15: The Rapture

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 14

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/20/24 Revelation 14: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

“These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God, and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

“And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

“And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

“And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”

Thus reads the fourteenth chapter of this thrilling but almost frightening book of the Revelation of God to Jesus Christ to John to us. This is the last of the second seven chapters of Revelation, divided so beautifully into these three sevens of chapters, plus one about heaven. The first seven chapters had to do with what is now past history, from John’s day through the very end, a sort of a preview and a summary of all history. The second seven chapters zero in on just the last period, the worst and most awful period of man’s history, the Tribulation period and its seven Tribulation trumpets, and it virtually ends with the seventh trumpet, the last trump announcing the Coming of Christ, and we zero in a little closer to all the endtime events which occur upon the blowing of that last trumpet.

Now, in this fourteenth chapter, the end of the second seven of chapters, we come to a summary of the grand finale of events accompanying the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the Rapture of His saints. First we have some announcements from heaven, some important, glorious announcements of what is about to happen. And then we have a description of the actual events, with a prediction and a quick glimpse of the beginning of the wrath of God and the doom to come.

First of all, he speaks of the hundred and forty-four thousand, and there is great fanfare for their appearance, like it’s a grand appearance of the stars of God’s great play. It’s almost as if they’re making a curtain call, because they’ve already appeared in the play before, but here they appear with Him in heaven.—This time not just on Mount Zion, Jerusalem, where they got their start as the first Christians of the early church, the pioneers of this great, great family of God, but after they have finally arrived and the play is almost over and they’re having their curtain call with the fanfare and the applause and plaudits of all the world, the voice of many waters, thunder, harpers. What a grand finale for any play!

And they sang a new song. They have a grand final number that they’re going to sing as this particular scene closes on this grand dramatic play of the Lord; only it’s not just a play, it really happens. Nobody else could sing that song except these who bore the earliest cross and the heat of the day and the pioneering of the church!

Nearly all of these first Christians were Jews, as they’re called here in the fourth verse, “the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb” (Revelation 14:4). And as they were named in a previous chapter even by tribes, 12,000 from each tribe of Israel, 144,000 all together, it sounds to me, if you want to take it literally, like all of these first Jewish Christians who pioneered the church of Jesus Christ, the early Christian church, are being honored here by the Lord for being pioneers and so many of them martyrs and pure in heart as far as God was concerned.

He makes it figuratively speaking, saying “not defiled with women” and so on, but it doesn’t mean that they were celibates. It doesn’t mean that they had never committed any sins; it simply means that in the sight of God they were pure and holy, sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ, greatly honored here in this last grand scene, this great climax of the play of this particular scene of the world’s greatest hour of Tribulation, which is about to close with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. They’re greatly honored and praised, there’s an orchestra, there are harps, songs, thunders—all kinds of tremendous celebrations—and God shows that they’re in heaven with Him. Praise God!

Now if you don’t want to believe that they were all the first Jewish Christians, you could interpret this more or less figuratively and symbolically as being the most outstanding Christians of the Christian era throughout Christian history. But it’s a bit hard to get around that list that is given back in chapter 7 where they’re not only named as 144,000, but they’re named from specific tribes of Israel. It’s a little bit difficult to say that that’s just symbolic and figurative and they weren’t necessarily literal Jews from those literal tribes.

I’m more inclined to believe that they were Jews, and that God is greatly honoring them here in this chapter because they were the pioneers, the earliest martyrs. They’re the ones who bore the burden of the heat of the day, the heat of persecution, the heat of martyrdom, the most horrible slaughter and torture and terrible things, to help get the church of God started. Once it was rolling, once the Roman Empire and the Roman emperor himself had accepted Christianity, the job was easy, in a sense. Although then, sad to say, in many cases the Romans had not become Christians but the Christians had become Romans and continued under the name of the new Roman church to persecute the true believers, the true Christians, the humble followers of the Word of God in His apostles, disciples, and prophets.

But these here sound to me like real genuine Jews who love Jesus and who were the first Christian disciples and followers of Christ in the early Christian martyrdom era, who suffered the ten persecutions of the Roman Empire. They’re praising God, glorifying God, and here we have several angelic announcements by angels of God, like heralds of the king coming out on the stage and announcing a new thing that’s about to happen or has just happened.

In the mind of God, as far as He was concerned, by this time Babylon had already fallen. She had fallen because she fell prey to the Antichrist government of the Tribulation, first of all during the first half of the Antichrist’s reign and rule. The first three and a half years of his seven-year reign he cooperates with Babylon, the false religion of the world. But then he turns on her and destroys her, his only remaining competition (Revelation 17:16). Now, the Protestants have called Babylon the Catholic Church, and some have called Babylon all churchianity, but if you’re going to picture this Babylon and you find out she was full of merchants and riches and great wealth and so on, you’re not just going to have to include a few religions.

You’re going to have to come face to face with the greatest religion in the whole world, which is neither Catholicism nor Protestantism nor Christianity nor Islam nor Judaism nor Buddhism nor any of the Oriental religions or any of the so-called religions of man, but you’re going to have to confess that the greatest religion of this world is the one religion that they don’t even call a religion. But all you have to know it is a religion is by what they worship. What do most people worship?

The god of most of the world is money, things, materialism! The things which they possess. Jesus said “a man’s (true) life consisteth not of the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15), but that’s what man thinks his life consists of, and so he worships these things, these idols. They may not be in the figures of statues and actual heathen gods and idols or Christian gods and idols, but they are the things that he worships and his idols, and that’s the god of this world: materialism, things, money. Mammon, as Jesus called it in general—the god of wealth, riches, possessions (Matthew 6:24).

By this time the Antichrist has declared himself as God and he has destroyed the great capitalistic commercial system of the world and all other religions as well, and set himself up as god, so Babylon is fallen. By this time he’s insisted that all mankind take the mark of his bestial image in their foreheads or hands, and everyone who does will be condemned. And of course the true Christians, the true believers in God, will not accept that mark because they already have the invisible mark of God in their foreheads—faith in Jesus Christ. And those people who have the mark of the beast and worship him will be condemned in torment, it says forever and ever. We’ll go into exactly how long that means in later studies, but it means for an age and for ages and so on.

“Here is the patience of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” What is their patience? “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” Because here appears in the fourteenth verse of the fourteenth chapter the coming of Jesus Christ on a cloud.—The Son of man, having a sickle and a golden crown, and He reaps the earth.

What can this be other than the Rapture, after which another angel reaps the wicked and casts them into the winepress of the wrath of God. That is the end of this chapter. The next chapter begins the description of the wrath of God on the wicked who were left behind after Jesus has gleaned out of the earth His beautiful, great reaping of the harvest of the Christians and the true believers, His bride in the great Resurrection of the dead and Rapture of the saints.

14: The Beast of Hell

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 13

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/19/24 Revelation 13: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast”—or a monster—“rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon”—that great red dragon, Satan, that we saw in the last chapter (part 13 of this series)—“gave him his power and his seat and great authority.” The Devil himself possesses this monster, this beast, this Antichrist man.

“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon”—the Devil—“which gave power unto the beast”—the Antichrist—“and they worshipped the beast”—the Antichrist—“saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:1–4). Apparently he is very powerful at this time.

“And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.”  He’s a great propagandist; he uses the media. “ And power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” There again we have the three and a half years of Tribulation. “And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Only those who have his mark. “If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.” Meaning Satan and the Antichrist. “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Revelation 13:5–10). Where? Knowing they’re going to be avenged against this enemy.

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” This is the false prophet, the false Christ, the false messiah. Not the Lamb of God but the wolf in sheep’s clothing. “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast”—this monster “whose deadly wound was healed.” (The false prophet represents the Antichrist like the Holy Spirit represents Christ.)

“And he”—this false prophet, this false lamb—“doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” This beast, this Antichrist is going to be like a resurrected man.

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak”—in other words, it’s some kind of an automaton, a robot, operated by some kind of computer. “He had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Revelation 13:11–18). His number is six hundred sixty-six, 666. So there you have it! Revelation 13, a very unlucky chapter.

Here we have the picture of this horrible monster, this devil-man called beast or monster here in the Scripture. He is inspired by the Devil, given power by the great red dragon, Satan himself, to take dominion over the whole earth. It says here that everybody is going to worship him except those who love the Lord. Everybody is going to receive his mark except those who have the mark of God already in their foreheads—and those in the book of life.

All the rest of the world is going to believe him and receive him and follow him and wonder after him because he is this great superman, this false messiah, the phony savior. Not the Son of God, but the son of the Devil. Not God incarnate, like Jesus Christ, but Satan incarnate—the Devil in the flesh.

“Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:9–11).

The Antichrist is sent to those who rejected the truth and God’s Word and Jesus Christ, since they rejected the truth and didn’t want the truth. So He sends them strong delusion that they might believe a lie, that they might be damned.

This is the same man referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2, who comes doing great signs and wonders and miracles and sits in the temple of God showing himself as God and that he is God and requiring everyone to worship him as God.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4).

He has all the characteristics, you’ll notice, of all the former kingdoms and empires which have preceded him. He’s partly a leopard, like Greece; he’s partly a bear, like Medo-Persia; and he has the mouth of a lion, like Babylon. This shows you the territories he covers. And the dragon, the Devil himself, gives him his power, his seat, and his authority.

Now here’s a very strange thing; he has seven heads with ten horns and ten crowns. How could seven heads have ten horns? It looks like seven heads ought to have seven horns, or maybe 14 horns if they had two on each head. But no, the seventh head has ten horns, this last head. According to Daniel, three of the ten horns are overthrown and this eleventh one takes their place. So three horns are then gone or dominated by the little horn, who springs up in this last head, making him the eighth. “Even he is the eighth” (Revelation 17:11; Daniel 7:8,24).

Each of these heads of this beast represents one of the great world empires that has passed off the scene. This time the picture gives you all the world’s empires, all the way from Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome and finally the Antichrist, this last world government, the last great world dictatorship of the world dictator, the Antichrist, called here the beast.

There are ten horns, ten kings at the last who’ll cooperate with him, as we’ll find out a little later, and who work with him. He overthrows three of them, and he comes up in their place, and that’s why it says “even he is the eighth” in another chapter we’ll study later (Revelation 17:11). He continues forty and two months, exactly the same length of time we’ve been told of in every other passage we’ve read so far, which is the last three and a half years of world history called the Great Tribulation. In fact, it’s the last half of his seven-year reign.

He comes on the scene with a pact to reign seven years, but in the middle of it he breaks the pact, this holy covenant with the religions of the world, and he abolishes them all. He bans all other religions and says, “Now we’re not going to have any more religious arguments, religious bickering or religious wars; we’re not going to have any more problems over Jerusalem and who’s to take care of it, because I am going to take care of it. I’m going to set my palace up in Jerusalem, my headquarters for my world government, and who are you going to worship? I’m going to sit in the temple of God as god and I will make you worship me, for I am God.” Yes, their god: “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

He also has a false prophet, this other beast who looks like a lamb. You see, this devil-man, he pretends to be God, so he has to have a prophet of God, this false lamb who becomes his greatest promoter, his propaganda master, his false prophet who promotes him and his worship and insists that the world build him a great image, a great idol of this beast, this monster, and that all the world fall down and worship his image or be killed.

He insists that all the world take his number into their foreheads or their hands or they can’t buy or sell. They can’t live; they’ll starve to death. They can’t do business, they can’t sell their produce or their products, and they can’t buy their groceries or their needs. No one will be able to buy or sell or do any business without this number in their forehead or in their hand, and they will all be commanded to worship his image, this great, amazing, computerized robot that will be able to act like it’s alive and move and talk and command the worship of the world.

Because man has now made an idol, an image which is smarter than he is, man has made his own god and he will fall down and worship it and worship the works of his hands.—A new scientific idol that he will worship as god and call God and obey as his god and which the Devil, Satan himself, will be able to “bring to life.”

He will operate this image and cause it to command that everyone who refuses to worship it will be killed by the Antichrist forces of the devil-man, the beast, of whom he is an image, and that no one will be able to buy or sell or do any business of any kind unless he has his mark in his forehead or hand.

