What's the Book of Revelation About?

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00:02

Non -rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it!

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Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite? We're being delusional. Delusional?

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Yeah, delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

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So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. It's hung up on me!

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What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies.

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Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, pasta.

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When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore. Because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby, your beauty became his.

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You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines and on them played the whore.

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You, like the like has never been or ever shall be, you also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which

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I had given you, and made for yourself images of men and with them played the whore. Welcome to Apologia Radio, guys!

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Good way to start the show. What do you think, Joy? Yes? I didn't know this was gonna be an X -rated episode. Yes, just so you know, that is from the inspired

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Word of the Living God. Yes, it is. And that is from Ezekiel chapter 16, y 'all, so you should go check it out.

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There are some interesting, interesting moments in the book of Ezekiel, and in particular when

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God is speaking to the faithless wife, Israel. Now, if you actually will take a look at your

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Old Testament, you'll see in Jeremiah 31, 31, we have the glorious promise of the new covenant, where God actually says to his people that he is gonna bring a new covenant, not like the one before, the one that they broke, even though, and God says this, he was a husband to them.

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He said the new covenant will be different in that he'll take the law, which was written before on stone tablets outside the people of God, exerting pressure from the outside, he'll take it now, and he'll put it within them.

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So the law of God, God's Torah, is now within the people of God, and it's a new covenant, very different.

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But notice that God refers to his faithless wife, bride,

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Israel, who actually goes out and plays the harlot among all the nation, and actually he says, if you read

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Ezekiel 16, it gets pretty hairy, actually, in there, and you read it, he'll say things like, I put a ring in your nose, so God is apparently a fan of facial piercings, and he dresses her up, makes her beautiful jewelry and all the rest.

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He says that she's different than other prostitutes in that she goes out, and she spreads her legs by the road, and she offers herself to every passerby, and she gets paid nothing for her harlotry.

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So yeah, that's in the inspired Word of God. Welcome to Apologia Radio, and you're probably wondering, with the title, the

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Book of Revelation, what's it all about? What in the world does that have to do with the Book of Revelation? Now, if you've read the

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Book of Revelation, you might already kind of have a whiff, a hint, and a little bit of an understanding.

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What exactly are we aiming at here? So, I am Pastor Jeff. They call me the Ninja. That is Luke the

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Bear. What up? And that is Joy the Girl. Hello. And you'll notice, they're just, we're gonna go as fast as we can.

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Let's just do a quick introduction. You'll notice, we have t -shirts on right now, new t -shirts. We usually have t -shirts on. Defying Tyrants since 2010, no king but Christ, ApologiaChurch .com,

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and she has one that says, Soli Deo Gloria. That means, to God alone be the glory. Pastor Luke, I know that these aren't officially available.

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They should be next week. Okay, but next week. Tell everyone real fast how that's gonna happen. So, you can go to shop .apologiastudios .com.

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We are about to launch our store with a bunch of shirts. We got the Baby Lover shirts. We're gonna have stickers.

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We're gonna have all kinds of stuff. So, be watching for that. And if you are on our mailing list, or if you are on our

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EAN app, you should be receiving promo codes for the launch of the store to get deals on things.

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So, be watching for those. They will be limited promos. Deals! All right, guys, let's get right into it today.

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We have one of my good friends, one of my favorite people. He is one of my favorite theologians, one of my favorite living theologians and pastors.

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And he has a new book available that you need to get. Well, really, all the time.

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I don't really know what this man, really, how he has any free time. No, I don't know. But he does. And actually,

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I got to spend some time with Doug last week. And really cool. We're dropping tonight an interview

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I did with Pastor Doug, Pastor Toby and I at a little pub there in downtown

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Moscow. Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, not Moscow, Moscow. And that's dropping tonight.

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And I also got to do a really cool thing that I think is dropping in the next week or two with Doug. That's gonna be on Amazon Prime.

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So, we're very excited about that. And this is what the book is called. It's called When the Man Comes Around.

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It's a commentary on the Book of Revelation by Douglas Wilson. I'm going to read to you guys real fast the back and then we're going to bring

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Doug on. It says, the Book of Revelation was written to do just that, reveal. But most commentaries nowadays either engage in bizarre speculations about the future or they keep an embarrassed distance from all the apocalyptic events that the

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Apostle John says will, and here we go guys, shortly take place.

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In this commentary, Douglas Wilson provides a passage -by -passage walkthrough of the entire book, showing how

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John's most notorious prophecies concern the fall of Jerusalem in A .D. 70, explaining symbols and characters as he goes.

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Wilson shows from the text that not only is this book not an elaborate code, but that Revelation is not even ultimately concerned with the end of the world as we know it.

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Revelation is about the triumph of the Church, which always happens when this man comes around.

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Can you guys still hear me? Yeah, I think people were complaining about some distortions. I think Isaac's trying to fix that. That being said,

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I thought this book was about Johnny Cash. Yeah, when the man comes around. Hey, let's bring him on. Pastor Douglas Wilson, welcome to Apologia Radio.

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Thank you. Good to be with you. Absolutely, brother. Welcome, welcome. Okay, so that's a bold introduction.

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What's up? I just saw a comment that needs to be… Okay, sorry. Sorry, I said out loud what

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I was thinking. My bad. Okay, so all right, so Pastor Doug, that's a bold description of the book that the prophecies, the notorious prophecies, concern the fall of Jerusalem in A .D.

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70. So did you not want people to buy this book, or…? Well, what

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I wanted people to do is, people who are tired of all the prophecies not coming true,

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I would encourage them to buy the book. It might explain why we're constantly, you know, basically, dispensationalism and rapture fever and all of that is basically the evangelicals' version of climate change predictions.

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How can we predict the end of the world within five years or ten years and have the prophecies keep being wrong, manifestly wrong, and yet people still listen to us, still buy our books?

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What I'd like to do is appeal to evangelical Christians who are tired of having the thrill of a prophecy being made.

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It's all going to come crashing down within just a few years, and then here you are trying to figure out how to pass money on to your grandchildren.

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You know, how'd that happen? So, basically, there are a lot of people,

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I think, who are living in a burned -over district when it comes to end -of -the -world prophecy books.

