Apocalypse for Everyman

1
Apocalypse for Everyman

• By Brother Alfred D. Norris
• Summary presentation for Avon Bible Class
  presented by Brother Dean Brown, June 2007

2
Ground Rules same as last week

• Description without cheerleading for or
  against. This applies to all of us. No arguing
  for or against tonight.
• Simple framework and confusing details.
• Questions about the basic description and basic
  logic are allowed, but not questions about
  details, otherwise well get bogged down.

3
1.1 Things which must shortly come to pass.

• This presents all expositors of the Apocalypse
  with a problem. On any showing the ultimate
  purpose of the Book to lead us to the second
  coming of the Lord has not been fulfilled
  quickly. No doubt we are being told that the Lord
  will come without avoidable delay we may also be
  told that, when He does come He will come at
  lightning speed, "as the lightning from one end
  of the heaven shineth to the other part under
  heaven" (Luke 17.24).
• The meaning may also be that the earliest events
  with which the Book opens are on the doorstep.

4
1.11 The seven congregations.

• It has been suggested that these communities are
  typical of seven ages of our era, culminating in
  the time of the Lord Jesus' return. But there is
  absolutely nothing in the Book itself, beyond the
  general statement that it is designed to teach
  Jesus' servants about things to come, which would
  support this suggestion. Nor is there any such
  orderly regression from purity to apostacy as
  would make the suggestion probable.

5
on continuous-historic history

• The plain fact is that many Bible-readers have
  been put off seeking to understand the Apocalypse
  because of the critical knowledge of history
  which it has appeared to demand and many others
  have been content to accept the view of the Book
  offered to them by respected leaders, learning
  the history if they learned it at all, in the
  form in which it was provided, and without either
  the time or the inclination to put it to critical
  test.
• Note Historical criticisms by Brother J.B.
  Norris

6
6.1-8 The four horses

• The CH interpretation assumed that each of the
  four horses had its own historical period,
  running consecutively and continuously and not
  overlapping. But this assumption is nowhere
  suggested by the text, and does not conform to
  other parts of Scripture.
• The white horse does come out, and there is no
  indication whatever that at the conclusion of its
  errand it returned with its rider to stable. The
  same is true of the other three horses. For all
  the record tells us to the contrary there could
  have been a rapid breaking of these four Seals,
  followed by the emergence each in its turn of the
  four horses.

7
The Seals and the Olivet Prophecy

• The Seals and the Olivet Prophecy deal with
  related events. In the Olivet Prophecy, however,
  the "wars and rumors of wars", "famines and
  earthquakes in divers places", and "this gospel
  of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole
  world", are not located at particular periods
  during our dispensation. There are no doubt
  special periods when these things are more
  evident than at others, but these are
  characteristic of the entire epoch since the Lord
  Jesus ascended. The first four Seals can be
  readily understood as the Lord Jesus' revelation
  that the world in which the gospel is being
  preached will not be making constant progress
  towards the Utopia of the kingdom of God.

8
6.11 they should rest yet for a little time

• If this analysis is at all correct, we are
  informed from within the Apocalypse itself that
  its major portion is concerned with the time
  close to the return of the Lord Jesus.
• Revelation is doing again what has been done so
  often in Scripture, leaving out a large section
  of intermediate history and going on to detail
  the events which will accompany the time of God's
  direct intervention in the world's affairs. Such
  a gap is found in Joel 2-3, in Daniel 11-12, in
  Daniel 9, and also in the Olivet prophecy.

9
The persecution of the last days

• In this Fifth Seal we are told, not only that
  martyred saints have been long dead and
  unrequited, but that living saints are not immune
  from the earlier sufferings. The words are now
  seen to speak clearly of a latter-day
  persecution.

10

• This conclusion was so unwelcome to the writer
  that he meditated long and hard before concluding
  that it was inescapable, and that the duty of
  saying so could not be evaded. It is only the
  firmest conviction that the passage plainly
  states that there is to be a latter-day
  persecution of the saints of God which has led to
  the matter being written down at all. Indeed,
  were it not for the conclusion that the Book is
  actually and primarily written to prepare the
  saint for the problems which he will need to face
  as the coming of the Lord draws nigh, it is
  doubtful whether this writing would even have
  been contemplated.