Are you ready for it? Will you receive that mark and that number and be condemned? Or do you have the number of God, God’s mark, already in your forehead by salvation in Jesus Christ to spare you from worshipping that monster and his kingdom of hell on earth? You just have to take Jesus into your heart and He’ll save you.

For when Jesus comes,
The earth will shake
And hearts will quake,
Be ready.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

13: The Queen of Heaven and the Dragon (part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 12

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/18/24 You’ve seen movies like this sometimes. You’ve seen a movie of some family or various characters on a boat or in a plane or a hotel, and it gives you flashbacks of their former life and where they came from and who they are and how they got there, then finally they all get together in this hotel or they’re all together in this plane crash, or they’re all together in this sinking boat.

You’ve followed the narration of each life story until they’re all headed on a crash course to this grand finale—and that’s like the book of Revelation. It gives you a picture of each segment of the history of man from these different angles and shows you how it’s going to end from a different standpoint and a different view with different characters and what’s happening to them.

In the preceding chapter we just had the death of the two famous witnesses and their resurrection and their rapture to be with the Lord. And yet, now the seventh angel has just blown and we haven’t heard the whole story.

Now all of a sudden we’re going back again to the birth of Christ and how He was caught up to heaven to be with the Lord. The church was left behind on the earth to be chased and persecuted by the dragon, who is now furious because he couldn’t get rid of Jesus. He came back to life and went where the Devil couldn’t touch Him anymore. Then it speaks of this church in a period of time, of 1260 days—that’s about 42 months or three and a half years. And what period of time is that that we’ve been studying over and over and over again all through the Old Testament and all through the New Testament? The Great Tribulation.

This book is not supposed to be a history book. It’s supposed to be a revelation of the future, and particularly a revelation of the endtime, the very end of history, of man, of his kingdoms, the very end of his history on earth, and so naturally its main emphasis is the endtime.—Although it may give you a few flashbacks into the historical background, as it does in this chapter.

It flashes back to the old history of the church, in a sense, from the time of Eve, who brought forth a line which was to bring forth this man who was to crush the head of Satan. It says, “Her seed will crush your head, Satan. You’ll bruise His heel, but He’ll crush your head” (Genesis 3:15). So it is a flashback to give you the history, in a sense, of the church, only just a flashback enough to show what’s happening now in these last three and a half years of horrible Tribulation and persecution of the church.

“And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old Serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:7–9). Now we have the picture.

Who is this great red dragon? The ninth verse says specifically that he was that old serpent, the Devil, Satan, “which deceiveth the whole world.” At this time here, obviously at the beginning of this three and a half years, 1260 days, 42 months of Tribulation, he is cast out of heaven by Michael and his angels, the archangel of God who defends God’s people. He’s cast down to earth with a third of the rebellious angels that follow him for the last three and a half years of earth’s history—the Great Tribulation.

No wonder the Antichrist is so powerful and such a superman and wonder worker, because Satan at last is cast out of heaven. There’s a purge in heaven, and the rebels and the demons and the devils are cast out. You say, “What do you mean? I didn’t know there were demons and devils and rebels in heaven.” Well, you haven’t read your Bible very well.

Satan is even called one of the sons of God in the book of Job, and here as being one of God’s creations who is in rebellion against Him and yet appears before Him in the courts of heaven, accusing the saints day and night. Until in this last three and a half years he’s finally purged and cast out with his rebel demons, so that they have no more power in heaven, can no longer come into the presence of God and accuse His saints (Job 2:1; Isaiah 14:12–15; Revelation 12:9–10).

So the Devil in his fury, knowing that his time is short, possesses this Antichrist and makes him a superman, a devil-man, the Devil in the flesh, son of Satan, like Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh. He is the great counterfeiter! The Devil doesn’t know anything new, he can’t do anything different; he just watches what God does and he tries to imitate Him.

Since God had a Son who was God in the flesh, the Devil has this son, who is the Devil in the flesh, possessed by Satan himself. Then the Devil tries to set up on earth the false kingdom of God, the false millennium, only it’s the kingdom of the Devil and it’s the kingdom of hell on earth instead of the Millennium of heaven.

He even has his own trinity! The Devil is the father of his trinity, the Antichrist is his son, and then he has the false prophet, his unholy spirit. Here we have the false trinity, and he becomes the false messiah of the false millennium of the false kingdom of the people who take the Mark of the Beast. All an imitation of what God is about to do—a brief and pitiful imitation.

The Devil tries to imitate God because he always wanted to be God, so when he’s cast out of heaven and he can’t annoy God Himself and God’s angels, then he decides to lord it over the earth and to become the king of this earth. He has been the prince of the power of the air, but now he becomes the usurper king of this world (Ephesians 2:2).

That’s what Jesus even calls him. He says, “I saw him cast out” (Luke 10:18). You may wonder, then, whether he was cast out in Jesus’ day. No, Jesus was looking forward into the future, seeing the day when Satan would be cast out to the earth and possess this Devil-man, the Antichrist, the superman the world is waiting for to solve its problems and set up this false millennium, his kingdom of hell on earth, during which time he chases and persecutes the woman, obviously the church.

“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 Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. Yet they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. But woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea. For the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:10–12).

We’re being told that now that the Devil is cast out of heaven and heaven is purged, there’s good riddance of bad rubbish, and heaven is rejoicing! But the voice says to the inhabitants of the earth, we who dwell upon the earth and even the church of Jesus Christ still on earth, “Woe unto you people on earth, for the Devil is come down to you and he knows that his time is short and he has great wrath.”

So look out for his wrath during these last three and a half years, these 1260 days, these 42 months of Tribulation mentioned throughout Old and New Testament prophecies. Here’s another proof that the church is here throughout the Tribulation, because the Enemy chases her and she flees into the wilderness.

All these centuries, yea, millenniums, thousands of years, the Devil has been accusing the saints of God. He came before God and accused Noah, Job, and nearly every person of God who has ever lived. He has accused you day and night before the Lord, bringing up your sins and reminding God of the law and saying that you should be punished. He’s the prosecuting attorney who demands the execution of the law. And of the culprit—you!

But you have an advocate, a defense lawyer—Jesus Christ, God’s own Son. God is the judge, the Devil is the prosecuting attorney and executioner, but Jesus, God’s Son, is your defense attorney, your advocate, your lawyer defending you. When the Devil reminds God of all your sins and all your iniquities and your mistakes and your shortcomings and your failures and accuses you for every little flaw and fault he can find, all you have to do is look to your defense lawyer, Jesus.

Say, “Please, Lord, plead my case before the Father. Because You know I’m no good. You know I’ve failed. You know I can’t be good enough. You know I’m not righteous enough. I just have to plead Your blood on the cross, that You died for me and You took the rap. You took the punishment. You paid the price. You fulfilled the law and You died in my place, so therefore You said that God has pardoned me. Plead my case with Your Father.”

Jesus just looks to the Father and says, “This is another one of Mine, Father, who has received Me and believed on Me. He has received My sacrifice in his place and believes that I took his punishment for him. Therefore, Lord, You can hand him one of those pardons that You have stacked up there on Your desk for everyone who loves Me and believes in Me and has received that forgiveness from You because of Me.”

God hands down the pardon, and Jesus hands it to you, and the Devil slinks away with his tail between his legs, defeated again. “Foiled again. Curses!” There used to be an old comic strip in which the villain appeared, looking like the Devil, and every time he got defeated, he slunk off all angry with his tail between his legs, saying, “Curses, foiled again!”

So that’s what happens every time the Devil accuses you now or tries to accuse you. But in these last three and a half years he’s no longer even going to be able to go before the court of God in heaven; he’s going to be right here accusing God’s children and persecuting and trying to kill them.

“And when the dragon saw that he was cast out unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent” (Revelation 12:13–14). She is given wings like an eagle.

Beloved, don’t worry about the Tribulation. Don’t worry about the persecution of Satan. God’s people are going to be given wings to fly away out of his reach into the wilderness! “Given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly”—and for how long? Three and a half years again. A time, two times, and a half a time, three and a half years. So this frustrated, foiled, cursed villain finds out he’s been foiled again, and what does he do in the fifteenth verse?

“And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:15–17).

When he couldn’t touch her—God wouldn’t let him lay a claw on her or one fang—he cast a big flood of water out of his mouth. Obviously the Devil himself is not an actual dragon; this is all symbolic. What is this flood the Devil casts out of his mouth? What is the Devil’s major business from the beginning in the Garden of Eden to the end? What does the Devil, Satan, that old serpent, cast out of his mouth and flood the world with?

He tries to drown the world in all of this propaganda and lies. The world will swallow all his propaganda while the church escapes into the wilderness, hidden and protected by God as though she had two wings to live through that awful time to the very coming of her Husband, her Bridegroom, from the sky, to rescue her and take her out of this hell on earth the world will have become.

Are you ready? Are you one of the believers in Jesus? Are you a part of His great bride? Have you accepted Him as your Husband and your Bridegroom and your Savior? Then you don’t have to worry. He’ll take care of you right on through the Tribulation, if He has to give you wings. He’ll hide you in the wilderness if He has to make you disappear. He’ll feed you there and take care of you just as He says here, all the way through that 1260 days or three and a half years of Great Tribulation. And you will be saved and brought through and you will survive till Jesus’ coming.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

13: The Queen of Heaven and the Dragon (part 1)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 12

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/17/24 We’re studying the twelfth chapter of this final book of the Bible, the Revelation of the endtime, the grand finale, and in this we have the exciting, dramatic story of the queen of heaven and the great red dragon.

“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another great wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

“And his tail drew the 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, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And 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” (Revelation 12:1–5).

I think by the time you read this fifth verse you begin to catch on who this was and who this child was. That’s the key, the clue to who the woman is. “For she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”

Scripture says this about Jesus several times, that He is going to come some day and rule the world, rule all nations, and even rule over the wicked who refused to love and obey Him voluntarily. Now He’s going to rule them with a rod of iron, by force! This is obviously talking about Jesus. “And her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.” So after His ministry, Jesus was caught up to God and to His throne.

You say, “I know who his mother is. It was Mary.” But the passage says that she was a woman clothed with the sun, bright and shining like the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Mary, as far as we know, never looked like the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars. And though she had a child, travailing in birth and pained to be delivered, Mary never had a great red dragon standing beside her waiting to devour the child.—A great red dragon whose tail drew the third part of the angels of heaven and cast them down to the earth.

So who is this woman and how come she looks like the sun and has the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars? This woman is far more than Mary. Mary in a way almost symbolizes this woman, and in a way this woman symbolizes Mary, but obviously her description goes far beyond the 16-year-old Jewish girl who had Jesus as an unmarried mother, to the surprise and chagrin of her husband Joseph, to whom God had an angel appear to explain what was happening so he wouldn’t feel bad and refuse to take her for his wife.

God Himself gave Mary a child—Jesus, unbeknownst to her own husband-to-be Joseph. God had to explain it to them by His angels.—To Joseph in a dream, to Mary by an actual presence, an appearance of God’s angel Gabriel. But this woman in Revelation was far greater than Mary. It isn’t very likely you’re going to see any woman sitting in the sun with her feet on the moon and stars in her crown. Also, it’s not too likely you’re going to see a great red dragon like this standing around waiting to devour her child, literally.

So therefore, if you cannot interpret the vision or the picture or the revelation or the dream literally throughout, it must have symbolic significance. That means each figure of the dream or revelation or vision must symbolize something, must illustrate something. Therefore who was this woman? If it was not literally Mary who brought forth Jesus, if it was greater and beyond Mary, then who was this woman who brought Jesus into the world and who was then attacked or chased by this great red dragon? Obviously this great red dragon is Satan himself, who leads a third of the angels out of heaven with him when he deserts the forces of God.

If the woman symbolizes some greater figure than just Mary herself, who could that be? If this woman is the queen of heaven, she must be the wife of the king. And who is the King of heaven?—Jesus Christ, the Son of God, her Bridegroom, her Husband, her King—and she is the queen. Then who is this woman, if she is the bride of Christ, the queen of heaven?

She can be no other than the complete church of Jesus Christ from the beginning to the end, from the Garden of Eden to the Revelation, from the beginning to the end of the world, all those who are true believers, who loved God, who received Christ the Messiah as their Savior, all those who love Jesus, all those who believe He is the Son of God, all those who are married to the Bridegroom, all those who are the bride of Jesus Christ.

