u/Particular-Air-6937

Genesis 1:1-5
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness He called "night."And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Something new, something wonderful was happening. Something is becoming. That something is things themselves. Things are becoming things out of nothing. Seen things made out of things not seen that are now visible. The "how" of these first elements is left silent so the "who" and the "that it was so by His will" remain central. The first creative act is to create the heavens and the earth. And what follows is a description of that newly created earth before any ordering begins. This is absolute beginnings which are not a rearrangement of what already existed. They are the arrival of things themselves.

The word describes this primordial planet as a waste, formless and empty. Structureless, unproductive, and without purpose. From our perspective we know the earth in this state as potential. God knew this as well. A wasteland of potential that has not yet been given form or function.

The prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:23) looks ahead to a time when this state will come again. The prophet uses the same phrasing as is used in Genesis 1: tohu wa-bohu (uninhabitable); and it is not accidental. The prophet looks forward and sees the land of Judah thrown back into that primordial condition. With the earth formless and empty, heavens without light, no people, birds fled, the fruitful land a wilderness. It is a vision of de-creation under judgment.

The thing to note here is that order is not self-sustaining. The structured, productive world of Genesis 1 is a sustained gift of God’s Word and presence. Without this order there is only waste. When that Word is rejected and the covenant relationship is broken, the land can be returned toward the emptiness from which it was called. The original act in Genesis remains the decisive one. God created. He evaluated the light as good. He began the work of separating and naming. This was His design and execution. The wasteland of potential was never abandoned; it was held by the Spirit and then addressed by the Word. Whether we're talking about absolute beginnings or judgment upon the earth, it was never by accident. Nothing left to chance.

From the opening scene of emptiness there is One thing for sure, it's not empty. It is God already there, already creative, already purposeful; hovering, speaking, evaluating, separating, and naming. Absolute beginnings and absolute sovereignty stand together.

The sequence itself is purposeful and deliberative; presence, word, evaluation, separation, naming. From raw material to structure, these events are sustained by God's Word. From the howling wilderness to the emerging world, all of it belongs to Him and is in Him.

The raw material is already His. The Spirit holds it. And the Word addresses it.

Thanks Be To God.
Amen.

Revelation 21:1-4
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."

The thousand years have run their course. The brief release of Satan has exposed the last human conspiracy. Fire has come down. The devil, the beast, and the false prophet are in the lake of fire. The great white throne has finished its work, and death and Hades have been thrown in after the dead who were not written in the book of life.

Now the prophecy given to Isaiah has come to light (Isaiah 65:17). This is the prophecy fulfilled that the apostles anticipated (2 Peter 3:13). John is not inventing a better planet. He is watching the promise arrive after the first things have been judged.

Now, heaven that fled from the face of the One on the great white throne, and the earth that had nowhere to hide the dead, are gone. This is the puzzle. Heaven and earth shall never pass away was the faith. The faith that had words for a world that holds. The vision has words for a world that is gone. Not only the world, but heaven as well. Something profoundly unique has taken place. But maybe not unexpected.

Jesus said:
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).

I believe the very fabric of time and space have been recreated. The Creator is bringing His bride home, across the threshold of the place His Father has prepared. What John sees is the saying kept, and kept at a depth the saying itself had left unnamed. Heaven passes. Earth passes. The word does not. And the Word is the One through whom the first heaven and the first earth were made.

And we shouldn't be surprised by this. "By Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth…all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:16–17).

It's that hold together line that might surprise us. It's one thing to imagine our Creator supernaturally popping into existence heaven and earth, and it's another thing altogether to understand how existence itself is not only possible because of Him but is held together by Him.

It is one thing to confess that He spoke and it stood. It is another to confess that it still stands only because He has not let go. It gives great hope and inspiration when we hear, "In Him all things hold together."

Think about that "force"?

Whatever keeps a heaven from flying apart, an earth from failing its own foundations, a body from returning to dust before its hour, is not a law that got free of Him once He had spoken it. This isn't mere gravity which isn't really a force. This is something much more.

Call it a force and the mind reaches for a measurement. Gravity. The strong bond inside the nucleus. Whatever name the present age has for why stone stays stone and a star does not come apart. Those names are real as far as they go. They tell how the holding behaves inside the first heaven and the first earth. They do not tell who is doing the holding. The holding is personal. It is the Son, before all things, in whom the things consist. The Law is the Law Giver. He upholds all things by the word of His power. A word is not a field. A word has a speaker. What keeps a body from becoming dust before its hour is not a chemistry project that forgot the Speaker.

Neither the forces of nature nor quantum physics decides that a body should still be a body tomorrow.

The bond inside matter explains why the pieces of a made thing stay pieces of that thing. It does not explain however why there is a thing rather than nothing, or why the thing remains when it might not. Those are prior to any known measurements. They sit in our confession that it still stands only because He has not let go.

He finishes one holding and begins another. The new heaven and the new earth do not cohere because a better constant was found. They cohere because the same Son upholds them, and upholds them without the sea, without death, without a body on the dust clock and calendar.

Now everything we've ever known about creation is renewed. The bride is not brought home into a safer physics. She is brought home into Him, in whom all things hold together. The New Heaven and New Earth are in and at the center of Him. But the temptation is to view this from our known university of knowledge. And we're going to get it wrong. Because in Him is not a point on a map of the new earth. It is the reason the new earth is there at all. The first heaven and the first earth consisted in the Son, and they passed when that form of the holding was finished. The new heaven and the new earth consist in the same Son, and they do not pass, because this is the holding He does not finish. The first we're heading somewhere, the new have arrived. In the heaven and earth that passed, even the upright were headed somewhere. Abraham was looking for the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. The fathers confessed they were strangers and exiles on the earth. The church was told her citizenship was in heaven, and that from there He would come and receive her. Hope in the first fabric was always an aim. Tears, death, mourning, and pain belonged to a world in which you had not yet arrived, and in which the holding could still finish.

That is what has changed, and it is easy to miss if the new heaven and the new earth are read as a farther country on the same map. The threshold is behind her now. God Himself is among them, and the place the Father prepared is no longer ahead. It's now.

John has just seen the first heaven and the first earth pass away. No sea. No death. No mourning, crying, or pain. And what he is shown is a city, with a wall, gates, foundations, and a measurement, high above a mountain (Revelation 21:9–17). The terms he uses are earthly because John is still a man of the first fabric, telling what he was shown in the only words that fabric gives him. Gold, jasper, pearl, street, gate, nation, king. Those words were learned here. But the words hold. He is brought to a place. Places exist. This isn't a spiritual mist, it's coming to a place, viewed from a mountain. The vantage is a place. The city is a place. What comes down is not a mood settling on the ridge. It has a wall, gates, foundations, and a measure an angel can take with a rod.

Places still exist. Place has been made new, and then shown to a man who still needs ground under him in order to look. The material is pure gold, like clear glass. The street is pure gold, like transparent glass. A pearl is large enough to be a gate. Earthly nouns, doing work earth cannot finish. This isn't clouds and harps with angelic energy, this has substance and weight. Substance like we've never seen before but it's a place nonetheless.

The city is lying foursquare, length and breadth and height are equal. It is a cube. It is the holy of holies. Israel had already been shown that shape, once, and only for the innermost room. The Holy of Holies, where the ark stood, where the glory was pleased to dwell, and where one man entered, once a year, and not without blood. That is the line John is crossing. There is no temple in the city, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21:22).

The structure contains a Presence, a people, and a life. Nothing unclean enters. Glory comes in. The lie does not. Perfection.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 20:1-3
"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he took hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time."

