Greetings to the brightest audience in the country, and welcome to Theology Thursday. I’m Nicole McBurney. Every weekday, we bring you the news of the day, the culture, and science from a Christian worldview.
But today, join me and Pastor Bob Enyart as we explore the source of our Christian worldview, the Bible.
Revelation chapter 5, verse 1. And I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Now, this is what everybody’s been looking forward to, at least most people studying the Book of Revelation.
We want to know when it all comes down, what’s going to happen. When God finally, when his anger overcomes his mercy and his patience, and he says, that’s it, this is where we come to. Now, who is it that’s on the throne holding the scroll?
It’s God the Father, as we’ll see tonight, God the Son, Jesus Christ, as a lamb, the Lamb of God, he comes and takes the scroll from the Father and begins to implement its instructions. It says that it’s a scroll written inside and on the back. So it’s double-sided.
Now a scroll is typically written on papyrus, which is a reed, and they take the reed and dry it. It’s in long strips, and then they glue them together horizontally on, let’s say, the front surface of it and on the back vertically. So it makes a nice durable material to write on, and you write horizontally.
You wouldn’t want to write on the back because you have to go against the strips. So even though materials were rather rare thousands of years ago, they still typically only had single-sided scrolls. They broke that rule if they’re desperate enough, but this scroll here, we’re told, is double-sided.
Verse 2, Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals? And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look at it. Wow.
This must must have been some heavy-duty seals on this scroll and one powerful scroll. So I wept much. Now we’ll think about that in a moment.
Why is he weeping? I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. Now, why is John weeping?
This is an emotional comment in the Bible, unlike others that are in there, seems to come out of nowhere. You know, if somebody is going to weep, the story builds up and then they weep. And John sees the scroll.
And what’s in the scroll? Well, we know that what’s in it is the plan of judgment and vengeance and wrath that God will unleash on the wicked. And so, no one is there to open the scroll to begin the judgment.
And John is beside himself almost immediately with anguish. He wants the judgment to begin. Let it begin.
And he’s upset that it’s not happening.
Millions of people, as these scrolls will not only, there’s about five pretty devastating things that happen with these scrolls. And the seventh scroll announces the first trumpet. And there are seven trumpets.
And then the trumpets lead into the seven thunders, which bring us to the seven bowls. And it’s millions of people, hundreds of millions of people are destroyed. And that’s what happens when you start to unravel the scroll.
So imagine John, Christians think of John, this loving and tender, the beloved disciple. And he is waiting for God’s wrath to be unleashed. He’s anxious for it.
And the way I understand Christian teaching that’s common, that would be sinful to be looking forward to God’s wrath. That would be wrong. We’re taught not to look forward to that.
But the Bible obviously has a different perspective. John is weeping because countless millions of people are not going to be plagued, starved, killed with the sword, killed by earthquakes, or torn by beasts of the field. You know, nicer than God churches wouldn’t approve of that emotional reaction from John.
But here it is. Verse 5. But one of the elders said to me, Do not weep.
Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah. The root of David has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. That’s exciting.
Jesus Christ is the one described as the lion of the tribe of Judah. When Jacob blessed his twelve sons in Genesis chapter 49, some of the comments that he made to them turned into emblems or symbols of that tribe. And I’ll give you one right now.
Judah, the lion of the tribe of Judah in Genesis 49.9, Jacob said, Judah is a lion’s whelp from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who shall rouse him? And Jesus Christ came from the tribe of Judah, Jacob’s fourth son, chronologically.
And so, and he is called the lion of the tribe of Judah. Judah has the symbol of a lion, and Christ is the lion. He is the king.
Okay, and who is this that’s going to open the scrolls, open the scroll and loose the seals, if we didn’t know it was Jesus? We’ll get to this later in the study. But many commentators insist that the wrath of God does not appear in the in the tribulation.
They say it’s not the wrath of God, it’s the wrath of Satan. Now that’s untenable. And many of the post-tribulationists believe that.
They believe that the tribulation is the wrath of Satan, and afterward when Christ comes back, that’s the day of the Lord, but the tribulation is all Satan’s wrath. We’ll see that that’s not tenable. Also, those who believe in a mid-tribulation rapture, and a pre-wrath rapture, they teach that all this part of the tribulation is the wrath of Satan, and the wrath of man, not the wrath of God.