11

• We must obviously not be satisfied to base so
  far-reaching a conclusion as this, that saints
  will be called upon to face a fiery trial before
  the Lord returns, merely on the evidence of the
  interpretation of this fifth Seal. But when we
  do face the rest of Scripture, it becomes ever
  plainer that there is no escape from the
  conclusions arrived at here.
• We have repeatedly stressed the parallels with
  the Olivet Prophecy then can the warnings of
  Luke 21.12-19 Mark 13.9-13 Matthew 24.9-13, be
  restricted to the events immediately before the
  destruction of Jerusalem in 70? Plainly they
  cannot, but must also, perhaps in some cases
  primarily, refer to the events preceding the
  Lord's return.

12
8.1 THE SEVENTH SEAL

• The first four Seals may not represent a
  sequence, but they are succeeded by the Fifth,
  and Sixth and Seventh, and this Seventh does
  immediately lead to the sounding of the Seven
  Trumpets. It is plain that the Trumpets are to be
  compressed within the short period of time which
  follows on the expectation of the near return of
  the Lord. The earth and sea are to be sorely
  "hurt" by the pending judgments of God (7.2-3),
  and now that the servants of God have been
  securely sealed there is nothing to prevent those
  judgments being executed.

13
8.1 silence about half an hour

• Whatever problems may be presented by the
  "silence for about half an hour", there is no
  problem about the meaning of "heaven" in the
  present context. It is where John has been
  admitted in his vision, where in symbol the
  throne of God is to be found, and in which the
  Lamb now sits by His Father's side, opening the
  Book of the future. It is beneath the altar in
  this symbolic heavenly temple that John has seen
  the lives of those that were slain. Here is no
  'political heaven' where the rulers of this world
  dwell but God does not. God's angels are here,
  and hither the prayers of the saints ascend.

14

• And there is as little warrant for convoluted
  double reasoning about the length of the half
  hour as there is for ignoring this meaning of the
  word 'heaven'. To take half an hour as a 24th of
  a day (which it is not), and, having made that
  into 1/24 of a year, and then go through the
  exercise again, taking the 15 days which this
  would represent and expanding them to 15 years,
  is to take liberties with exposition after which
  nothing would be impossible.
• cf. Eureka vol. 2, p. 359 comments on Rev 81

15
8.6-11.19 THE SEVEN TRUMPETS

• Observe the striking parallel between the
  Trumpets here, and the Vials of chapter 16.
• There is no denying the common plan. The
  capitalized words in the first four cases show
  that the spheres of operations, whatever their
  significance, are the same EARTH - SEA - FRESH
  WATERS - HEAVENLY BODIES. There are torment and
  darkness in the fifth of each series the River
  Euphrates and the assembly of armies are found in
  the sixth and the portents of thunder, voices
  and an earthquake introduce the kingdom,
  resurrection and judgment in the seventh.

16

• Yet the series are far from identical. In the
  Trumpets it is repeatedly emphasized that a third
  part of the area affected is desolated. No such
  restriction operates in the Vials. It is as
  though two sets of judgments are inflicted by God
  on the world, Trumpets first and Vials
  afterwards. And between the two there is strong
  evidence of a period of witness giving the
  nations their last opportunity of repentance
  before "the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from
  heaven . . . taking vengeance on them that know
  not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord
  Jesus Christ" (2 Thessalonians 1.7-8).

17
SEALS, TRUMPETS, AND VIALS

• It is a question needing to be answered, why the
  three series of disclosures should be given these
  names to be sure, seals have to be broken to
  make it possible to open the Book, and to that
  extent the symbol might not have any special
  appropriateness of its own. But trumpets and
  vials are freely chosen signs, and there must be
  some good reason for selecting them. And so there
  is, and for the seals too. For if a Book is
  unsealed its contents can be read. There may not
  be anything in the contents of the Book which
  speaks of special action on God's part, but at
  least there is His foreknowledge of what is to
  come, and it is this pre-eminently that the Seals
  do disclose.