Satan's mouth is his weapon, and The Lord sends His mighty angel to shut it for a time. This isn't Satan being restrained by still lurking around like under house arrest. He is seized, arrested, and sentence in one instance. Locked up where he cannot deceive. Heaven shuts his mouth for an appointed term.

"Until the thousand years were completed."

The final rebellion and the final permanent and everlasting fire are still ahead in this chapter. Evil is not yet annihilated. It is imprisoned, and the clock on that imprisonment belongs to God. But for now, this evil being is removed from the situation.

So, question.

Is evil on the earth following Satan's binding?

Obviously yes.

The purpose clause is clear, Satan's particular brand of evil is shut down and locked away for a thousand years. The sentence is aimed at his mouth. It's information, or misinformation that is being told to hush. This, however, does not say the earth is emptied of sin, of death, of rebellious hearts, or of nations that can still be lied to. The rest of the chapter confirms that the earth is not yet cleansed.

Death still comes for everyone, except for those who have already been through the first resurrection. But Death itself has not been thrown into the lake of fire yet. Gog and Magog are still working up to the ultimate rebellion. The remaking of the earth is still ahead.

That rebellion of man is not created by Satan's eventual release. If anything, it's exposed by his short reprieve. Sin still has its grip on many in the millennial era. Which means there will continue to be grumblings, conspiracy, wickedness, and I would suppose a need for evangelism of a new sort.

Grumblings, conspiracies, and wickedness are not abolished by the sealing of that one Dragon's mouth. They are merely deprived of that ancient liar who has organized them. These people, fools really, are going to be living in an age where the gospel isn't being shared but lived. The good news is no longer a matter of myth for some or hope for others. It's clear and present in the reign of Christ. So evangelism in that age is instruction, warning, and a call to submit. What changes is the setting. Christ is no longer preached as an absent Hope, and believed upon yet still unseen. He reigns, and the camp of the His saints is very visible.

So the millennium, is not a world that has outgrown the gospel. But the gospel is no longer carried as news of an absent King. Salvation is still being worked out. It is a world in which the deceiver is locked away, the King's resurrected saints reign as priests and kings, sin is no longer enthroned or enshrined in the ways of men, and yet many hearts remain unyielded until the finally fire.

This millennial age is the final refining. Salvation is still required of those who have not come through the first resurrection. Now, the open question is everyone else still in their natural life under the reign of Christ. Nations, and children born across the thousand years, households that were never part of the beast’s worship and households that were.

Resurrected priests of God and of Christ do not sit on a silent throne over a world that can no longer be saved. Instruction, warning, and a call to submit are aimed at these millennials. Some are made new. And some still grumble under the visible King's reign. Multitudes will still be more than willing to accept the rebellious deception upon the deceivers release.

This has always astounded me. What drives these rebels? Why is Christ still not enough for these nations?

The simple answer, though not given, follows the pattern already outlined before by John. They will not have this King.

Satan doesn't create this army, he finds it. Nations that have lived for a thousand years under a visible Christly reign, with the liar sealed and the camp of the saints in front of them, still come up against the beloved city the hour they are invited to.

Christ has not been insufficient in this age. No atheist is running around arguing about the purple spaghetti monster in the sky. The King has come. The kingdom everyone was praying for has been established. The daily bread lives among them. They are not rebelling against a rumor. No one in that hour is weighing whether a King in heaven might exist. The daily bread is not a petition sent out into silence leaving only more hunger. It is the reign they have eaten under now for a thousand years. The camp of the saints is not a hidden church. It is the city they can see and then still choose to surround.

Toward what end?

What do they hope to gain?

How can they improve upon Christ's reign? What could possibly be lacking?

Here's the real moral of this story. They are not trying to improve his reign. They are trying to end it. They want His rule over them to be eliminated. There's no grievance that heaven failed to answer, they just don't want Him. They do not march to reform the kingdom. They march to displace the King.

What they hope to gain is the only thing his reign will never give them; the throne of God. And isn't that how all of this began?

They want to be gods of their own making. Just like their first parents.

The first word against the reign of God was not a complaint about bread. The garden was already full of everything they could ever want. The offer was, "you will be like God." Their first parents reached for a sovereignty that had not been given to them, and death entered by that reach for the forbidden fruit.

Satan finds them in that reach. He does not have to teach them the desire. They know what they want. He only has to tell them the hour has come to act on it.

The only thing lacking in this millennium age is their consent to be His creatures. He doesn't give them their emancipation, they instead look to take it. So He gives it to them in a sense, in the form of the annihilation of their relationship with Him. They are shut out of his reign, but they are still not rid of Him. What they receive is exclusion from the camp, the beloved city, and the face of his favor. That is real separation; no part in the kingdom, no light of his countenance, no daily bread from his hand ever again.

2 Thessalonians calls that destruction "away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power."

So they get the loss they courted, and none of the liberty. All cowboy hat, no cattle.

Fire ends the siege. The throne they marched to take stays His. The separation they receive is from His loving smile, not from the grip of His hand of justice.

They refused the bread of his reign, and after the siege fails they meet his judgment. Now their daily bread is an eternity in the lake of fire. The books are opened. Whoever is not found written in the book of life is thrown into the lake.

It is finally finished for the nations that would not have this King.

Next...all things are made new.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 19:11-13
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many crowns; and He has a name written on Himwhich no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God."

His eyes are a flame of fire.
Fire that is discernment. Fire that consumes what cannot stand. He knows everything there is to know. And we know Him truly by these things He has revealed, yet we do not comprehend Him exhaustively. We cannot know the name that guards the mystery of His person. Even when he walked the earth in the time when every eye saw Him, there was a depth in the Son that belongs only to the Father and the Son.

"No one knows the Son except the Father."

And likewise here in this visionary visitation the faithful know what can be known and what makes that possible is the faithfulness. And this is important because worship does not require that we possess His hidden name. It requires that we trust the One who bears it. Those to whom He now's rides toward in judgement cannot know Him, they have no discernment. They refused His name, His rule, and made war with Him.

And so He rides, knowing. He knows everything there is to know about the armies gathered against Him, about the churches that overcame, and about the ones who only seemed to. Nothing in the motives of the people on earth is dark to His gaze.

He has spoken. He has kept His word. He has given the Spirit who searches the deep things of God and declares what is freely given. And the truly faithful have been invited to the banquet because their trust is a kind of sight.

The armies of heaven do not ride to negotiate a name the people of earth rejected. Faithful and True comes to finish the war they chose.

Among the armies of heaven are clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Following the Lord of Lords as they had always been. Following Him on white horses. They are armies, and they are riders, but they are not the ones who wage the war. The verb is following. The sword that strikes the enemy nations comes out of Christ's mouth alone. The rod of iron is His. The winepress is His to tread.

The linen is not battle dress they earned on this field. It was granted to them. They are both witness and testimony in one company, present at the judgment they do not execute. Their following is the public form of the trust that brought them to the banquet. These are the first fruit of the harvest.

Not the reapers. The reaping is His. Christ is Himself the firstfruits of those who sleep, and these are the company gathered to Him, already raised in pledge, already clothed, already following. The full harvest of the earth is still His to put in, and the winepress is still His to tread. These appear ahead of the harvest as proof that the harvest belongs to God. That is why they ride in linen and not in armor. The field is already decided by the One they follow.

The first fruit in Revelation 19 is the Genesis promise come due. In Eden the promise was a seed. The serpent would bruise His heel, and He would crush the serpent’s head. That seed was not a harvest. It was the pledge that a harvest would come. Everything after Genesis 3 waits on that One offspring.