So we look at this and we say, well, who is it that’s going to open the scroll and unleash its judgments? It’s Christ. It’s the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David.
Verse 6, And I looked and behold, in the midst of the throne, and of the four living creatures, in the midst of the of the elders. And that’s the 24 elders on the thrones, stood a lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. Now these seven spirits are the seven angels that were mentioned in Revelation 1, 2, 3, and 4.
So here they are again. And mystery could be built into, well, what are these seven spirits? Is it the Holy Spirit?
Are there eight Holy Spirits? Holy Spirit in seven compartments? But the Bible makes pretty clear that these spirits are angels, as we’ve seen in our past week’s studies.
The seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. Remember we looked at Zechariah chapter four, and we saw, Now the angel said to me, What do you see? So I said, Seven lamps.
These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth. So God has angels who are at his right hand. And if he chooses to, he could send out the angels to see what’s going on in Sodom and Gomorrah.
I’m too disgusted. I don’t want to look. Go look and tell me.
Or he could go and look. God is mighty, and he’s able to look or to not look, or to send an intermediary to look. Well, the lamb will open the scroll because the witnesses against the earth confirm and corroborate one another, that the people of the earth deserve great and terrible judgment to be poured out on them.
So therefore, the lamb stood. The lamb had been slain, and he was about ready to unleash judgment for a couple of reasons. One, because he had created the world as a paradise, and Adam and Eve and their descendants to love and honor God and one another.
And instead, they have done nothing, as a figure of speech, nothing but continuously hurt one another with violence and suffering that they have imposed on one another. And God is fed up with it. So God is going to cap the rebellion.
Verse 7, Then he came, that’s Jesus, the lamb, and took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne from his father. Now, when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And the mediating of these prayers reminds one of priestly duties.
It makes you think of that. We’ll talk about that more in a couple of minutes. The lamb will open this scroll of damnation and death, partly in answer to the prayers of the saints.
Those saints who are praying, Lord, don’t delay. Bring your judgment, bring your wrath. Their prayers, here before the Lord in heaven, will be answered.
And that is part of what is going on when Christ decides, now I’m going to open the scroll.
They are golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. We could spend a lot of time looking at verses about incense in the Bible, but I think we’ll just look at one. The English word incense appears in the New King James 144 times.
And in Psalm 141 verse 2, let my prayer be set before you as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. So let my prayer be set before you as incense. God is in the heavens, in heaven, in heaven above, and when you light incense, the smoke drifts upward.
And so it’s symbolic. So there was an altar in the temple, and we know that Zacharias, twice a year, would go into the temple at the time of Christ’s birth, and he would offer incense. The people outside would smell the incense, and that would be part of their worship.
And it was when Zacharias was in there, getting ready to burn the incense to offer to God, that the angel told him that he and Elizabeth would have a child in their old age, who would be John the Baptist. And that angel appeared on the right side of the table of incense. And meanwhile, outside the temple, right at that hour, the people were praying.
And that’s the picture God uses symbolically of incense. Verse 9, And they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You are worthy because you were slain.
Therefore, you’re worthy to bring judgment and wrath. Christ, there are two reasons that he was prepared to do this. The first was because he created us and we rebelled.
And the second, because he came to save us and the world turned against him, even him, and wrongly judged him and punished him in the crucifixion. And for those two reasons, one, we could say rather personal, he was ready to come an exact judgment. Notice that these 24 elders, they sang to Christ that he has redeemed them to God by your blood of every tribe and nation.
This is why I believe that they are men, these 24 elders. It seems strange that the four living creatures would join in on this song. But perhaps that is understandable.
They could sing along as a sign of unity, even though the words did not directly apply to them. Remember the four living creatures with the face of a lion, an eagle, a man, and an ox. Like a love song sung to a woman on the radio, and women are driving in rush hour traffic, and they are singing along, and they are not singing the song to the woman.
They are just singing along. Here is a guy singing something from his heart, and I like it, and I am going to sing with him. And that could be exactly what the four living creatures are doing, singing this song, without any legalistic worry interfering.
