James O. Davis is the founder and president of Second Billion (TM). You are invited to learn more about Second Billion by visiting www.billion.tv.
INTRODUCTION
The following is an overall outline of the Book of Revelation. We pick up with part 3 of this message, “The Tribulation and the Second Coming.”
Part I
I. The Introduction the Book (Rev. 1:1-3)
II. The Visions of God (Rev. 1:4-20)
III. The Visions of Grace (Rev. 2:1 -- 3:22)
IV. The Visions of Government (Rev. 4:1 -- 20:15)
A) The Hallelujahs in Heaven (Rev. 4:1 -- 5:14)
B) The Horrors on Earth (Rev. 6:1 -- 20:15)
1) The seals—a world ruined by men
Part II
2) The trumpets—a world ruled by Satan
The Three Capital Cities
The Two Witnesses
The Believing Jewish Remnant
The Two Beasts
The Scene Back in Heaven
Part III
3) The vials—a World Rescued by God.
The Two Babylons
The Scarlet Woman
The Antichrist
The Fallen Babylon
Events in Heaven
V. The Visions of Glory (Rev. 21:1 -- 22:7)
VI. The Conclusion of the Book (Rev. 22:8-21)
3. THE VIALS--A WORLD RESCUED BY GOD
Now we come to Revelation 16, which comprises the vials of God’s wrath. It is interesting when you study these vials that there is a striking similarity between the judgments under all the vials, except vial number four, and the plagues poured out in Egypt in the days of Moses. For example, vial number one is the same as plague number six in Egypt--boils. Vials number two and three are the same as plague number one--blood. Vial number five is the same as plague number nine--darkness. Vial number six is the same as plague number two--frogs. Vial number seven is the same as plague number seven in Egypt--hail. This suggests that, for the most part, the events described under the vials will be literal happenings.
The purpose of the vial judgments is to break the grip of the beast on this planet. The world, under the seals was ruined by man, and under the trumpets was ruled by Satan, and under the vials become a world rescued by God. Men are now going to learn that there are very real limits to the beast’s power, that he is impotent to deter the terrible judgments now aimed against him and his subjects by the true and living God.
THE VIALS OF GOD’S WRATH
The first plague will be directed against those who have received the beast’s mark imprinted on their flesh. God had warned that those who submit will suffer for it in this life and in the life to come (Revelation 19:20). The time now comes when they must pay the price for believing the lie of Satan rather than the truth of the Word of God.
The second plague will turn the sea into blood, as the blood of a dead man (Revelation 16:3). Every living creature in the sea will die.
The third plague will carry the disaster of the second vial a step further as the rivers and fountains of earth are turned into blood. One of God’s angelic administrators, called the angel of the waters, acknowledges at once the justice of this plague. “They have shed the blood of saints and prophets and thou hast given them blood to drink (Revelation 16:6). One can scarcely imagine the panic on earth when the world’s water supplies are contaminated beyond use.
The fourth plague will upset the delicate balance by which the sun pours forth its energy to maintain the earth at just the right temperature to sustain life.
As the fifth plague is poured out, an uncanny, supernatural darkness will grip the planet. The beast will also come under direct divine attack. The glamour with which men view the beast will disappear fast. For millions he will no longer be the charismatic leader he once was. The eastern nations will break off their alliances with him and confederate against him. By the time the next plague is poured out, the kings of the East will be in position to challenge him and contemplate war against him.
The sixth plague will pave the way for Armageddon. In this connection, reference is made to the drying up of the river Euphrates to prepare the way of the kings of East (Revelation 16:12). It is said that dams have been erected on the Euphrates that could stop the flow of the waters long enough to allow huge armies to cross. Their mobilization will be inspired by Satan. Three frog-like demons will be sent forth by the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet to bring about a world mobilization of all nations and the deployment of all the earth’s armies at Megiddo.
The seventh plague will bring a cry from on High, “It is done.” (verse 17) Upon finishing the work of Creation, God declared His work completed (Genesis 2:1). When the work of redemption was accomplished at Calvary, Jesus cried, “It is finished.” (John 19:30) Now, with the outpouring of the seventh vial, the way is paved for Armageddon and the personal return of Christ to end man’s abuse of the planet. Once again the cry goes forth, “It is done.” Immediately there will be outbursts in the sky that are accompanied by convulsions in the earth. The worst earthquake of all history will take place and the rebuilt city of Babylon will be catastrophically overthrown.