Christ is that seed of the woman, risen, the firstfruits of those who sleep. The bruising is behind Him. Now the crushing is what this ride finishes. When heaven opens and "Faithful and True" comes to judge and wage war, Genesis 3:15 is no longer a promise spoken in a garden. It is a Rider with many crowns, a robe already dipped in blood, and a sword that is His word.

So the vision says the Genesis promise was never only about one man winning a private victory. It was about a seed, then a firstfruits, then a harvest. The seed has come.

Genesis 3:15 says the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head. Revelation 19:15 says the Rider will strike the nations with the sword of His mouth, rule them with a rod of iron, and tread the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.

A winepress is not a weapon of war, it's a harvest machine. Grapes are gathered, thrown into the press, and trampled until the juice runs. The only consideration is the ripeness of the fruit. The fruit does create the winepress, they yield to it. They do not set the hour. They don't choose the Owner, or share the treading. Ripeness is the summons. The press was already His.

And the winepress is the Word of God. The Rider’s name is the Word of God, and the sword that strikes the nations comes out of His mouth. No sword forged by men. Not even hardened or sharpened by the councils of men. He does not tread with a forged blade. He treads by speaking His words. What the councils debated, delayed, and dulled, His mouth finishes in a single utterance. No one who follows is arguing about His interpretation. The linen company does not convene to explain the press. They follow the One whose word is the press, and the argument is over because the Word has spoken.

The rod of iron is the other hand of His same rule.

The sword is His mouth.

The winepress is His word.

And the rod is how that word governs what it has been judged.

Iron does not negotiate with clay. The Son will break them with a rod of iron and shatter them like a potter’s vessel. The rod is the answer to a conspiracy. The rod appears where rulers have said, "Let us tear their fetters apart" (Psalm 2:3).

The rod is the Messiah’s inherited rule, first spoken of in the second psalm, then given to the Son (Revelation 12), then shared with those who overcome (Thyatira). So the iron is not a new weapon forged for Armageddon. And a rod in Scripture is also the shepherd’s staff. The staff that counts the flocks, guides them into the sheepfold, and strikes the beast that tries to scatter them.

Faithful and True does not borrow a rod from the kings of the earth. He brings the one the Father gave Him, and He rules with it.

Now the feasts divide.

Another cry goes out from an angel standing in the sun, to the birds in midheaven. The great feast of God has arrived, and these birds eat the flesh of kings and their hordes.

Same chapter. Two tables.

Those dressed in white linen invited to a wedding and the kings of the earth are summoned as a meal for vultures. Small and great appear in both banquets, once as bond-servants who fear Him and give praise, and once as food for the birds.

The beast and the kings of the earth and their armies are assembled to make war against Him who sat on the white horse, and against His army. We know their intent, it's clear. And there is no report from the battlefield because it was over before it began.

The next thing we hear is the beast is seized. With him the false prophet, the one who performed signs in his presence and deceived those who took the mark and worshiped the image. They're tossed into the lake of fire and brimstone, alive. Then the Word speaks. The sword from the mouth strikes. The winepress begins its work. The rod rules.

"The rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh."

How does the Word of God squish these armies? How does Satan's head get crushed by a word from God?

The nearest explanations are already in the prophets and in Paul. Isaiah says the shoot from Jesse will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Paul says the lawless one will be brought to nothing by the appearance of His coming and slain by the breath of His mouth.

Appearance and breath.

I believe truth undoes their life. The Spirit of Truth eliminates their conspiracy. Their lies are canceled.

Their armies were never held together by iron of their own. They were held together by a word that was not God’s. By lies. By idolatrous words. The signs of the false prophet, the image that was worshiped, the mark taken so they could buy and sell, the counsel of kings who said the fetters could be torn off.

A conspiracy is a shared lie with swords in its hands. When the Word appears, the lie has nothing left to stand on. Breath cancels it. What the breath cancels cannot keep the shape of an army.

The only thing animating them at all was the life God gave them. And they continued to refuse to recognize that. Not only that they conspired against Him.

His breath was loaned to them, and they spent it denying the One whose breath it was. These armies do not create their own pulse. They turn it against the Word who sustains it.

In a word, "enough" (I believe), they are dissolved as Peter describes.

God has had enough.

It's over.

The breath that loaned them life is the breath that ends their conspiracy.

What was held together by a lie cannot survive the heat of His truth. Like a blow-back can suck the breath right out of your lungs and burn everything inside. Their last breath is literally their death. Their lies are the very thing that kills them.

A fitting and just end for sure.

Amen.

John 1:1, 14
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

I've been thinking about how I might treat with the objections of the Islamists who I might meet at our "family table" during this upcoming Kairos 4 day weekend event (K13). Not searching for a debate win, that's not the environment we establish during our events. Rather to generate and then facilitate a thought experiment. The end goal being to leave a seed of truth planted in his mind that the Holy Spirit can then nurture and inspire in time.

This is a process that must be carried out carefully and thoughtfully. Not only because we're holding this thought experiment in a prison and making these assertions to a people with a proven track of violence and criminal activities, but also because our approach is always Christ-like, always full of grace. This isn't to say without conviction or without holding firmly to the sovereignty of the triune God. We always advocate for Christ never allowing our tolerance to make excuses for Christ's sovereignty as the One true God.

The goal is to find common ground when we can and challenge the thinkers to look further than their dogma currently allows.

This is how I've approached the pagan who worships the creature not the Creator. Challenge the decision to follow a created being when the obvious better covenant would be between the creature and his Creator directly, not dependent upon other outside forces or subordinates. In this same way I'd approach the Islamists objection. I'd start a thought experiment around his presumptions. Like their primary objection which has to do with the idea of the Trinity.

The primary objection. To the Islamist, oneness means solitude, and a son means a creature. If that rule is true, the Eternal Son is impossible, and you should reject Him. If that rule is too small, the objection falls by itself, and he is left holding a greater God than the one his dogma currently allows.

So we should start there, where he is already right.

He does not want a created rival beside God.

Neither do I.

That is common ground.

He already fears a second god. I tell him I fear that too. Then I'd ask him to look at what his own rule does next.

If God can only speak through a created messenger, then the man is still depending on a subordinate. A prophet is not God. A book carried by a prophet is not God. The word he trusts to bring him near is, on his own terms, a creature standing between the creature and the Creator.

So, the question is not whether God is one. The question is whether the one God is lonely, and whether He must send a servant because He cannot come Himself.

We both already refuse a second god (Mark 12:29), but what sort of oneness are we following and defending?

If oneness means God has no eternal Word, then He must speak through someone He made, and you are trusting a creature to do what only the Creator can do. But if the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), then the Son is not a rival and not a child taken from a wife. He is God come near. Distinct, as a word is distinct from the one who speaks it. Not divided, and not a second eternal.

Now that we've asked these questions we can build upon that thought. If the word of God is the Son and the word of God is God, then the Son is God in the flesh. And His cross is where that one God bore our guilt. Where that word of God spoke about forgiveness of sin. Where the Messiah suffered and died to bear that sin in our place. And where the eternal word, the eternal Son sent by the eternal Father to testify to the truth, born in the flesh by the eternal Spirit, was slain as the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. But even more importantly the Word, the eternal Son, did not only speak about forgiveness there. He finished it there.

So here's the ultimate truth for us to consider:

If that Word became flesh, God did not shout His pardon from a distance through a created messenger, He instead sent His only begotten Son, born in the flesh by the eternal Spirit, and slain as the perfect sacrifice. The Messiah suffering in our place. On the cross, where that one God bore our guilt, and where the eternal Word of God finished the work of forgiveness.

I'm asking you to look further into the testimony of truth than your current rule can go. To consider a God who can come. A God who can bear sin. And a God who does not leave you in the hands of a subordinate.

