Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 20-22.

After writing abut the Judgement, John writes that he saw a new heaven and a new earth because the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  He writes that He who sat upon the throne said to him, “It is done.”  Not, “It will be done.”  The One who spoke to John spoke in the present tense, not the future tense.  For the most part, I think the present tense there was being spoken as part of the vision of what would happen in the future, but part of me wonders if perhaps we are to understand that the new heaven and the new earth have already been created.  There is a thread which runs through the New Testament that teaches that God’s Kingdom has already come and we need to live in it according to its “laws”.  So, perhaps we are to live as if we are in the new heaven and the new earth, even though the first heaven and earth have not yet passed away.  John writes that nothing impure will enter into the new heaven and earth, nor will anyone who does what is deceitful or shameful, only those whose names have been written in the book of life.

Regardless of whether the One on the throne was speaking in the present tense of the first century or the present tense of the time in the future when John’s vision would take place, in the epilogue of this book, Jesus says to John, “Look, I am coming soon.”  And John is told not to seal up the words of the scroll he is writing to describe his vision because the time of that vision is near.  Time is running out for us to do what is holy and right.  Time is running out for those who have not yet accepted God’s gift of salvation.  The Spirit cries “Come”, and we also are to cry “Come”, inviting all to drink of the free gift of the water of life.  He is coming soon, let us prepare ourselves so that we are ready for that day.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 17-19.

I was not sure where to start writing today.  Then I was struck by part of the description the angel gave of the scarlet beast.  He said, “it once was, now is not, and yet will come.”  I think we should note the similarity and difference with the formula used in Revelation 4:8:  “who was, and is, and is to come.”   This latter formula is used several times to refer to God in the Book of Revelation, and sometimes to refer to Jesus (thus making part of the case for the Trinity) and to indicate His eternal, unchanging existence.  The formula used here to describe the scarlet beast, I believe, is intended to indicate both its desire to be held up as divine and its inferiority to the Real thing.  Which brings me to the woman saw sitting on the beast.  The woman is symbolic of those who strive to control the beast, to control that which holds itself up as being worthy of being worshiped in place of God, in order to accomplish their own selfish desires.  I want to note that the woman here appears to represent a specific organization at a specific time (whether that organization is a government or some other type of organization is not entirely clear), but it may represent worldly society.  The woman will fail to control the beast and will instead be consumed by it.  And all who have tied their well-being to that of the woman will suffer on that day.  We who follow Christ and through Him serve God are called to separate ourselves from the world, from those who seek to replace God with something other than God.  I want to be perfectly clear.  This passage appears to be a prophecy about specific events, presenting them with symbols and metaphors, but there are lessons which apply to our interaction with this world even if we are not at the time being referred to here.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 13-16.

I want to start by writing about the power of the beasts.  The dragon, which we were told in yesterday’s passage is Satan, gave his power and authority to the first beast.  People worshiped the dragon because it had given power to the first beast, and they worshiped the first beast because it had the power which the dragon gave it.  A little later the second beast arose and exercised the power of the first beast on behalf of the first beast.  This second beast performed signs and wonders using the power of the first beast.  As a result, it was also worshiped.  Finally, the second beast created a statue of the first beast and gave it powers so that all who refused to worship this image of the first beast were killed.  All of this reminds me of some corporate shell games we see played today, where one company owns another company, which owns a third company, and so on.  The first several companies exist mostly to hide the actual owners from accountability.   So, what I am seeing is that the beasts and the statue will exist to allow people to pretend that they are not worship Satan, are not worshiping evil itself.

Then the second beast requires people to receive its mark.  I realized this morning that the beast’s mark is an imitation of the seal which God had placed on the foreheads of His servants.  While nowhere in Revelation does John spell out this imitation, he does make it clear that one cannot bear the mark of the beast and the seal of God at the same time.  Which suggests to me that while I think the mark of the beast has a physical manifestation its essence is something spiritual which is separate from its physical manifestation.  However, the important thing is that we understand that having the mark of the beast is incompatible with having the seal of God.  We cannot have both at the same time.  There may come a time, indeed there may be multiple times throughout history, when we need to choose between being able to take part in the economy of this world and serving God.  We need to be willing to suffer severe economic hardship in order to serve God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 9-12.

