In these last days – The Revelation of Jesus Christ
to John.
– IS HE TALKING TO US?
– How does CHRIST’s Revelation written to seven first century churches apply to you + millennia later in the 21st century of the Common Era?
What should we expect any DAY now?
– Do YOU have the boldness to SHARE the revealed ending [apocalypses] to your SOCIAL friends?
Take a glimpse and tell us what you think about the apocalypse revealed by the risen Christ Jesus to the Apostle John. THEN SHARE God’s WARNINGS with a comment added to Talk of JESUS .com
Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
Psalm 109:6 KJV
Previously we observed the existence of Satan in the Supernatural Before Adam as a serpent tempting man to question God.
If you acknowledge the Almighty Creator of all things and all men, yet recognize that evil pervades creation and the hearts of mankind, then you must ask about this power who deceives the minds of men.
Who (or what) is Satan?
You may have read scripture seeing little reference to Satan, but a deeper understanding of our English translations will reveal a willing and powerful opponent of the Lord God in places beyond the garden and circumstances considerably beyond original sin.
Several translations of this same verse in Psalm 109 suggest, “Appoint a wicked man against him; let an accuser bring him to trial.” RSV
The man after God’s own heart pleads:
O God of my praise, Do not be silent!
Psalm 109:1
He prays to the living God – ruler above the angels, spirits who serve and the fallen. The Lord rules over creation whether spirit or wicked man.
5 Thus they have repaid me evil for good And hatred for my love.
6 Appoint a wicked man over him, And let an accuser stand at his right hand.
The Hebrew word for accuser here is satan – שָׂטָן
The heading of Psalm 109 in the NASB reads: Vengeance Invoked upon Adversaries. Our best understanding of Satan is that this fallen angel of darkness is accuser of the faithful and adversary of Christ.
The NLT reads: “One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.” – Job 1:6
The King James describes them as the “sons of God [‘elohiym] and the NIV describes them as “angels.” Satan is one of these supernatural beings unseen by Job (and mankind).
The LORD [Yĕhovah] said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.”
Job 2:2 NASB
Consider it: Satan, an unseen angel opposed to God, walking about among men inciting us (with the Lord’s consent) toward evil.
διάβολος – diabolos
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil… And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God…
Matthew 4:1,3a
Of course Satan knew the incarnate Son of God, led by the Holy Spirit of the Lord God! Yet the devil, the accuser of man, tempted Jesus just like he did deceive man in the beginning of creation.
the Dragon and Serpent
Fearful images: mythical? Perhaps. The great deceiver would have you believe that. But possibly these serpents command such unimaginable evil that man dare not give these any hint of existence.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John uncovers a fearful glimpse into the end which includes these representations of evil power.
drakōn – It is the same beast of eden from the Hebrew of Genesis 3:
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.
In another unseen future apocalypse in heaven John reveals:
And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war… – Revelation 12:7 NASB
War — between the unseen forces of good and evil. Can you imagine that? Could a decisive defeat of these devils and Satan soon inaugurate a new heavens and a new earth without evil?
Surely men of dust decaying with each mortal day will become caught in the middle of this battle between good and evil.
Where do you stand? Who is your champion in this life — and the next?
Who will stand beside your soul at the Judgment when the Accuser recounts all of your sins before the Judge Who IS?
This October series, Because the Days are Evil,
To be continued, God-willing...
And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 9:11
Light from Darkness
What do you believe about light and darkness, about good and evil, about God and the opponents of the LORD?
John begins his gospel much like Genesis with contrasts between light and darkness and introduces evidence of the presence of Christ and the Spirit of God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…
That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
John 1:1,5 CSB
John compares Jesus to light, God’s answer to formlessness and darkness. Moses illustrates darkness in the beginning (Genesis) as chaos prior to God’s intervention by creation.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
And the Spirit of God moved like the wind over the gathering wave of a deep unending sea.
