
pertaining to this event.
A: Yes.
Q: Not all prophecies in the Old Testament?
A: Thinking in terms of all of the prophecies in the Old Testament were
talking about Jesus, that were pointing toward Jesus. Now obviously there’s
going to be a resurrection in Jesus and that has not yet occurred. But all of
the events as far as the temple, Christ was going to come and how he was going
to live and how he was going to die, and all of that has already been fulfilled.
Q: Why doesn’t that include first century Christ?
A: Because that was not yet written when Jesus…
Q: There were things written before this was written that was a part of
Christ.
A: Yes but Jesus died in 33 AD. We believe.
Q: Your saying this is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem which
happened in 70 AD., saying this is happening so that all things that were
written…
A: Prior to 70 AD.
Q: Right. So any New Testament Scripture written prior to 70 AD would fall
into this category as well, right?
A: No, I wouldn’t say that because remember Jesus is talking about the
days of vengeance. The days when the Roman army would come in and level
Jerusalem. He’s saying, in these days, are all the prophecies
fulfilled. So what I’m suggesting here is that there’s a dichotomy here, a
distinct difference between the Old Testament covenant, and the New Testament
covenant. The Old Testament with Jerusalem in the temple with the Jews, and the
New Testament with the church and with the Christians. God’s not dealing in a
different way here, I’m not dispensational. But Jeremiah 31 talks about the
new covenant and the new covenant is God dealing with the whole world, not with
a particular people group, but with His peculiar people.
Q: Well, he was being cute when he said ‘all doesn’t always mean
all,’ that’s a conversation he and I have had in the past, but what when it
says that in Adam all are … in Christ, all are made alive, obviously all is
not all because not every person has eternal life, the Bible tells us that, yet
the Bible uses the word all. So he might have been being cute, but he might be
right actually in the same context of all things are written…
Realize again, and I apologize
for bringing it up, Jesus in Luke is talking about the events of 70 AD. Very
clearly he’s talking about the desolation of the army standing before the
temple. He’s talking about 70 AD. What I want you to get out of this is that
it was in response to prophecy. Maybe I can say it that way.
Now, Deuteronomy
32.
This is the song of Moses. Moses is speaking in regard to Israel and we can see
that in verse 15 when it says “But
Jeshurun (which is another term for
Israel) grew fat and kicked – you are grown fat, thick,
and sleek- Then he forsook God who made him, and scorned the Rock of his
salvation. (19) “And the Lord saw this, and spurned them because of the
provocation of His sons and daughters. (20) Then He said, ‘I will hide My face
from them, I will see what their end shall be;’” So what we see again way back in Moses’ time, a prophecy against
Israel that they are going to turn away from God and that God is going to judge
them. Verse 23: I
will heap misfortunes on them; I will use My arrows on them. (24) They shall be
wasted by famine, and consumed by plagues and bitter destruction; and the teeth
of beasts I will send upon them, with the venom of crawling things of the dust.
(25) Outside the sword shall bereave, and inside terror… Remember that’s what we see
in Josephus. We see that they were surrounded by the Roman army, they couldn’t
get out. Inside they had the three factions in Jerusalem fighting one another
and there was terror.
C: That was in the old times. It happened many times to them.
R: But God was very clearly talking about the fact that He’s going to
bring judgment upon Israel for their disobedience.
Q: I’m lost. Is this verse parallel to Revelation or is this just an
example of the terminology?
A: It’s an example of the terminology that God used against Israel
constantly because they disobeyed Him. Remember my theme song, Jesus says if you
love me, you’ll will obey my commandments. God says if you love Me, you’ll
obey My commandments. 1 John says we demonstrate our love for Him by carrying
out His commandments. God over and over again says if you don’t carry out My
commandments, this is what I’m going to do. That’s what He’s saying to
Israel here.
Q: Isn’t it 28 that gets into the covenant versus the blessings, chapter
28?
A: I haven’t studied Deuteronomy but yes, Deuteronomy is like a Suzerain
Treaty and so it does have the…
Q: Chapter 28 is like pretty heavy if I remember, promises for blessings,
promises for obedience and then curses.
A: Yes.
So God goes on down through
verse 42 talking about what He’s going to do to Israel for their disobedience
and then He says in verse 43 “Rejoice, O
nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of his servants, and will
render vengeance on His adversaries, and will atone for His land and His
people.” So way back then as far as the
Song of Moses, we have this prophecy that God was going to judge, God was going
to judge against those who shed the blood of His prophets and His bondservants
and He’s telling the nations, encompassed in the church, to rejoice because He
is a God of vengeance. He is a God of justice. Very clearly we need to hear that
message. What we hear in the church today is God is love. God doesn’t care
what you’re doing, God wants you. Well, God is love and God doesn’t care
what you did, but God certainly cares what you do. That’s a very clear message
in Scripture. God does not accept us just as we are. He changes us. He very
clearly changes us in the moment of regeneration. We talked before about how it
is that Jesus could reach out and touch a leper. Why is it that Jesus could
touch a leper who was unclean? Because in the touching he cleansed him.
Q: Down in Revelation 19 verse 9 it says, the angel said to me, “Write,
‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’”
If I remember in Chapter 18, the angel you said was Jesus Christ.
A: No, there’s a different angel and you see that in 18:21 …a strong
angel took up a stone like a great millstone.
Q: That’s what I was going to ask. I missed it. The angel was changed.
A: Yes, in verse 21 of chapter 18.
We’re out of time. Let’s
close in prayer.
