Revelation Overview Pt. 4 — Chuck Smith

So we turn to the book of Revelation. The title at the top of the page said the revelation of Saint John the Divine, not true. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It tells you that in the first verse.

It's not revealing anything to us about John, but it's all about Jesus. And it is a revelation that God gave to him to show to his servants. The key to the book is found in the 19th verse of the first chapter, where John is instructed to write the things that he has seen, the things that are, the things which will be after these things.

The Threefold Structure of Revelation

So it's divided into three sections. First of all, the vision that John saw of Jesus in his glorified body, walking in the midst of the churches, holding the pastors in his right hand. Chapters two and three, the second section, is the revelation of Jesus Christ in his relationship to his churches, as the head of the body, his church.

And as the head of the church, we see Jesus writing to the churches, the seven churches of Asia, that do represent the seven periods of church history. As the head of the body, the church, he is, for the most part, correcting them.

In some cases, encouraging and comforting them, those that will be going through great persecution, suffering. But for the most part, it's just an encouragement to them to get back in a right relationship with God.

Things had already begun to creep into the church that were not healthy. And so Jesus addresses the issues in the churches in chapters two and three. And that is the relationship of Jesus to his church through the church age.

The Great Tribulation and the Faithful Church

Now, once the church has completed its ministry here on earth, we move into chapter four. And these are the things that will happen to the earth once the church has been removed. And the church is removed in chapter four.

In the messages to the churches, he is warning them of his coming again. He is telling them that he will be coming as a thief. He is warning some of them that if they don't get right, they'll be going into the Great Tribulation.

He is encouraging others that because they have been faithful in keeping the word of his patience, he would keep them from the Great Tribulation. The Bible teaches that there is a period of time, three and a half years, in which this world is going to see the greatest tribulation that it has ever experienced, even exceeding the flood of Noah, as far as God's judgment being poured out upon the world.

We'll be getting into that a little bit this evening as we will look at the vials that are poured out upon the earth in God's fierce wrath and judgment that is to come. But Jesus is encouraging the church, the true faithful church, that if because they have kept the word of his patience, he will keep them.

So chapters two and three deal with the church and now chapter four, we move into the future after the church. After these things, church things of chapters two and three, I saw a door open in heaven.

First voice was as if a trumpet saying unto me, come up hither, I'll show you things which will be after these things. Paul tells us that we're not gonna all die, but we will all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.

To the Thessalonians he wrote, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall be raised, and we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

So chapter four verse one, John hears the trumpet, he is caught up by the Spirit into heaven, and there he beholds first of all the throne of God, and that will be the first thing that will attract your attention when you get to heaven, the awesome throne of God.

The emerald rainbow about the throne, the cherubims about the throne, worshipping God, declaring holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, which is, which was, which is to come. Twenty-four lesser thrones, the elders sitting on these lesser thrones, responding to the worship of the cherubim, throwing their golden crowns on the glassy sea, declaring the worthiness of God to receive the praise, the honor, the glory that is given unto him.

And then John's attention is drawn to a scroll in the right hand of him who was sitting upon the throne. The scroll, the title deed to the earth, sealed with seven seals. An angel proclaiming with a strong voice who is worthy to take this scroll and to loose the seals.

And when no one steps forth, John begins to sob. If no one redeems the earth, it remains in Satan's control forever. But one of the elders said, John, don't reap. Behold, the line of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed.

He'll take the seal and open, he'll take the scroll, open the seals. And John saw Jesus as he stepped forth. He looked like a lamb that had been slaughtered. He took the scroll out of the right hand of him who was sitting upon the throne.

And as he did, they offered the prayers of the saints and little golden vials before the throne of the Lord. And they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the scroll and loose the seals, for you were slain.

And you have redeemed us by your blood out of every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. You've made us unto our God kings and priests, and we will reign with you upon the earth. The song of the church, the song of the redeemed church.

There in heaven, singing of the redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. And thus, as Jesus told his disciples, pray always that you'll be accounted worthy to escape the great tribulation and to stand before the Son of Man.

The Seals, World Kingdoms, and the Coming Ruler

And there they are, standing there, singing the song of redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. As he begins to loose the seals of this book, the first seal brings forth a man of sin who is to be a world ruler, the final world ruler, before the coming again of Jesus Christ.

Back in the book of Daniel, the Lord showed unto Nebuchadnezzar, and later to Daniel in a vision, the kingdoms that would rule over the earth. Beginning with the Babylonian kingdom, the power passing on to the Medo-Persian empire, and then being transferred over to the Grecian empire.