Light and darkness, good and evil, God’s plan and chaos: always separated. The Apostle John makes this separation very clear to the church as he writes in his third letter:
3 John 1:11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.
Choose Light or descend into darkness?
We like the Apostle John because he points us toward Christ’s love for the world. His gospel emphasizes Jesus’ love with little mention of the devil.
Some christians and others of this twenty-first century doubt the existence of the devil or question the influence, if any, of Satan and demons. We think we know these influencers of evil from other books of the Bible and tend to dismiss demons and devils.
John’s gospel is all about the Light.
John 1:9 The true light that gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
Yet Jesus cautions us, pointing to contrasts between light and darkness, good and evil, and yes, between following Him or the prince of darkness.
Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”
“I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me would not remain in darkness.
John 8:12 & John 12:46
These warnings against darkness from the Son of God ought to be enough, yet the prince of the world would tempt us to worldliness.
These warnings from John’s gospel do not differ from those of the Prophets.
Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! What will the day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light.
Amos 5:15 CSB
Revelation – ἀποκάλυψις apokalypsis
When we think of young John, the loving faithful follower of Jesus, we forget that he lived a long life as the only surviving Apostle. Rome finally banished John to Patmos where he received a terrifying apocalypse from the risen Christ.
Orazio Fidani, Saint John the Apostle, c. 1640-56
God judges the world; that is, those of the world who have turned away from the only Savior, our Lord.
Do you fear the uncertainty of darkness?
Consider the uncertainty of death!
Should God punish sin?
Dare you consider the darkness of death, experienced by your soul?
“Go and pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”
Revelation 16:1
Last Judgement – Michelangelo
10 The fifth [angel] poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.
People gnawed their tongues because of their pain
11 and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they did not repent of their works.
Judgement! And punishment, even after death.
No redemption from sin, no help from the beast or false prophet.
Certainly no post-death incarnation into a new or different body, not even that of a lowly animal. (Such selfish idolatry of those lost souls who strictly adhere to such ancient lies or worship false gods.)
The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. The key for the shaft to the abyss was given to him. 2 He opened the shaft to the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great furnace so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.
The Dragon Thrown Out of Heaven
7 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, 8 but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer.
You with eyes to see, souls seeking the Light of salvation: observe the terrible intensity of the battle between good and evil – Satan’s opposition to the Lord God and Christ Jesus. It is a battle to the death for our souls!
Yet by the mercy of the LORD’s Sacrifice of love on the Cross for you, Christ Jesus purchased victory eternal over the dragon of darkness.
9 So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.
The many names of the evil one
He hides in the shadows of darkness and speaks lies to false prophets. We know this dark imitator of light by many names, confusing even more our blurred vision of his subtle evil.
The great dragon – δράκων from familiar imagery of Greek mythology to John’s audience. The ancient serpent – ὄφις , a familiar reference to the cunning tempter in Eden , a clear reference to original sinחַטָּאָת.
John clarifies the identity of the enemy with two additional names more familiar to us, first: the devil – διάβολος diabolos in the familiar Greek, which means slanderer or accuser. He is known as the tempterπεῖρα, one who would bring you to a trial or terrible experience. It is a word from a root word πέραν meaning, ‘to pierce,’ which contains significant symbolism in the war between good and evil, between Christ and Satan.
John’s second identification is the most familiar and most feared: Satan. The contemporary name in the Greek, Σατανᾶς Satanas, also known to fellow Jews, believers along with John, as Satanשָׂטָן.
Revelation 16:10 refers to Satan’s princely throne as ‘throne of the beast,’ θηρίον thērion, implying his wild, venomous nature, even brutal, savage and ferocious, sometime illustrated as a bestial man.
Is is any wonder that the evil one wants man, created in the image of God, to dismiss him as myth?
More names of the prince of darkness
While relating the prophesy known as the fifth trumpet, John refers to Satan as: ‘the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon.’
Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer.