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I think they're just getting tired of it. Right, right. And what you are doing, Doug, and this needs to be said, and I think it's probably a shock.

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It was a shock to me early on because I was raised in a dispensational pre -millennial context.

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I was a fiend when it came to all these prophecy books, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, all the rest of my

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Bible college. Courses in prophecy were dispensational pre -millennialism, so it was definitely a shock to me. What you're putting forth in When the

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Man Comes Around, your commentary on the book of Revelation, isn't some novelty interpretation of the book of Revelation, never before seen in history.

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As a matter of fact, many of the giants of the faith, from the beginning of early church history, interpreted the

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Great Tribulation, Olivet Discourse, as past in fulfillment, and some of the greatest giants of the faith actually saw

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Revelation as written before 70 AD, those sorts of things. So this explanation of the book of Revelation on your part, it's not a novelty in history.

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No, this is not something I cooked up. This is something that has been an honored and respected position in the history of the church over centuries.

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So basically, it's not the currently most popular view in North America over the last century.

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Right. But that's—the last century in North America is not all of church history.

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That's right. Now, that's big, Doug. You and I are what is classically known as post -millennialists.

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We believe that Jesus is ruling and reigning now on the Davidic throne, the Messianic throne.

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He is at the right hand of the Father, putting all of his enemies under his feet. We believe, 1 Corinthians 15, that the very last enemy to be defeated after every other enemy is put under Jesus' feet is death.

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So it's every enemy and then death, and then Jesus returns for the resurrection and final judgment.

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All of that. That's what we believe about the future. So we essentially believe that the gospel wins in history. Right. And if you take the traditional modern evangelical view, when

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Jesus comes again, the first enemy to be destroyed is death. Yes. Right? So if everything just staggers on from bad to worse until Jesus comes, and he comes and the dead are raised, that means the first enemy to be destroyed is death.

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But we're taught in Scripture the last enemy to be destroyed is death, and it's gospel preaching that will accomplish this, empowered by the

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Holy Spirit, and then Jesus is going to preside over that from the right hand of the Father, and then when it's time for the final coup de grace, the final blow to be aimed at death, he will come again, and that's the day of resurrection.

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Yes. So what— Yeah, go ahead. Let you do the interview. Okay, so no, no, no.

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I love it, Doug. You feel free to just go where you want to go. I think that it's important because as we talk about, say,

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Christ coming in judgment in the Olivet Discourse, that the Olivet Discourse is actually— and this is what

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I've been saying as I've been going through this in Matthew 24 at church. The Olivet Discourse is actually—and you should anticipate that if you read the

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Old Testament. If you read the Old Testament in terms of the coming of the Messiah, him coming to bring his kingdom, there was a promise of salvation and judgment, and so when

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Jesus comes into Jerusalem, and he's indicting them, and he's cleansing the temple as the priest was supposed to do for the second time, and he's calling a curse down on the fig tree, you know, no fruit will come from you again, and he's promising that God's going to send his armies to destroy their city, and then now he indicts them as a brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs, and then he says all of the blood of the righteous is going to be upon this generation, and he's promising all of this upon that generation.

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Again, the Old Testament had promised that the Messiah was going to come and bring that kingdom, bring salvation, but also judgment upon the covenant breakers.

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But Doug, when we start saying, I believe Jesus returned in judgment to the covenant breakers in the first century generation before at the fall of Jerusalem ultimately in 70

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A .D., people say things like this, Doug. They'll say, so you don't believe Jesus is coming again?

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Right. So the fact that he came in judgment on Jerusalem in 70 A .D.

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fulfills his word, his promise, and that is hardly ground for thinking he won't keep his other promise to come again at the end of the world.

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So he's going to raise the dead at the end of the world, but he also came in judgment on Jerusalem.

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And this is the key for Christians who want to learn how to speak

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Bible talk, right? So if we want to say that God was going to judge

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Jerusalem, God was going to judge Jerusalem. Hang on a second. Yeah, you got it.

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So if God is going to judge Jerusalem, which Jesus predicted, then we ought to ask, well, how does the

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Bible describe or predict such judgments? What kind of language does the

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Bible use? What kind of language do the prophets use when they are predicting dire events for Babylon or for Jerusalem or for Egypt?

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And consistent, and you alluded to Matthew 24, the same thing is true in Mark 13 and in Luke 17, and then for the bulk of the book of Revelation.

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And that's why this is key. The prophets used a form of discourse called apocalyptic description.

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And apocalypsis is the Greek word for unveiling or revealing, which is why the

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Latin word revelation gives its name to the book of Revelation.

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It's the curtain going up, and you are enabled to see in very gaudy colors a description of judgment.

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Now, this is what throws a lot of people, because they say, all right, in the book of Matthew, you've got stars falling down, you've got the sun going out, the moon turning blood red.

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They believe the Bible. So they walk out that evening and look up at the sky, and all the stars are still there, and the moon is still there, and the sun rose normally that day.

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And they say, well, since the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and since the sun, moon, and stars are all there, then this must be something that's going to come to pass in the future.

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And so that position is called the futurist position. The position you and I share is called the preterist.

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It's from the Latin word for past. So we believe that these events were future at the time they were predicted, but they came to fruition or completion in our past.

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They were in the future of the prophet, but in the past of the modern reader. So, for example, you say, well, when

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Jesus, when the disciples say, Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, when is this going to happen?

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And then Jesus quotes Isaiah 13 and Isaiah 34, just quotes those passages, and you go back and look them up, and then you see, oh,

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Isaiah 13 says an oracle concerning the king of Babylon. So all the way through the

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Old Testament, everywhere in the Old Testament where this kind of language occurs, sun going up, sun going down at midday, in the book of Joel, in the book of Amos, in the book of Ezekiel, in the book of Isaiah, it always means the military or temporal destruction of a city or a nation.

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Always. Now, the disciples say, Jesus, when will not one stone be left on another here?

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And Jesus answers them by quoting from one of those passages in the

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Old Testament. Why would it not mean the destruction of Jerusalem? And this has import for apologetics also.

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Why would Christians interpret Jesus' words in such a way as to essentially make him a false prophet?

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Yes. Because he said this generation will not pass away until all these things have been completed.