Since they sang a new song, that means, what does that mean? They sang a new song. It had not previously been sung in heaven, which is one of many confirmations that yes, there is time in heaven.
There is time for one song, then there is time for another song, and when you get there, you could write yet another song. There would be an even newer song in heaven. So there is time, there is now and then, in heaven.
If there was no time in heaven, there could never be anything new ever in heaven. If there was no time. And believe me, when you get to heaven, there will be something new there.
Something quite unlike anything that had ever been there before. When any of us get there. So, of course, heaven is constantly changing, just with the never-ending stream of souls who arrive there, who have put their faith in God.
Verse 10, okay, there’s a song being sung to God, and God is told, and you have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth. Kings and priests. This shows the Jewish character of the book.
The people of God in the Book of Revelation are the 12 tribes of Israel, and their covenant is the new covenant based on circumcision, the covenant of circumcision and the law. That’s the group to whom this book is written, the people of God. We’ll see that in a bit when 12,000 are sealed from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
Way back in Exodus chapter 19, you shall be to me a kingdom of priests. And that’s what we have here. Christ has made us kings and priests to our God.
As one of the 12 apostles wrote to the believing Jews of the dispersion, 1 Peter 2.9, he wrote, You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a royal, a kingly priesthood. Now, why are there 24 thrones and 24 elders when the number 12 signifies Israel? Well, King David divided the priesthood into 24 divisions.
Not the entire priesthood, not all of the Levites, but of the Levites, Aaron was a Levite. Remember Moses’ brother, Miriam’s brother, Aaron. And Aaron was the high priest.
And he had four kids, two of them were killed because they were evil, right off the bat. And the other two ended up with many thousands of descendants. And at the time of David, which was centuries later, about five centuries later, David divided the descendants of Aaron into 24 divisions, the 24 courses, the 24 divisions of the priesthood.
And each one, he went into the descendants of Aaron, and he found a strong man, a father, of 24 different families that Aaron’s sons had split into. And he made each one a leader of a certain group of the descendants of the high priest. And they were as a group then responsible for serving the Lord at the temple.
And they would take turns. They’d go for one week from the Sabbath to the Sabbath, and then the next group and the next group. When they went through all 24, they’d start over.
And they’d do that each year. And the eighth group, the group that would go in the eighth week of the year, was of the division of Abijah. And Abijah, that is whom Zacharias and Elizabeth were descendants of.
He was in the order of Abijah, and that’s who John the Baptist was of that order. So David, he took the priest, specifically the high priest’s descendants, and divided them into 24 divisions. And so it’s possible that these 24 thrones with 24 elders, of course, Israel’s 12, double that as 24, in heaven and on earth, it could be that they are emblematic symbols of the priestly kingdom of Israel.
And in that way, in that respect, symbols of the whole group of redeemed Israel. Perhaps these are not always 24 particular individuals. It could be that from time to time, those saved among Israel get to go to the throne room of God and sit on that throne and from Sabbath to Sabbath worship the Lord.
We don’t know. But if so, then that would work following the model of the priesthood that was implemented by David through the Old Testament. And we shall reign on the earth.
And that is what they are looking forward to. God promised Israel an earthly kingdom. And Jesus Christ came in encouraging them that the meek shall inherit heaven.
Is that what he said? No, he said the meek shall inherit the earth. Christians, rightly today, have a focus that we are citizens of heaven and we plan to live forever in heaven.
But God creates a new heaven and a new earth. And the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven onto the new earth and becomes the center, the capital, if you will, of the kingdom on earth, of God’s kingdom on earth. And that’s for Israel.
And that’s where the twelve tribes will live. And that’s where the twelve gates to the new Jerusalem, the city, and the names of the twelve apostles, and the twelve thrones that Jesus spoke of, that the twelve apostles will sit on those thrones, judging the tribes of Israel. So that is all going to happen.
And that’s what these elders are looking forward to, reigning on the earth, not in heaven, which is another of so many indications that this is a Jewish book for believing Israel in the circumcision, not for the body of Christ. Verse 11, Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. There are many angels up in heaven that are willing to worship God and serve him, and at his command could fly down to the earth and one angel back in the Old Testament destroyed the Assyrian army.
How many soldiers did he kill in one night? I think it was a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians. You know, it’s interesting looking in the history of the world.
