The Firstfruits on Mount Zion — Robert B. Thompson

And Lord, I thank you for the many deliverances that we've experienced, and I pray, Lord, for each household represented here, Lord, that you will move and bring peace and reconciliation and safety and health, Lord, to each family.

Hear the prayers of the people that are here, Lord. I ask you in the name of the Lord, and Jesus, as we go on together, I pray, Lord, that exactly what you want will be said. And you see whatever needs there are here, and I pray that the Lord, through your Holy Spirit, Lord, will add Jesus to each person that is here.

She has me. And I ask you, and I thank you, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's turn to Revelation 14. It started last Tuesday night on the army of the Lord, and didn't get past Revelation 19, but Revelation 14, oh, thanks, Katie, I appreciate that, Revelation 14, Revelation 14, this is a very unusual passage, very unusual.

The 144,000 as Firstfruits of the Church

You stop to think about it. Who in the world these people are? Just exactly who are they? Well, people said 144 ,000 must go back to those who were sealed, and they must all be Jews. Nothing to do with Jews.

Nothing to do with Jews. There are Jews in this group, I'm sure, but this isn't oriented toward the race of Jewish people. It's ridiculous. Because these people are very close to the Lord, so they're firstfruits.

And there's nothing closer to the Lord than His church. Nothing closer to the Lord than His church. The church is the wife of the Lamb. There's no group in between Christ and the wife of the Lamb. So the number 144 ,000, which is a multiple of 12, no doubt is significant.

It's just, why the Lord has that number there, I don't know, but it's obviously symbolic. But it's a very interesting group, and I think today that the Lord is going to His churches, every denomination you can think of that's Christian, and He's bringing out people who will be special.

Special. Special. And I remember when I was in Bible school, I heard that idea, and boy, I'll tell you, my heart just jumped within me, and I thought, that's what I want. I want, there's got to be more than I'm seeing here, there's got to be something.

And there is. Now, I've noticed in watching Christian people through the years, and in churches, that there are not many people who are genuine Christians. There are not many people, and I say, what do you mean by a genuine Christian?

I mean someone who really has done what the Lord said without reservation. Who really has taken up His cross, has denied Himself, and is following the Lord. Now, there's a lot of good people in the churches, make no mistake, there's a lot of good, honest, decent people in the churches.

But as far as I can see, the real stuff, the people who will be in the army of the Lord, will appear with Christ, are very definitely a minority. And I remember something that just struck me when C .T. Studd, who was a missionary to Africa and to China, wrote back to his mission board, and there were thousands that were converted under his ministry, he was a famous English cricket player, as God called him to the mission field.

And he wrote back and he said, there's only about 5 of these people that are really Christians. And the mission board did not care for that. Because they want the numbers, they want the numbers, you know, it's people.

But as far as the real stuff is concerned, there are not many. And sometimes, of course Audrey and I are long past this, but I'm sure that when many people are starting out, and they have kind of stars in their eyes as far as the church is concerned, at some point along the way they're very disillusioned.

Because they find out what people are doing and saying in church, and what they are actually doing at home, is shockingly different. And the kids see this two-sided thing going on, I'm not going to call it hypocrisy, it isn't anything deliberate.

What it is, it is the fact that the church, for moral people, for decent people, the church is an attractive institution. It's an attractive institution. And so they join the church. And they hear what the standards of that church are.

And at first, maybe the first couple of years they are very sincere, and then after that they begin to measure themselves by other people, and they soon learn that nobody expects you to do what is taught.

No one really expects that. It's kind of an accepted kind of, I don't want to say game, because that sounds, you know, like I'm being critical or down on people. It isn't so much a game as it is a social custom, or a social way that you have.

And people come to accept this. And so after two or three years, they don't hear anymore of what is being preached. Unless the pastor is really into social action of some kind, as far as the strictness of the Lord, or the idea of presenting your body a living sacrifice, or this kind of thing.

They can't hear that anymore. I guess they are hardened to it in some way. And the kids learn about this, and I think that's why we had a whole generation of hippies, is because those youngsters recognized that the generation above them was not that sincere.

They talked a good talk, but actually when it got down to cases, they were pretty selfish. They were into money. So there's a double game being played there, and it's still being played. We have a friend recently who became very disillusioned with her Christian friends, because she expected so much more out of them when she had a need.

And she was very disillusioned. Well, that's the state of the church. And I thought what Stan said Sunday was very heartening, that there's a move among the young people. Now young people tend to be idealistic.