18

• It is the Seventh Seal which ushers in the
  Trumpets, and these Trumpets are sounded by God's
  angels. Trumpets sound alarms to call people
  together, or they sound the note to assemble
  armies to battle or they issue a warning of
  dangers against which precautions must be taken.
  In the Old Testament the silver trumpets were
  used to summon Israel in the Wilderness to make
  or strike camp, and accompanied the dedication or
  rededication of the Temple, while the shophar was
  used both in religious services and in calling
  people to battle. So here in the Apocalypse the
  Trumpets sound alarms and warnings.

19

• Here is action by God, which people can heed if
  they will, and in heeding might avert the worse
  things yet to come. But if Trumpets are warnings,
  Vials are outpourings. We have gone beyond mere
  disclosure, and again beyond the sounding of the
  alarm, and have reached the point where there is
  no return the end has come. God is pouring out
  His final judgments on the world, and there can
  be no turning back.

20
THE TEMPLE OF GOD CLOSED

• After these things I saw, and there came out
  from the temple the seven angels that had the
  seven plagues And one of the four living
  creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden
  vials full of the wrath of God, and none was
  able to enter into the temple, till the seven
  plagues of the seven angels should be finished.
  (15.5-8)

21

• The angels come out to pour God's vengeance on
  the world (15.6), but only those who have already
  repented and received the gospel have now any
  right to His care and protection under the
  visitations to come.
• A very clearly written NO ADMITTANCE notice is
  posted outside the sanctuary, and, like the
  unrepentant Pharaoh of the Exodus, the world must
  now accept and endure the tribulations which it
  has brought upon itself by its refusal to listen
  to the final appeal.
• Before attempting any more detailed analysis of
  these chapters, let us summarize the general
  position arrived at

22

• (a) At a time when the saints have been told that
  the end is not far away, and men are recoiling in
  fear from the anticipated pouring out of God's
  wrath, the saints are reminded that they are
  secure in God's care whatever now may come, and
  whatever may befall them.
• (b) Under the symbolism of the Trumpets, God then
  proceeds to pour out severe and destructive, but
  not final, judgments on every sphere of human
  interest earth, fresh waters which may be
  drunk, salt waters for navigation and fishing,
  and the heavenly providers of heat and light
  followed by yet more severe judgments in the
  shape of the last three Trumpets, the "three
  Woes".

23

• (c) In the course of the Sixth Trumpet, the
  Second Woe, the gospel is powerfully preached
  throughout the world, to which men in general
  decline to respond by way of repentance, just as
  they did during the judgments which precede this
  witness,
• (d) As a result, the world is now told that the
  door to fruitful repentance is to be closed.
• (e) The last, inescapable, judgments are then
  poured out on the impenitent world, and finally,
  after the "battle of the great day of God
  Almighty", the "kingdom of this world" is
  abolished, and replaced by "the kingdom of our
  God and of His Christ".

24

• This summary shows clearly how much this Book
  concentrates on the last days. It needed but one
  chapter (6) to bring us within eyeshot of the
  end-times, but then it takes nine (7-15) to
  prepare the scene. We then have four more
  chapters in which the last crisis is worked out
  in detail, and we are taken to the installation
  of the Lamb and His saints on the thrones of the
  kingdom.

25
THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS (8.1-13)

• The point emerges that these are divine
  judgments, and we might think that the world
  should see them to be such, as clearly as Pharaoh
  did the signs wrought through Moses. In these
  circumstances it is doubly difficult to make any
  confident guess as to what the signs will prove
  to be on fulfillment because they will be
  inflicted in some way by God Himself, and because
  we have not yet reached the point referred to.
• When this Trumpet sounds, the very core of man's
  daily life will be painfully touched, with damage
  comparable with the wreck of the agriculture of
  Egypt by the Plagues.

26
Bound at the great river Euphrates (9.14)

• Why Euphrates? The river is referred to again in
  the Sixth Vial. Ever since Joseph Mede (ca. 1640)
  the opinion has been widespread that the
  reference in the latter case is to the downfall
  of the Turkish Empire, which was to be the last
  step before the return of the Lord Jesus. This is
  already rendered improbable by the fact that the
  bigger part of a century has passed since Turkey
  ceased to control the Holy Land and in any case
  to introduce the power of Turkey is not to
  provide a biblical solution of the problem,
  attractive though it might have seemed under the
  political conditions of the 17th century.