She is the bride of Christ. No other woman could be so glorious, shining like the sun with the moon under her feet and twelve stars in her crown. This woman typifies the whole church of God from the days of Genesis to the final days of Revelation, God’s human bride.

We find this great red dragon, obviously Satan—in fact, he’s later called the old serpent, the Devil, and Satan in the ninth verse, so we know who he is—and he creates a rebellion in heaven, a revolution, a civil war, as we’ll find out a little bit later here, and he’s cast out of heaven with a third of the angels. He tries to destroy the church, he tries to destroy Jesus, and we then find that this woman has to flee into the wilderness.

We’re only getting a little preview here; in fact, we’re having a little flashback, first of all about the coming of Jesus into the world, who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron, becoming the King of kings and literally her Bridegroom, her Husband, she becoming a queen of heaven, as well as queen of earth. But in the sixth verse we find that after her child is caught up to heaven to God and His throne, out of reach of His enemies, she is left behind upon the earth—apparently almost at the mercy of this cruel dragon.

“And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (Revelation 12:6). Here we have the 1260 days once again, the three and a half years of the Tribulation period. One thing that gets a bit confusing about the book of Revelation is that it goes back again and rehashes the story from a different angle and a different perspective. We’ve had the coming of Christ already described in this book about three or four times, but then it goes back and it gives a new angle. (to be continued)

12: The Last Trump

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 11

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/16/24 Revelation chapter 11, the last trump. We’ve had a glimpse in the first part of this chapter of the two witnesses who were witnessing and preaching the love of God and also the judgments of God all the way through the Tribulation period of three and a half years, all 42 months or 1260 days unto the very end, three and a half days before Jesus comes and they are killed. (See Revelation 11:1–12.) The Lord allows them to be killed, since their ministry is over, and they are thereby released to go up and be with the Lord when He comes. He gives us the whole picture of how they are resurrected to be with Jesus in the very end.

In the rest of the chapter, He goes back, backspacing just a bit to show you how it happened. At that moment when they suddenly came to life and jumped to their feet, that was the moment that the seventh trump was sounding. “The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly” (Revelation 11:14). And then comes the seventh trump of God. This trumpet is the last trump, and under this trumpet come a whole series of events.

It sounds like Jesus has come immediately and it’s all over, but no, this trumpet is another herald of God. He’s another trumpeter of the truth, the last Tribulation trumpet to usher in this very last period of the Tribulation period when Jesus comes.

There is no past, no present, no future to the Lord. So therefore, under this last trump He pictures all of the events which occur at the very end, from this very moment, and in the next chapter He goes in a flashback all the way back to the birth of Jesus and the church and right up to the end in her persecution. And then in the thirteenth chapter He goes back and He tells you about the Antichrist and what it’s going to going to be like under the Antichrist in the three and a half years of Tribulation. This last trump simply ushered in this final period of the Tribulation which ends with the coming of Jesus.

“And the seventh angel sounded”—the last trump—“and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). When that last trump sounds, the endtime events begin to transpire, ending with the glorious coming of Jesus and His reign here on earth for ever and ever!

So we have this endtime trumpet blowing and here follow these tremendous events of this final period of the seven Tribulation trumpets.

“And the four and twenty elders”—these are the great leaders of God’s children and His church of all time, from the beginning of time until the end. These are probably the twelve greatest patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament period, and then the twelve greatest apostles and prophets of the New Testament period.

“And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God.” They said, “We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned” (Revelation 11:16–17).

In other words, it’s time for God to take over. It’s time for Jesus to come. In the mind of God and in their minds, it was already done as far as they were concerned. For He says, “The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged.” The Resurrection was about to occur, which we already had a little preview of with those two witnesses.

“And that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). The time is coming when the dead will be judged, and God’s servants and prophets and saints, all the saved, all of God’s children everywhere, the great family of Jesus, are going to get their reward.

I hope you were faithful so He can say to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21). For some of the people who are going to be raised are going to be raised to everlasting shame and contempt because they failed God (Daniel 12:2).

So the end is come, the time of judgments and the time of rewards. “Them that fear Thy name, small and great,” are going to be receiving their crowns, their reward, their prizes, all those wonderful things.

“And shouldest destroy them that destroy the earth.” He says He’s going to destroy those who are destroying the earth, those who pollute it and who bomb it and who contaminate it and who destroy its people. He abhors those who pollute His earth and who destroy it. So before they have a chance to do that, or do a complete job of it, He’s going to come back before they can destroy the rest of it, thank God. He’s going to destroy them.

“And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the Ark of His testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail” (Revelation 11:19). Here come some of those cataclysmic, climactic events of these very last days of the end of time, the end of the Tribulation, judgments of God on the sins of man and all his destruction. John the apostle, the prophet of God, is being shown all these events which were not to happen until over 2000 years later.

“The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the Ark of His testament.” That’s a very remarkable statement, because the Ark, even in John’s day, had long ago disappeared! But the people had not discovered this until Jesus died on the cross.

The moment the veil of His flesh was rent in twain by that spear and He was killed on the cross, the veil of the temple itself was rent in twain.—A huge veil, four inches thick, one of the thickest pieces of carpeting or woven ware the world has ever known. This thick, heavy veil that separated the holy place of the temple from the holy of holies, the sanctum from the sanctum sanctorum, was completely torn apart. (See Matthew 27:50–51; Mark 15:37–38; Luke 23:45–46.)

In the holy of holies had stood the Ark of the Covenant of God, that wooden box covered with gold over which two golden angels hovered, and between whose wings the Shekinah Glory of the presence of God shone like a brilliant light. This was a room into which only the high priest was allowed to go once a year to make atonement for the sins of the people. They had a rope tied to his foot so that if God struck him dead because He didn’t like the way the people were behaving, because the people were sinning too much and were not repentant, God could strike the high priest dead and they could drag him out with that rope, because no man was allowed to go therein but the high priest.

When the veil of the temple was rent in twain when Jesus died, what do you suppose the great congregation of Passover worshippers discovered at that moment, that awesome moment at the height of the Passover celebration, when the greatest Passover Lamb who ever lived, Jesus Christ, was being slain on the cross for their sins? What do you suppose the congregation discovered had happened to the Ark of the Covenant, which was supposed to be standing behind that four-inch thick curtain behind which only the high priest could go?

They discovered to their amazement, their astonishment, their horror, that the Ark was gone, symbolizing the presence of God! God was gone from their midst! He was gone from their temple. He had deserted them and their holy of holies and their Messiah-less religion. He had taken the Ark up to heaven with Him and placed it in His temple there.

Why do you suppose God rent the temple veil in twain? The high priest hadn’t told them the Ark was gone. He wasn’t going to tell them, of course, because that was the center of their religion, the Ark of the Covenant behind the veil in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Their whole religion would have collapsed had they discovered that the Ark was gone. God rent the veil in twain so they could see the Ark was gone. He had removed the Ark of the Covenant, which symbolized His presence in the Shekinah Glory of God which shone there between the angels when God was there.

Christians today are the modern Israel of this day of grace since Jesus came. Anyone can become a part of true Israel, the Israel of God, and a prince with God and with man, just by receiving God’s Son Jesus Christ, just by believing on the Messiah, the King of the Jews. He’s King of all of those children of God who believe on Him and receive Him as their Savior—the true spiritual Israel. As St. Paul says, today a Jew is one inwardly, in his heart, the crucifixion and the circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:28–29).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

11: The Two Witnesses

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 11

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/15/24 Revelation, chapter 11: “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months” (Revelation 11:1–2). There’s that three and a half years again of the Tribulation period. The Gentiles will tread the holy city of Jerusalem under foot for forty and two months, three and a half years during the Tribulation period in which the Antichrist rules supreme.

During the preceding three and a half years—half of the last seven years—the Antichrist has made a deal or a holy Covenant, a pact with the religions of the world to make Jerusalem an open city, internationalized, at least the holy places internationalized, probably under the UN or his world government, so that they’re supposed to have equal access and equal representation of temples and so on. The Jews have rebuilt their temple, reinstituted sacrificial worship, and the pact seems to be going well, except it doesn’t solve all the problems.

The religionists still bicker and argue and fight amongst each other, until finally the Antichrist gets fed up with it all and decides to just have one world religion as well as one world government, and of course this is what he’s been waiting for an excuse to have all the time. So he abolishes all other religions and demands that the whole world worship him as God, sitting in the temple of God, claiming that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

This will go on for three and a half years or 1,260 days or forty and two months, as we see in this second verse of the eleventh chapter, when he will rule with an iron hand, cruelly demanding that all who refuse to worship him be put to death. All who refuse to take his Mark in their head or hand will not be able to buy or sell. In other words, they are to starve to death. But here comes some good news!

“I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days”—there you are again, three and a half years. They’re going to prophesy for the duration of the Tribulation period. “Clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth” (Revelation 11:3–4). This symbolizes the fact that they’re fruitful—like two olive trees—and they give light, like two candlesticks, symbolic of these final two great witnesses unto the Lord.

“And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed” (Revelation 11:5). No one will be able to touch them until their witness is finished. No one will be able to stop them until they have finished their witness for the last three and a half years of the seven-year reign of the Antichrist, that great Tribulation period in which God’s people will be witnessing right to the end.

These are going to be the two greatest witnesses, no doubt right there in the holy city, perhaps right on Mount Moriah between the three great temples—one already there, the Mosque of Omar, Dome of the Rock, the Muslim temple; one to be rebuilt, the Jewish temple, and sacrificial worship restored; and possibly also a Christian cathedral of some kind to be built upon the same holy mountain to represent the world’s three greatest faiths. So that could be where these two witnesses will be witnessing against the Antichrist, against his unholy image and against his claims to be God, his blasphemy against God.

Nobody will be able to stop them, not the Antichrist himself nor all his forces, until they’re finished. If anybody tries to even approach them to stop them, fire comes out of their mouth and devours their enemies—as it did in the days of Elijah when the king sent bands of fifty soldiers to take him. Elijah called down fire from God out of heaven and devoured each band of soldiers as they came to arrest him (2 Kings 1:9–15).

So will it be with those final great witnesses in those last days. These two will stand in the very presence of the Antichrist and all their enemies, and no one will be able to touch them. They’ll be able to keep right on giving a witness to the very end!

Sixth verse: “These have power to shut heaven that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.” They not only have power to bring fire down from God out of heaven and fire out of their mouths to devour their enemies, but also to turn the waters into blood and to smite the earth with all kinds of plagues. No one will be able to stop them during those days.

They will preach and witness the Word of God with such mighty power of God, and it will be the greatest witness the world has ever seen! Not only the Antichrist will see it, not only the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims will see it, but the whole world will be watching, no doubt by satellite.

Verse seven: “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit”—this Antichrist, this Satan in the flesh—“shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” When they have finished their testimony, not a moment before! They will be able to testify and witness the full 1,260 days of the total Tribulation period, and nobody will be able to stop them; isn’t that wonderful? No matter what the Devil and all his henchmen and all his cohorts and conspirators and cruel, wicked followers try to do, they cannot touch them until they’ve finished their testimony.

Then the Lord allows the Devil to touch them, once they’ve finished their job. Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). So this is when the job is finished and the world is saturated with the doctrine, turned upside down, as they said: “Here come those that turn the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). Actually we’re not turning it upside down, we’re turning it right side up! On radio, television, literature, in person, the whole world will have heard the Gospel—every nation, kingdom, tongue, and tribe.

By that time, every tribe will have heard the Gospel; every one of them will have heard about Jesus. At the end of the Tribulation every single tongue, tribe, and nation throughout the earth will have heard the Gospel of Jesus, Jesus said, and then shall the end come. Then the Lord allows the Beast to ascend out of the bottomless pit and make war against them and overcome them and kill them.

Eighth verse: “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt and where also our Lord was crucified.” Wasn’t Jesus crucified in Jerusalem, or just outside Jerusalem? So what is He talking about here that the bodies of these two witnesses shall lie in the street of this great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt and Jerusalem? He could have added one to that, and He does a little later on in the Scripture—Babylon.