Why do I believe this to be Jesus the Christ?

First because he said it of Himself.

Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58).

They picked up stones for that sentence. Yet he did not take it back. He had already said the Son gives life to whom He will, and that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father (John 5:21, 23).

Next because His resurrection seals the deal. He said, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it, and John tells us He meant His own flesh and blood body (John 2:19–21). He said no one took His life from Him. He laid it down, and He had authority to take it up again (John 10:17–18). That for me is pivotal. He's explaining to us, His creatures, that He holds the authority given to Him by The Father, the power of life and death.

Then the tomb was empty. And He stood among them.

As the apostle Paul says, He was declared the Son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

A created messenger stays in the grave. This one did not.

I understand that this triune God idea is something difficult to make sense of. It's not unlike how in science and specifically regarding gravity and light, what was once thought to be fixed in Newton's laws later developed into Einstein's theory of relativity. It turned out that light can be bent, acted upon even though it does not have mass. So the laws of the universe didn't apply perfectly. There were variations that needed to be understood in a larger less narrow context.

See, it's not that Newton’s law was false inside its frame. It was just too small a frame for the light ray to be observed for what was really happening.

I know the triune God is hard to hold. So was the path of light, once. Newton’s frame was sure of itself. What has no mass goes straight, and gravity is only for weighty things. Then the light ray was measured past the sun, and it bent. Light has no resting mass, and yet still it was not outside the influence of the gravitational field.

Newton’s law was not false inside its frame. The frame was too small for the ray to be seen as it is. I am not saying Einstein proves the Son of God. I am saying you already know what it is to trust a rule that cannot completely cover the thing right in front of you.

The rule says Oneness means solitude, and a son means a creature. Look further. The Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Distinct, and not a second source. Not a second god.

Amen? 🙏🏼

Revelation 19:10
Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must not do that; I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters who have and hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"

John is doing what overwhelmed people do. He's reacting to something beyond reason. He's witness to living prophecy.

It's a little like witnessing a photon moving at the speed of light. The mind can't comprehend it. It moves because we see things it moved up against. But it's outside of time in the classic sense. To say it moved is to suggest time elapsed. Speed happened. Some amount of time transpired. But from the photon's perspective (if it could have such a thing) it hasn't moved.

It's like that with the testimony of Jesus Christ.

What do we know?

Jesus' life and teachings are the heart of prophecy. His physical human form has "happened". He traveled the earth in time, and we know this because witnesses observed him. Yet seemingly at the same "time" Jesus stands as the God of Glory, the Word of God who was and is and is to come.

Like a photonic word.

Like "let there be light".

What the picture, this mental quantum leap catches is the mismatch between the observer's clock and the path itself.

You see, like a photon, The Word "travels" in every direction in any way possible. What that means is the word has many emissions, each with its own line. And from that perspective it hasn't moved. As far as it is concerned it is present before it arrives. But this analogy is a little unrefined because many emissions, each with its own line, fits the servants, not the Word. It's a better metaphor for how the message is received than how it got there.

This is the very same distinction the angel makes.

John falls to his knees because he is watching something his mind clock cannot measure. The testimony of Jesus has a history he can point to; a life, a teaching, a death, a resurrection, witnesses who saw Him move against the world, and at the same time the One testified about is the Word who was and is and is to come.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. A kind of photonic word because we know His path by what He struck, and we also know the path does not sit inside our elapsed time the way a walk from Nazareth to Jerusalem does.

Many paths, each going in the same straight line in the same amount of time and entering in the exact same path. One path, yet many.

That is why "I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters who hold the testimony of Jesus" can hold together. That is why no one is without excuse. No one missed the revelation because they never read a Bible or heard a sermon. But the distinction isn't a disturbance in the path the word took, it's the "holding" that makes the distinction. The angel says he is a fellow servant with John and with the brothers and sisters who hold it. Holding is the point. Servants exist because the testimony is carried, not because it has already been received where no one carried it. Yet creation itself expresses the glory of God.

The Word does not propagate holding, and it cannot miss the mark. What may be known of Him is plain in the things that have been made, so that the creature is without excuse for refusing the Creator. The heavens declare the glory of God. That witness is real, constant, and prior to any sermon. Predestined you might say. But the distinction is in the details of the testimony. The creation does not announce the cross, the resurrection, or the wedding feast of the Lamb. It does not replace the witness of the brothers and sisters. One testimony. Many hands on it.

One is the glory expressed in what was made. The other is the testimony held by servants and identified as the spirit of prophecy. There's the difference.

If creation testifies to the glory of God and no one is there to observe it...does it testify?

Yes.

It testifies.

The observer is not what makes the speech.

Just like the proverbial tree, of course it makes a sound when it falls unheard by a witness to its fall. The sound waves traveled. The hearing doesn't produce the wave, it receives it. The ear receives what is already on the way. Still no excuse. The ear can hear it but it is being suppressed by an unwilling person. The tree fell. The air moved. Refusing to call the disturbance a witness does not still the air.

And prophecy in this sense is carried. A man who never heard that testimony is not excused for his idolatry. His ignorance is no excuse. He does not get to plead that no brother opened a Bible, because the witness he suppressed was not the Bible. It was the world he was born into. Born with the same knowledge of good and evil (conscience) every man is born with from the beginning. Every man is born into a world already speaking, and born with a heart that will answer either yes or no.

Conscience receives the photonic prophecy wave that was already on the way for all humanity. The Word was in the beginning. All things were made through Him. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The servants however carry a word the wave does not speak. Both leave a man witnessed to, but one is not the full gospel. Only one of them is the testimony that drops John to his knees and then forbids him to stay there in an idolatrous manner.

Men speak from God as they are carried along by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit carries. The speaking is the prophecy. The man is not the utterance, he is the voice. He is not a text. He is the one by whom the word comes. The observer does not make the speech. Likewise with the angel and all creation for that matter. It is the Spirit of prophecy that is at work. It is Jesus Christ. Full circle, Jesus was, is, and is yet to come.

The knees fall to God, because the spirit of the prophecy is not the voice that brought it. It is Jesus.

Only ever Jesus.

None other than He.

No other beaming light can carry.

No other is the spirit of the prophecy. None other than He. The voice that brought the word is not the word’s spirit. John fell before a light bright enough to be mistaken for the source, and the angel would not wear it.

Remember, this is important, Satan comes as an angel of light. And that is the reason the angel’s refusal cannot be treated as simple heavenly etiquette. I imagine that Angel was genuinely terrified when John knelt before him.

Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. His servants disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. The appearance is the snare. A beam, a messenger, a voice that sounds like it belongs in the room where God is worshiped. John had just done what the disguise counts on. In this case the brightness was a true fellow servant, who would not wear the worship. But that isn't going to always be the case.

That is why the correction is sharp rather than polite.

"You must not do that."

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 19:6-8
Then I heard something like the shout of a vast multitude, and like the boom of many pounding waves, and like the roar of mighty peals of thunder, saying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and shout for joy! Let us give Him glory and honor, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride (the redeemed) has prepared herself." She has been permitted to dress in fine linen, dazzling white and clean; for the fine linen signifies the righteous acts of the saints.

The Omnipotent, the Ruler of all, has at last come for His bride (the redeemed). She is adorned in her ethical conduct, her personal integrity, her moral courage, and her godly character. That is what her white robes signify.

This is the fourth and loudest Hallelujah. The multitudes, the waters and the thunders are stacked up so soundly that it becomes an argument.

Every dissent has been silenced. Now all that remains is the kingdom of God. The Almighty reigns and His bride is invited to her marriage.