27

• The biblical solution must surely go back to the
  Old Testament, where the river is preeminently
  the River of Babylon, especially in the Book of
  Jeremiah, and when that prophet sent Seraiah to
  bind a stone to the manuscript of the prophecy of
  the fate of Babylon and cast it into Euphrates,
  he linked the River with the fate of the city in
  a way which must provide the basis for the
  interpretation of both symbols.

28

• Though we have not so far met the name Babylon in
  Revelation, we shall do so in chapters 14, 16,
  17, and 18. Here Babylon clearly appears as a
  principal enemy of the gospel and of the saints,
  shortly before the Lord returns. In 16.19 the
  city appears in close proximity with the River,
  and when we recall that the literal city fell
  when a by-pass channel was constructed so as to
  dry up Euphrates, so that a way might be provided
  for the kings from the Sun's Rising, those of the
  Medes and Persians (Isaiah 41.2,25), there can be
  little doubt that the fall of the actual city in
  Old Testament times provides the model for the
  fall of a spiritual Babylon-on-Euphrates in the
  Apocalypse.

29
CHAPTER 11 THE TWO WITNESSES

• Since everything we have so far found points to a
  short and sharp sequence of events during these
  days, it would seem that, if a precise period is
  defined by this time-period at all, it must be a
  literal 3.5 years, and could not be anything
  approaching an actual period of 1260 years, which
  a principle of a day for a year would require.

30
CHAPTER 12 THE WOMAN, THE MANCHILD, AND THE
DRAGON

• The woman here depicted is adorned with sun,
  moon, and twelve stars, and the only place in
  Scripture where these precise symbols are
  combined is in Joseph's Dream. The woman is
  therefore the ideal Israel, at this stage
  despite aspersions sometimes gratuitously cast on
  her character by those who wish to present her as
  a harlot community giving birth to an apostate
  quasi-Christian ruler, glorious in appearance
  and about to give birth to a glorious Child.

31

• The dragon represents universal hostility to
  godly people .
• In addition to the indications we have already
  had, the "rod of iron" well-nigh identifies
  positively this Manchild with the Lord Jesus
  Christ. It is true that the Lord promises similar
  authority to His saints (2.27), but this is to be
  in the Kingdom where He will exercise the same
  authority as their Leader (19.15). This last
  reference, in fact, makes the identification even
  more certain, for the Manchild is caught up to
  God's throne, and it is from heaven that the
  Conqueror will emerge.

32

• The movements from now on of this woman are not
  without considerable difficulties of
  interpretation. Her flight into the wilderness
  seems to have occurred in stages first it
  involved persecution by the Dragon which had
  failed to devour her child, and continued with
  her flight into the wilderness by means of the
  two wings of the great eagle, to a place prepared
  by God, but with the help of the earth, which
  swallowed the flood with which the Dragon thought
  to overwhelm her. When she is safely in the
  wilderness, the Dragon turns its attentions to
  the persecution of "her seed, which keep the
  commandments of God and hold the testimony of
  Jesus", which might suggest that she herself no
  longer kept these commandments.
• Omitting the time periods, it is easy to fit some
  of these events into history.

33

• The woman was given two wings, by means of which
  to flee into her wilderness, and it is quite
  plain that the imagery is once more drawn from
  the Old Testament
• Zechariah 5.7 This is a woman sitting in the
  midst of the ephah . . . Behold there came forth
  two women . . . (who) had wings like those of a
  stork. . . Whither do these bear the ephah ?...
  To build an house in the land of Shinar and when
  it is prepared she shall be set there in her own
  place.
• In both cases we have a woman originating in
  Israel. In both she is borne away with wings. In
  Revelation she is taken to the wilderness, and in
  Zechariah to Shinar, and there is no doubt what
  Shinar means. In short, it is a synonym for
  Babylon.
• And if we ask in what sense a symbolic woman, in
  the days of the restoration from Persian
  captivity (for that is the time of Zechariah's
  prophecy) could be said to be about to fly to
  Babylon, the answer can only be apostacy. And if
  there could be any doubt it is set at rest by the
  description of the woman in Zechariah "This is
  wickedness and he cast her down into the midst
  of the ephah, and he cast the weight of lead on
  the mouth thereof (5.8).