And before they get to be 30 and learn the moves, they are candidates to hear the Lord and really have a passion for righteousness and holiness that is very sincere. How long it will last, because revivals come and go, is to be seen.

But unless the preaching changes, it will just be like the Pentecostal revival in the 20s and the 30s, where healing was going on, miracles, people were brought to the Lord and they really were living a holy life, really trying to serve God.

But now, the four square churches, I mean, they're as good as any, as good as assemblies or other evangelical churches, but there's a double standard. There's politics in all the church organizations.

And in some of them, I can remember many years ago, there was a young fellow that was in Bible school with us, he was a bit older than we were, and he was beginning to take his papers out in the denomination, and was on his way to becoming a pastor, and he went to his first pastor's meeting.

And he came away so shocked, and an older minister said to him, if you can't stand it, just keep on with it, because that's the way it is. You know, I mean, the crassness of it, pull an offering, did you pull an offering, well put a plant in the church who will stand up at the right time and say, I'll give a thousand dollars, and this goes on all the time.

And yet, these are not evil people, they're not some monsters, they're just people that God has called to serve Him, and they get into the organization and they learn the politics. And the main thing about it is, and this is the really surprising thing, and Andrew, you're going to run into this, because you are idealistic, and you'll see that people will be in church for 30 or 40 years, and they have never changed.

They're just exactly like the world, only they have the Christian veneer on them. They still have the same jealousy, the same backbiting, the same gossip, the same challenges they had 30 years ago, they have never overcome them.

And I think part of it, probably a large part of it is due to dispensational teaching, which is really the evangelical philosophy, is that works are not that important, we're saved by a sovereign grace that operates, and that is, I would guess from my experience, probably 90 of evangelical churches, including Pentecostal, all their pastors were taught in seminaries that were dispensational, and dispensationalism arose in the last part of the last century, and you could not imagine a philosophy more destructive of the Christian life.

Israel’s Prophets and the Church’s Need for Repentance

So these various forces, plus humanism, plus the fact that the Christian church, by and large, has never really understood the demands of the Lord, except for very outstanding individuals. But this was true also of Israel.

You know, we read about Ezekiel, but here the elders of Israel came before Ezekiel and he said, they're hearing you, and they're not hearing what you're saying. He says, there's a serpence, which was true of Jeremiah, which was true of Isaiah.

Most of Israel was like the Christian church of today. They were not serving God, but there would come up someone, an Isaiah, or a Jeremiah, or an Ezra, or a Nehemiah, and this is what the Bible is written about.

But almost always during that time, and in fact one place, God said, I went through Jerusalem looking for a man that was sincere, or in other words, He said, I didn't find one, not one person. And you could say the same in the evangelical churches.

You could go through a large church and not find one person that really was an out and out Christian to the core. There's no duplicity whatever. They're scarce. They're scarce, people. And unless the preaching changes, a good will come out of the youth movement, the Columbine and the other things, good will come from it.

But unless somehow there's a move of God, or we have violent persecution or something, it will last ten years, and it will be back to the double standard. You live one way in church, and you live another way at home.

I don't know how many people God has, through the years, has gotten who are genuine Christians. I wouldn't even want to guess. I know during the time when the King of England was forcing on everybody in his domain that he was the head of the church, and the Scots resisted him, many young people gave their lives.

Many of them were hung for refusing to say the King of England was the head of the church. Maybe that's why Scotland has survived as well as it has, is because of those Presbyterian young people. It's not that common.

But in every age there's been someone like John Knox calling the people to repentance. And so today, the Lord is moving forward. He loves these people, I'm convinced of it. I mean, we've got these big movements that have come up recently, the Calvary Chapel and then the one where they had so much worship, and the leader is dead now, he died.

Binyard. Binyard and these other movements. God loves all these people. He loves all these people. This is his church. But I think what he does, you know the Calvary Chapel really sprang up by a miracle.

I mean, it was birth-like overnight. It was nothing anybody did. The leader just determined he was going to sit on a stool and teach the Bible, and he did, and all of a sudden there was traffic jams.

God just moved sovereignly. And I think God does this to get big groups in which he can then move and bring out individuals for this group here in Revelation 14. I think this is exactly what's going on.

But just look at it and consider it. This has got to be a part of the church. It's not the whole church, but this is a part of it. And it's not some group other than the church, because the church is the body of Christ, and there's nothing closer to the head than the body.