Revelation 19:9
Then the angel said to me, "Write, 'Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.'"And he said to me, "These are the true and exact words of God."

What does the angel by this?

This is the fourth of seven blessings, the invitation itself has become a part of the prophecy. In the parables the wedding call both summons and sorts. Many are invited; and the ones who enter are the ones found ready, clothed, and not making excuses (Matthew 22:1–14; 25:1–13).

For many this prophecy is disturbing. They are those who view Jesus as just sitting there at the supper and hoping above all hope that someone will come. They seem to miss what the Word of God says. First, that the bride has prepared herself and has been granted the linen; the blessed are those called to sit at the supper that this union opens. Those who are called are those who love God, we know this (Romans 8:28 ). But some seem to miss that all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.

What is it that disturbs them about this prophecy?

It's the predestined thing.

What disturbs them is that the invitation in Revelation 19:9 is not an open chair at a table where the Lamb waits to see who wanders in. The angel calls it the true words of God, and the verb is already completed. The bride is a company already summoned, already clothed, already found ready. That is harder to soften than a general offer.

She is predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, called, justified, glorified. She is already adorned in her white robes. Conformed to the Son, she appears in the garment that conformity produces. Called, she is the company the angel blesses as invited. Justified, the linen is clean. Glorified, the marriage has come and the supper is no longer future hope.

The invitation is not still being negotiated while the Lamb watches the door. The ones blessed are those who have been called, and the call, in Paul’s line, sits between predestining and justifying.

The means?

Everyone who believes in Him will not be ashamed. If they have confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead, they will be saved. That's it, that's the means. The means is named in the same letter that names the purpose. With the heart one believes and is justified; with the mouth one confesses and is saved. That is the door Paul sets in Romans 10, and it is not a second plan beside Romans 8. It is how the called are called.

Sounds like it's got a lot to do with the works of the bride. But that isn't the case because it's clear who does the calling. And all who call upon Him call because they believe. And they believe because they heard. And they heard because someone preached about Him. And He was preached about because they that preached were saved.

Therefore, the sovereignty of God is upheld in that the called are those whom He has chosen to hear. And that the people who preached are sent out to call them to Him. The invitation in Revelation 19:9 does not bypass that door. The ones already summoned are the ones who have believed and confessed. Predestining to the image of the Son does not replace faith. It secures that faith arrives, and that it arrives as confession of the Lord and trust in the resurrection. That's God's work. That's the work of the Holy Spirit operating in the Word of God.

God saves sinners from beginning to end. Sinners don't help Him save them, God saves them. Salvation isn't a private feeling the Lamb hopes to discover at the table. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Our God is not running for God. He is God now, and forever. The heart believes, the mouth confesses, and the one who does is not ashamed when the multitude shouts hallelujah.

This keeps the clean white linen from floating free of the gospel. Justified by the belief of the heart, she is clean. The righteous acts are not the means of entry. They are the garment of those who entered by confessing Jesus as Lord and believing that God raised Him. The bride prepares herself because that faith is living. She is granted the linen because the faith was given its object.

Why then evangelize?

Because the call goes out by a sent voice, or it does not go out at all.

Paul says it.

"How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?"

Faith is carried out. The sovereignty that chooses who will hear is the same sovereignty that sends the one who speaks. When you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and God, you're not voting to let God be God. You're just confirming what He has already established in you.

The whole chain of events did not just happen in one moment of time. All these things brought you to the place where God's word would pull together everything He ordained. Foreknowing, predestining, sending, hearing, believing, confessing, justifying; these are stretched across a life, and across the lives of those sent to speak. Tilled. Fertilized. Watered. Pruned. And cultivated. The field does not bring itself to harvest, and the bride does not dress herself apart from the hands that worked the ground.

God sent tillers. He sent planters. He sent harvesters.

He did that.

We just went out and preached about it so that His great work will be heard.

Paul planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase.

The sent ones are not the increase. They are the hands the purpose uses so the increase can be heard and believed. We don't sit still and debate whether or not our children are called. We instead go and preach. We go out and preach what He has already done, and is doing, so that the called come to the place where the Word gathers a life into confession.

And we sing and rejoice hallelujah because the bride is ready and has come.

I wish we'd all been ready, but the fact of the matter is, many won't. The parable is the prophecy and it tells the truth about what's come to fruition in the tribulations that have completed.

Satan has been cast into the abusso, those who won't come have received their reward already. The vultures have feasted upon their corpses. This is the feasting the dragon and the dead. The door that sorts has shut. Satan has been sealed for a thousand years. The beast and the false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire. The rest are killed by the sword that goes out of Christ's mouth. The Almighty reigns. Hallelujah.

Now is the wedding feast of the Groom. Everything is ready, and the bride has been made ready.

Hallelujah!

What remains is joy that does not apologize. The bride is ready and has come. Everything is ready. The Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

Hallelujah, Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 19:1-2
After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, "Hallelujah! Salvation, glory, and power belong to our God, because His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great prostitute who was corrupting the earth with her sexual immorality, and He has avenged the blood of His bond-servants on her."

The word that bursts out of them is Hallelujah = Praise Yahweh. Appearing only four times in the entire New Testament, and all four are clustered right here in the first six verses of this chapter. It never appears even once in the Gospels, the Acts, or the Epistles. Then, after the entire New Testament has been written, it erupts four times in six verses; and nowhere else. That word appears twenty-four times in the Psalms. And the first time Hallelujah is used is

Psalm 104:35:
"Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Hallelujah!"

I find that amazingly interesting. This tremendous praise, like a voice of many thunderous waters, is honoring the judgement of God against sinners. But not only that angle. This great praise pairs that condemnation with salvation.

The multitude does not split into two choirs; one singing judgment and one singing mercy. They sing one sentence. Salvation, glory, and power which belongs to our God because His judgments are true and righteous. The "because" is the hinge. Heaven does not praise God in spite of the fire that consumed the prostitute. Heaven praises Him for it, and at the same instant ascribes salvation to the same God who lit the fire.

How do you feel about that?

Your answer to that question will tell the truth about your own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If the pairing of judgement and salvation offends you, it is usually because one of two pictures of Jesus has taken the place of who Jesus actually is. Either He has been reduced to a Savior who only rescues and never judges, or He has been reduced to a Judge who only condemns and never saves.

Now, you might hear these words and say to yourself or shout out loud, "God's judgement comforts me, brings me pleasure", without fear and trembling, something else may be wrong. Familiarity with the language of wrath can become a kind of arrogant insulation. The multitude is not cheering from a safe distance at people they never loved. Many of those voices belong to the very servants whose blood was avenged. They know the cost. Their Hallelujah is not gloating. It is the relief of a universe finally aligned with the character of God. It's a joy exploding from their hearts because God's perfection has finally come.

The question is not whether you can explain the doctrine. The question is whether your heart can stand where the multitude stands. Can you love God for what He has done, what He is doing, and what He's going to do? Is your religion willing to let Him have things His way?

The statement is simple: Salvation, glory, and power belong to Him because His judgments are true and righteous. Can we accept that without reservation. Without conditions. If we love only the salvation clause, we have edited the sentence. If we love only the judgment clause, we have edited it from the other side.

The multitude refuses both edits. Their joy explodes because God’s perfection has finally come; not a perfection we designed, but the perfection that is His. The judgement is meted out according to His will, not ours. The multitude doesn't sing praises because God flung stars at the earth and melted the great Babylon's body of sinners; they praise Him because He is faithful, God and King. They aren't praising the method, they are praising His righteousness. Whether or not Babylon deserves this form of violence is secondary. What's true and right and first place is God's will and authority. They are not praising a spectacle. They are praising a Name.