THE TWO BABYLONS
Now we come to Revelation 17 and 18. These two chapters deal with the two Babylons. These are extremely important chapters. Chapters seventeen and eighteen are commentaries that take us back for more details on the rise to power of the beast and the overthrow of Babylon. They are strategically important chapters in understanding the apocalypse. Chapter seventeen deals with the mystery of Babylon. Chapter eighteen deals with the material Babylon. One has to do with a great Babylonian system; the other has to do with a great Babylonian city. Chapter seventeen sets forth the world system that is basic for the beast’s rise to power in the West.
THE SCARLET WOMAN
In his vision, John saw a scarlet woman sitting astride a scarlet beast, a beast we have met before in chapter 13. It symbolizes the antichrist and the political system he will control in the West--the ten-nation European confederacy, sometimes called the revived Roman empire. The beast has seven heads and ten horns and John is told what these symbolize. The seven heads are the seven mountains on which the woman sat (verse 9). This clearly identifies the woman with Rome.
She is further described as “the great whore that sitteth upon many waters” (Revelation 17:1). The waters are said to represent peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues (verse 15). So clearly the scarlet woman has vast power and influence in many parts of the world. She is positively identified for us in the last verse of the chapter, “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 17:18) And in John’s day that city was Rome. So we need no further identification.
The woman does not represent the coming political system centered at Rome. The ten horns of the beast symbolize that. John is told, “the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power.” The word “power” here is “exusia,” that is, “authority.” He is further told that God will put into the heart of the European rulers to give their kingdoms to the beast and to do his will (verse 17). They will be motivated by their hatred of Christ (verse 14). This will prove their downfall in the end. The ten horns of the beast represent the coming political system.
The scarlet woman represents a religious system centered at Rome. The chapter itself makes all of this abundantly clear. The description of the scarlet woman as a whore refers to her spiritual wickedness. She has prostituted the truth of God and perverted it to her own ends. She makes the people of the world drunk with the wine of her fornication (Revelation 17:2). That is, she seduces people into accepting her adulterated doctrines and her heady wine of power.
Also, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her (Revelation 17:2). Which means they all live on terms of unholy intimacy with her. She offers them what they want and they pay her price to get it.
The whole picture symbolized by this scarlet woman is that of a religious system centered at Rome, one that craves secular power and is quite prepared to sacrifice its high and heavenly calling to any kind of debauchery to get what it wants. The scarlet woman rides a scarlet colored beast which is full of names of blasphemy (verse 4). We have already identified this beast as the coming antichrist. It is not clear whether the beast ports the woman or whether the woman controls the beast.
The woman was arrayed in the magnificent vestments of her wealth and had in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication (verse 4). The religious system she represents already has a history of worldliness and wickedness as anyone who has studied her history knows. The vision identifies her clearly with Rome, but the system she represents is older--very much older. Upon her forehead was a name written, “Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” (Revelation 17:5)
Ancient Babylon was the fountainhead of all idolatry, Satan’s intention for channeling worship to himself. After the overthrow of Nimrod’s Babel, idolatry spread to the ends of the earth, but Babylon remained its home. God exiled the Jews to Babylon so as to forever cure them of their idolatry. Babylon remained the seat of the mysteries of idolatry until, eventually, they were transferred by way of Pergamos to Rome. The Caesar became the pontifix maximus of pagan religion. In due course, the church became more powerful, the Caesars vanished, and the title was passed on to the bishop of Rome. He is known to this day as the supreme pontiff.
There are many idolatrous systems in the world today, of course, which have no connection with Rome. However, after the Rapture of the true Church, what is left of apostate Christendom will doubtless be absorbed quickly by the Roman religious system. The beast will manipulate this system on his way to supreme power. The other branches of idolatry in the world will doubtless make their own deal with the beast when finally he extends his power into the Far East.
John saw the scarlet woman drunken with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus. The sight astonished him beyond measure in verse six. That pagan Rome should persecute the saints of God was not surprising but that this system, which supposedly was Christian, should persecute God’s people amazed the Apostle. It was inconceivable to him that the Church as he knew it could ever become the thing he now saw.
The fate of the woman is next described to John. “The ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore and shall make her desolate and naked. And shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire.” (verse 16) The political schemes of the scarlet woman will come to nothing for the beast will simply use them to bring the West under his control. Then having no more use for this church, and seeing this meddlesome religious system as a hindrance to his own plans, he will turn it over to his confederates to be dismembered.