34

• The interpretation has to be pieced carefully
  together. We denied that there was anything
  wicked about the woman of the Apocalypse when we
  met her in 12.1, where she was about to give
  birth to the Son of God. But it has already been
  hinted that all did not remain well with her
  when persecuted by the dragon she received and
  accepted the help of the earth and although this
  preserved her from its vengeance, it seems that
  it also caused her to leave to "the remnant of
  her seed" the duty of continuing to keep the
  commands of God and the testimony of Jesus. She
  did not first appear as an apostate, but it seems
  that she became so before the story ends.

35

• Though she is preserved by God from destruction,
  she is established in a position where her
  apostasy can take root and flourish. If we
  combine together the description of her as
  'Wickedness' in Zechariah, and the fact that her
  sojourn in the wilderness is limited to a period,
  it appears that we are to expect two things one
  is her emergence from the wilderness when this
  time has expired, and the other is that she will
  be seen in her new, true character, fully
  justifying the name of Wickedness given her by
  the prophet.
• At this point we have to take a leap to chapter
  17 to continue her history.

36

• At first sight there is nothing to connect a
  glorious personage such as the woman of 12.1 with
  the abomination disclosed in 17.3. Yet the two
  chapters themselves provide the link that woman
  was carried into a wilderness for a period of
  time, and would therefore be expected to return
  this one is found in a wilderness, in the only
  other place in the Apocalypse where such a thing
  is referred to at all. Couple that with the fact
  that the place of sojourn of the woman in
  Zechariah 5.11 is identified as Shinar or
  Babylon, the name which this woman now bears, and
  it becomes nearly impossible to dismiss the
  parallels as accidental.

37

• If we are not absolutely compelled to identify
  the two figures as belonging to different stages
  of development of a single entity, it is hard to
  see a reasonable alternative. We repeat if the
  woman of 12.14 is to remain in the wilderness for
  a finite period, whatever its length may be, must
  we not expect her to emerge at the end of it, and
  where else is her emergence spoken of if it be
  not here?
• Isaiah 1.21 How is the faithful city become an
  harlot, she that was full of judgment
  righteousness lodged in her, but now murders.

38
Specific identity of the harlot

• Neither the possibility that natural Israel is
  still intended, nor the possibility that an
  apostate degeneration of Christian, spiritual
  Israel, is meant, is automatically excluded by
  the figure employed.

39
Option 1

• It would be possible to understand Revelation 12
  and 17 as saying that is was from the natural
  Israel that the Lord Jesus took His birth, and
  this Israel suffered in part grievous persecution
  afterwards, but was nevertheless also befriended
  by the world and afforded refuge. Under these
  conditions the nation apostatized and so (it
  could be said) became a spiritual Babylon. In
  this event it would be the same nation which
  emerges in chapter 17 as restored to power, once
  again persecuting the saints of God as it did
  throughout the apostolic period during a period
  of authority over the nations, only to find
  itself ruined by those same nations in a disaster
  from which only the Lord Jesus Christ will be
  able to deliver it.

40
Option 2

• But it would also be possible to understand the
  same passage as saying that it is the faithful in
  Israel which gave spiritual birth to the Lord
  Jesus Christ that it is the community which He
  founded on the rock of His own resurrection which
  then bears His name that this community endured
  grievous persecution from the pagan world until
  it was befriended by Christendom and became
  corrupted and that it is this apostate
  Christianity which rises to the seat of power
  over the nations, resumes persecution of the
  saints, is destroyed by the nations it rides, and
  is thus betrayed and overcome.