That is why "true and righteous" cannot be treated as a footnote. True means the verdict matches the record. Babylon corrupted the earth; she held the blood of the servants in her hand. "Righteous" means the verdict matches the Judge. God does not invent a penalty to satisfy our appetite for violence, and He does not withhold a penalty to satisfy our appetite for a milder god. What is true and right is not a private standard we bring to God. It is God Himself acting according to His will in public.

We do not stand over the sentence with a clipboard, deciding whether Babylon "deserved this form" of judgment. That posture still makes us the court. The heavenly choir instead accepts the statement without reservation and without conditions. He is faithful. He is King. Hallelujah is the only word left when the heart finally stops negotiating and lets Him have things His way.

The trouble is not that people want mercy. The multitude wants mercy too. The problem is that many, if not most, want a deity reshaped to sit comfortably with the earth as it is. Whatever offends their sense of kindness cannot be Him. Even referring to Him as "Him" is offensive to many.

A deity who must be edited until He no longer offends our sense of kindness is already the prostitute’s product.

Why?

Because, not only is our God righteous but He is "true", and you can't even split that out from the rest. And this is important because the prostitute’s first gift is always a god you can revise. A judge you can judge. She does not begin with open blasphemy. She begins with an improvement. With a supplemental massage of His Majesty. Keep the comfort. Keep the language of love. Remove whatever in Him will not sit easily with the earth as it is. This is the commodification of God. It sells well because it leaves the corruption in place and still lets people feel religious. It leaves "love" in the brochure and takes "true and righteous" out of the sentence. This god comforts and doesn't interrupt what the "world" is doing. That is why "true" cannot be peeled off from "righteous," and neither can this claim be peeled off from Him.

True means the record is not for sale. Righteous means the Judge is not for sale. And the multitude choir will not buy it. They praise the God whose verdict is public, whose way is His own, and whose salvation is salvation because His judgments are true and righteous.

End of story.

Now sing, Hallelujah!

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 18:20
"Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her."

She is the anti-New Jerusalem. Her kings and merchants stand in opposition to the King of kings, His kingdom come and His Bride. Babylon the great is the world that tries to be the Bride's rival.

When Jesus walked the earth in his ministry, he said he came to bring division. Really a kind of divorce from the worldly ways of the earthly/economic face of spirituality. Whether we like it or not, Jesus came in opposition to the religious orders. Even while he was a practicing Jew.

But was he in opposition to religion? Or specifically Jewish traditions?

I don't think so in a general sense.

I think what he was trying to point out was is the rival bride for His kingdom come is religion in the world; dressed in purple and gold, holding a cup, claiming covenant language, all while drinking the blood of the saints. He was calling out the hypocrites. Exposing the lies. Casting light on the humanist agendas. Jesus taught that the Father’s house was not for trade. That Abraham’s name was not a costume. And that human tradition that voided the commandments was not Torah.

In a nutshell, Jesus points out that Babylon is the woman who will not be a wife. She refuses to marry herself completely to her husband. She refuses the total belonging that covenant requires. She wants the status of the Bride and the freedom of the market. We see this clearly laid out in the prophet Hosea.

God commands the prophet to take "a wife of whoredom," because the land has committed great whoredom by forsaking the Lord (Hosea 1:2). Gomer is not a pagan city. She is the spouse who keeps the household name and goes out to her other lovers. Covenant language, while sleeping in other beds.

And yet, God commands Hosea to buy her back, set her apart, and wait. This is Grace. This is centuries of Grace. Time after time the whoring bride goes out and Grace buys her back.

Jesus stands in Hosea’s line and Revelation’s line at the same time. He pursues the straying wife; his sheep, his city, his faithful remnant, anyone who will come out of her (Revelation 18:4). And He also names the woman who will not be a wife and will not repent.

Heaven’s joy in Babylon's destruction is not hatred of worship, or the institution of "Church". It is the end of the counterfeit marriage, so that the true Bride is no longer shouted down by her rival. That is the division He came to bring. A clean break from the woman who will not be a wife.

Apostles and prophets are told to rejoice in 18:20 because their word, Hosea’s word included, was true. The land had committed great whoredom. The rival does fall. And the Husband full of Grace does ultimately judge.

And the mercy side remains for the people, not for the system. A soul can come out of Babylon (18:4). The city that tried to be the Bride cannot. Heaven’s joy is that the counterfeit marriage is finally over.

Revelation 18 is the sentence pronounced, and the relationship named for what it truly is. The marriage was a sermon. Even their children's names told the story.

• Jezreel - coming judgment, the scattering

• Lo-Ruhamah - "No Mercy"

• Lo-Ammi - "For you are not My people, and I will not be your God"

This is Revelation 18 in seed form. And it exposes the humanist manifesto that has always existed but has come in many different shapes of religious traditions. Which is ironic because the goal of this humanist philosophy is the destruction of the idea of God. The design is the elimination of any kind of biblical moral obligation. And any feelings of guilt about those beliefs.

This is the spirit of Antichrist.

The mind is perverted. The body is polluted. The flesh is wholly given over to desires. The secular humanists have won. The filth is pervasive throughout the Church and the culture it claimed to represent.

Ten kings give their power to the beast so that God will not rule over them. Yet they ultimately turn against Babylon's system.

They make war with the Lamb and He destroys them. And now heaven rejoices as the promise has come to pass.

The moral of the story:
Humanism is not "no religion." It is religion with man on the throne. The human will is the measure, and guilt is a problem to be managed away. Biblical obligation is seen as oppression. And God is seen as an outdated idea to be retired.

It is Babel’s "let us make a name for ourselves."

It is the serpent’s "you will be like God."

It is the woman who wants the status of bride and the freedom of the market.

It is the habitation of devils and a cage for every unclean spirit.

Different vestments.
Same cup.
Total perversion.
Total destruction.

And the judgement isn't just the total destruction of all her wealth, it is the eternal loss of any future redeeming Grace. She is no more. She'll never be allowed to have any future glory. Total destruction. A millstone thrown into the sea, weighted heavy and deep. Buried deep under the sea. Never to be heard again. No music, no light, no gospel sounding in her streets again. not because the gospel failed, but because she refused the Husband until the door was ultimately shut.

And heaven sings over the judgment pronounced for them against her. That is the last word. A command really. Christ commands heaven to rejoice.

"Rejoice over her."

Hosea is there.

All the prophets are there.

The disciples and every believer who did not take the mark is there.

And God has judged their judgment out of her. She, that humanist whore, passed sentence on the church; exclude them, impoverish them, mock them, kill them. And God now executes that same measure on her systems.

What they are not singing:

They are not singing hatred of worship. They are not singing the end of the church. They are not singing over souls who might still hear today, "Come out of her."

Heaven never gloats over a sinner who can still repent.

What the song is:

It is the opposite of Babylon’s last soundtrack. No longer will the world hear about her deceptions.

The nations are no longer discipled by her spell. "By your sorcery all nations were deceived" (18:23).

When heaven sings, that spell is broken. The world is no longer required to treat her lies as tolerable. The church is no longer required to treat as liturgy the body as raw material, desire as law, the market as a sacrament, and the self as god. No more tolerance for pride, greed, fornication, homosexuality, trans-humanism. All these were her song. Her song of rebellion. Her refusal to be a wife. Her refusal to not marry herself completely to the Husband.

Today, the Lamb who came in the flesh still calls persons out of her.

In Revelation 18, the city that preached the lie is found no more. No more pride. No more greed. No more fornication. No more homosexuality baptized as covenant. No more transhumanism rewriting the image of God.