You ask, “What are you talking about? John must have been a bit screwed up on his geography, because Sodom is way south of the Dead Sea, and Egypt is another couple of hundred miles south of that, and Jerusalem is a couple of hundred miles north of that, and Babylon was a thousand miles to the east. How could Jesus have been crucified in all four cities—Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon?”

Every one of these cities typified the world system. Every one of them typified the worldly, anti-God, anti-Christ, money-hungry, greedy commercial system of the world, which in a later chapter He calls Babylon. Here He calls it Sodom and Egypt and Jerusalem. So here we have them all grouped together in one great world system—all symbolic of the final great system that hates God and His witnesses, until the Devil’s own representative, the Devil-man in the flesh, Satan incarnate, at the end of their witness finally rises up and kills them. But he can’t do it until then.

Don’t worry, the Devil won’t be able to lay a finger on God’s children; he won’t be able to hurt you, he won’t be able to harm you until your job is done. God will not suffer you to be cut off before your time. The Lord will not allow His children to be stopped or killed until they have finished their job and work. And then, praise God, the quicker the better, the sooner you’re released from this body of flesh and dirt and disease and weariness and hunger and thirst and all of its problems, and set free in the realm of the spirit.

Your spirit, the real you is the one that lives inside of this house, the one that’s looking out these windows, the real you that lives inside. We look into each other’s eyes and hearts and spirits, and that’s the real you, inside of that body, inside of this house you live in. This is just the vehicle you run around in, and it’ll soon go back to dust again from whence it came. As soon as it does, you are released, your spirit’s set free, and you will be so happy and completely free for the first time in your existence. You’ll feel light as a feather when you die.

The Antichrist will claim to be the Messiah—God—the king of the world, and offer utopia, heaven on earth, the false Millennium under his rule. But soon he insists everybody worship him, and then everything goes wrong and the whole thing begins to fall apart, because it’s anti-God and anti-Christ and anti-peace and anti-everything that could possibly bring peace.

Until finally Jesus Himself has to come back and take over and run the world with His children, His people, for a thousand years to show them how it ought to be run. But just before He comes back, here’s what happens. These final two witnesses witness right up to the very end of this Tribulation period:

“And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city …” In other words, they may be killed in the very city of Jerusalem itself. But it doesn’t matter where, because anywhere in the world, people can see them on television. They’re witnessing to the whole world. Their dead bodies lie in the street.

“And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves” (Revelation 11:9). They are so fiercely angry at these two witnesses who faithfully preached the Word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the judgments and warnings of God.  They hated them so much that they didn’t even want to see them buried; they wanted to watch them rot in the streets and the flies to crawl over them and the worms to crawl in and out and smell the stink of their dead bodies, lying on the street.

But what a hollow victory!—Just lumps of clay, lumps of mud. Those two witnesses, their spirits have gone on to be with the Lord. Those were just the bodies, the houses they occupied; the vehicles they ran around in, now gone back to dust.

“And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth” (Revelation 11:10). They’re going to have a new day to celebrate—the death of the great final two witnesses of God.

They’re going to be so happy that they’re dead and no longer convicting them of their sins and preaching the Gospel at them all day long in the heart of the news, and on radio, on television and in newspapers, and their pictures plastered all over the world and beamed from satellites. These two miracle workers will be top headlines and top news and their message the top message to the world. Their opponents are going to be so happy they’re dead, they’re going to give presents to each other like they do on Christmas.

“And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them” (Revelation 11:11). What’s happening? They’re being resurrected! Suddenly those bodies come to life before they’ve been buried.

Jesus is coming in the sky and all the dead in Christ are rising to meet Him in the air—including these two witnesses. Only three and a half days after they’re killed, Jesus comes to resurrect them and rapture them along with all those who are saved. Praise God! And fear fell upon their enemies.

“And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. The same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly” (Revelation 11:12–14).

Next we hear that seventh angel, the last trump sound. This is like a little story leading up to that last trump, because when it sounds, that’s when they were resurrected.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

10: Proclamation of the End: Time Shall Be No More

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 10

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/14/24 Revelation, chapter 10: “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

“And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: but I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be”—here comes the announcement, the great proclamation that this chapter is about—“that there should be time no more” (Revelation 10:1–6). *He said there’s going to come an end to time. Even Einstein said that was possible.

“But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel”—remember, we’ve been studying the seven trumpets of the Tribulation. He says—“when he shall begin to sound”—that seventh and last trump—“the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets. And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, go”—he’s talking now to John, the prophet of God, who’s seeing this vision—“and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.

“And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book, And he said unto me, Take, it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and I ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: but as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.” He got indigestion over that one! “And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings” (Revelation 10:7–11).

This little book is obviously the book of prophecy. There are many people interested in Bible prophecy and prophecies of the prophets and the soothsayers, clairvoyants, mediums and fortune-tellers—lots of people are interested in the future. Nearly everybody wants to know what’s going to happen. What is the future? What is the prophecy all about?

They have a great desire for prophecy, and in their mouth it tastes so sweet, all these juicy prophecies about the future. But when they get down to where they’re trying to digest it and understand it and interpret it, it gives them a real bellyache. They get a case of acute indigestion of prophecies, the words of God which can only be understood by the leading of God’s Holy Spirit.

So John took the little book of the prophecy of the future and it tasted like honey in his mouth, but when he wrote it down and tried to understand what this angel and these people were talking about, that was a little tougher to digest. You’re going to find that in a lot of these scriptures we read that it’s going to be a little bit difficult as we go along. It sounds fascinating, so interesting, and you hope to understand every word so you’ll know exactly what everything is about. And then sometimes afterwards you’re a little disappointed. We probably won’t know some of these details until we see them and when they begin to happen, because we don’t have to know now. But He’s told us many things in advance so that when we see those monsters or those things or whatever they are, we’ll recognize them and say, “This is what John was talking about in his book of Revelation. He described that to a tee, and now there it is; it really happened!”

A lot of these things you’re not supposed to understand now. A lot of these things you will not understand until they begin to happen, just like the book of Daniel. God told him, “Shut up the book until the time of the end. It’s not for you; it’s for the endtime.” (See Daniel 12:4,8,9.) In fact, it gave Daniel a bellyache too. He was sick certain days after he had those revelations. In fact, he fainted several times during the process and thought he was going to die (Daniel 8:27).

The Lord said to him, “Daniel, you don’t have to worry about understanding it; you can’t understand it. You couldn’t possibly understand it now, because it hasn’t happened yet. But one of these days in the endtime, I’m going to open the book again and the people who are there where those things are happening and when they’re happening, they’re going to understand.” Just like the prophecy in Nahum that says that “the chariots shall jostle one another upon the broad ways and they shall run like lightning with flaming torches” (Nahum 2:3–4).

Chariots certainly didn’t run like lightning in Nahum’s day, although they could gallop pretty fast, like Ben Hur’s chariots in the chariot race. They didn’t have any broad ways either, so there was no problem about chariots being so numerous in such big highways that they would have as many accidents as they do today. They certainly didn’t run like lightning. They might have carried torches sometimes, but they were not like the flaming headlight torches of the modern automobile. But that’s what Nahum was seeing, chariots jostling one another in the broad ways, running like lightning with flaming torches.

The Lord told Daniel, “Shut up the book because it won’t happen till the end, when many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be greatly increased” (Daniel 12:4). Never in the world’s history have so many people run to and fro, and never has there been people traveling so much and with so many ways to travel, and so much increase of knowledge. Do you know that more has been discovered and invented in the past 100 years than in all the previous thousands of years of man’s history? Think of that! Knowledge shall be increased in the last days. That’s another proof we’re living in the last days.

So you want to know about the future? Well, it tastes good in your mouth, but then when you try to start chewing it up, it can be pretty tough to chew on and really hard to digest. I’m trying to help you digest it, and I will offer you several different possibilities of interpretation that many men of God and Bible students have accepted. I generally say it could be this, that, or the other, but we won’t know until it happens.

But that’s what it was written for. Today Daniel’s prophecies are understood, because many of these prophecies are past history. The whole realm of human political history from the days of Babylon up until the very end, the final world government of the Antichrist, are described in the book of Daniel. They’re also described here in this book of Revelation.

* “And swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay” (Rev.10:6 ESV)

09: Fifth and Sixth Tribulation Trumps (part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 9

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

“One woe is past; and behold, there come two woes more thereafter. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates” (Revelation 9:12–14). Here comes another judgment of God upon the wicked: four angels, obviously four angels of judgment.

“And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them” (Revelation 9:15–16). Two hundred thousand thousand; that’s two hundred million.

When those four angels of judgment are loosed from the River Euphrates, we are told in another verse that the river is dried up so that the kings of the East might come (Revelation 16:12). And here come these two hundred million horsemen charging across the Euphrates to attack. That would be the biggest battle ever fought and the most soldiers ever put in the field.

The last time the greatest number of soldiers was ever put in the field was when Alexander the Great was fighting the Medes and the Persians, and the Medes and Persians put over a million men into the field. Alexander was heavily outnumbered, but he won the victory, because God was on his side. God wanted the Grecian Empire to conquer the world, to spread Greek language, culture, and beauty. God wanted their interest in philosophy and religion to spread throughout the world, as well as their knowledge and science and medicine, so that the world would be ready for the Gospel. It would have one language, the Greek language, in which the New Testament was written.—A language which everyone would speak, because it was spread throughout the entire civilized world at that time.

This is going to be the war of all wars, when this happens, and you’re going to hear more about it as we read on. At the end of this Great Tribulation occurs the Battle of Armageddon, in which these horsemen will undoubtedly take part.

“And I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone” (Revelation 9:17). Obviously horses don’t issue fire and brimstone out of their mouths, so if they’re not real horses, then maybe they’re tanks with guns issuing fire and brimstone, and maybe that’s the best way he could describe them.

They looked like some kind of vehicle coming. They had heads like lions. Have you ever seen the turret on the top of a tank revolving like a head? It looks like the head on a monster because it revolves and looks different directions and its gun revolves with it, and out of its mouth it belches fire and brimstone and smoke, and even worse. Or maybe it’s something we’ve never even seen before and that’s the best way he could describe it. Whatever it is, they were either war horses or engines of war.

“For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails.”—That big mouth, that big gun belches smoke and shells. And their tails, did you ever notice the little barrels of machine guns sticking out, firing bullets that sting? “For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them do they hurt” (Revelation 9:19).

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” (Revelation 9:20–21). In spite of all this horrible period of Great Tribulation, particularly upon the wicked, they would not repent. God’s Word says, “Let mercy be shown unto the wicked, and yet he will not learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:10).

This Great Tribulation is going to affect the unregenerate, and these horrible plagues and monsters are not to attack His people but to attack the wicked! It is a time of their great tribulation.

Yet those that were not killed by these monsters and these plagues still refused to repent. Even though it later says they even gnawed their tongues for pain, yet would they not repent of their wickedness. That’s so true of the truly wicked who hate God and hate Christ.

He says here they’re going to pray for death and not be able to find it.—The horrors of hell let loose on the earth, Pandora’s box opened at last, and all of these horrible creatures and monsters of God or the Devil or both, to torment the wicked, those who have given His people so much trouble and tried to give them hell on earth. God is going to cut loose in this Tribulation period and give them hell.

Beloved, don’t fear the Tribulation if you love the Lord. Don’t worry about that three and a half years of Tribulation. It’s not going to be hell for you. I’ve heard some preachers make it sound like it was going to be such hell that no Christian would ever want to be here. The Antichrist is going to be after God’s children, and his anti-Christ followers are going to be on their tails trying to get them, but let me tell you, there’s going to be a lot more on their tails, not just trying, but getting them.

So you don’t have to worry about the forces of the Devil and the Antichrist. God’s a much greater enemy to them than they are to His people. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of God will raise a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19). And we will march on.

Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus, going on before.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope, in doctrine, one in purity.
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus, marching on before.

God’s people are going to march triumphant, protected by God, right straight through the Tribulation from beginning to end, in the face of their enemies. While they’re being tormented by these monsters and plagues and fighting off these horrors of hell, God’s people are going to march right through unscathed. They may catch up with a few of us and kill a few of us, as they promised they will if people don’t worship their Beast and his Image and take the Mark; a few of us will die and suffer martyrdom even as some of His people do today, but we’re still marching.