The Grecian empire being split into four ruling powers, as did happen after the death of Alexander the Great. But then it being conquered by the Roman empire. The Roman empire disintegrating, but yet coming back to life under a federation of nations.

And thus, Bible students for years and years have been talking about the rebirth of the Roman empire, as the nations of Europe would combine together in a United States of Europe, so to speak. And today, that has happened.

Just at the first of the year, they introduced into the twelve nations of the common market, the Euro dollars. And the various currencies of these nations are going to be good only for two more months.

And then your currency that you might have, Italian lira or whatever, will have no value. You have two months to turn it in and exchange it for the Euro dollars. Here at Calvary, we have people visiting from all over the world.

And it's interesting, a lot of times people visiting from Europe will drop in the German marks and the offering plate and so forth. And I sort of keep the foreign money there, but I've got to cash it in now, within the next few weeks, or it's not going to be worth anything.

Because they're going to the Euro dollar. And it's amazing, you know, we've been talking about these things for years and years. And now it's happening. I mean, this week, it came to pass. And it's amazing to read of these things and to say, this is what's going to be taking place, and then see it taking place.

And you know, back in 1978, we were saying, you know, one day they're going to have at the grocery stores, little computer relays, and you'll be able to buy your groceries by just swiping your card on these, because they'll be connected to the bank.

And they have them now. And it's amazing, because the Bible tells us these things are going to happen. You can know where you are in the whole scenario as the end is approaching very rapidly. The first seal brings forth this man of sin, son of perdition, antichrist, the beast.

He has several names in the Bible, and probably a name, it isn't given to him, but it probably should be Big Mouth. Because we do find that he does speak blasphemy, blasphemously against the God of heaven.

And he is, he just is the impersonation of evil. He will be followed by the second seal, which will bring a great war upon the earth, great bloodshed, which will be followed by famine, and then followed by death.

And in the first four seals, the one quarter of the earth's population will be destroyed. In the fifth seal, there are souls under the altar who have been killed on the earth, martyred, because they refused to worship this man of sin.

And they are asking how long before they can come on into heaven. They're told to wait until their number is complete. And in chapter seven, we see them in the heavenly scene, their number having been completed.

And also in chapter seven, we see before the releasing of tornado-type winds all over the earth, the angels sealing a hundred and forty-four thousand of the Jews in their forehead, that they might be spared some of these judgments that are coming.

And then we get into the trumpet judgments. We've passed through those. And then we got into the return of the Lord with his book that is open, standing one foot on the sea and one foot on the land, and saying, there's not going to be any more delay.

The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Now, as we move then on into Revelation, we start filling in details. We have the skeleton. We've got the skeleton sort of standing on its feet.

But now we're going to start putting muscle on it. We're going to start putting flesh on it. We're going to start getting some further details of some of these events. And so as we move into chapter twelve, where we left off the last time, there appeared a great wonder in heaven.

A woman that was clothed with the sun and the moon and under her feet, and upon her head there was a crown of twelve stars. And being with a child, she cried because she was travailing in birth, and she pained to be delivered.

Who is the woman? Well, as you read the description, it's quite obvious. The woman is the nation of Israel. Back in the book of Genesis, when Joseph had dreams, they upset his brothers, but he had his second dream.

He said, I dreamed that the sun and the moon and the twelve stars bowed down to me. And his father Jacob became angry. And he said, you mean that your mother and father and brothers are all going to bow to you?

And so he, this woman with the clothed with the sun and the moon and the stars, the nation of Israel. Now there appeared another wonder in heaven. It was a great red dragon. This, of course, is Satan, having seven heads and ten horns, representing the power of Satan in the last age.

And Daniel, you'll see that out of the Roman Empire, it had the ten horns, and out of the horns came the little horn that conquered three and all. But you have Satan's power in the world in these last days.

And it says that he drew a third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman, which was ready to be delivered to devour her child as soon as it was born.

So this war that has been going on, a continual war of the spirit powers of darkness against the spirit powers of light, the kingdom of darkness against the kingdom of light. And the nation of Israel, ready to bring forth the child, prevailing in birth.

The child, of course, being Jesus Christ, verse five, she brought forth a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared of God that he should feed her there for a thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Israel, the Messiah, and the War in Heaven

So basically this is what's going to be happening. First of all, it's sort of, you know, it's sort of all sort of jumbled together. But the nation of Israel, God set it apart. And the purpose for the nation of Israel was to bring the Messiah into the world.

God had chosen Abraham and had promised that through Abraham's seed all of the nations of the world would be blessed. The Messiah would come through Abraham. And so God preserved the nation of Israel that it might bring forth the Messiah into the world.