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Well, I think that was literally fulfilled within one generation. Now, what that means, and this is where I'd ask our brothers and sisters to just sit down for a minute and take a few deep breaths.

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My understanding of the book of Revelation is that the bulk of it, with the exception of the last few chapters, the bulk of it was fulfilled in the first century

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A .D. Yes. Right? And this is an apocalyptic description of God's judgments raining down on the apostate city of Jerusalem.

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Yep. So the structure of the whole book is a very simple structure. It's the putting away of the unfaithful wife, the old

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Jerusalem, and she is executed. Right? She is put away, the daughter of a priest, and is stoned, essentially.

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And then the new Jerusalem, the Christian church, comes down out of heaven adorned as a bride for her husband.

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So it's the replacement of the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, with the replacement of the old

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Jerusalem with the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem. And then you have a lot of interesting descriptors of bad things that are going to happen in the first century.

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That's right. One other thing that's important about this, and that is if I were to make the book of Revelation all come to fulfillment in the year 2050, all right, let's say

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I wrote a hot best -selling book about how all of the book of Revelation is going to be fulfilled between now and over the next 30 years.

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Well, I'm writing about the future, and one thing about the future is that it is almost infinitely malleable.

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Yes. You can make anything you want to happen in the future. But if our claim is correct, and we're saying, no, these predictions, these apocalyptic descriptions, map onto the history of the first century as it happened.

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The history of the first century is not infinitely malleable. Nero reigned when he did, right?

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Yeah. Tiberius reigned when he did. Nero died the way he died. Jerusalem went down the way it went down.

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If we want to map these descriptions onto that history, we have to know both, and we have to show how it fits.

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That's right. That's exactly right. Now, I think that's powerful, too, because you're right. I mean, it's fixed in history, and it's not, like you said about the future, infinitely malleable.

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So when you look at passages in the book of Revelation that we would say are actually referencing Nero, Caesar Nero, he only persecuted

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Christians for a particular amount of time in history. He died by his sword. He did demand worship.

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All of that is fixed in history, and his name is what it is, and if you know the Hebrew cryptogram, it is what it is.

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And so I'm obviously jumping way ahead here, but hopefully whetting the appetite of people in terms of what we're saying took place.

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And I think it's interesting. I love how you put that, Doug, and I loved so much when I heard you drop the canon clip about your sort of summary of the book of Revelation, and that's what

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I've been saying for many years when I try to give people a summary, is I say the book of Revelation is really the tale of two cities.

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The book of Revelation is really talking about what is this theme throughout the

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Scriptures, really these two covenants, Old Covenant, New Covenant, and you see the putting away of the faithless wife, and then you see this new

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Jerusalem, and it's amazing too, Doug, because it's right there in front of us in the text.

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It says that the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God as a bride adorned for her husband.

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It's all right there. It's all imagery and symbolism that we understand as Christians.

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Yeah, who's the bride of Christ? Well, the church. That's right. Paul says that the heavenly

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Jerusalem above is the mother of us all. That's Galatians 4. Again, the Christian church. In Hebrews 12, you've come to heavenly

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Zion. It's the Christian church. So over and over again, the new

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Jerusalem is described as the Christian church, and here's a cool fact. In the book of Revelation, the new

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Jerusalem is 1 ,200 stadia by 1 ,200 stadia by 1 ,200 stadia, about 1 ,500 -mile length, height, and depth.

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It's a perfect cube, and it comes down out of heaven. And what else is a perfect cube in Scripture?

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Oh, I know. There's a place. The Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies. Right? So you're the temple of the

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Holy Spirit. You're the shrine. The whole city itself is a temple.

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There's no need for it to have a temple. It is a temple, and the Son of God is there.

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Whoo! I love it. And actually, I love that you brought that up. I actually had it opened up in front of me,

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Doug. Galatians 4, if anybody wants to see another sort of thematic thing going through the

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New Testament, of course, you've got the Old Testament promises of Old Covenant and New Covenant, and then you've got in the

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New Testament all of the descriptors of the soon -coming judgment upon Jerusalem, that Old Covenant city, and then you've got

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Galatians 4, a passage like that, where the Apostle Paul actually explains, in the midst of some significant theological conflict over the gospel, in the first century before the fall of Jerusalem, he describes in Galatians 4, well,

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I'll just say go read that section there, and you'll see he talks about Hagar and Sarah. He talks about these two covenants.

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He talks about these two cities, and he talks about how we are not sons of the slave woman, that's the current

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Jerusalem. We are sons of the free woman, the Jerusalem that is above. And I love how

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Paul says that it's the Jerusalem above, and then I love how, in the book of Revelation, that city comes down and hits the earth.

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I love that, and it's beautiful. So, do you guys have stuff you want to ask him? Quick questions,

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I'm going to ask him. Quick question here, and as soon as we started this episode, someone said, isn't Revelation about the rapture?

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And I know, sure, Doug, that's probably one of the number one questions you get, is what about the rapture? And I know we get that question a lot, so maybe if you can just take a minute to kind of talk about what the

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Bible really says about the rapture, and if it even exists. When most evangelicals refer to the rapture, what they're referring to is a secret rapture, pre -tribulation secret rapture, where one day all of God's people disappear, and then the world is left to cope without them for seven years.

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The Antichrist is revealed. That's what they mean by the rapture. And, no,

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I don't believe that that is going to happen. I don't think that that is an accurate interpretation.

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But if by the rapture you simply mean the resurrection of the dead at the end of history, then sure, and amen.

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I believe that all Orthodox Christians affirm the resurrection of the dead.

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All right, so the resurrection of the dead when Jesus comes, if you want to call that the rapture, great.

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But if you want to make it a distinctive feature of dispensational theology, where you have a seven -year tribulation, and the rapture is the event that kicks off that seven -year tribulation,

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I can't find that in my Bible. Yeah, excellent. Yep, me neither.

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So, let's see here. And I think it may be wise to just put this down for those who are starting to question these things.

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The popular view today of dispensational pre -millennial, we're talking about secret rapture, seven years of tribulation, all those sorts of things, that popular view really didn't exist until fairly recently in church history in terms of its total summary of the events of the future.

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So that's something just to consider in terms of a novelty in history, that's the more novel view.