They can’t stop our rain, and they won’t be able to stop it, because God is going to cut loose all the horrors of hell against them. They’re going to have their hands so full of those monsters and beasts and those wars and weapons of war that they’re not going to have very much time to spend on persecuting His people.

No matter where you are, or how you are, or what you are, or what’s against you, the Lord will keep you if you’re in the center of His will. It’s a charmed circle where you live a charmed life, and they won’t be able to lay a finger on you.

Chapter 10 will be next, where we hear a most marvelous announcement before the Last Trump is blown, because at the Last Trump, that’s when God’s people go up. As the apostle Paul said, “The trump of God shall sound; the dead in Christ shall rise, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). Paul says in another place, “We shall all be changed, in an instant at the Last Trump” (1 Corinthians 15:52).

When that seventh trumpet is blown, those who are alive and remain are going to be raptured out of this world. “Stop the world, I want to get off!” And that’s what’s going to happen, right in the face of God’s enemies. Just when they’re trying to obliterate and exterminate His people, they’re not going to be able to do it. Hallelujah!

Lord, help us to go marching on as Your Christian soldiers, never fearing, never worrying and not fretting what the Enemy or man can do unto us, for they can only kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But we’re rather to fear You, Lord, love You, believe in You and obey You (Matthew 10:28).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

09: Fifth and Sixth Tribulation Trumps (part 1)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 9

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

In chapter 8, we studied the first four trumpets of the Tribulation, and now we’re going to be dealing with the fifth and the sixth trumpets in chapter nine of the book of Revelation. This Revelation of the future was given to the apostle John on the Isle of Patmos about 107 A.D. during the days of the Roman Empire, as God predicted to him the future of the world.

When we reached the eighth chapter, the Lord began to zero in on the very last days of the world, the very end of the world and its last terrible time of Tribulation. Now we’re reading the ninth chapter, beginning with the first verse:

“And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit.” You notice it calls this star a “he.” In other words, it’s an angel. God often uses the words interchangeably. He calls angels stars and He calls stars angels. And this falling star opened the bottomless pit “and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

“And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of the scorpion when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them” (Revelation 9:2–6).

Notice that these monsters released from the bottomless pit out of hell by this angel are sent by God to torment the ungodly, the wicked, the unsaved, because He gives them a strict commandment not to hurt those who have the seal of God in their forehead. He says, “Hurt not any green thing neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.” In other words, they were not to hurt the men who did have the seal of God in their foreheads—salvation in Jesus.

Anyone who loves Jesus will have God’s seal in his forehead. The people who are following the Antichrist—this Devil-man, Satan in the flesh, this horrible Beast—they will have the Mark of the Beast in their foreheads and in their hands as they follow and worship him. But those who love the Lord cannot accept that Mark of the Beast, and will not. If you love Jesus, you will refuse the Mark of the Beast, because you have God’s mark in your forehead and hand, a symbol of salvation.

Even though the Beast commands that no one can buy or sell without his Mark and that anyone who refuses to worship his image would be killed, God’s children will refuse. They will refuse both the Mark and the worship of the Image, and therefore the Antichrist government will try to kill them, and they will not be able to buy or sell food or clothing or shelter or the necessities of life, and will likely have to flee into the wilderness for survival. But God is going to take care of His own.

Notice that these plagues which are being released upon the earth don’t hurt God’s children! They don’t touch the people of God at all. They are sent to punish particularly the followers of the Beast, the Antichrist. They are sent to torment them, and no doubt even to defend His people. Think of that! God is going to send into this world, monsters such as the world has never known or seen before, to attack the wicked who are attacking the people of God.

During this Tribulation period when the Antichrist and his followers are attacking the followers of Jesus Christ, God is going to let loose pestilences and plagues and monsters to attack the kingdom of Satan. They’ll have so much on their hands defending themselves from these monsters and these plagues that they won’t have much time to persecute God’s people.

This is very similar to the days of Moses when he went in to rescue the children of Israel. When Pharaoh persecuted the Jewish slaves and wouldn’t let them go, Moses called on God and God sent terrible plagues upon the Egyptians. While the Egyptians were having these horrible plagues, over in the land of Goshen where the Israelites lived, all was well.

When great darkness fell upon all of the rest of Egypt, it was light in the land of Goshen. When the frogs were everywhere and even in their beds in Egypt, no frogs in Goshen. When the cattle were slaughtered by great hail from heaven, no hail in Goshen. When the horrible sores fell upon all the Egyptians, no sores on the Israelites. God was giving the Egyptians lots of trouble to make them stop causing so much trouble for God’s servants. (See Exodus 7–12.)

So that’s exactly what He’s going to do during the Tribulation—the last great hour of trouble and persecution for the saints of God. God is going to send great plagues upon the earth to protect His children, to make enemies take their hands off His people. These are terrible plagues. Listen to this description of the locusts:

“And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months” (Revelation 9:7–10).

Does that sound like anything you ever heard or saw before? Not likely. Because the prophet of God was seeing something in a vision that God was showing him, a revelation of the future of things which he had never seen before, so he had to describe them in a language that the people of his day could understand. He had to describe what he was seeing as well as he could by the things that he was already familiar with, because he had never seen such monsters before.

The prophet had never seen tanks or planes or guns, or heard their explosions and bombs, or the roar of their engines and motors. So if he was watching a terrible war, having never seen a tank or an airplane, how could he possibly describe such engines of destruction? He just did the best he could with what he was familiar with.

He said they look a little bit like locusts; they fly, so he may have been seeing an airplane. And yet they were like horses prepared to battle. Perhaps he was watching one of these steel chariots like a tank, and it rumbled along across the earth and it reminded him of the rumble of horses’ hoofs—war horses running rapidly in wartime.

He said, “On their heads were as it were crowns like as gold.” Tanks have turrets, and on the old bombers of World War II they had gun turrets which revolved sort of like crowns on the top. He said, “Their faces were as the faces of men.” Perhaps he saw them peering through the windows, or maybe when he looked at the front he saw those windows like eyes staring out.

“And they had hair as the hair of women.” Have you ever noticed a jet going by and the airstream following it like a long trail of hair? “Their teeth were as the teeth of lions.” Maybe he saw them firing guns? Or perhaps he saw the bombs or the missiles hanging down underneath and they looked like lions’ teeth. “And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron.” They were made of metal; they looked like iron shields.

“And the sound of their wings as they flew was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.” Doesn’t a jet roaring overhead sound like many horses running to battle? The prophet just described these things he was seeing, sights he’d never seen before, the best he could. I’m personally convinced that he was probably seeing airplanes and bombers flying. “And they had tails like unto scorpions, and stings in their tails.”

“And their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon” (Revelation 9:11). Obviously, if he’s out of the bottomless pit, you have an idea whose angel he is. Some say it’s the Devil himself; others say it’s one of the Devil’s archangels.

There’s such a horrible time of torment going on for men not sealed with God’s seal that these monsters, whatever they may be, whether you want to say that they were a modern jet bomber or they were actually some kind of a monster that looked just like he’s describing here, one way or the other, they’re not going to hurt the people of God.

God is going to protect His own from these planes and tanks and guns and bombs and bullets or even monsters, if it’s a new kind of monster that’s never been seen before. They’re not going to hurt His children, He said, just the unsaved who have the Mark of the Beast on them instead of the Mark of the Lord in their forehead. (to be continued)

08: The First Four Tribulation Trumps (part 2)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 8

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/11/24 We’re proceeding now with the eighth chapter of this marvelous revelation. We’ve been through seven chapters which predicted in advance what the history of the world was going to be from the day of John until this terrible Tribulation. Now the Tribulation begins, and these great angels of the seven trumpets of the Tribulation begin to blow their trumps. Chapter 8, verse 2:

“And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.” That is the throne of God in heaven.

“And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

“And the first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.” Sounds like atomic war, doesn’t it?

“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound” (Revelation 8:2–13).

There we have the first four trumpets of the Tribulation period. Actually this period is continued on into the ninth chapter, which we will deal with hereafter. But in case you didn’t understand exactly what we were reading, I wanted to read the whole chapter first, so that you could get the context of it.

First there is an awesome period of silence as all heaven and earth await in awed silence the most awful period in man’s history, and an angel—to emphasize this last time of terror and suffering—takes a censer [vessel for burning incense] from the throne of God and casts it down into the earth, and there are voices and thunderings and lightnings—symbolic of the judgments of God, symbolic of the terrible events to come.

The strange thing about this Tribulation period, unlike the period of God’s wrath which follows and the seven vials of His wrath which occur after the next seven chapters (the eighth through the fourteenth chapters), is that the Tribulation is like the wrath of Satan being poured out upon mankind and upon the earth. Nevertheless, God pictures it as actually all coming from Him, because these are some very supernatural things which occur. The last days of man’s history, a time to try men’s souls, and this censer being cast into the earth, showing that terrible things are about to come, gives an indication of what’s about to happen.

But at the same time, the prayers of the saints are ascending unto the Lord from His children; an encouragement that God is listening, a brief glimpse of the efficacy of our prayers. Though the believers are suffering through this period, the Lord hears their cries. He hears their prayers and He will not be deaf, but He will heed their cries for help and He will help them. This is a definite indication that the Lord is going to help His children through this terrible period of the last three and a half years of man’s history, the Great Tribulation.

The first angel sounds and hail and fire mingled with blood are cast upon the earth, and the third part of the trees are burnt up and all the green grass is burnt up. This sounds an awful lot like an atomic war, this hail and fire raining down from above, doesn’t it? Atomic bombs that destroy a third of all the trees and all the green grass, think of that. It’s possible it is an atomic war.

The second angel sounds and a great mountain burning with fire is cast into the sea, and a third part of the sea becomes blood. The third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life die, and a third part of the ships are destroyed. Mountains in God’s Word almost always typify or symbolize great kingdoms, world powers, or empires.

What great world power or empire will be destroyed under the beast himself, this final worldwide government, this final world dictator, Satan, in the form of a man called the Antichrist? What government will he destroy? All man’s governments that have preceded him.

What kind of government does he destroy? What kind of world power that has preceded him does he cast into the sea? What else than capitalism, a world power that has ruled the earth now for centuries. And in the destruction of capitalism and capitalistic powers of the Western world in this atomic war, a third part of the sea will become blood and a third part of the creatures in it will die and a third of its ships will be destroyed.

“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven.” Stars can be symbolic of angels, and the star falling here could indicate the fall of Satan himself, which we find later in another chapter when his fall is described at this particular time of the Tribulation. “Burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the water became wormwood and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.”—The poison of the Serpent.

You can take these waters and rivers and so on as literal, and this is often interpreted as possibly representing the fall of a meteor to the earth (which would appear to be a great start falling from heaven). I’m inclined to believe that much of this is symbolic as well. When Satan is cast out of heaven (see Revelation 12:9), he poisons the sources of propaganda of the world, the rivers of information. He poisons the rivers which flow with feeding information to man through the media; Satan poisons them and makes them bitter. And many men die as a result of being poisoned with his bitter propaganda, his lies, his half-truths, his distortions, his deceits. “With lying wonders,” God’s Word says in another place (2 Thessalonians 2:9).

“And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.” What’s the result of all of this, whether you think it’s literal or symbolic, of this poisoning of the rivers and the waters, or the sources of information, the sources of propaganda, the media information of the world? Darkness.

As man is fed poison water, as he is fed poison information, as he is fed poison propaganda, poison news, his mind is darkened, his heart is darkened, even as the Lord said that if we stray away from Him, we become darkened in our understanding, alienated from the life of God, and past feeling (Ephesians 4:18–19). Even so will unregenerate man be in these last days of the Tribulation period; in spite of all of its terrors, most of the men of this earth will not turn to God.

They will believe the lies of this Devil-man, Satan incarnate, the Antichrist, and as he poisons the waters of information and propaganda, their hearts will become more darkened, their minds even more lacking in understanding as he darkens the world. Or if you want to take it literally, the very heavens are darkened, the skies are darkened, the sun and moon are darkened. Either way, it sounds pretty bad to me.