And of course, we just celebrated Christmas and we know the Christmas story. How that the Lord came to, the angel of the Lord, Gabriel, came to Mary, told her that she was the one that God had chosen to bring the Messiah into the world.

The Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the highest would overshadow her. That one that would be born would be called the Son of God. And so the nation of Israel brought forth the Messiah.

The purposes of God were pretty much completed when they brought forth the Messiah, who is to rule with a rod of iron. Jesus is coming again to rule over the world. And, but the Messiah was caught up into heaven.

But Satan was there to try and destroy him at birth. You remember when Jesus was born of Mary, that there came wise men from the east following a star. They came to Herod, there in Jerusalem. And they asked Herod where the king of the Jews was born.

We have seen a star in the east. We've come to worship him. And so Herod inquired of the scribes and they said he's to be born in Bethlehem. The prophet Micah said that Bethlehem would be the birthplace of the Messiah.

So they came to Bethlehem. They found the child. But Herod had said, when you find him, come back and tell me where he is. I'd like to come and worship him too. And of course Herod was a short little guy, about four foot eight.

He built big things. But he was paranoid. He was so paranoid that he killed off some of his sons. Killed off his wife. He thought that they were conspiring against him to overthrow him. They used to say it's safer to be Herod's pig than it is to be his son.

Because of his paranoia. And so Herod of course, when the wise men were warned by the Lord not to return to Herod and went home another way, Herod then ordered, you remember, all of the infants in the area of Bethlehem to be slain that were under two years of age.

And Joseph however, was warned by an angel in a dream. And he took Mary and they fled to Egypt and thus Jesus was saved from that edict of Herod. But we, the nation of Israel though, well let's go on and we'll get it right here.

There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels were fighting against the dragon. And the dragon fought with his angels. Michael is one of the great angels. He's an archangel it's called. And he seems to be one of the generals you might say.

Over the angels of God. Fighting against the dragon. The dragon with his angels fighting against Michael. But they prevailed not, that is Satan and his angels, neither were their place found anymore in heaven.

And a great, the great dragon was cast out. That old serpent called the devil and Satan, which is the deceiver of the whole world. So in case you didn't know who it was, he gives you several little titles for him.

Devil, Satan, the deceiver. And he was cast out to the earth and the angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying, In heaven now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Messiah.

For the accuser of the brethren is cast down, which accused them before God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto death.

And therefore rejoice ye heavens and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea for the devil has come down unto you. He has great wrath and he knows that he has but a short time.

So this war in heaven is something that is about to take place. It'll take place during the great tribulation. The effect of it of course is Satan being cast out, filled with wrath and is gonna do as much damage as he can in the time that he has left.

Satan as Accuser and Jesus as Advocate

Now we read that the dragon saw that he was cast to the earth. Well first before we get there, Satan has had access into heaven. He is called here the accuser of the brethren. Now Jesus is our advocate.

Satan is our accuser. Paul the apostle in Romans chapter eight said, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Well Satan is laying charges against you. But Paul said, God has justified us.

Who is he that condemneth? Well Satan is condemning you. But Jesus died for you. Yea, he rose again and is at the right hand of the Father making intercession for you. We see Satan in this position of the accuser of the brethren back in the book of Job.

We read in the book of Job that the sons of God were presenting themselves before God and Satan also came with them. And God said, Well where have you been? Oh he said, I've been going up and down throughout the earth to enfront through it.

Well have you considered, and that word considered in the Hebrew is, have you studied, scrutinized my servant Job? It's really a military word. It's a word that is used of a general that is studying a city to create a strategy to destroy the city.

Have you studied my servant Job? Good man. Upright. Loves good, hates evil. And Satan offered to God his philosophy concerning Job. He said, You have blessed him so much. Of course he serves you. But he's a mercenary.

He only does it for the perks. Let me take away all of those things and he'll curse you to your face. So God said, Okay. But don't touch him. Take it away. And so Job was wiped out as far as all of his goods, his children, his family, they were all wiped out.

And and even he lost in a sense the sympathetic understanding of his wife because there he was just in this miserable condition and lost everything, his cattle, family and everything. And she said, Why don't you just curse God and die?

Great encouragement from his wife. But he lost that, you know, that comforting fellowship of his wife even. And in all of this thing, Job said, The Lord has given. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

And he neither cursed God nor caused, nor charged God foolishly. So Satan again came with the angels of God presenting themselves to the Lord. And Lord said, Where have you been? Oh, I've gone up and down the earth to and fro through it.