And it was the people she deceived with those lies who will ultimately hand her over to the beast and judgement.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 18:9-11
"And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of sexual immorality and lived luxuriously with her, will weep and mourn over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.'" "And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo any more..."

Chapter 17 showed the harlot riding the beast; religious-political seduction, drunk on the blood of the saints. A system living and operating in a one kingdom perspective. The here and now perspective. And this system is juxtaposed to a two kingdom perspective, the idea that we are here and now but aliens really because our home is the kingdom of God.

This dual perspective is seen vividly in both Abraham and his nephew Lot.

Abraham is the two-kingdom sojourner. left Ur. He lived in tents. He bought a burial plot in the land of promise and nothing more. Yes he was wealthy and his kingdom on earth is vast. Yet Hebrews 11:9–10, 13–16 says he sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country. He spent his life looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. He confessed he was a stranger and exile on the earth.

This Abraham perspective didn't make him useless while sojourning, but did prevent him from marrying the present. He could deal with other kings, without becoming their client state. Without belonging to them.

Lot, on the other hand, is the one-kingdom resident who still knew better. Lot chose the well-watered plain. He pitched his tent toward Sodom, then sat in her gates. 2 Peter 2:7–8 says he was distressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked; his righteous soul was tormented day after day. It's like he was living the life of a hostage.

He was confused and conflicted by the situation. He was not ignorant. He was entangled. When the fire came he hesitated; the angels had to seize by his hand. He escaped with his life and nothing else. His wife longingly looked back. And his daughters carried the wicked Sodom logic into the cave. Lot is the man who weeps when the city burns because he had already given the city his address perspective.

Lot wept because he had built his identity on the foundations of that Sodom kingdom. Meanwhile Abraham traveled the earth while seeking the kingdom to come.

Now chapter 18 turns the camera to her commercial face. The kings and merchants of Revelation 18:9–11 are Lot written large. They "committed acts of sexual immorality and lived luxuriously with her." They knew her arrangements were corrupt; they also knew it paid well. And when judgment arrives in one hour, they stand at a distance without repentance. Still naming her by her former strengths, still measuring her disaster by their lost cargos. That is one-kingdom arithmetic. The city was the source. When the source is ash, the soul has no other country.

Do you see it?

Do you understand it?

Their perspective is burning up in one hour and all they can do is cry about everything they lost in the flames. They've been dependent upon her. Now they're lost. The kings and merchants aren't shocked that Babylon was wicked. They are shocked that their arrangement has ended.

Remember how we got here. Abraham and his nephew Lot divided their kingdom and split off from one another because they were filthy rich. And they needed more land, more space, more room. They were looking horizontally. So Abraham took his lot and Lot took his lot, and Abraham went sojourning independently with an eye toward God's promise though he was allied with other kingdoms. Lot on the other hand camped near Sodom and aligned himself with everything that kingdom was about.

That's how the road to the brimstone and smoke begins. Lot lifted his eyes and sees the Jordan plain; like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. And he chooses what the eye can measure now. He journeys east and pitches toward Sodom. The text adds, almost quietly, that the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

Lot had that information. And still he hooks up with them. He chose the well-watered arithmetic anyway.

That split, that choice is the seed of Revelation 18:9–11. The kings and merchants are Lot’s choice grown into a world system. Sexual immorality and luxury are not later add-ons; they are what this horizontal kingdom perspective does with her abundance. And they are shocked when it's burned up.

This quarrel over room and stuff is ancient. The question is still which way the eyes lift when the land feels too small.

Look what happens later on. Abraham finds it necessary to rescue his nephew and do battle against neighboring nations. And when the dust settles he's visited by the king of Salem, Melchizedek, priest of God Most High. He brings bread and wine. He blesses Abram by the Maker of heaven and earth. And Abram gives him a tenth of everything.

After the quarrel over needing more room, after the rescue from the coalition of kings, God sends not another market but a priest-king who feeds and blesses. That meeting is the opposite of Revelation 18:9–11. For the merchants and kings of this Revelation, its times up.

They put all their marbles in Babylons party. And now they're yoked to her fate. They have no hope, they can't speak about a new hope or new choice because they already belong to her. They did not merely trade with her. They belonged. "Committed acts of sexual immorality and lived luxuriously with her". Yoked to her fate means her hour is their hour. Hope would require another master, another city, another name. They already gave those away. They already rejected Him in favor of identifying themselves by the cargos of that wicked city of sin.

The Kingdom of God comes on a white horse. His name is Righteousness. And He's taking names. And His judgment is true. He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. And He comes to bring His people to His Kingdom. He's calling them out.

Do you know what that calling out is?

It's the gospel.

The kingdom that is near, coming and at hand. And coming out is the breaking of that Babylon yoke before the brimstone and smoke comes.

"Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues" (18:4)

The Kingdom of God does not come as a better warehouse. It comes on a white horse. And the armies of heaven follow Him.

Meanwhile it's time’s up for the party that named itself by cargo. But for the rest, the call is still open. That call is the gospel. The white horse is not a rumor. Come out and belong to Him. Pitch your tent looking toward His kingdom. Here and now, and yet already home in Him.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 14:13
And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, "Write: 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!'" "Yes," says the Spirit, "so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them."

Apparently many have no idea what "the church" is.

Here's what it is not:

Not a social club.
Not for gatekeeping.
Not where Christian Boy and Girl Scouts get their merit badges.
Not the dispensary of salvation.

Union with Christ is the defining mark. The church, then, is not a building, a brand, a program, or a membership roll. It is the company of those who belong to the Lamb, whose names are written in His book, who have come out from the world and refuse the mark. They are the called-out ones whose labor was not in vain because it was done in Him.

Fellowship is real, but it is fellowship in the blood of the Lamb, not coffee and calendars. Not cultivated rituals, not binding dogmatic practices, and not priestly orders of a certain type approved by men and their traditions.

The voice from heaven in Revelation 14:13 does not bless a system. It blesses people who die in the Lord. That phrase is the whole definition. Everything else is either fruit of that union or a counterfeit that pretends to be the church.

The Spirit’s "Yes" is immediate and personal. The rest He promises is not the rest of an institution that has finished its work for them; it is the rest of those whose work was already finished in Jesus Christ. Their deeds follow them because those deeds were never the price of admission. They were the evidence that they had already entered through the Door of His Grace.

'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!'

The "From now on" matters.

The pressure of the last days, that we are currently living in, will not create the church; it will reveal it. Every club, every gate, every merit badge, every sacramental dispensary, every cultivated ritual, every extra dogma, and every man-approved priesthood will be tested.

What remains is the company that simply belongs to the Lamb.

They rest.

Their labor was not in vain.

Their deeds follow them home.

Union with Christ is not a doctrine we add to the gospel. It is the gospel applied to a person, not a group or institutionalized religion. To be "in the Lord" (Revelation 14:13) is to be so joined to Jesus that His death is counted as yours, His life is now your life, and His future is already yours.

The scriptures aren't subtle about this. This principle of friendship with God is dead on, never a metaphor we can take or leave.

The New Testament and gospel uses the strongest possible language:

• You were crucified with Him (Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20).

• You were buried with Him in baptism (Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12).

• You were raised with Him (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:1).

• You are seated with Him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

• Your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

• You are one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17).

• He is the vine; you are the branch (John 15:5). Apart from Him you can do nothing.

• A time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24).

This is why death in the Lord is blessed. It does not begin the union; it only completes what began when a person was joined to Jesus.

What joins them with Jesus?

They are joined to Jesus by grace through faith, and that joining is the work of the Holy Spirit.

No club vote, no merit badge, no priestly order, and no cultivated ritual creates the union. God does it.

But I thought faith without works is dead?