“I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe”—three woes—“to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels, which are yet to sound.” He says, “There are coming yet three more woes upon the earth.” Four have already occurred under the first four trumpets of the Tribulation, representing the first four periods of the Tribulation.

Each of these trumpets is like a herald; an angel sounds and heralds a new and more awful period of the Tribulation one by one. If you’re here and still alive, you’ll know exactly the progress of the Tribulation period by what’s happening, whether you’re under the first trumpet, the second, the third, the fourth, and so on.

He also tells us the exact amount of time this period of Great Tribulation will last, to where you can’t possibly misunderstand it, so that you will know exactly how much longer you have to wait for Jesus to come.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

08: The First Four Tribulation Trumps (part 1)

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 8

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/10/24 “And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour” (Revelation 8:1).

We have at last come to the end of the seven seals of prophecy, with which the first seven chapters of Revelation were primarily concerned. As we told you in the introduction, the book of Revelation is very harmoniously, almost mathematically, designed.

The first seven chapters deal with the introduction, the letters to the churches and the first six seals of prophecy—history in advance. The next seven chapters have to do with the seven trumpets of the Tribulation, and then the last seven chapters have to do with the endtime events—the complete end of all these things, winding up in heaven itself.

The seventh chapter closes with the angels rejoicing and the saints in heaven rejoicing that the saints have been raptured to be with the Lord, and all the saved are now safely out of this world and in heaven. Then we sort of zero in on the last events of this prophetic period, on the very endtime, like a movie flashback.

It’s sort of like an inset on a map. Sometimes you see a map and then a certain particular part of that map or an island or a country comes zooming out at you in sort of an inset, or a zoom-out or zoom-in, to place the emphasis on a particular part of that map.

Now that the first seven chapters have concluded and you have seen a synopsis of world history from the time of John unto heaven itself, we’re going to zoom in. In this synopsis or bird’s-eye view of future events, the Lord very beautifully and chronologically is zooming in to give a closer view of some of these particular endtime events under the seventh seal. For when He opens the seventh seal, He begins to show what happens specifically at the very end just before the Rapture of the saints.

These are called the seven trumpets of the Tribulation—that last three-and-a-half-year period of man’s history, the last half of the Antichrist’s reign of terror against all religions, all faith, in which he tries to set himself up as God and abolish all other religions except the worship of himself and his idol, his own image. And he sits in the temple of God as though he were God, claiming that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

This is the last terrible Tribulation period of which the Scriptures have spoken for generations, for millenniums. For thousands of years God by His prophets has predicted this last terrible period of earth’s torment, Jacob’s trouble, the Gentiles’ trouble, tribulation, the worst in earth’s history (Jeremiah 30:7; Joel 2:11; Malachi 4:1). As Jesus Himself said, “There was not such a time of trouble until this time, no, nor indeed ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). The end of man’s reign on the earth, the last of this demonic Devil-man’s reign, the last half of the Antichrist’s seven-year reign.

As we begin to read chapter eight on through the fourteenth, we find here a sort of an inset, almost a flashback, to zero in on the details of this last three and a half years, the period of these seven Tribulation trumpets.

Jesus Himself opens this seventh seal, and under this seal the book is opened to virtually the last chapter of man’s history on earth—that is, under his own government—to show what a mess he’s made of the world, what a holocaust he has made of man’s history on earth.

When Jesus opens this seventh seal to reveal what is going to happen in this last day of man’s history, this last three and a half years, it is so awesome, so awful, that there is a sudden stunning silence in heaven for half an hour before anything else happens, before anything else is shown. Before John hears anything else, there is a sudden half-hour of silence, as though all heaven is stunned, as though all earth is stunned by the horrors that are about to be revealed and occur. That’s the scene that’s being set.

We could be a bit frivolous and perhaps say as one preacher once told me—preachers love jokes—he said, “Dave, I can prove to you that there are no women in heaven.” I said, “What do you mean, no women in heaven? Of course there are women in heaven!” “No, Dave,” he says, “I don’t see how there can be any women in heaven, because right here in this eighth chapter, first verse, it says there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” He said, “How could there be any women in heaven if there was silence for half an hour?”

A bit of humor can provide some relief from the awfulness to come. That reminds me of the missionary who’d been in Tibet for 25 years. I was washing dishes with him elbow to elbow at the Soul Clinic in Los Angeles at one time, and he had been a missionary in Tibet even when the communists took over. He spent four years there under the communists, operating a hospital in the heart of the mountains of Tibet, the Forbidden Land, as it used to be called.

Because I knew he was a veteran missionary, a soldier who had been in many battles and on the field for many years, and I wanted to be a missionary and to know just what it took to be a missionary, I asked him, “Sir, what would you consider the most important qualification of a missionary? What does a missionary really need to serve God under such severe conditions as you did in those mountains with those strange people and that strange language for 25 years, operating a hospital, and then for four years after the communists took over, continuing to work even clandestinely preaching the Gospel under the communists?”

There we stood with our arms elbow-deep in dishwater, washing dirty dishes for over 100 people who were attending the Soul Clinic school in Los Angeles, and he looked at me and he smiled. I guess perhaps he was thinking of the humor of our situation.

Here he was a 25- or 30-year veteran, and I was just a young greenhorn, as green as the greenest grass, still wet behind the ears when it came to missionary work. I had been an evangelistic helper and a very short-lived pastor of a church that I’d built, my first and last pastorate, and now I wanted to be a missionary. But I had never been outside of my own country except to Mexico and Canada. I had never been on a far-off mission field.

He looked at me, both of our arms immersed in dirty dishwater, and I guess he was thinking about our present situation—him a veteran missionary, me a veteran evangelist and former pastor, and here we were washing dishes together. What were we doing here washing dishes for 100 people? He looked at me and he chuckled and said, “David, a sense of humor!” He said, “You know what a sense of humor is? It’s to know how things ought to be, and to see how funny it is when they aren’t like they ought to be.” And I often thought about that for a long time afterward—to see how things ought to be, and yet to see how funny it is when they’re not like they ought to be.

He said, “I’ll never forget when we were hiding in a bus trying to escape the communists. When the soldiers came on board to check the passengers, we were down on the floor hiding under the seats. My fellow missionary and I almost gave ourselves away, we got to chuckling and laughing so. We thought it was so funny, us crawling under the seats while the communist soldier was checking the passengers. Here we were staring at each other under two bus seats, and we just almost got to laughing until we gave ourselves away!”

He said, “A sense of humor is almost indispensable if you’re going to be a missionary”—and I’m sure that many of you who are missionaries in far-flung fields around the world have often found that in the most serious kind of situation, in the most sober, somber, almost terrifying situation, somehow God has suddenly come to your rescue and your relief with something funny to relieve the tension. In the teaching of public speaking they call it comic relief. You’re very serious on a very sober subject, but suddenly you tell a joke to ease the tension of your audience and they laugh and they can relax and they can stand the next heavy section. (To be continued)

07: God’s Seal On His Servants

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 7

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-05-01

9/09/24 Revelation chapter 7 is the last chapter in the first part of Revelation, which has to do with the introduction of this marvelous Revelation, and a preview of the immediate history of the world from the time of John, who was receiving the Revelation about 107 A.D. He was about 90 at the time, on the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey, near the seven churches which he talks about and to whom he is writing and giving this Revelation which he had received from the Lord.

This seventh chapter is almost like a pause in the revelation and it is at the very end of this whole preview of the future that was to begin in John’s day.

He says, “And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the winds should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree” (Revelation 7:1). These are the winds of God’s judgments upon man for refusing the love and laws of God and His Savior Jesus Christ. “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea” (Revelation 7:2). There were four angels being prepared to execute the judgments of God upon sinful man and his wicked earth.

But this angel came first, who had the seal of God in his hand, and he said to the four angels of judgment, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads” (Revelation 7:3). He said, “Wait! Don’t mete out the judgments of God on wicked men until we have sealed the good men—the servants of God—with the seal of God in their foreheads.”

“And I heard the number of them which were sealed, and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel” (Revelation 7:4). He said, “Before we mete out these judgments here upon wicked men and the Antichrist kingdom”—these are about things that are to happen in the very end—“we must seal the believers, the true children of God, the true Israel.”

Now you can interpret this passage one of two ways: You can say that this meant the early church, all of those early Christians who were Jews, who were saved, and therefore were sealed of God. He talks about how the number of them which were sealed were 144,000, and of each tribe 12,000. It’s possible that this 144,000 were the early Jewish Christians that Jesus is saying are sealed here.

Others believe that this means that there will be Jews in the very endtime, in the time of the Antichrist and the Tribulation, who had previously thought that he was not their savior, the Messiah, or the Son of God, and wake up to the fact that Jesus is the Christ. They will realize that they have ignored their true Messiah and will be saved then and God will seal them then. Because it speaks pretty specifically about these people being of the children of Israel in the fourth verse, and of the various tribes, naming the tribes one by one in the succeeding verses. (See Revelation 7:5–8.)

After having sealed these Jewish believers, apparently 144,000 Jewish Christian believers, 12,000 of each tribe of Israel, the ninth verse says: “After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”

This is the great mob, the great hosts of heaven and earth who believe in Jesus Christ—be they Jews or Gentiles—because there’s no longer any Jew or Gentile in Christ Jesus, no male nor female, no black or white, no rich or poor, no difference in the kingdom of Christ now. (See Galatians 3:27–29.) We’re all the same to Jesus, all brothers and sisters in the one family of God.

“And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 7:10–12).

You notice the angels could only say “Amen.” Because as my mother used to sing: “For angels never knew the joy that our salvation brings.” They can only witness it. They were never lost, at least God’s angels were not, so they can’t know the joy of salvation. But they can say amen to it and witness it and help us and love us and comfort us and protect us, thank God.

“And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes and whence came they?” “One of the elders answered”—sounds more like he’s asking questions to me. “And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest” (Revelation 7:13–14). John says, “I don’t know. You’re the guy that’s supposed to know.” Notice that there were 24 elders; possibly the 12 outstanding leaders of the Jews before Christ that God considers the most important, such as Abraham, Moses, and the prophets of God down through the ages, the most important Jews and descendants of Abraham who truly loved God and really knew the score.

The other 12 are possibly the 12 apostles or leaders of the Christian church, pioneers of the Christian faith, or maybe the leaders down through the ages. Who knows? It could be that the 24 are going to be the 12 most important leaders of the Jewish church of the Old Testament and the 12 most important leaders of the Christian church of the New Testament. God’s going to honor the 24 most outstanding leaders of His people for the past 6000 years.

John said, “You know.” Yes, the elder knew. He was just asking a rhetorical question; he wanted to see if John knew. “And he said to me, these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). Those who are saved. This is the mighty host, the multiplied millions and billions of the saved who are getting this mark of God in their foreheads to protect them from the Enemy and from the Beast and the forces of hell. “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple.” This is the host of God in heaven.

“And He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them” (Revelation 7:15). He’ll sit on the throne and dwell among them. It doesn’t say we’re going to go up and dwell with God. It says that God’s going to come down and dwell with us. It says that all through the Bible, down to the very last chapter, that God is going to come down and dwell with us here on the earth eventually—in the New Earth.

Our heaven’s going to be here on earth. John saw the Holy City—that place called heaven—coming down from God out of heaven, unto the earth, unto man. And God, he said, will now make His dwelling with men below (Revelation 21:2–3). He’s come down to man’s level to love him and to live with him and to keep him forever.

This seventh chapter ends here with a beautiful vision of heaven—the raptured saints in heaven. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat” (Revelation 7:16). They lived in a hot country where they didn’t appreciate sunshine; they liked the clouds better than the sunshine.

“For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17). God’s going to wipe away all tears. We shall neither hunger nor thirst anymore, nor suffer pain or agony or death anymore.

God doesn’t say there aren’t going to be any tears in heaven. I think a lot of people when they get to heaven and face the Lord are going to cry over their sins and their failures and faults and be ashamed, some to live in everlasting contempt for their failures and disobediences and sins against God, but nevertheless forgiven and saved (Daniel 12:2).—But no crown, no reward, no “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” only tears and shame when they meet God.