The writer writes of a time when those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads (this appears to be a reference to the 144,000 from the tribes of Israel mentioned in chapter 7) will be tortured for five months such that they wish to die, but will be unable to do so.  Then he references three plagues which will kill a third of mankind.  I was struck by the fact that even after these events, John tells us that the people who survived did not repent of their idolatry, their sexual immorality, their thefts, or their murders.  The writer does not say that they were guilty of one or more of thee.  He says that they were guilty of all of them…and that they refused to repent of them, even after experiencing the consequences of those sins.  Have we repented of our sins?  Will we repent of our sins, either before or after we see the consequences of those sins?  A little later the writer tells us that the devil is filled with fury because he knows the time is short.  Do we know that the time is short?  Do we exhibit as much urgency to bring people to the Lord as the devil has to lead them to their doom?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 4-8.

I am going to start with things which stood out to me from the start of this passage and we will see where we go from there.  I want to start by writing about the four living creatures.  They resemble the four living creatures from Ezekiel to a casual reading.  However a closer look shows that John describes them differently than Ezekiel.  In Ezekiel, each of the living creatures has four different faces.  Whereas in Revelation, each living creature has a single face, different from that of the others.  In Ezekiel each of the living creatures has four wings, while in Revelation they each have six wings.  On the other hand, the four faces are the same: human, lion, ox, and eagle.  Reading the description here I think it is clear that we are supposed to associate the four living creatures with the four living creatures in Ezekiel.  I am not sure we are to see them as the same creatures, but I don’t necessarily think they are different.  What I think is clear is that John was influenced by Ezekiel in the way he described his vision.  The next thing I wanted to write about is the twenty-four elders John writes about.  Every time I read this I wonder about the significance of the number twenty-four.  Are there twenty-four elders because twelve for the Old Covenant and twelve for the New Covenant?  Is there some other significance to there being twenty-four elders?  I was unable to find anything where someone gave a clear indication of the meaning for there being twenty-four elders.  However, I want to make note that the twenty-four elders held “bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.”  I rarely think about the significance of the incense offering in the Law of Moses, but if we think about how important incense was in Temple worship, it gives us a greater understanding of the importance of prayer.  Our prayers are the incense which the elders offer before God for all eternity.  Prayer is our offering to God.  Which suggests that we should pray more than we do.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 1-3.

I always want to write so much about today’s passage.  Today I decided to focus on what John wrote at the end of the message to each of the seven Churches: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
The wording varied slightly, but he put that after his message to each of the Churches.  I read that as an indication that while the contents of each message contained specifics for the Church to whom it was specifically addressed, it also contained things to which everyone who follows Christ needs to pay attention.  First, there are the characteristics we should strive to incorporate into our lives:

• Do not tolerate wicked people
• Rich in faith, even if lacking in material possessions</li?
• Do not renounce Jesus name in the face of ridicule and persecution
• Exhibit love and faith through service
• Patiently serving God even though weak and worn out

And then there are the characteristics we should strive to remove from our lives:

• Loss of our initial enthusiasm for Christ
• Do not tolerate sexual immorality and the pursuit of sensual licentiousness
• Maintaining a reputation for righteousness without the accompanying actions
• Lack of enthusiasm

Interestingly, there is more overlap between the things for which the Churches are condemned then there is among the things for which they are praised.  And yet, in many ways the things for which the Churches are praised are just variations on the same thing.  The passage ends with one of the great images of Christianity.  Jesus says to us “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”  So, if you have ears listen to what the Spirit says, hear Jesus knocking, and open the door so that He may come in.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Revelation 20-22.

I spent a fair amount of time today thinking about the thousand year reign and Satan deceiving the nations at the end of it.  However, I was unable to get my thoughts to come together into something I could write.  Then I came to John’s vision of God’s judgement over mankind.  He writes that he saw the dead gathered before God’s throne, where the books were opened.   All of everyone’s actions were recorded in the books which were opened before God’s throne.  Further John writes that the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.  This passage probably provides the primary source for the idea that in Christianity if your good deeds outweigh your evil deeds, you to heaven and to hell if the reverse is true.  However, that misreads what John says here, because John tells us that there is another book besides the books which record what people have done.  That other book is the Book of Life.  Each person will indeed by judged by what they had done, but only those whose name was recorded in the Book of Life will escape the lake of fire.  So, while we will all be judged by our deeds, it will not be our deeds which will spare us from damnation.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Revelation 17-19.