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Very popular today, sold a lot of books and made some films, but it's more of a novelty in history.

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Joy, did you have anything before I throw some questions out at Pastor Doug? I have a question, but it's kind of a throwaway for the end.

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Okay, we'll wait on it then. Okay, so I'll just give this quick burst here because I think it's important.

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Pastor Doug, in the movie Collision, which I highly recommend every single person watching this to make sure that tonight you sit down with your family, your friends, and watch

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Collision with Pastor Doug and Christopher Hitchens, the late Christopher Hitchens, you need to see it.

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But in that film, there are two moments, two moments, Doug, where it comes up, the history of eschatology.

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Once is at Westminster when you guys debated, and once is where you guys are sitting down at a pub together, and that just shows the importance of eschatology, how hashtag eschatology matters, and in terms of defending the

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Christian faith. Quickly, you had a moment, and it was my favorite moment, Westminster, where he actually tried to throw out the popular atheist chestnut argument,

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Jesus is a false prophet, Bible gives false prophecy, Jesus says he was returning before that generation passed away.

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And Doug, you gave about 60 seconds where you took Christopher's legs off, and he had no response.

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Can you just give a brief summary in terms of why that was valuable or how important that moment was?

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Well, it was valuable because Jesus is, as Calvin articulated,

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Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses predicts there will be a prophet like me, greater than I am, that will come.

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And Jesus is that prophet. He's not only our king, he's not only our priest, our high priest, and sacrifice that the priest offers, but he's also our teacher.

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He's our prophet. And in Deuteronomy 13, a prophet can't lead you after other gods, and in Deuteronomy 18, you're not to listen to a prophet whose prophecies don't come true.

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And Christopher was on solid ground there. As far as that principle goes.

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And so he said Jesus said he was going to come back within one generation, and he didn't, so therefore he's a false prophet.

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And the sad thing is that many Christians agree with him that what Jesus said didn't come to pass.

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And my response to Christopher was no. 78, Jesus was speaking around 30

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A .D. This generation will not pass away. A biblical generation, as even Hal Lindsey and I agree, is 40 years.

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70 A .D. is when the Romans finally destroyed

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Jerusalem with fire. Not one stone was left on another, just the way

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Jesus had predicted. And the temple complex was a glorious complex.

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It was over 30 acres, right? So it was a huge, huge edifice.

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It had taken over 40 years for Herod to build it, and it was only completed a few years before it was then finally destroyed.

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And it was plated with gold. When you were on the Mount of Olives across from it, and the sun was shining on it, you couldn't look at it directly, it was so bright.

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It was a glorious building. And when Jesus is walking through there with his disciples, and they're rubbernecking, look at this, look at that, and Jesus says, do you see all this?

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This is going. This is all done, man. And then he also,

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Jesus also says, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say, not to random mountains in general, but you can say to this mountain, the mountain they were standing on, right?

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Be thrown into the sea. And that, again, from Revelation, is an image of judgment.

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So basically, what the Lord predicted came true in exquisite detail.

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It was just amazing. And I think that the fact that Christopher had never encountered anything like that shows you how much evangelicals have given away the apologetic store.

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Yes. Yes, and it silenced one of the most famous atheists in the last generation.

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Very articulate, very, very intelligent, bright, really an incredible man in terms of his own thinking.

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And, I mean, I love, Christopher Hitchens is by far my favorite atheist in history. And it silenced him, and I think it was compelling to him to hear that.

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Wow, okay. So I can't use that anymore, at least with Doug. All right, so we're going to take a quick break here, guys.

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We're going to play some commercials for you guys, and when we come back, we're going to talk about Revelation and the beast.

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We're going to talk about the symbolism issues. We're going to talk about what about those manhoppers? What about those manhoppers in the book of Revelation?

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A thousand years, and why are there sinners outside of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation? We're going to talk about that, and we're going to do it as quickly as possible.

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We have Doug for a short period of time left. We're just going to do sort of bursts. And I just want to say, as we leave this in a moment here, do check out, when you see the commercial here about NSA, New St.

30:53

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31:07

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31:12

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31:22

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32:12

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32:32

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32:46

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35:07

Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome back. I'm the ninja, that's the bear, and that's the girl. We're going to go fast because Pastor Doug has limited time with us, 15 minutes left, so we're going to go quickly here, guys.

35:16

Welcome back. We're talking about the book of Revelation, Pastor Doug's book, When the Man Comes Around, commentary on the book of Revelation.

35:22

Make sure you guys get a copy of this book, it'll bless you. Why? It's important not simply to tickle you and to fill your head with knowledge, but I think that this discussion is so vital because,

35:35

A, apologetically, it's vital because if Jesus gave false prophecy, he's a false prophet, period.

35:41

And so we need to know a proper way to actually handle the words of Christ. But the other thing is, I think it's an important discussion to have because it does affect how you live here and now and how you build for the future.

35:52

And I think it's important because this discussion brings glory to Jesus Christ. It shows that he is who he claimed to be.

35:57

He did what he said he was going to do. All of this happened on time and as planned. That's why it's important.

36:03

Make sure you guys get the book, When the Man Comes Around, a commentary on the book of Revelation by Douglas Wilson. Quickly, Pastor Doug, where can they go to get the book?

36:11

They can get the book directly from Canon Press, canonpress .com, or they can get it from Amazon.

36:18

It's for sale on Amazon. When the Man Comes Around, do not mistakenly download a Johnny Cash song, which is by the same name.

36:26

This title is taken from that song. It's a fantastic song. Actually, you should get the song.

36:32

But get the book, too. Get the book, also. And listen to the song in the background on a loop while you read the book.

36:41

Okay. All right, so here we go. Pastor Doug, rapid fire. Tell us about Revelation and the Beast.

36:47

So, this is one of my pet peeves, right? So, in popular imagination, the

36:54

Beast is the Antichrist, and the Antichrist is the Beast. Right. But the word

37:01

Antichrist doesn't show up anywhere in the book of Revelation at all. That's right. It's not a factor in the book of Revelation.

37:09

And people have conflated the two. But in 1 John, an

37:15

Antichrist is a church official who denies the incarnation.

37:21

In Daniel and in Revelation, a Beast is a civil ruler, a king or emperor, who persecutes the saints of God.