41
difficulties in accepting either alternative

• If one were obliged to choose in advance whether
  natural Israel, or apostate Christianity, best
  fitted all the facts of Revelation 12-17, the
  choice would have to fall on apostate
  Christianity. This is for the following reasons
• (i) the persecution of the woman by the dragon in
  12.6,13 appears in the first instance to be the
  affliction of a faithful people, who only later
  become apostate. But Israel was an unfaithful
  nation throughout the 'entire period at issue
• (ii) the picture of Babylon the Great formed from
  the Old Testament is that of an international
  system, with many nations taking their shelter
  beneath its shade (Daniel 4.10-12 Jeremiah
  25.14), which is better represented by an
  international apostate Christendom than by an
  isolated and isolationist Israel assuming the
  suggested power over the nations.

42

• But surprising things have already happened in
  current developments, for which students of
  prophecy were quite unprepared. There is no
  reason to think that we are at the end of the
  surprises. It is wise to keep all possibilities
  in mind and hold our minds open to evaluate them
  as events unfold. We are not telling God what His
  revelation means. We are waiting humbly to find
  out.

43
CHAPTER 13 THE BEAST FROM THE SEA

• A. The activities of the Beast and its associates
  in these chapters are certainly latter-day ones,
  because
• a. The Beast persecutes the Two Witnesses, who
  are concerned with preaching the gospel very
  shortly before the Lord's return
• b. It is consigned to perdition, or the lake of
  fire, as a result of its defeat by the Lamb, and
  immediately before the Judgment
• c. It exercises the authority of the ten kings
  for "one hour" (17.12).

44

• B. Nevertheless, the Beast is firmly rooted in
  Bible history and Old Testament prophecy, having
  characteristics of all four beasts of Daniel
  7.4-7, and therefore in some way reflecting the
  dominions of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and
  Rome. It embodies in itself the characteristics
  of all the world empires with which Daniel deals,
  and so represents the entire image of Daniel 2.
  For although that chapter pictures successive
  empires under the symbols of gold, silver, copper
  (sic), and iron when the kingdom of God is set
  up, all these metals are said to be ground to
  powder together by the Stone cut out without
  hands. All horns and heads and crowns and beasts
  and metals which ever represented the rebellious
  powers of men will be demolished at a stroke and
  given to the flames.

45
17.9 The seven heads are seven mountains and
they are seven kings

• It is already impossible to accept the
  interpretation offered by continuous-historic
  interpreters. Adam Clarke supposes that John is
  telling us of seven systems of government in the
  Roman Empire Kings Dictators Decimvirs
  Consuls Triumvirs and Emperors of which the
  last would be the one existing in John's time.
  The one yet to come on this view would be the
  "Carlovingian Patriciate", a system set up in
  Rome by Charlemagne, and said to have lasted a
  mere 45 years. This view arouses total
  incredulity in the present writer. To what
  purpose would John and ourselves be invited to
  look back more than a millennium before Christ to
  governments existing in Rome when even the
  Babylonian Empire was in the remote future?

46

• The Speaker's Commentary offers (but not with
  approval) another list, ranging from Kings to the
  Popes before the attainment of temporal power,
  while Brother John Thomas, lists the following
  Regal, Consular, Dictatorial, Tribunitial,
  Imperial (-31 to 476), and Gothic (476 to 554).
  But all this seems far removed from the purpose
  of this chapter, which it is very hard to see
  concerning itself with the trivialities of the
  internal organization of the Roman state.
• Brother Peter Watkins is surely right thus far in
  asking us to direct our attention to the beasts
  of Daniel 7 but if the first beast is Babylon,
  with one head (Daniel 7.4) the second
  Medo-Persia also with one (7.5) the third Greece
  with four (7.6), and the fourth Rome with one
  (7.7), making seven in all, then the fifth fallen
  head would be the third of the Greek four, as he
  supposes, so that "one is" would be the fourth of
  these, with the Roman head yet to come! On every
  count the interpretation of this is difficult,
  and the solutions offered tortuous.