Well, I didn’t put this in my notes. I’m trying to recall who wrote this brief history of the world. It’s in two massive volumes that I have at the office.
Maybe I’ll recall who wrote it, but he’s not a believer. He’s not a Christian. He doesn’t like the Bible, but he mentions in there, when you go back and read about the Assyrian Empire, he says, in the Assyrian Army, at one point, at the right point in the Bible’s history, was on its way to Egypt in a plague destroyed the Assyrian Army.
And I think that was pretty coincidental. HG. Wells.
Thank you very much. That’s right. So God has a lot of angels, and those angels represent a tremendous amount of power.
How many angels are there? And if a third of the angels fell, how many angels would that mean? How many demons are there?
Well, we don’t know how many angels there are. If this estimation here is anywhere near literal within any kind of ballpark, that would mean there were 153 million angels originally created. Now, I don’t think this is really a literal statement.
I think it’s a figure of speech, but it might put us in a ballpark. There might be many more. But 10,000 times 10,000 would be 100 million, and thousands of thousands would be at least a couple million.
So that would be 102 million, and if there were originally a third that fell, that would be 153 million, with 51 million demons. Now, we have no idea, of course, if that’s the case. Maybe there’s twice as many fallen angels, 100 million, or three times as many, 150 million, or four times, or five times, maybe a quarter of a billion.
You know, if there were a quarter of a billion fallen angels, that would be one for every 24 people in the world. So, you couldn’t have your own demon, but you might have your block demon, who would try to tempt everyone on the block, depending on who’s home at any given moment. But it’s interesting, if the number is closer to 50 million, then we’d have one demon for every 120 people in the world today.
But, of those, say whatever the number is, 50 million demons, many of them have been locked up in Tartarus. Some undoubtedly for going after strange flesh, when they produced the Nephilim, the giants of old, by going into the daughters of men. Remember when Jesus in Matthew chapter 8 confronted these demons and they cried out and said, what have we to do with you, Jesus, you son of God?
Have you come here to torment us before the time? And they didn’t want anything to do with Jesus. And they didn’t want to be like their fellow demons who had been locked in chains and bound up.
They wanted to stay free and clear. So, of the original number, how many were locked up? We don’t know.
We are speaking of the same angels that Jude wrote of in verse 6 of his book, the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, that God has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. In Noah’s day, there could have been a billion people on the earth, and it seems that the problem of angels going after women was widespread, being a major reason why God destroyed all of mankind. So if half of the demons were locked up, we may not have as many demons as Christians generally think.
The only reason I’ve spent this few minutes on this topic is because there are some groups of Christians that are almost obsessed with demonology and demons and deliverance from demons. And whenever there’s a problem, well, you have to get delivered from a demon. If you have a problem with eating or with finances or with pornography, it’s a demon.
And they will go through an exorcism of sorts and you’re delivered and you know no longer have that problem. That’s wonderful, except that it doesn’t work. And nowhere in the Bible does it say, well, if you’re struggling with some lust of the flesh, get a demon kicked out of you and then you’ll be okay.
It just doesn’t say that. And in the whole Bible, if we looked at the passages that refer to demons, it’s just a tiny sliver of the whole book, a very minimal focus. Now, our battle is in the spiritual realm.
And that’s true if any one particular person is up against Satan himself or any of his hierarchy or even some of his flunky demons. If you find yourself in a battle with a demon and there’s a demon putting thoughts in your mind and tempting you and you have this real concrete temptation and you’re getting these thoughts obsessively to give into it, you might be in a battle with a demon. On the other hand, you might just be in a battle with your heart and your flesh, which is deceitful above all else.
And you might be in a battle with your boss or your friend or your relative. The point is, whoever you’re in the battle with, it’s a spiritual battle. And it’s fought in the spiritual realm.
Because our Christian life is a spiritual entity. We live our lives in our heart, in our mind. That’s where the battles are all fought.
So let’s go on to verse 12. These angels were saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.
Hey, this is Nicole McBurney jumping in to the broadcast. We are out of time for today, so be sure to come back next Thursday to hear the rest of this study. To find other resources and Bible studies, be sure to go to kgov.com/store.
That’s kgov.com/store.