Now, this has got to be the church, irrespective of racial origin. Then I looked, and before me was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion. Now, that's very significant. That is extremely significant. First of all, it's the Lamb.

Now, it wasn't the Lion of Judah, it wasn't Christ, it wasn't the Redeemer, it's the Lamb. That's very significant, because the Bride is the Bride of the Lamb. You'd never call anything except the Bride of the Lamb.

Mount Zion, the Ark, and the Removal of Sin

A Lamb standing on Zion. Now, not in heaven, not standing in heaven, but standing on Zion. Now, Zion, in the Bible, represents the militant, the militant part of the church. And it dates back to 2 Samuel 5 .7.

2 Samuel 5 .7 is the first mention of Zion in the Bible. 2 Samuel 5 .7. And what it was, it was when the Gemiocites inhabited Jerusalem, the mountain there. And David and Joab attacked it to overcome it, because it was in the land of promise.

It was very well fortified. But they went up through the water, through an aqueduct. Joab went up through an aqueduct and took it, and that's why David made him commander, was for that action. And David built that up, was called the Molo, it was a terraced up, and he made that his fortress.

You see, that was not all of Jerusalem by any means. And when you see throughout Psalms, Zion, Zion, Zion, it is because Zion, it kind of came to mean all of Jerusalem in a way, and yet it was very close to David, and since David wrote a good part of the Psalms, you keep seeing that.

This is the city of David. And David was a man of war. David was characterized by war. Solomon reigned over a great area, the greatest amount of geography ever ruled by any king of Israel was ruled by Solomon.

It went all the way from the Euphrates, all the way to the Edomites, and everything in between. But it was all captured by David. And so David, his association with Zion, speaks of war, and when the land stands on Zion, that's the significance of it.

Now, what happened, and it was of total significance, and you all know that, but there's some of you that are new enough that you don't, is that the Ark, now when I say the Ark, can you picture the tabernacle of the congregation like a big barn, and in the Holy of Holies was a chest with the covering cherubim over it called the Ark.

Well, the priest only went into the Ark one day of the year, that was on the day when God dealt with sin, as far as Israel was concerned, to forgive it and then to remove it. And by the way, that feast comes after Pentecost.

We are in the time now when the Lord is ready to, he's already forgiven the sin, but to remove the sin, the sin was forgiven on the cross, it's never been removed. It's never been removed. Now, it has to be removed by war, and that is why Zion and war and the Ark are all tied together.

Now, the Ark was in the Holy of Holies until the days of Samuel, and then the Ark was off to battle by the two wicked sons of Eli and the Philistines captured. So it was gone out of the tabernacle. It was gone out of the tabernacle.

So you couldn't celebrate, you could not celebrate the Day of Atonement anymore, you had no more deliverance from sin. So tradition tells us they stuck the altar of incense in there so there'd be something in there, so there was praise in there, but there was no way that there could be deliverance from sin.

The Day of Atonement cannot be celebrated when there's no Ark, because the ceremony involves sprinkling blood upon and in front of the Ark. And after that's done, then the priest can go out, confess the sins of Israel, put them on the scapegoat, and he's led away.

Which tells us that the Christian redemption consists not only of forgiveness, but of removal. Now, the Church has never been there yet, but we've been at Pentecost, and the big feast that comes after Pentecost is the Day of Atonement.

Does that make sense to you? That means after we're at Pentecost, we're facing the trumpets of war, and then the Day of Atonement. And this represents probably the greatest change in the Christian Church since Calvary.

Because at Calvary, God forgave the sins of the world, according to 1 John 2, who died not only for our sins, but also for the sins of the whole world. But the main purpose of the New Covenant, and the thing that makes it different from the Old Covenant, is removal.

Under the Old Covenant, your sins could be forgiven, according to Leviticus, by the shed blood of an animal. Many times it says in there, in the first seven chapters of Leviticus, and his sins shall be forgiven.

And I'm stressing that, because evangelical teaching is, they never really were forgiven. Their teaching being that now they're really forgiven. Well, that's a botchment in two areas. First of all, the Bible says they were forgiven.

Never mind reasoning about it. The Bible says, it shall be forgiven him. And you'll see that several times in the first few chapters of Leviticus. It shall be forgiven him. And that's the word. And Jesus said it'll never pass away.