I always find this passage difficult to understand.  I am convinced that John believed when he wrote about the woman and the beast here that they referred to Rome.  John would have seen the seven hills referenced here as being the seven hills of Rome.  And perhaps the passage does indeed refer to Rome.  After all the passage says that it once was, now is not, yet will come again.  That being said, when I read John’s description of the woman he identifies as Babylon, the only place which fits his description today is the United States.  Or, perhaps, Washington, D.C. because he does write that the woman is the great city which rules over the kings of the earth.  However, if we read the woman referred to in this passage as the Untied States, we see that the merchants of the earth would mourn its fall because there would indeed be no one to buy their merchandise.  I also see the United States fulfilling what John writes about all the nations being led astray by her magic.  Reading this passage, I think Christians should be warned against allowing themselves to be seduced into thinking that we can give our loyalty to both the Kingdom of God and to the United States.  While being loyal to the Kingdom of God does not make us traitors to the United States (or whatever other nation we live in), loyalty to the United States (or whatever other nation we live in) will make us traitors to the Kingdom of God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Revelation 13-16.

As with many people I am fascinated by the two beasts described in today’s passage.  That fascination primarily comes from how they seem to resemble things I see in the world around me today. I remember previous generations connecting these beasts with different things in the world than what they now look like to me.  First I want to note the circular reasoning of those who worshiped the dragon (which John had previously told us was also know as the Devil or as Satan).  They worshiped the dragon because it had given power to the beast, which they worshiped because of the power it had been given by the dragon.  I also find it interesting that the beast was something which one does not ordinarily think of as speaking (although perhaps I am reading too much into John noting that it was given a mouth).  I also think we need to take note of the fact that this first beast had been given what appeared to be a fatal wound before it rose to the power it exercises in this passage.  What else do we know about this first beast?  It utters proud words and blasphemies.  As I look around, I see organizations like the World Economic Forum, various UN agencies, and other similar organizations which all exercise power, but it is unclear from where their power derives.  In addition, many of these organizations express blasphemous contempt for God and those who put their faith in Him.

Which brings me to the second beast.  The second beast, in particular its mark, reminds me of the tech giants of today.  They seem to be working hand in hand with the shadowy organizations which I mentioned in the first paragraph.  I keep seeing new information about how the various tech giants (Google, Facebook, etc.) had secret agreements to manage what information people would be able to see.  In addition, the tech giants all seem to be promoting a move towards a unified system of identification, which people will be required to be part of in order to do even the most basic of business.  I want to state that I do not think that all of these organizations are intentionally working hand-in-hand towards these ends.  Rather, different people and groups are acting according to their interests, often working together because their interests converge.  Which brings us to the number of the beast, 666.   My understanding of that number derives from my understanding of two numbers with biblical significance: three and seven.  Three and seven are two numbers associated with God.  Seven is the number of completeness, while three is the number of divine perfection.  So, it seems to me that 666 represents the imperfection of man.  The number of the beast tells us that while, to a degree, the two beasts seek the best interests of mankind, their imperfection and incompleteness leads them to do the exact opposite.  Instead of ushering in an empire of perfection and goodness, a utopia, they usher in an empire of failure and evil, a dystopia.  The two beasts represent what happens when humans attempt to create a more perfect world without making God the center of their lives.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Revelation 9-12.

When I was a teenager my father thought that the description which John gives of the locusts released by the fifth trumpet sounded like a description of the military helicopters used in Vietnam.  The members of the Church I grew up in were convinced that Christ’s Return was imminent. So, they spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the events described here, and in other prophecies of the End Times, applied to what they saw going on around them.  Many of them even thought that they could calculate the date (or a close approximation of it) if they just looked at these passages closely enough.  My father did not believe that was possible, but he did believe that we should look at the prophecies made here and see how they were being fulfilled around us.  My father believed that we should live our lives as if we KNEW that Christ would return tomorrow.  I fail to live up to that, but I believe he was correct.

Now, let’s look at what John writes here.  After the fifth trumpet sounded, people faced great suffering and hardship, but no one died from it.  Followed by the sixth trumpet sounding and a third of mankind died violent, painful deaths.  Yet, no one repented of their sins.  No one looked at the suffering and death and said, “We should change our ways and turn to God.”  While I do not see events in the world right now which match up to these two prophecies, I do see people behaving in a similar manner.  They see great suffering, but no one died, so why should they change their ways?  Then, they see people die, but their response is, “What difference would it make if I change my ways?  It’s not my sin which caused these problems.  It is other people who need to change their ways.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.