37:31

That's a Beast. So, if you're looking for, like, a modern Beast would be someone like Stalin, and a modern

37:39

Antichrist would be a liberal Methodist bishop. Right. That's right. Right?

37:45

Those are the two kinds of things. So, the Antichrist has nothing to do with the

37:51

Beast of Revelation. The Beast of Revelation, in my mind, is Rome. And there were five heads.

37:59

One is the sixth head was Nero. And Nero was the one who began the persecution of the church in 64

38:09

A .D. And he continued that persecution of the church until he was forced to commit suicide in 68

38:17

A .D. during a coup. And the church was persecuted for, guess what, children, 42 months.

38:25

42 months. Yep. 42 months. And he died by his own sword, did he not? Right. Under coercion, he was forced to.

38:34

You know, people were closing in on him. So, he didn't want to do it, but he was forced to it. Yeah, and just to whet your appetite, guys, 666.

38:43

It is not 6 -6 -6. It's 666. And I would say, if you look into the history of that, it's actually a fascinating history in terms of 666 as a

38:54

Hebrew cryptogram. Neron, Kaiser, Nero, Caesar. The beast who is. And interpret that number.

39:01

You do the number, and it's Neron, Kaiser, Nero, Caesar. And I want to point out that John knew who it was.

39:08

Yes. John knew who it was. And he expected any clever sophomore in Ephesus to be able to figure out who it was.

39:16

That's right. Exactly. Let him, who has wisdom, figure this out. Get your pencil out. Work it out. And I can't imagine some kid, some sophomore in the first century, looking up at his dad saying,

39:27

Henry Kissinger? Who's Henry Kissinger? That's awesome. Oh, man.

39:32

Exactly. Okay. So, let's see here. Okay. So, I'll say quickly, guys, and I'm trying to do this as quickly and as coherent a way as I can.

39:42

We have the Book of Revelation. People have said that in the Book of Revelation, the

39:47

Apostle John, according to today's standards, could be accused of plagiarism because he is essentially taking over 400 verses.

39:55

Over half of those verses are either direct quotations from Old Testament passages or allusions to Old Testament passages.

40:02

So, he's copying the Old Testament to bring it into this revelation in many ways. But we have all the symbolism that's rooted in the

40:09

Old Testament in terms of, like, this is what it meant. You can take, this is where it's from. This is what it meant.

40:14

How is John applying it? But, Doug, tell us about the manhoppers. So, the manhoppers.

40:22

You're no doubt talking about the locusts. Yes, with men's faces. With men's faces.

40:28

They come out of the abyss. Basically, my interpretive grid is that all of this, up to the last few chapters, is about the destruction of Jerusalem.

40:39

So, the horsemen of the apocalypse, you know, war and famine and death.

40:46

And these manhoppers are basically, in my understanding, are demons that come from the abyss.

40:54

They come up out of the abyss, the bottomless pit. That's where the devil and his angels are.

40:59

And so I take them to be demonic forces that animate and drive some of the human actors who were participants in the destruction of Jerusalem.

41:13

Excellent. Okay, and you mentioned the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I want to point something out in terms of, like, knowing our

41:21

Old Testament before we even attempt to handle the Book of Revelation and all that imagery. In the

41:28

Book of Ezekiel, long before the Book of Revelation is written, we have, of course, a moment in history.

41:35

Israel's at a particular place in their relationship with God. There's particular judgment and all things related to the temple, all that stuff is there.

41:43

Okay, but in Ezekiel 14, 21, it actually says something interesting. It says,

41:58

So God says in Ezekiel 14, 21 that He will send upon Jerusalem four disastrous acts of judgment, and lo and behold, we have four horsemen in the

42:08

Book of Revelation. Doug, what's that about? Okay, so I think it's about the destruction of Jerusalem.

42:14

The famine, when the city was under siege, there was a great famine.

42:19

It was obviously a great war, fighting. When the Romans conquered

42:25

Jerusalem, they crucified so many Jews, it was like it was a forest of crosses.

42:34

It was like you were in the deep woods, and every tree in the woods had a man hanging on it.

42:40

It was that grotesque. I think it's all about the judgment of Jerusalem.

42:46

The one interesting thing is I take the first horseman, the white horse, and he sat on him, had a bow and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.

42:59

I take that as a descriptor of Christ. That's right. But that means that the plagues that were raining down on Jerusalem, this was

43:08

Jesus judging the city that had so grotesquely violated the standards of justice when they tried next executed him.

43:17

That's right. That's Jesus on one of those horses, y 'all, and it's about judgment upon the covenant breakers,

43:23

Jerusalem. All right, so another one. I know that everyone wants to know this. A thousand years,

43:28

Doug. We don't have a literal thousand years ahead of us? Basically, postmillennialists can be divided into two broad categories.

43:39

I'd say the 19th century postmillennialists and earlier tended to take the thousand years as being a literal 1 ,000 times around the sun, but it was at the tail end of the church age.

43:54

So they believed the church age was an extended period of time, the last 1 ,000 years of which was going to be the golden age, you know, the millennium that looked like a millennium.

44:08

Right. Right. Looked and felt like it. So the older category of postmillennialists generally took it that way.

44:16

Church age and then the last golden chapters were that 1 ,000 years. Contemporary postmillennialists usually take the 1 ,000 years as being descriptive of the entire church age.

44:29

So it's a symbolic number. Book of Revelations, full of symbolic numbers, 144, 12, 7, 1 ,000.

44:39

And so if you take it, as I do, as an emblem or a symbol of the church age, that's what it would be.

44:52

That's right. And I want to just point out, again, to whet everyone's appetite here, you have the moment where Jesus goes into the wilderness and Satan, there's the temptation where he brings him up into a great high mountain.

45:03

What does he offer Jesus? He says, he gives him, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world. That's what Jesus came for, by the way.

45:10

And he says, I give them to you now, all you have to do is just bow and worship me. No death, no resurrection, none of that. Just bow and worship me and I'll give you what you came for,

45:16

Jesus. And Jesus says, you should worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. But don't you find it interesting that Satan offered

45:22

Jesus, they're mine, I'll give them to you right now. Just bow and worship me. And then the book of Revelation, you have this amazing moment where Satan is, a great chain is put on him.