But isn’t the Lord wonderful and loving and merciful? He says He’s going to wipe away all those tears, and He’s going to wipe away all that memory of those evil years, and there’ll be no more pain, no more death, no more sorrow, no more tears, only eternal happiness, joy, and paradise on earth forever and ever.

These first seven chapters cover the whole history of man from the days of John until the days of our final heaven on earth. It is a kind of a résumé, a preview of the history of man.

In these first seven chapters, we’ve covered what was future in John’s day, but is now mostly history except for these last few scenes of the saints in heavenly places. From here on, it’s all about the endtime that hasn’t happened yet, under the seventh seal with the seven trumpets of the Tribulation period, the last most horrible day in earth’s history and in man’s rule, and man’s inhumanity to man.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

06: Warriors of the Faith

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 6:9–17

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-04-01

9/08/24 Revelation chapter 6, verse 9: “And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

“And I beheld when He had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:9–17).

We’re reading from the sixth chapter of the book of Revelation, beginning with the ninth verse. We’ve already covered the first eight verses in the previous class on the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Do you remember what these horses were? The first one was Jesus on the white horse with a crown and a bow going forth to conquer. The second was the war horse. The third was the commercial system, buying and selling. And the last one was death by every means—hunger, famine, pestilence, plague.

You may wonder, “Were these separate times? Did Jesus first go forth and conquer, and then war came, and then after that the commercial system came, and then came death?” No, these horses, although they’re pictured one by one, began to ride almost immediately. God told John when He first started giving him this revelation that these are things which shortly must come to pass, for the time is now at hand. Therefore, these things began to come to pass in John’s day; in fact, they were already existent in John’s day. These horsemen were already riding in John’s day. God was just revealing them to him one by one to show him the difference.

The horse of Christ and Christianity, the great white horse with Him with a golden crown and a bow in His hand to go forth conquering and to conquer: Jesus had been riding that horse for many years already, and the church spread around the world—the whole Roman world of the day. There had been wars and rumors of wars, and there had been much commercialism and buying and selling, and plenty and poverty and famine, and finally all kinds of death. So these horses had been riding continuously. In fact, He’s just picturing here what has been going on for the last 2000 years.

These seven seals of the book of Revelation are the seals of history, you might say, history in advance. They cover the time from the days of John, about 100 A.D., down to the very end of the world. So these seals of this seven-sealed book are a picture of the future from the days of John to the very end. The first seal was the four horsemen of the Apocalypse—Christ and His kingdom, war, commercialism, and all forms of death—riding from John’s day till the end.

This whole first part of the book, almost the whole first seven chapters, has to do with history from John’s day until the end, particularly until the Tribulation period. But the first six seals here, as you can see, cover the entire period. It’s sort of a summary. As they say in the movies, it’s a flashback of what has happened since John’s day to the present. Under the first four seals were these four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Under the fifth seal we have another picture of heaven, this time not exactly the throne scene, but an altar scene. We see the souls of the martyrs, their spirits, clothed in white robes, pictured under the altar of God, meaning they are waiting there, in a sense, where they were sacrificed as living sacrifices for the Lord. God’s Word says that we are to “yield our bodies a living sacrifice unto the Lord,” which is His perfect will, and your perfect sacrifice, “that ye may know what is that good and acceptable will of God” (Romans 12:1–2).

You want to know the will of God? Yield your body a living sacrifice, which is good and acceptable unto the Lord, which is His perfect will for you, and then you’ll know God’s will. But not until you’re willing to give yourself in His cause as a martyr for Christ—not necessarily to die but to die daily, to live and die daily for Him, in witnessing and serving Him in winning souls. That’s what He expects of you. In a sense, every one of us is a martyr. In a sense, every one of us dies daily for the Lord.

I remember a lady in one of our Bible school classes in Miami, Florida. She loved to sit in church and listen to beautiful sermons and organ music and lovely choirs, but she finally felt that really she needed a little more Bible study to know more about the Bible.

So she decided she wanted to go to Bible school. She picked our little Bible school because it was free. Not only free tuition, but free room and board, too. So she came to our school to take this Bible course and learn more about the Bible.

But then she found out that a part of our schedule, about half of it, was spent out in the field, not just studying theory and just studying the Bible—which is all very good and a necessary preparation, because it’s your tool, you’ve got to do it—but she had to spend half her time out with the other students in the field, with her teachers going door to door or on the street corner or in the park learning how to preach the Gospel, how to witness, how to win souls.

She came back after her first day out witnessing and said, “Oh my God! Do I have to do that again?” She said, “This just kills me! That business of going out and passing out tracts on the street corner—me a respectable, reputable, well-to-do woman, standing there like a beggar on the street corner begging people to take my literature. This just kills me. Do I have to do that again, brother?”

I said, “Yes, sister, you do, because that’s exactly what it does, and it’s good for you. It just kills your pride, and it kills your reputation, and it kills your vaunted idea of yourself, and it kills you in the eyes of man, when out there on the corner you get his contempt and his scorn and ridicule.”

It kills you, all right. It makes you a martyr every day. Every single day, you’re a martyr for Jesus and you die daily, as the apostle said (1 Corinthians 15:31). These are the martyrs for Jesus Christ. We’re all martyrs in that sense. You don’t have to die physically on a cross or be beheaded or whatever in the long run; you’re a martyr every day. Do you know what the word means? Martyr is a Greek word meaning “a witness.” And you’ll find out that witnessing is martyrdom to your pride and your self-respect and the opinions of men.

Witnessing is martyrdom, and if you are a faithful witness unto God, you will be a martyr for Jesus Christ. So these folks were martyrs. They had died daily and died the final death and were in heaven with the Lord, waiting to be avenged for the blood that they had shed. They’re waiting there for God to avenge them against their enemies who tormented them and persecuted them and ridiculed them and made it hard for them.

These saints wanted retribution. “How long, O Lord, are You going to not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”—Their persecutors their tormentors, their torturers. And the Lord said, “Just be patient, just rest a little while longer for all of your fellow servants who are dying daily right now for Me and will die for Me. Wait till the whole flock is in, and then I’m going to turn loose My judgments on them. When I’ve called out My sheep from among the goats, when I’ve reaped My good grain from among the tares, so that they don’t get hurt.”

God always has to call His people out and get them out from among the wicked and the sinners. He says, “Come out from among her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins,” so you won’t be punished for her sins (Revelation 18:4). He says, “Come out of Babylon, the world system. Get out of it! Start serving Jesus.”

That’s what these martyrs have done. They died daily for Jesus.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

05: The First 4 Seals and 4 Horsemen

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 5 and 6:1–8

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-04-01

9/07/24 “And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

“And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne. And when He had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen, amen, amen and amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped Him that liveth for ever and ever” (Revelation 5).

Praise the Lord for this wonderful scripture, this marvelous revelation! It’s a very mysterious passage, but when you understand who the Lamb is, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, then it’s not difficult to understand. If you realize that this seven-sealed book—called a book, but actually a scroll—was the book of the future, the book of the Revelation that God had promised to give to John, and herein, in this marvelous throne scene, then we discover it is about Jesus.

When no other man could be found worthy to open the book of the future, the book of prophecy, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was found worthy to open the book.

When He took the book, then the four beasts and the 24 elders had to praise Him and say, “Amen, amen” and to praise God. They fell down and worshipped Him and so on. Every one of them had harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints. I’ve seen this in some of the dreams and visions that I’ve had, that prayers were like beautiful vases or golden vials full of perfume rising unto the Lord like beautiful flowers and angels and fragrances to God in heaven.

They sang as Jesus opened the book; they sang that He was worthy: “For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.”

Thank God, some people from everywhere are going to be saved. We’re doing our best to reach the whole world with the Gospel. Our Family is doing its best to go into all the world and preach the Gospel unto every creature just as Jesus commanded (Mark 16:15). We’ve preached it on six continents to over 100 nations in 40 languages. For one little outfit of at most 8000 missionaries, I think that’s a pretty good record.

So they sang this song praising the Lord, for He had made Himself worthy by shedding His blood. “And Thou hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” We are already kings and priests unto God as far as He’s concerned. We may not look like it to the world, but we are already kings of this earth, and priests of our people unto God, because we’re already in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God that is within us in our hearts, the kingdom of God composed of His saints, His children everywhere throughout the world.—All those who love Jesus, all those who have received Him as their Savior, the Son of God, and His sacrifice on Calvary for their sins, and His forgiveness and His cleansing from sin.

John beheld and he heard the voice of many angels. First of all the beasts and the four and twenty elders and the saints, and then many angels are singing. This is a real praise service up in heaven—a great, victorious session in the great throne room of heaven! There before that crystal sea through which God can look upon the earth and see everything that’s going on. And the number—how many angels? How, many beasts? How many elders? How many saints?—Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, from everywhere—billion and millions! Hallelujah!

We’re not going to be the poor persecuted minority; we are then going to number in the billions and the millions, and we are going to rule the earth with Jesus Christ!

Jesus comes. He stops the earth, the history of this world, and He lets us off right in full view of our enemies. We rise in immortal victory over the forces of the Devil and of the Antichrist and right before the eyes of our enemies, now out of their reach forever, to be with Jesus in the air. This hasn’t happened yet here, but John is being given a vision of this to see what was going to happen in the future. He’s shown that Jesus opens this book of the future, this book of prophecy, sealed with seven seals.

It’s such an amazing and marvelous occasion that all heaven is rejoicing! All the angels are rejoicing, the beasts, the four and twenty elders, and the millions of saints. Beloved, you are not alone. “Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). What a cloud of witnesses! Never in the history of this world has there been such an audience for such a performance. You literally have billions upon millions of souls and saints and angels watching you from above in those heavenly galleries while you perform here on the stage of God’s history, His story, in this final act of His story, history. Isn’t that wonderful?

This will be the greatest show on earth, and all heaven will be watching.—All the saints of God that have gone on to be with the Lord, all the angels of God that have ever been created, including even Satan and all his angels, have to watch this grand and glorious performance and the final victory in the biggest hit that ever hit this world. That is going to involve millions of people, a cast not of half a dozen or a dozen or a score or two, not a cast of hundreds or even thousands, but a cast of millions upon billions acting out the last scene of God’s marvelous drama here on earth.

In John’s vision in this chapter, they’re all watching while Jesus begins to open the book of prophecy and future history begins to unfold. What a performance! What a cast! What an audience! No play or movie or television series on earth ever had such an audience as Jesus had as He began to open this book of the future—a history from John’s day down to our day, and on to the end. So Jesus is about to open the book now in chapter 6.

Let’s swing out into space and travel into the future, shall we? We are time travelers, space travelers. We even travel beyond the realm of space and time in this marvelous book.

Chapter six of the revelation of God to Jesus Christ and His angel unto John, first verse: “And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold, a white horse: and He that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto Him: and He went forth conquering, and to conquer” (Revelation 6:1–2).

Now begins the marvelous revelation of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.—These four mysterious horsemen of the book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse, depending on whether you want to use the Latin name for the book, the Revelation, or the Greek name Apocalypse.

The first horseman is obviously Jesus, with a crown all in white, going forth conquering and to conquer. What was happening in John’s day? Jesus was going forth to conquer the world with the Gospel through His saints and His apostles and the early Christians in a mighty conquest of the Roman Empire—more powerful in its message of love than all the legions of Roman force, cruelty, and war. Jesus is this mighty conqueror on the white horse in verse 2.

“And when He had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword” (Revelation 6:3–4). This second horse of the Apocalypse was obviously the horse of war, and there have been nothing but wars ever since the time of Christ and the early church.

The red horse of the Apocalypse is the horse of war, and certainly nothing could have been predicted more truly of the two millenniums of history which followed from John’s day to ours. There has seldom been a day in the world’s history that there has not been a war going on somewhere, with slaughter and massacre and killing and wounding and maiming and the horrors of hell. What does it matter whether they kill with stones and clubs and bare hands or knives and swords and spears or planes and guns and tanks and atomic bombs? It’s all the same horror in the sight of God, the same horror of man brought on by the Devil’s inspiration to inspire man to kill one another and destroy each other.

“And when he had opened the third seal”—Jesus opened the third seal, another chapter in the book—“I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.”

Here comes the horrible horse of famine and the horse of commerce, the horse of money, the horse of commercialism, the horse of capitalism, and the horse of plenty, feast and famine both.