It shall be forgiven. But when you study Hebrews, you'll find out that when they're talking about the fact that the first covenant was inferior, they say it was inferior because the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin.

That's why it was inferior. And why the priest had to stay every year repeating the sacrifice to keep the people in a state of forgiveness, was because it couldn't take away sin. And the idea is that Christ has the power to take away sin.

So there's no longer, because your conscience is purged, there's no longer the need to keep on with the sacrifices. You see that? Now, when, so the Philistines had the ark and God made them sick because they didn't want it there.

So it came back into Israel, but it stayed in the house of a Jewish family. So when David became king, he had such an instinct for God. The first thing he did was, let us bring the ark back to Jerusalem.

Let's get the ark. David sensed that that was his presence. The ark and his presence. And he was not satisfied with a tabernacle with no ark in it. Well, in the midst of the confusion, the tabernacle itself was moved out of Jerusalem and put some 10 miles north of Jerusalem in a place called Gibeah.

Not Gibeon. There was a Gibeon. That also was north of Jerusalem. But it was in Gibeah, in Gibeah. And there it was on a place of where they were on a high place where they were accustomed to worshiping demons.

It was brought to the high place. And there it was set up there. And you could go up to the tabernacle and to the bronze altar and the laver and the table of shelled bread and the lampstand and the altar of incense and the whole ranch.

And David set priests up there. He took the priesthood and cut it in half and put half of them up there at the high place. And it's a good priest, too. I mean, he didn't get the second raiders. I mean, anyway, he took some of the top priests and put them up there and the singers to worship and praise the Lord.

At the high place of Gibeon. Well, that is a tremendous type. It's probably one of the greatest types of the Bible without any discussion about it. Because what David did was he sent for the ark, which is in the home of the Jewish family.

And after a mistake that they made, they brought it back to Zion, to the suburb, to David's city of Zion, a suburb of the big city of Jerusalem, where David, where Joab had gone up through the aqueduct and captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites.

They didn't drive them all out, because you remember when David went up there on the threshing floor of Ornan, Ornan was a Jebusite. So there were some remaining there. But the Jews took control of the hill of Jerusalem, and a suburb of that was David's city that he had built up, called Zion.

And so David speaks of this so much in Psalms, you know. God shines out of Zion. When the Lord builds up Zion, you know, then his glory shall appear in his glory. Zion, Zion, Zion. Not Jerusalem, Zion.

Jerusalem also appears in there, but you'll notice the accent on Zion. Now, what David did, what he should have done, should, in quotes, and what Solomon did was to bring the tabernacle back from Gibeah, set it up in Jerusalem, put the ark in there as it was supposed to be, so every year they could celebrate the most important ceremony of the Jewish year.

Not the favorite, by the way. They just polled the Jewish people in Israel about their favorite festivity. Could you guess what it is? Huh? Passover, Passover, yeah. But the most solemn day of the Jewish year is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

That is the day, you miss the others, but you don't miss Yom Kippur, because that's when God deals with sin. Now, the Jews can't shed blood, you know, bulls and goats, because they have no temple. But they have different ways, they can twirl a rooster around their head.

The idea is that that is the time when you repent, and that is the time when God judges the world. It's the ten days between Rosh Hashanah, which is trumpets, and ten days later, Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe.

That is the time when God judges the world. I got it right, Miriam? All right. Now, what David did, he brought the Ark back, and he made a tent for it in Zion, built an altar, there was an altar in there, and he established worshipers there, so David had his private church.

All the Jews are going up to the tabernacle, and what David had was the Ark of the Covenant. David, all by his little self, he had the Ark of the Covenant in Zion. Now, you see, the things that David did were prophetic.

When David numbered the people, and God sent the curse on the Jews, the Lord directed David to go up to the threshing floor of Orn in the Jebusite and make an offering to the Lord, which he did, and God accepted it, and that was where the temple was built.

See, David just had that instinct to know God's mind, because otherwise, he would have never kept the Ark separate from the tabernacle. Of course, the first thing Solomon did, one of the first things he did was bring the tabernacle down to the threshing floor of Orn, bring up the Ark from Zion, and put them together once again, because Solomon knew that's the way it's supposed to be.

But during the reign of David, during that time of war, the Ark, the symbol of the Day of Atonement, the removal of sin, remained in Zion. Now, what that is telling us is that God is going to make a temporary division of his church, and one part will be characterized by the Ark and by war, and by the removal of sin, and the greater part of it will have all the other aspects of the Christian redemption.