45:33

By the way, I don't know how you're going to put a literal chain on a spiritual creature. I think he'd slip out. But you do that and he throws him into this pit and this abyss to do what?

45:42

So that he would no longer do what? Deceive the nations. Satan is bound to do, so that he can't do what?

45:49

Deceive the nations. So that what? Jesus can go now and get those nations, every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

45:54

I'll leave it there. Joy, you do the throwaway or whatever you go for. Well, I just thought it would be fun to have

46:01

Pastor Doug answer this one. So I think that there is a brand of eschatology, like you talked about, that has movies and books that go along with it.

46:13

And so it's almost like they've sort of co -opted the story of the end of days with this very great bit of storytelling.

46:22

Like mishandling some of this imagery or symbolism, it creates sort of a sci -fi futuristic world.

46:32

But I was wondering if you had any more flowery storytelling language to use in regards to the actual return and the resurrection of the saints.

46:45

Oh my. In other words, have I been planning something like that? I actually think it's a good idea.

46:55

Storytelling is very powerful. That's how the evolutionists have gotten away with so much. They tell their story over and over.

47:03

And dispensational, basically the dispensational account of the end of the world is a thriller.

47:10

It's an end of days, end of the world thriller. And it's an exciting story.

47:18

And if we just respond with, oh no, no, that's not in keeping with sound theology.

47:26

Snoresville, right? Yeah, we need to get this into song, poetry, short story, books.

47:37

Yes. Excellent. All right, guys. Canonpress .com,

47:43

go get the book. Or you can get it from Amazon. The name of the book is

47:49

When the Man Comes Around. I love that title. A commentary on the book of Revelation with our good friend

47:56

Douglas Wilson. Pastor Doug, thanks for taking time to join us today. I got you right out here at 1 o 'clock. You did it.

48:01

Good job. Thank you. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon, Doug. Thanks for the invite. Absolutely. God bless you, brother. All right, guys.

48:07

There you go. So that was a quick little interview with Pastor Doug. Very excited about the interview,

48:13

When the Man Comes Around, a commentary on the book of Revelation. Make sure you guys get the book, guys. Two things maybe we can clarify real quick.

48:19

Yeah. Some good questions I saw that came up. Why do some

48:24

Bibles in reference to the beast say 616 and some say 666? I love that. Yes, actually.

48:30

It's a great question. Very good question in terms of… It actually proves our point. It actually does.

48:36

Forgive me. Seizures have caused some short -term memory things that are just coming back to me now. I believe it's the

48:42

Syriac version of the book of Revelation in that translation that the copyists actually, and translators,

48:51

I should say, actually changed the numerical value that is in the original text, 666 to 616.

49:00

Again, forgive me, guys. Like I said, the seizure has caused weird short -term memory stuff.

49:06

But it's all good. It's all coming back. Jeff forgot one thing. Yeah, the Syriac, because the cryptogram, the numerical values in that language for Nero is 616.

49:21

So what was understood, apparently, is that this is Nero, Nero Caesar, and that people aren't going to understand this if we change it over into this language and keep the numerical value to 666.

49:32

So apparently, people in the early church copying the book of Revelation into another language changed the numerical value so that it could be calculated in the cryptogram in that language that this is

49:45

Nero Caesar. And if somebody says, whatever are you talking about cryptogram, you already know it.

49:50

You know it today as a 21st century American Christian. You know it. I'll give you an example.

49:56

What is the V, the Roman numeral V? What's that? Five. Five.

50:02

How about the Roman numeral I? One. How about X? Ten. Okay. So you know.

50:09

So what happened is ancient cultures actually used their numbering system and alphabet together at times so you could use a double.

50:19

You have the X, V, I, those sorts of things. You would use your alphabet as a numbering system. And so John tells

50:26

Christians in the book of Revelation pre -70 A .D. And if you guys are like, no wait, the book of Revelation was written around 96 during Domitian's reign.

50:35

No, it wasn't. And you'd be surprised at how many scholars and giants in history reject that position.

50:41

It is on very, very, very poor foundational evidence in terms of a comment, a very vague comment made by one of John's ultimate disciples about what happened during Domitian's reign.

50:55

But be that as it may, book of Revelation pre -70 A .D. You have John saying to people then that they could calculate the number of the beast.

51:04

It's the number of a man. His number is 666. It is not 6 -6 -6.

51:10

It is 666. But John tells people in the first century go ahead and calculate his number.

51:17

Well, again, like Doug said, all they had to do was say, alright, I know my cryptogram stuff. And oh, lo and behold,

51:22

Neron Caesar. Nero Caesar. And it's important to point out that Nero demanded worship.

51:30

It was Caligula that really amped up the imperial worship cultus.

51:36

But Nero really took it home. He really did something with it. And he really did it.

51:41

He demanded worship. And what did the Christians die for in the first century? They wouldn't say what?

51:47

Caesar is Lord. What would they say? Jesus is Lord. So why? Look, Rome could care less.

51:53

They're pagans. They don't care what you worship. They don't care if you worship Jesus. They just say a little pinch of incense to the emperor.

51:59

Like, just say Caesar is Lord. And the early Christians wouldn't do that. They said Jesus is

52:04

Lord. And so you have Nero saying, worship the emperor.

52:11

You have Nero persecuting the Christian for, lo and behold, 42 months. Christians for 42 months. You have

52:16

Nero dying by his own sword. And you have the cryptogram, 666, spelling

52:21

Neron Caesar. Is that all just some amazing coincidence I don't believe so.

52:27

And I think it is interesting that the harlot, the slut in Revelation, which is using modern language there, in the book of Revelation, isn't it interesting that she has

52:37

Babylon written on her forehead? Yeah. Well, something written on your head?

52:43

Interesting. The tattoo, right? Yeah, where else does God say people are supposed to have something on their head and their hand?

52:49

Oh, wait a second. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's the core part of what the Jews say every day.

52:58

You shall worship the Lord your God. Him only shall you serve. There is only one God. And you shall write that on your head and your hands.

53:05

Literally, no. This symbolized ownership and this symbolized action. Your hand, what you did, right?