THE ANTICHRIST
The chapter now concentrates on the lineage and history of the antichrist himself. John says this, “There are seven kings, five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come. When he cometh he must continue a short space and the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth and is of the seventh and goeth into perdition.” (verses 10-11)
Now, attempts have been made to identify these seven kings with various world empires or with faces of the Roman Empire. The passage, however, refers to an individual. This is clear from the fact that he comes from perdition (verse 8) and goes back to perdition (verse 11). Perdition is for individuals, not empires. The word translated “perdition,” occurring twenty times in the New Testament, was used by the Lord Jesus to describe Judas. He called him the son of perdition in John 17:12. It is a phrase also used to describe the coming antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. It is clear that the description we have here is not that of an empire, but of an individual--namely, the antichrist.
Five of the rulers had already come and gone. Domination existed at the time John wrote. One was still to come, one who would continue a short space. If we were to speculate about the seventh ruler, we could draw on all of history from John’s day to our own. Mussolini is a likely candidate. He saw himself as a Roman Caesar and deliberately set out to recreate the Roman Empire. Napoleon is another. Most likely however, the seventh king will be the antichrist himself in his mortal life, the little horn of Daniel’s visions.
We are told further that the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth king. In other words, he will be one of the previous seven brought back to life to reign for a while in superhuman power (verse 11). Thus, the antichrist has two comings. Notice the imitation of the two comings of Christ. He will come first as an ordinary man--brilliant, no doubt and demon-possessed, but an ordinary man as I shared earlier. He will come again as a supernatural being and, as such, will be worshipped by mankind.
We can picture some kind of an impressive state occasion when the television cameras of the world will be focused on the charismatic figure will have revolutionized the life of Europe. Suddenly, he is cut down as in an assignation. The whole world will watch in horror as he lies there in his own blood and is pronounced unquestionably dead. Later, as he lies stiff and cold for a state funeral, a startled world sees him come to life again. He is alive and arrayed in the mystery and majesty of a being from another world. It does not take much to imagine that the world would fall at his feet in worship.
THE FALL OF BABYLON
Chapters eight and nine of the apocalypse describe how the beast will be able to make those few remaining moves that will make him master of the world. One of his moves, presumably after the collapse of Russia, and we see the beginnings of it today, is the unification of the world under his control to rebuild ancient Babylon on the Euphrates.
The catastrophic overthrow of this new Babylon is the subject of Revelation 18. Babylon must be rebuilt because many of the ancient prophecies concerning this city have never been fulfilled. In the prophecy of the forthcoming seventieth year captivity of Judah in Babylon, for instance, Jeremiah says, “And it shall come to pass when seventy years are accomplished that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, saith the Lord, for the iniquity in the land of the Chaldeans. And will make it perpetual desolations.” (Jeremiah 25:12) The context makes it clear that while this visitation of judgment on Babylon was to have an immediate and partial fulfillment, the full scope of this prophecy includes a time when God’s hand will be against the nations of the earth, when He makes the nations drink the wine of His wrath (verse 3). Babylon will have to be rebuilt to fulfill this prophecy.
There are other prophecies, like Jeremiah 51:63-64, and Isaiah 13:19-22, where Isaiah says that it shall never be inhabited again. Babylon will have to be rebuilt to fulfill this prophecy because Babylon saw no such violent overthrow when it fell to the Medo-Persians. Ancient Babylon was never overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah.
The prophecy of Revelation 18 envisions a great city, actually called “Babylon the Great,” which is to be the commercial capital of the world, to which will flow all of the wealth of mankind. Merchants, mariners, and monarchs will bewail the fall of this city. How and when it will be rebuilt we are not told, but why it will be rebuilt is clear--it is to be the commercial capital of the world. Babylon is Satan’s world center, as Jerusalem is God’s world center. World history began in Babylon in Genesis 11, and world history will end at Babylon.
THE SCENES OF THE EVENTS IN HEAVEN
Now, we have come to the chapters of Revelation 19-22. These are called the last things. The fall of Babylon on earth will be followed by rejoicing in Heaven (Revelation 19:1-6).
Four “Hallelujahs” reverberate around the Throne of God as the host on high celebrate the removal from the earth of this cursed city which has been the “habitation of devils, the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird” (Revelation 18:2).
Next follows the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19:7-8. We’ve seen this already. The Church, of course, is frequently referred to in the New Testament as the Bride of Christ, just as Israel is portrayed as the wife of Jehovah in the Old Testament. Between the time of the Rapture of the Church to heaven, and the time of its formal union with the Lord, the dreadful events described in the apocalypse have been taking place on earth.
The saints of God will appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ during this same period. Here believers will receive rewards for their faithful service and face the consequences of the way they have lived as Christians. John now begins to use very precise terminology and a formula concerning the remaining sequence of events.