“And I beheld this black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine” (Revelation 6:5–6). Doesn’t that sound like your typical salesman, your typical merchant? Your typical high-pressure TV commercials, always hawking their wares? So this next horse was to become one of the curses of the earth: commercialism, moneymaking, capitalism, making precious every little bit of material and food and so on. That’s the third horse; we’ve now had three horses of the Apocalypse.

Seventh verse: “And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a pale horse.” The actual meaning here is a pale yellowish-green horse. “And his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:8).

Here the final horse, the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, was death itself in every form. Death not only in war, but death from beasts and death from plagues, death from famine and hunger, death in every conceivable form. Haven’t we had that kind of death ever since the days of John? Haven’t we had commercialism and trading and capitalism and greed since the time of this revelation?

But praise God, we’ve had Jesus.—Crowned with many crowns, the King of kings riding on His great white horse of victory! He’s been riding throughout the earth for the past 2000 years, conquering nation after nation and tribe after tribe and people after people with the wonderful message of the Gospel, until at least half the world has become Christian. Half the people of the world confess Christ and are at least nominally Christian.

So there you have the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: First Jesus, the Son of God conquering the earth with His Gospel of love. Second, war, the opposite of love—hate and killing and death. And then commercialism, capitalism, greed, trading, moneymaking, one of the curses of the earth that deprives the poor and makes the rich. And finally, the fourth horse, death in every form, from war and beasts and famine and plague.

Have we not had all four of these horses riding rampant for the past 2000 years since John? Have we not had Christianity spreading throughout the world? War throughout the world? Commercialism throughout the world, the commercial system, Babylon? And all forms of death and destruction? We’ve had them all, and they have ridden rampant for 2000 years since John until this very day.

They will continue to ride right until the end, when Jesus comes and takes His children out of the hell on earth this world becomes into the heavenlies, while He pours out His judgments upon the hell below.—Until we come again in the Battle of Armageddon and we conquer the forces of hell and death and satanic power, and wipe out the Antichrist and his mark-of-the-beast forces and destroy his Image and destroy the wicked who follow him, and we cleanse and purify the earth, and set up the kingdom of God upon this earth to be ruled by Jesus Christ with a rod of iron.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

04: The Throne Scene

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 4

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-04-01

9/06/24 We’re starting the fourth chapter of Revelation, and you’ll find that the fourth and fifth chapters are what we call the throne scene. God uses scenery, too, and He’s got some lollapalooza of pieces of scenery that you’ve never seen the like of before! He caught John up into that place to see some of God’s scenery and He showed him into the throne room. These two whole chapters are about what happened in that throne room, and give you a good introduction to what is about to occur.

Actually, the throne scene is a very remarkable scene, and God is making quite a bit of it because it’s very important. It’s another two chapters of introduction to the future and what’s going to happen, and in a sense, it tells you why.

“After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me: which said, John, come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit” (Revelation 4:1–2). A voice like that’s enough to scare anybody into the spirit.—A voice like a P.A. system, a megaphone, sounding like a big trumpet out of heaven. He says, “Come up hither, John. I’m going to show you things which must be hereafter.”

“And behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.” The rest of this you can read. It’s quite clear; it’s a description of this scene, and what beautiful rocks were around, things made out of diamonds and pearls and emeralds and rainbows and crystal sea, all kinds of gorgeous things there.

“And out of the throne proceeded thunderings and voices and seven lamps of fire, seven Spirits of God” (Revelation 4:5).

Some people don’t like us talking about the spirits of God, but if you notice in that fifth verse of the King James Version, it even capitalized the word “spirits.” There are multitudes of spirits of God—spirits of the departed saints who have gone on to be with the Lord in heavenly places, spiritual spheres in that other world.

In fact, if you love Jesus, you’re a holy spirit—one of His holy spirits. And one of these days, when you die and go to be with the Lord, you’ll be a holy ghost. How about that? Any of you like ghosts? Any of you don’t like ghosts? Well, I like some ghosts, but some ghosts I don’t care for. I’ve seen a few ghosts, but thank God, most of the ghosts I’ve seen were holy ghosts, departed saints, men and women of God, my own mother in heaven and others that I love who have gone on before to be with the Lord. These are holy ghosts, now spirits in the spirit world—someday to come back and regain their bodies and have new beautiful, immortal, supernatural resurrection bodies, to live here on this earth forever as the angels of God ruling over His creation. His original intention for man was to dominate His creation and rule over it.

Sixth verse: “And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.” Then He describes these beasts, one like a lion, one like a calf, one with a face of a man and one like a flying eagle. “And each of them had six wings, full of eyes, and they rest not day and night, constantly saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 4:8). This is to impress us with the majesty and the might and the power and the holiness and the importance of God, sitting upon His throne.

“And when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to Him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, The four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy. O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:9–11).

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.

03: Revelation of the Future

A Study of Revelation: Revelation Chapter 1

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-04-01

9/05/24 The history of man began in the Garden of Eden, but it has taken God over 6000 years to unfold His whole plan of how to save man and redeem him and work out his salvation, to populate the world and get people saved and get them through the Tribulation and into the heaven on earth of the Millennium. That’s what we’re going to deal with here, the revelation of the future as told by God to Jesus and to His archangel, who delivered the message to John. John wrote it all down and now we’re about to read it.

You may wonder where this book—the Revelation—begins. When does it start talking about the future? According to the Bible, the “last days” really began with Jesus when He first came to earth. The author of Hebrews writes, “In these last days” (Hebrews 1:2). In these last days Jesus has come. So believe it or not, the last days of man’s history have lasted now about 2000 years. They range from Christ’s first coming to His second coming; that’s the last days. And in fact, right on through into His third coming, and right on through the Millennium for another thousand years. Those are really the last days for people on this earth who are unsaved and not redeemed.

John is getting these marvelous revelations from God about the future, his future right then, the future of the world for the next 2000 years, and that’s pretty well covered in these first few chapters. In the very first chapter, the first verse, it says, “Things which must shortly come to pass”—that means very soon.

Then at the end of the third verse, it says, “for the time is at hand.” That means it’s here. “What I’m going to show you is beginning now, John.” So this book began at John’s day and it’s foretelling the future, most of which is now history.

He says, “John to the seven churches which are in Asia,” fourth verse. He’s writing this revelation in seven letters to the seven churches. In those days they didn’t have any carbon copies, typewriters, or mimeo machines, so he either had to write seven separate letters, or—what they usually did—he wrote one long letter and then they took it around to the different churches and it was read in them. So he’s writing to the seven churches which are in Asia.

The Island of Patmos, where the dear old apostle John received this marvelous revelation of the future, is a little island in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey. These principal churches were in Asia Minor, on the coast of Turkey. Each one is named and listed in this first chapter, and then again in the second and third chapters. These were Ephesus, which was the principal church, the main port of that area, to whom Paul wrote his Epistles to the Ephesians; Smyrna; Thyatira; Pergamos; Sardis; Philadelphia, and the church of Laodicea.

John was living on a little island just off the coast of Turkey, not far from these churches. He was sort of like their bishop or their district superintendent, and he was naturally concerned and burdened about these very important churches.

The island was not far from Israel and Cyprus. There were boats to Ephesus, and then the Christians had people going around visiting the churches all the time. They’d probably travel a circuit to the different cities, and that’s probably why John named them the way he did in the order he did a little later in the same chapter, or the Lord did.

“Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come.” That can only be God, of course. “And from the seven Spirits which are before His throne”—God’s throne. We find out who those spirits are later; they’re the angels of God, the angels of these churches to whom he’s writing. “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness”—Jesus Himself was a faithful witness—“and the first begotten of the dead” (Revelation 1:4–5).

He was the first one to rise from the dead, and then immediately after He rose from the dead three days after His crucifixion, all the Old Testament saints also rose from the dead. It’s in the Bible. You can read it in the book of Matthew (Matthew 27:52–53). It says that when He rose from the dead, these other people rose from the dead too. But He was the first one that rose, “first begotten of the dead.” “And the prince of the kings of the earth.” He is the King of kings.

“Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” Who did that? Jesus. He died on the cross for our sins. He took our punishment for us so we could be saved just by believing on Him, receiving Him as our Savior into our hearts, loving Him and His Father God, and the Holy Spirit, and loving others, our neighbors as ourselves, and preaching the Gospel in all the world to every creature.

“And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, amen” (Revelation 1:6). We’re already kings and priests unto God, think of that!

Seventh verse, “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him.” When Jesus comes back to rapture His saints, He’s going to come back in the clouds just the way He went away on the day of Ascension. Just like His disciples watched Him go up in the clouds, they’re going see Him come down in the clouds. “Every eye shall see Him”—no secret Rapture—“and they also which pierced Him”—who crucified Him. “And all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.” The whole earth is going to see Jesus come when He returns for you and me, to rescue us, His children, out of this wicked old world.

Jesus goes on to say then: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord” (Revelation 1:8).

This same dear apostle who wrote this great book of Revelation, do you know what he says in the first part of his Gospel of John? He said, “In the beginning was the Word”—that’s Jesus—“and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” because He was the Son of God. “All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Think of that! Jesus was there (John 1:1–3).

Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet: Alpha, our “a,” and Omega, something we don’t have in the English alphabet. So Jesus is here saying He is the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” He’s been here a long time.

Ninth verse: “I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ”—did you know we’re already in the kingdom? If you have Jesus in your heart, you have the kingdom of God within you.

John says, “I was in the isle that is called Patmos for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” He was literally in exile; he was a kind of a prisoner. He’d been exiled to the island like Napoleon was exiled to the Isle of Elba, and later to some other island.

So he says here that he was on that isle of Patmos and he got the most amazing sermon and preached to more people than ever before, even though the Romans tried to get rid of him. “For the Word of God”—he was there because he was a good witness. Tenth verse: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega”—that’s the very thing Jesus had just said to him—“the first and the last: and what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”

Jesus himself commanded him that he was to write all this down in a book, and that’s what he did, and we’ve got the book to show for it today. Then John says: “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man.” Notice that’s capitalized, “S” on the word Son, meaning Jesus. He was not only the Son of God but also the Son of man.

“Clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow: and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine brass”—golden—“as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars: and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength” (Revelation 1:13–16).

Here is a picture of Jesus Christ as the apostle John saw Him in the book of this marvelous revelation, Jesus standing before him as a supernatural figure with all of these amazing attributes, shining like the sun and like gold and like the rainbow, and a garment of shining, scintillating, sparkling light, from just above His breast down to His feet, and Jesus Himself having a human body of a man born of the Virgin Mary, clothed in such a garment of light.

It’d be almost beyond description, because it’s something very heavenly, very ethereal. There stands Jesus in all His glory, in all His beauty, ready to speak to the apostle John, standing in the midst of seven golden candlesticks, seven beautiful bright lights, with seven stars in His hand. What a beautiful picture!

In verse 16 he says: “Out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.” This is, of course, symbolic of the Word of God, which He compares to a two-edged sword. “And His countenance was as the sun shineth in His strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last.” He’s already said this in verse 8: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, that which is and which was and which is yet to come,” the first and the last. Verse 18, “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore.” Jesus died, was crucified and rose again from the dead, and now He lives for evermore. “Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death,” so that He is able to unlock the gates of hell itself to release its prisoners from the very jaws of death.

So He says to John, “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.” He’s going to tell him the history of now and hereafter. “The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches” (Revelation 1:19–20). Isn’t that a beautiful picture?

He sees the seven principal churches of Asia Minor, or what is now Turkey, as seven beautiful candlesticks. And then he sees their seven guardian angels as seven beautiful stars. The churches, seven beautiful candles standing before God, and above each one, a guiding star, its guardian angel. What a beautiful picture of the churches to whom John is writing this epistle of this revelation of the marvels that God is about to show to him of their future, the future that they are to face, so they’ll know what’s coming!

The Lord does not want us to be ignorant, brethren, but to know the things which must shortly come to pass (1 Thessalonians 4:13; Revelation 1:1). And this is what He was telling the apostle John in that day, nearly 2000 years ago now, about 107 AD on the Isle of Patmos, where he was exiled by the Romans.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.