53:11

Everything you did to Yahweh, under Yahweh, under his authority and with his wisdom.

53:17

All of that. Well, now you have this slut, this whore in the book of Revelation, a harlot, and she's got

53:23

Babylon written on her head. Was Babylon a good thing for Jews or a bad thing? Well, where did they go into exile?

53:30

To Babylon. For what? Covenant unfaithfulness. For what? For being a slut.

53:36

For being a harlot. That's what it says in the book of Ezekiel 16. That's why they went into exile to Babylon.

53:43

So here you have a harlot in the wilderness. Wait a second. Biblical imagery now. Is the wilderness good or bad for Jews?

53:50

It's a bad thing. Why? It's never good for Jews. Unfaithfulness. Doing what in the wilderness? Wandering. Why? Disobedience.

53:56

So you've got a woman, a slut, a harlot who's in the wilderness with Babylon in her head. It's on her head.

54:02

And she's riding a what? A seven -headed, ten -horned beast. Well, lo and behold, on the

54:07

Roman coins, everyone knew, Rome was the Septimontium, the city of seven hills. And it had ten imperial provinces.

54:15

And this harlot, this whore, who is drinking the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus.

54:21

Interesting. What does Jesus say in the Olivet Discourse, in that whole section there, about Jerusalem?

54:27

Jerusalem, Jerusalem. It kills the prophets and stones, those who were sent to her. He says that he was going to send to them wise men and prophets that they were going to kill and crucify.

54:36

Well, what is the harlot doing in the book of Revelation? She's drinking the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus. Who was killing those

54:41

Christians? Early Jews in the first century. They were persecuting the church. But it says that the harlot is wearing what?

54:49

The priest's colors. What's the slut doing wearing the priest's colors, drinking the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus in the wilderness with Babylon in her head?

54:58

Oh, she's riding a seven -headed, ten -horned beast. Who is Rome? And then it says, essentially, this.

55:06

Don't worry to these early Christians. That beast that she's riding is about to turn on her, make her desolate, and burn her with fire.

55:15

Which would have been good news for the early Christians because they're struggling under persecution where you've got Rome and Israel working together.

55:22

And you might be saying, well, how in the world is this faithless bride riding

55:27

Rome? Like, where do you ever get that idea? Oh, I don't know. Just at the trial of Jesus where Pontius Pilate says, shall

55:35

I crucify your king? And they say what to Rome's representative? We have no king but Caesar.

55:44

That was Israel. So how is this slut, this whore, riding the beast of Rome?

55:50

Well, kind of like that. But what happened shortly after John wrote the book of Revelation and describes that the beast is going to turn on her, make her desolate, burn her with fire?

56:01

Rome did exactly that. And there was a three -and -a -half -year war of Rome and the

56:06

Jews, and they decimated the city, Israel and the

56:12

Jews. Josephus records that the blood was, it was so much blood, it was like flowing like rivers through the streets of Jerusalem.

56:19

And like Doug said, they were crucifying so many Jews, it was like a forest of Jews on crosses. People were eating their own children in the city.

56:27

Josephus records a woman cooking her child and offering it to people as they were passing by. Josephus and others record amazing, crazy signs happening in the sky, actually, around the destruction of Jerusalem.

56:40

This is why I wanted to ask Doug that question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there is such a fully intact story involved in certain eschatology to where it all wouldn't make sense.

56:53

Like the world needs to be looking kind of rough for this to be happening, right? But we're not seeing, we just, the stuff that's popular to read doesn't characterize the accounts of people.

57:06

Like it's not, we're not, a lot of people aren't hearing what it was like. Yeah. Before this occurred.

57:11

In the fall of Jerusalem. And so they're like, oh, it was all fine back then. We're not seeing anything in the Bible about how it was like really bad.

57:18

Yeah. And so, so you have this tradition of expecting the world getting worse and then

57:25

X, Y, and Z happens. Yeah, that's right. But truthfully, that's not, it's not as though it was all just like the world was all just tied up neatly.

57:34

That's right. Like bad, really awful. Yeah. Like people eating their children.

57:39

Right. Famine so bad they were eating dung and their children in Jerusalem.

57:45

And that's what I mean, like the post -millennialists have, we have the imagery to really show the story, but nobody really has done it.

57:54

And a comet was hung over the city of Jerusalem for a year that looked like a sword.

57:59

And they took it as a symbol of divine judgment was about to fall on the city. You have earthquakes, one of the greatest earthquakes in the history of the world, in Pompeii, I believe 62

58:09

AD took place and just decimated. So you had earthquakes, you had famines, you had pestilence, you had false prophets, false messiahs, literally leading people out into the wilderness and into the desert.

58:20

You've got it happening in the New Testament itself. You've also got an amazing moment recorded where the temple doors blew open at one point and they heard this loud rushing wind going through and the voice came out of the temple.

58:35

And this is what was recorded. Let us remove hence. Let us leave now. And I just think,

58:41

I find that interesting too in terms of a voice coming out of the temple saying, let us remove hence.

58:47

You see that same kind of - Sounds like Genesis 1. Sounds like Genesis 1. Let us create man in our image. How does God speak? I mean, the fact that that's recorded for us -

58:55

From a non -Christian. It's very interesting. Yeah, very powerful stuff. So what you're saying is that we can drink monster energy drinks without worshiping the beast.

59:04

That's right. It's the 666. Although you shouldn't because that stuff's terrible for you. Yeah, it really is.

59:09

One other quick thing because one of our live listeners might literally burst into flames if we don't answer this question.

59:16

Speaking of Israel being the whore, my friend need to read

59:22

Isaiah 65. His question is, did any biblical prophecy come true when

59:29

Israel became a nation in 1948? We are Israel. We are the spiritual

59:34

Israel. We've been grafted into Israel. Yes, exactly. And Isaiah 65 answers, I think will be very eye -opening for you.

59:42

It was for me. It changed my life when I read Isaiah 65. Isaiah 65, the promise of God to Israel that they were going to be thirsty but his people would drink, that they were going to be hungry, his people would eat, he would give his people a new name.

59:53

He creates a new heaven. A new name. That's important. And then you have - Yeah, so just take a look at that.

59:59

But obviously this is just a touch, guys. Jesus is returning for the final judgment and resurrection.