He uses the expression, “and I saw,” which is found in Revelation 19:11, Revelation 19:19, Revelation 20:1, 4, 11, and Revelation 21:1. He uses it to describe the things that follow in strict chronological sequence. The formula takes us in giant strides from the return of Christ through the Millennial Age and into Eternity. The formula is first used to describe the return of Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords to meet His foes at the Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:11-21).
We speak of Armageddon as though it was a protracted battle, but in reality it is over in an instant. The nations of the world will be drawn to the scene of conflict by demonic powers (Revelation 16:12-16), seemingly, to settle once and for all whether the East or the West shall rule the world. The armies of the East will scarcely be deployed in the great arena when suddenly there is an invasion from outer space--Jesus comes back to earth for the second time. The signs of His coming will be blazed across the sky and the gathered host will forget their differences to make common cause against Him. Out of the mouth of the Lamb will go forth a sharp sword and with one word it will be over. The battlefield will be strewn with the dead and the carrion will come from afar to glut themselves upon the slain. The beast and the false prophet will be taken and plunged into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 19:19-20). Satan’s empire will collapse in blood.
The Lord will sweep on to Jerusalem and His feet will alight on Mt. Olivet, which will instantly be split asunder. Look at Acts 1:11 and Zechariah 14:1-7. Other topographical changes throughout Israel will also take place. The Dead Sea will be cleansed and a River will flow out of the Temple of God (Ezekiel 47:1-12). With the return of the Lord, Satan is going to be incarcerated into the abyss for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-3). The Millennial age will begin after the judgment of the nations in the Valley of Jehosaphat (Joel 3:2, 12; Matthew 25:31, 46).
With the believing nucleus of saved Jews and Gentiles, millions of children will be born who never knew the world as we know it ravaged by famine, war, pestilence and crime. Although born in the Glory Age, they will still be born of Adam’s fallen race. Like people in all other ages, they will need to be born again. Increasing numbers of them will remain unregenerate and will resent the iron discipline of the Kingdom. Instant punishment will be meted out to those who offend against the laws of the Kingdom. People coming to Jerusalem to worship will be given a tour of the dread valley where the carcasses of those who transgressed will be burned (Isaiah 66:24).
With the passing of time, the numbers of the unregenerate will multiply. Out of fear they will yield fained obedience to the Lord (Psalm 18:44, Psalm 66:3, Psalm 81:15). They will congregate together and will long for emancipation from the strict enforcement of the religious laws of the Kingdom.
At the end of the Millennial Reign, Satan will be released from his prison. The dissidents will hail him as an emancipator, as one who will free them from the obligations to do right, and will deliver them for the hated rule of Christ. They will flock to his standards and rally around the names of Gog and Magog, in memory of a former age when God was dethroned from human thinking and the spirit of antichrist abounded in the world. Blinded and deluded, they will march on Jerusalem--only to be consumed by fire from God on High (Revelation 20:7-9).
At this point God will dissolve the entire universe in a holocaust of nuclear fire (2 Peter 3:9-13). Satan will be hurled into the Lake of Fire and his dreadful career will be terminated forever. Time will have ended and eternity will have begun. John uses this formula--“And I saw”--for the last time to give us a glimpse of the eternal state (Revelation 21:1-8). He saw a new Heaven and a new earth, and the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. He sees the eternal ages free from sorrow and sin. He sees the place from which the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the whoremongers, the sorcerers, the isolators, and all liars are forever banned (Revelation 21:8).
V. THE VISIONS OF GLORY (Rev. 21:1-22:7)
What follows is the last great parenthesis of the apocalypse, Revelation 21:9 through 22:5. It is here that John is taken back to have another look at the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. What he sees is a real place, the real capital of the Millennial Kingdom, the eternal state. He describes its jasper walls, its pearly gates, its foundations ablaze with precious stones, its crystal stream and its streets of gold. He sees the wondrous Tree of Life growing there. He tells us that that city will need no sea, no sun, no temple. It is a city where night is unknown. There will be no need for defenses and no sin can enter. This surely is the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for us (John 14:1-3), a real place for real people. This city is even now being prepared somewhere in space, somewhere in eternity. During the Millennial Reign of Christ, this celestial city will be brought out of eternity into time, brought from wherever it is right now in the mysterious depths of space to a position related to earth.
VI. THE CONCLUSION OF THE BOOK (Rev. 22:8-21)
Thus ends the apocalypse. A closing paragraph or so gives us warnings and admonitions and records the ringing promise of the Lord—“Surely I come quickly.” And the answering cries of His own, “Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20)