47

• We may, after all, be driven back to a vintage
  solution of this problem which sees the Beast as
  representing the whole succession of human
  kingdoms in biblical lands, so starting earlier
  than Babylon. In this event the heads which have
  fallen would be (i) Egypt, (ii) Assyria (iii)
  Babylon (iv) Medo-Persia (v) Greece. The one
  which still exists in John's day and is
  represented by its fragments now would be (vi)
  Rome and the one yet to come would be (vii) the
  'man of sin' regime to be destroyed by the Lord
  with the brightness of His coming (2
  Thessalonians 2.8). It fits in well with the
  assurance that when the last phase arises it will
  continue only a little while (17.10). The kings
  of the earth will share their power with it for
  only "one hour" (17.12 18.10,17,19). The Beast
  dominated by the Harlot would be the seventh and
  short-lived head, and the Beast standing alone in
  all its arrogance would be the eighth and last.

48
Chapter 20 THE BINDING OF THE DRAGON, THE
JUDGMENTS, THE THOUSAND YEARS

• In favor of a literal reading of the number, it
  is often said that a 1000-year reign of Jesus
  would neatly finish off the antitypical
  creation-week, so that six thousand years of
  human history would be terminated by a
  thousand-day sabbath of millennial rest. But
  there are important reasons why this view should
  be treated with reserve
• 1) We do not know for sure whether there will
  have been 6000 years precisely, or even
  approximately, of human history between the Fall
  and the Second Advent

49
Can a post-Millennial revolt be contemplated?

• First let us face the objections raised against
  it

50
1 The kingdom of Christ is to produce lasting
peace and godliness.

• If the Lord is to "reign until He has put all
  enemies under His feet" (1 Corinthians 15.25),
  then enemies do exist which have to dealt with
  during this period, and "putting under feet" is
  not the language of peaceful attainment.
  Zechariah 14.16-18, however unhappy the reading
  of it may be, does speak of men with rebellious
  hearts who will need to be coerced into rendering
  to God the worship He demands.

51
2 Rebellion against immortal powers is silly.

• Of course it is. But then rebellion against the
  immortal Creator by Adam and Eve was silly, and
  yet the Fall occurred. To make a golden calf
  after the manifestations at Sinai was silly, but
  it was done. It is hard to see anything sensible
  about crucifying the Lord Jesus, after He had
  brought miraculous benefits which could only be
  interpreted as due to the power of God. We
  sinners are silly people, and if sinners survive
  into the Kingdom of God, then silliness will
  survive too. And if God could withdraw from
  evident presence to leave Eve to face her tempter
  as though He were out of earshot, may He not by
  whatever means He chooses leave the silly
  sinners at the end of the Millennium to face the
  serpent's counterpart, and find themselves
  willingly beguiled by its subtlety?

52
Chapter 20.11-15 THE JUDGEMENT OF THE GREAT
WHITE THRONE

• This brings us almost to the last of the major
  controversial situations in connection with the
  conservative interpretation of the Apocalypse.
  When does the judgment represented by these
  verses take place? If the results accepted in the
  last few pages are correct, it would not seem
  that there can be much doubt. The earth by this
  stage will have enjoyed the reign of the Lord
  Jesus Christ for '1000 years' the saints will
  have reigned with Him, and 'Satan' will have been
  bound, during the same period. The revolt will
  have taken place and will have been crushed the
  power of sin will have been consigned to the Lake
  of Fire. The abolition of death and the grave are
  about to occur (20.14). Where else can this
  judgment be located than at the end of the
  Millennium, and therefore how can it fail to be
  additional to, and later than, the judgment of
  the saints who reign with Christ during the
  Millennium itself (20.4ff)?

53
Conclusions

• Rejection of continuous-historic
• Four horsemen (seals 1-4) ? the entire Gospel Age
• Seal 5 ? predicting a latter-day persecution of
  the saints
• Trumpets (literal, warnings), then period of
  witnessing and persecution, then Temple Closed
  sign, then Vials (final judgments)
• Woman is Israel giving birth to Christ. World
  hostility directed against Christ, then against
  the woman and her seed
• Meantime, Christianity apostasizes and becomes
  the Apocalyptic Babylon the Harlot, supporting
  the nations then judged by them
• 7th head ? the future man of sin (no precise
  prediction)

54
Next Week

• Brief consideration of other significant
  Christadelphian books and pamphlets
• Brief introduction of annotated notes from
  Revelation Parallel Commentary, by Mr. Steve
  Gregg
• Begin open discussion
• Future weeks ? directed discussion