01:00:06

I encourage you guys to read 1 Corinthians 15 to see the timeline of history that the Apostle Paul gives.

01:00:12

It is compelling and beautiful. He gives the good news of Jesus Christ, what he accomplished. And it says that he right now is reigning and he must reign until he places all of his enemies under his feet.

01:00:25

And the last enemy is death. So it's every enemy under Jesus' feet and then the final one is death.

01:00:31

That's when he returns for the glorious resurrection. And the question, MGBets, what's with the tattoos and cans of beer?

01:00:38

I can't. This is called Yerba Mate. I can't. Yerba Mate. It is a rainforest tea.

01:00:44

And my tattoos, my ink, that's John the Baptist right there. My question is honestly, what's with the assumption that because you don't like what we're saying that we're drinking beer on set?

01:00:54

Right, exactly. This one says, my sin for his righteousness. It's my sin.

01:01:00

And Jesus gave me his righteousness. And this one right here is like a cool little samurai guy holding a

01:01:07

Bible and these flowers about my kids. What are yours? What do you got over there? Tell everyone about yours, your ink. Well, I have our logo, the one that's behind us that is apparently satanic.

01:01:17

Yeah. I have an ancient symbol of the Trinity. 1689 for life. I have a symbol for real marriage.

01:01:22

I have my daughter. It's her birthday. I have names of people that have died.

01:01:29

I have my wife. I got Hebrew. I mean, I can go on and on.

01:01:34

What about yours? What do you got there, Joy? You have some cool ones. I have some, well, I have

01:01:39

Dr. Seuss with heart of stone to heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36, 26. I have some flowers.

01:01:46

I have some hobbit stuff. I have a picture of the house I grew up in. My tree rings here are from Daniel.

01:01:54

Yeah. I don't really, I don't, I mean. Well, and just so everyone knows. I have a pumpkin on this arm.

01:02:00

Yeah. And just so you guys know, all of our body art here, this ink here, none of it was cutting or marking our body for the dead to worship ancestors, which is what the book of Leviticus is talking about.

01:02:13

And none of that, none of that is happening here. But I will say this, a very important issue here in terms of stuff like that.

01:02:22

Christians need to be unified around the essentials. And if we disagree over things like this, we should not divide with one another over things like body art or.

01:02:32

Well, and we're certainly not forcing anyone to get tattoos. We don't, we're not saying that it is the only way.

01:02:39

This is not a Galatians circumcision situation where you must get tattoos to be saved.

01:02:45

Watch this, watch this. Look, look how, look, look at the, and I'm gonna say it with very, very, as much grace as possible.

01:02:51

Look at the abject ignorance in the thread right now. Watch this. Yeah, they've got those marks all over the body.

01:02:58

It makes it easier to take the mark of the beast. It's just another tattoo. Or you can rewind the tape here and you can listen to what he said about the book of Revelation in 13 and the mark of the beast and how that actually works together with what

01:03:12

God actually told us in Deuteronomy 6, chapter four, getting a mark on your head and your hands.

01:03:18

There's only one God and the symbolism there is very, very important. I would say, let's make sure that we understand what the word of God actually says about marks on our head and our hands from Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four and onward and how the apostle

01:03:33

John, a Jew, was using that in the first century about a Roman emperor who was demanding people worship him and have their full and final allegiance to him, ultimately.

01:03:45

And so, yeah, this has nothing to do with... Just don't read them. Mark of the beast, yeah. Stop looking at them.

01:03:51

They're getting really bad. It's really disappointing. I would encourage everyone commenting to listen to the entire show.

01:03:56

Listen to the entire show. That is why we do it. That's right. We picked this topic because we wanted to talk about this topic and we had

01:04:03

Douglas Wilson on. Some of you may not even know that because you came in at five minutes, the last five minutes.

01:04:09

I've been... This is so much fun. Let's just do it here. I gotta do it because it's really amazing and it shows really the ignorance of a lot of modern

01:04:15

Christians and I will call you ignorant because what you do is you bring shame upon the name of Jesus Christ when you say things like this.

01:04:21

He says, I bet this guy drinks alcohol. You mean like Jesus? You mean like Jesus put on the table for his people to do as communion for him?

01:04:31

Well, alcohol maybe, but not strong drink. That was wine. That was wine that Jesus put on the table and now...

01:04:37

I don't think you really do drink, do you? Like once or twice a year.

01:04:43

Actually, no. Actually, no. Hold on. Pause. I drink every single week. Every Sunday.

01:04:50

At the table. Every Sunday at the table as Jesus commanded. So, yeah. It's getting painful now.

01:04:55

I love you all. I love you all for Jesus' sake. I am Pastor Jeff. That is Pastor Luke. Peace out.

01:05:01

He's called the Bear. I'm the Ninja. And that's the girl right there who is getting... I'm not a pastor. ...who is getting very, very, very close to bring her girl into the world.

01:05:09

Yeah. That's right. How much time we have left? A month. A month -ish. A month -ish.

01:05:15

What do you say? Pray for joy. Pray for this baby and pray for apologia.

01:05:22

And I want to encourage you guys to check out tonight. We're going to drop a really cool conversation with Pastor Doug, Pastor Toby, and myself.

01:05:34

And actually, that's going to... I think that's going to be titled Three Pastors and a Beer. For me, it was root beer.

01:05:40

For me, it was root beer. But for Doug and Toby, I think it was a cider and a beer.

01:05:46

Yeah. I had root beer. By the way, Taft in Moscow... Let me give a little advertisement for Taft in Moscow, Idaho.

01:05:52

They have some delicious food. If you ever make your way to Moscow, Idaho, go to Main Street, go to Taft, you will thank me for it.

01:05:59

And if you like root beer like I do, I'm a root beer snob. I'm a root beer snob.

01:06:05

Yeah. I know. If you get a root beer on Taft... He has hidden root beer in his house right now. I do. I do. I really do.

01:06:12

If you are like me and you're a root beer snob, they have a root beer on Taft there that is delightful.

01:06:17

I drank two full glasses while I did the thing. Wow. And by the very end, I loved what

01:06:23

Doug and Toby were saying, but I had to use the bathroom really, really bad. I bet you did. So... All right, guys.