How about my servant Job? Good man. After all you have done, he still has maintained his integrity. Satan said, Yeah, but you didn't let me touch him. Let me take away his health. He'll curse you to your face.

So God gave Satan the go ahead to take and to attack him physically. And of course, we know the boils and all that covered Job and then his friends coming and trying to understand, did not understand.

But you see, Satan was accusing Job. And he's up there accusing you. He's no friend. And Jesus, however, is there defending us. He's our advocate. And he's not going to let you go. John said, My little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not.

But if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous. And so there is Satan up there making the accusations. And there's Jesus up there speaking up and saying, That's all right, Dad.

It's I've taken care of that one. He's mine. And so we are accepted through Jesus Christ, which is a wonderful thing. Now here Satan is the advocate is the accuser of the brethren. He's cast out. He knows he has but a short time.

He's filled with wrath. And so the dragon, verse 13, when he's cast to the earth, he persecutes the woman which brought forth the man child. So Satan is going to go after Israel. Of course, we realize that he is, you know, there today.

The Jews are under severe pressure. And so by the nations round about by the world and the woman, however, was given two wings of an angel or two wings of an eagle that she might fly to the wilderness unto her place where she will be nourished for a time, times and a half time from the face of the serpent.

The Seven-Year Period and Israel's Flight

So halfway through. Okay, let's try and tie this together. We can. We've got a seven year period that is going to be fulfilled with the nation of Israel. God's dealing with the nation of Israel. There were 77 year periods.

69 of them were fulfilled from the time the commandment went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of Jesus. 483 years. Now there's one seven year period that is yet to be fulfilled and it will begin when this man of sin, which we'll read about in the next chapter, when he comes to Israel and he makes a covenant with them and in this covenant that he makes with Israel, they will be granted the right to rebuild their temple.

The problem will be solved by building a wall north of the Dome of the Rock Mosque and the temple will be rebuilt just in from the East Gate, which is about 322 feet north of the Dome of the Rock Mosque.

And so that will begin this last seven year period. The Jews at first will think this man is the Messiah. He will have all kinds of power as we'll get into the next chapter, how Satan gives him his power and his authority.

Now after three and a half years when the Jews have rebuilt their temple, he will come back to Jerusalem and he will stand in the temple in the Holy of Holies and he will declare that he is God and demand that they worship him as God and which at that point they will recognize that this man is a phony.

And Jesus said, when you see this abomination which will cause the desolation, this man standing in the Holy of Holies, then flee to the wilderness. And we are told here that they will flee to the wilderness, wings of an angel, or wings of an eagle rather, given to them where they flee to the wilderness where God will protect them for the last three and a half years of this seven year cycle.

The first three and a half years of the seven year cycle will be a time of prosperity, a time of economic prosperity, a time of peace. The world will be actually celebrating because they feel that they finally have come to the, this man is a miracle worker.

He's able to bring peace. He's able to solve even this knotty problem between the Jews and the Palestinians. And oh my, this man is it, you know. And the world will worship him. And we will get, read about that in a little while.

That the world worships him and acclaims him as the Savior. But after three and a half years, the Jews will have their eyes open as they will realize this man is a deceiver. And they will flee to the wilderness somewhere over in Jordan.

And there are scriptures in Isaiah 16 that would indicate perhaps near the rock city of Petra where they will be spared and will flee. Now he sends out an army after them, a flood, which is an army. But the earth helps the woman, opens up her mouth, swallows the flood that the dragon cast out of his mouth.

The dragon was angry with the woman and he went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. So those are the personages out of chapter 12.

The Beast, the False Prophet, and the Mark

Now in chapter 13 we have two more. First one is the Antichrist. And this is giving you some information concerning him. I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast rise up out of the sea having seven heads, ten horns.

Upon his horns there were ten crowns. And upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard. He had feet like a bear. And his mouth was like a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his authority, his throne and great authority.

It is important that we realize that this world is under Satan's power. He rules over the world. Originally the world belonged to God. He created it. It was his by divine creation. When God created Adam and Eve and placed them upon the earth, God gave to them the world.

To have dominion over the animals, over the fish, over the earth, over every living and moving creeping thing. When Adam and Eve sinned, the earth was transferred over to Satan. Whoever you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you become.

They yielded themselves to obey the suggestion of Satan to eat the fruit that God said, you shall not eat. In their eating of that fruit it was a double action. It was disobedience to God, but it was obedience to Satan's suggestion.

And thus they came under Satan's authority. You had God's kingdom, kingdom of light and life. God created man in his kingdom. Man was living in fellowship with God. But there was a door into the other kingdom, the other kingdom of death and darkness.