Revelation 12:7-8
Though Satan rules the darkness and entices sinners to turn against Christ Jesus and bow down at the throne of darkness, dare you doubt the consequence of the war between good and evil?
Satan and the false prophet are defeated and punished.
The saints then reign with Christ.
The Lord reigns over a new creation and a new Jerusalem.
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 Night will be no more…
Revelation 22:3b-4a
The Apostle John pleas to his beloved churches, to beloved saints who claim Christ. The commandment of God is love, as Christ has loved us.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him.
Look at the timeline of man’s history as if the mark on the left is creation. Suppose man (adam) is a second mark and Noah a third. Then Abraham and Moses followed by David, with generations and centuries unmarked.
In the middle of the line a notable mark of the division of time follows which we note as B.C. (or BCE) and A.D. (from the Latin: Anno Domini – ‘In the year of our Lord’).
Before this dividing mark of time between BC and AD, David has reigned and the Prophets have spoken.
THEN..
Jesus Christ is born, teaches, crucified and resurrected (a challenge to mortal time).
His life as God With Us (Immanuel) delineates a beginning to these last days.
Our timeline of these last days endures through persecution of the faithful while the Lord wins repentant sinners.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:9
Following the fall of Rome and rise of false prophets the church witnesses the way of Christ Jesus.
History records the printing of the Bible, reformation of the faith and enlightenment of mindful godlessness.
The nations learn of Christ, empires rise and fall toward an inevitable end, the omega of time. Christ IS near in the omega of these last days, the end of time measured by the created of the Lord God Almighty.
Ω Ō, o’-meg-ah; the last letter of the Greek alphabet, i.e. (figuratively) the finality:—Omega.
Observe any line, even a timeline of history.
It has a beginning (Α, ἄλφα) and it has an end (Ω, Omega).
Yet look beyond the visible beginning and visible end of the line and in your mind’s eye observe the infinite extension of that which is visible.
Look above (heavenward) and below: consider the expanse of so much which the line does not touch.
— Omega revealing the end
Our created living souls can barely grasp it!
The refracted light of our postmodern enlightenment clouds the clarity of the One true Light.
Time and creation have cause. The Lord will surely accomplish His purpose and the saving of His own at the end.
Before the Α, After the Ω
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 1:31
One commandment from God to man, a simple life in paradise:
“.. of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” – Genesis 2:17b
Yet man chooses trespass to just one simple command from God. A just and righteous LORD must punish sin.
The Lord God said.. to Adam he said: “.. for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” – Genesis 3 excerpt
Living toward life’s end
LATER in Scripture - from a conversation of a righteous man.
Although Job appears later in the Bible his place in the timeline of history is closer to Abraham than to David.
… so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
6 My days are swifter.. and come to their end without hope.
7 “Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.
17 What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, 18 visit him every morning and test him every moment?
Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.” – Job 7:21
… and in Hades, being in torment… And he called out, ‘… have mercy on me.., for I am in anguish in this flame.’
ᾅδης – hadēs
What do you expect of inevitable death and deserved hell?
(Or do you yet claim blemished goodness with eyes that will not see death?)
Hell [Hades] holds captive many living souls by the certainty of our own sins.
Roman, Hellenist and Hebrew understanding of Jesus’ mention of Hades fits the definition:
name Hades or Pluto, the god of the lower regions
Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead
later use of this word: the grave, death, hell
Yet note a subtlety of the root word of Hades:
From the negative participle of Alpha and εἴδω – eidō, a word meaning ‘to see’ or ‘to know.’
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. – Revelation 20:1
Do you yet see our vulnerability to the punishment for sin after our end without Christ?
“Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house. – Ezekiel 12:2
After the Omega, saved in Christ
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.. – 1 Timothy 1:15
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
.. and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
“We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ)...
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the judgment:
the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb…
“And behold, I am coming soon.
12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
“Come.”
And let the one who hears say, “Come.”
And let the one who is thirsty come;
let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