See, they had everything. They had the bronze altar representing Calvary, they had the laver representing the Word and the washing of water by the Word, they had the table of showbread representing the born again experience, the substance of Christ, they had the lampstand, the Holy Spirit and all the gifts, and they had the altar of incense, which is being broken before the Lord in prayer.

They had everything except the removal of sin. That was down in Zion, and it stayed that way all the time that David was fighting the wars of God and establishing the rule of God in that area, which was dedicated to the Jews.

In Joshua, the first chapter, the fourth verse, the region of the Jews, the land of promise, does not go from Jordan to the Mediterranean, which it doesn't even now at all. I mean, the Arabs have taken the whole West Bank, so that squeezes the Jews into practically nothing.

They've got the Mediterranean in their back, and then they've got the Palestinians on their side, on the West side of Jordan, so they don't even have the natural military defense of the river, of anything anymore.

They're really vulnerable. And their best strategic location is the Golan, and now they're fiddling away with the Golan, so the Golan goes, so the West Bank goes, everything. You see the Palestinians know what they're doing, you've got a little bit of room there.

But if you read the part that God said, every place that's on your foot you'll tread on, in Joshua 1 .4, it not only goes to Jordan, it goes all the way across the Arabian desert to the Euphrates, to the great river.

So, see, they've lost almost all of their land. But David fought until he brought it from the Euphrates all the way down south to Edom, to the Edomites. He set up garrisons in Edom. He had the whole thing that God had promised, and he did it by war.

And when Solomon came in, he ruled over that great territory, and then finally in the end, he began to fool around with foreign gods because he multiplied wives to himself, which is against the law for a king.

That's one of the biblical laws concerning a king. He does not multiply horses or wives to himself. And Solomon did both. And he got old and, you know, kind of weak-minded. And his wives, he had Egyptian wives, he had Amorite wives, he had Hittite wives, he had every kind of wife you could imagine, who were all worshippers of Molech and Astarte and all the rest of them.

And they persuaded this old guy to burn incense. And so God raised up Jeroboam, and he raised up other. And so from that point, Israel began to lose what David had won. That's why you'll never see Jesus called the son of Solomon.

He's always the son of David. David has a special place in God's heart. He had the key of the kingdom. Isaiah said David had the key of the kingdom. All right, now, and Jesus mentioned in Revelation, he says, I give you the key of David, or he has the key of David, or something like that.

The New Covenant and the Call to Surrender

So now, you've got this, what we're coming up to now, is God is calling to his church today to bring out this firstfruits to stand on Zion. People who will bring back, as it were, the ark of war, who are not content with all the other things.

They want freedom from sin. They've got a heart to want to make the covenant of the removal of sin work. And that's what the new covenant is. It's not primarily a covenant of forgiveness. It's primarily a covenant of removal.

The removal of sin and the writing of God's law in our heart and our mind. It's not primarily forgiveness. It's primarily the abolition of sin from God's people. But the type shows us that it will only be a part of the church that will, you know, whoever will, but people won't.

Because, see, people will go along with getting saved and getting the baptism and praying and doing all these things, but the day of atonement goes past that and gets down to what you are and it gets down to the deepest part of your person and it begins to demand the surrender of your will and your right to be.

I don't know how many people, how many Christians want to go that deep with God. They want to preserve something for themselves. As long as you do that, you can't get the removal of sin because Satan's got a lock on you.

You're not doing what the New Testament says. The New Testament says, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. And not many Christians are willing to do that. They may talk about it at times, but it's like somebody out there or something they did in the first century or somewhere, but don't expect me to do that.

Oh well, anyway. But I want you to notice something funny. Hold that place in 14, and I think this is really remarkable. At the end of Revelation 11, and at the end of Revelation 11, you have the coming of the Lord.

You have this great witness. Then you have the rule of Antichrist, and then you have the coming of the Lord. In Revelation 11, you notice in Revelation 11, 15, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

That's the beginning of the thousand-year kingdom age. Revelation 11, 15, that we call the millennium. I don't call it that. I call it the kingdom age because millennium has come to mean a time of peace.

And the kingdom age is an age of the rod of iron. It's a Davidic reign. That thousand-year kingdom age is a Davidic reign in which Christ and his army take the earth. And then the new heaven and earth reign is a Solomonic reign.