And through that tree they entered into the door of death and darkness. But they found the door only swung one way. They couldn't come back into fellowship with God. The door was sealed from that side.

And so having moved away from God, the earth then became Satan's possession. Now the purpose of the coming of Jesus Christ was to redeem the world back to God. It no longer was God's, he gave it to man.

No longer man's, he actually forfeited it over to Satan. But Jesus came to redeem the world back to God. And that was the purpose of his coming. And as we sing there in the fifth chapter, you have redeemed us by thy blood out of every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

That was his purpose. Now you remember when Jesus was baptized by John, he went into the wilderness for 40 days, fasted and prayed, and afterwards Satan tempted him. First of all, turn the stone into bread.

And Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Then he took him up into a high mountain. He showed him all of the kingdoms of the world. And he said to that, to Jesus, all of these I will give to you and the glory of them, if you will just bow down and worship me.

Heavy temptation. Jesus came to redeem the world back to God. He knew that the price would be his death upon the cross. That was already predicted. But here is Satan saying, you don't have to take God's way.

I'll give it to you right now. Just bow down and worship me and I'll give to you all of the glory of these kingdoms. And Jesus said, it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only. He resisted the temptation.

But that was the purpose of his coming, to redeem the world back to God. And of course that's what's taking place back in chapter 5, where he comes and takes the scroll. And this is the whole process of redemption now in the loosening of the scrolls.

And this is the final judgments that are coming prior to the coming of Jesus Christ and his laying claim to that which he purchased on the cross. He purchased the world back again to God. And he'll come and he'll take possession.

In Hebrews we read, he was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, but crowned with glory and honor. And God has put all things under his feet, but we do not yet see all things under him.

That's coming. It's coming very soon. Man has just about run the full course. We've gone about as far as we can. We're coming to the end of the road. And it's going to be necessary for the Lord to come if there's any survival at all.

And so the Satan here, notice, gives to this beast out of the sea, he gives to him his throne, which is the earth. He gives to him his power and his authority over the earth. So this man is Satan incarnate ruling now over the world with satanic power.

I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death, but the deadly wound was healed and all of the world wondered after the beast. Perhaps an assassination attempt, but he survives. And they worshipped the dragon, that is Satan, who gave the power to the beast.

And they worshipped the beast and they said, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth, and here I say big mouth, speaking great things and blasphemies.

And power was given unto him to continue for forty-two months, the three and a half years, the 1260 days. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and those that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power was given to him over all the kindreds and the tongues and the nations. He rules over the world. Now there was an interesting article that came through on the email over the weekend.

It's talking about the year 2002. And this is a secular writer, not a, not a biblical man at all. And there was nothing biblical about the article, except that it's fascinating from a biblical standpoint.

But he was talking about some of the laws that have been enacted by the UN, some of the things that have been passed, and how the, the article was, will we have a world government in 2002? In other words, we're that close as far as the UN trying to usurp authority and power.

And so his thing was, and the whole article is, is 2002, the year that we've, we've gone on into this whole thing of a UN taking over and the nations surrendering their sovereignty to a world government.

And of course, we have movements toward that in so many directions. The global economy. The global, and all of this talk of global, it's all a part of this moving towards this one world government that will come under the control of this man who is empowered by Satan.

And so really, behind the scenes, today in the world, the powers, those who are the true controllers of the world, they're convinced that the only solution is a one world government. The nations are gonna have to surrender their sovereignty and we're gonna have to have a one world government and we're moving towards it.

And much more rapidly than people realize. And so this is the man that is gonna be ruling over the world that is described here. Now the saints, he makes war against the saints and overcomes them. We're told the same thing in the book of Daniel, when he talks about this same scenario.

The saints here are not and cannot be the church. And the reason why I say that is that Jesus, upon Peter's confession, that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, Jesus said, upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. So these are not saints of the church. They are the Jewish saints. Once they realize that this man is a deceiver, as he demands that they worship him as God and they realize that he is a deceiver, then they will be turning to Jesus Christ in droves.

The 144 ,000 that have been sealed of God will be witnessing to them and there will be a tremendous turning to Jesus Christ by the Jews at that time. So, all that dwell upon the earth will worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

And if any man have an ear to hear, let him hear. In other words, pay attention to this, the writer is saying. And he who leads into captivity will go into captivity. He that kills with a sword will be killed by the sword.

Here's the patience and faith of the saints. Now there's a false prophet, a second beast that we have here. I beheld another beast. He came up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.

And he exercised all of the power of the first beast before him. And he caused those on the earth to worship the first beast whose deadly womb was healed. And he does great wonders so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.