So the new heaven and earth reign that follows the thousand-year period is typified by Solomon. It's a golden age. Oh, peace, yes. And that's the beginning of the week, Revelation 21, where the new earth comes down, new heaven comes down to earth, is the new city of God comes down to earth, is the beginning of eternity.

That's the beginning of life as God means it to be lived. Life as God means it to be lived doesn't begin until Revelation 21 .1. And that's why God says, I make all things new. Everything is made new and everything is made new in Christ.

And every person that is saved into that world will have a portion of Christ. Because God is going to be all in all and there'll be no more C. That is, there'll be no more group of people that are just tossed here and there.

There's no more C. Every person is a manifestation of Christ's resurrection. And that's why he says, behold, I make all things new. So in Genesis 1 .1, you have the first heaven and earth. That's the Adamic creation.

Then in Genesis 21 .1, it says, and I saw a new heaven and a new earth. I make, oh, that's the beginning of life. God never meant life to be what this 6 ,000 years of insanity has been. That's not life.

That's a dark womb out of which there's a travail. That's why it says it's in travail. Now, when you see the travail, lift up your heads for your redemption is near because that travail that we're coming close to now and God is to avail and the whole creation is in travail to bring forth life as it's supposed to be.

And that begins at Revelation 21 .1. So if you accomplish anything at this time, you're doing well. If it's rugged and out of this rugged thing, God is going to call his heroes. Yes. I think that when you see Christ, you're automatically talking about everyone who is part of Christ.

When you say Christ, you're talking about the Messiah, head and body. And it's probably referring to God. God is called Lord in the Psalms. The Lord said unto my Lord. So God is the Lord. God the Father.

When the Jew says, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It's talking about the Father. There's one God. But God has made Jesus Lord and Christ. That's what Peter said on the day of Pentecost.

God has made Jesus, whom you crucified, Lord and Christ. But the Shema of Israel, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, is talking about the Father. That's why Jews have such a, one of the reasons they have such a problem is because evangelical teaching confuses Jesus and the Father.

They're really, evangelical teaching is really oneness teaching. And the Jews say it's polytheism. It's polytheism. That's why you've got three gods. We don't have three gods. We have one God and Father.

Of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we are his servants through Jesus Christ. And God has made Jesus Christ our head and Lord. So when, if you use the word anointed instead of Christ, which is really a fair translation of the Greek, then you see in that verse 11, 15, you see the Lord and his anointed.

Now, if you go a little bit further in that same chapter to 19, you see something very significant. Then God's temple in heaven was opened and within his temple was seen the Ark. And that Ark has not been seen since around 500 BC when it was taken away by the Babylonians.

And it does not appear until the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of our Lord of God and of his anointed. Yes. No, the Ark has always been called the Ark of the covenant. That's it. That's its name.

That's right. That's right. It wouldn't, it wouldn't be the Ark with the tables of stone in it. It's, it's the new covenant. You're exactly right in that. But it's still the Ark. And it's still that which has the power to remove sin in the day of atonement, the day of reconciliation to God.

We're reconciled to God by forgiveness. And then we're reconciled to God by actual moral transformation. And the first hold steady for us while we're being transformed morally. But if we're not being transformed morally, then we have received the grace of God in vain.

Revelation’s Symbolic Timeline and the Ark of the Covenant

Okay, so here we have this marks. Now there are several places in Revelation where you come to this point in time. Revelation is not a chronological path that moves along serially like that. It's not that way.

It's like if you picture it like a diamond, it keeps turning around, you see this face and then another face and then another face. It's not chronological. So this happening here is the same as you would see in Revelation 20.

And as you would see, I think at the end of chapter six also says they call out for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them. So don't look at a revelation that that 12 comes after 11. It doesn't. Back 12 and 11 run concurrently.

So, but this and the end of Revelation chapter 11 is on a par with Revelation 20, which is the time when Christ appears. Okay, any questions so far?

Yes. So what Andrew said and what you confirmed, the Ark of the Covenant, and I don't know if I got that right, the Ark is, we are the Ark of His Covenant?

Now, whether the actual box is going to appear, the chest, I cannot tell you because Revelation is symbolic. You have to be careful of Revelation because, you know, it'll say angels are blowing a trumpet and it could be a poor old backwoods preacher in a storefront mission.

You have to be very careful of Revelation like that. So my thought would be that the original gold-covered chest no longer has meaning because the Ark that God is interested in is the human heart. That's where you have the table of the covenant.