Faith without works is dead. James, the brother of Jesus', is right. That does not mean your works join you to Jesus. James is not describing how a person enters into union with Christ. He is describing what living out that union works once it is real, Spirit and truth.

Dead faith is a claim with no life in it.

Living faith receives Christ, and Christ never arrives empty-handed.

The works do not open the Door of Grace. They are what a person does after they have already walked through it.

Can someone walk through that Door of Grace and not have walked in the Spirit's works?

Can a true believer walk poorly for a season?

Yes.

Scripture is honest about that.

David lusted, committed murder, broke just about every commandment. Abraham lied and used his wife as his sister to gain favor and protection in Egypt. He also lay with his wife's servant and fathered a bastard child who eventually becomes the foundation of an entire geopolitical antichrist religious system now known as Islam.

The Corinthian "church" were "in Christ" and still carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1–3).

Peter was already joined to Jesus and still denied Him.

The Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). The grafted branch can be found to be rotten. And a branch can be fruitless for a time and still be attached (John 15).

Union is not the same thing as consistent obedience. This is why the Revelation use language like "the perseverance of the saints."

The verse standing immediately before today’s focus text says, "Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus" (Revelation 14:12).

Perseverance is not a sinless performance, for no one is good but The Father. Perseverance is remaining in the Lord when the flesh has already proven it can fail. A season of poor walking does not prove a person never entered. A whole life with no Spirit-produced fruit is another matter. That spiritual gift must produce fruit somehow. The parable of the talents bears witness to that.

In that parable, the servants already belonged to the master, yet what he had given them was expected to live and increase. A buried grace is not the same thing as a saving union.

So the deeds that follow the dead in the Lord are not a perfect score. They are the evidence that the union was real. These people who are "the church" rest because the work of getting in was already finished in Jesus Christ. Their deeds follow them home because His life in them was not a theory.

And don't get side tracked, Sanctification is not a second door. It is the life of the One you already entered through. Christ Jesus is always and only the Mediator. The moment you are joined to Jesus, you are set apart as His. Sealed by the Holy Spirit.

"You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11).

That Spirit baptism seals the ones who are in Christ.

"By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10).

How often?

Once.

The next verses presses this same point; every priest stands daily, offering the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.

"For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14).

For how long?

"for all time"

How often was the offering? Once.

How often are you washed, sanctified, and justified in His name and by His Spirit? Once.

How often does the Spirit seal those who are in Christ? Once.

That is why sanctification is not a second door. The Mediator does not keep re-opening what He already finished. He does not need a second altar, a second priesthood, or a second baptism of belonging.

The moment you are joined to Him, you are set apart as His. What continues is not the offering. Over and over crucifying Him. What continues is the life of the One you already entered through.

Rest in that as you go home.

It is finished.

So rest.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 14:9-12
Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will 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 ascends forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name."Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus."

The mark is the visible, settled allegiance of the heart. Forehead and hand speak of mind and deed, thought and practice. Those who take that mark "will also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger."

The distinction is already being drawn, and the later bowls make it visible. Revelation 14 warns; Revelation 16 confirms. The first bowl is poured out "on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image," and it becomes "a loathsome and malignant sore" (16:2). Something like radiation burns.

The sores do not fall on the sealed. They fall only on those who have already received the mark of the beast. The mark was taken on the forehead and the hand. And the sore now appears on the same body that gave that allegiance. What was hidden in the heart becomes public on the skin. The people of the earth are being sorted, not by accident or by sudden divine whim, but by the worship they already practiced.

This is the same pattern we see throughout Scripture. The blood on the doorposts in Egypt distinguished Israel from Egypt before the destroyer passed through. The seal on the forehead in Ezekiel 9 distinguished those who sighed over the abominations from those who did not. Here the mark of the beast and the sores do the same work; they make the two groups unmistakable.

Two peoples.
Two marks.
Two destinies.

Terrible and grievous for sure, but it is already decided in the heart long before the bowl of God's wrath is poured out.

Whatever natural or supernatural phenomena causes these things, the wrath is not the result of accident or by some sudden divine whim, but by the worship they already practiced.

The saints are those who refused the mark when the pressure was on. They keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. The Lamb still stands on Zion with those who have His Father’s name written on their foreheads. That is the difference God is making.

One thing we can be certain about. Whatever God does, it'll be righteous. As the Angel says, they shed the blood of the prophets so now they will drink blood. The angel of the waters says it plainly when the third bowl turns the rivers and springs to blood:

"Righteous are You…because You judged these things; for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. They deserve it" (16:5–6).

They shed the blood of the prophets; now they drink blood. The judgment fits the crime. It is measured. It is just because their hearts are already fallen. These are not those who just haven't heard the good news or had a chance at finding friendship with God. These are those who have slept with the devil's whore.

Revelation 14:8–12
And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality."

Fallen, fallen. The verdict is spoken before the last bowl is poured. Babylon the great; the system that intoxicated the nations, that demanded worship of the beast and his image, is already declared fallen.

The two groups of people in Revelation 14–16 are the same two companies Jesus already described in Matthew 25.

Sheep on His right. Goats on His left (Matthew 25:31–33). No third flock. No middle class. No side road, back door, meritorious service record. Just the fruit of the love or lack thereof.

The sheep inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. They fed, clothed, welcomed, and visited Jesus in the least of the land. No mention of sacraments, church attendance, revival meetings, choir performances, church councils, or any other of the business of the religions of the world. They did it to "the least of these My brothers," and in doing it they did it to Christ.

Both groups are surprised. "Lord, when did we see You…?" The King answers that the hidden allegiance of the heart had already shown itself in how they treated His people.

That is the same sorting we see in Revelation.

The saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus (14:12) are the sheep.

Which commands?

"I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me."

Their loyalty was already settled in their hearts, and it showed in their faithfulness to the Lamb and mercy toward His brothers. They did not worship the beast or his image. They refused the mark when the pressure was on.

Sheep and goats.
Sealed and marked.
Right hand and left.

Not churched and unchurched.

Not member and excommunicated.

Not catechumen and Protestant.

Just the fruit of the love or the lack thereof.

The proof is in the pudding, not the recipe.

"But the scripture says, they keep my commandments."

His commandments are not the recipe book of the religions of the world. They are love for Him that shows up as mercy toward His brothers.

Remember Jesus' comments on this, that the greatest commandment is love. Jesus already told us this command carries all the rest.

The greatest commandment is this:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."

The second is like it:

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.

How much hangs on love?

"the whole Law and the Prophets."

So much of the gospel is in this Revelation story. The backstory. The back end of the prophecy. The first angel is still flying with the eternal gospel. The Lamb still stands on Zion with His name and His Father’s name on the foreheads of the sealed. That is the backstory. Friendship with God has already been offered. The blood has already been shed. The call has already gone out.

Now comes the back end. Fallen, fallen is Babylon. The mark is taken or refused. The sores appear on the bodies that already gave up their allegiance. The King is separating the sheep from the goats. No third flock.

Revelation does not invent a different gospel at the end. It finishes the one already preached.

Hear it now.

Don't wait on the sores and the tribulations that force the once-and-for-all choice.

The beginning and the end say the same thing. But today you have a better chance at escaping this wrath that is coming. You have time but not time to waste. You have time to get right with the command of love. Time to repent of those moments when you didn't feed, clothe, house, or visit Jesus. Time to put away all the mixed up motives. No more undisciplined sliding into moralism and tribalism. Time to live out the gospel.

The allegiance of the heart is being settled now, not later. Refuse the mark now while the choice is still called mercy and not yet called judgment.

That is the difference He is making.

And it is righteous.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 14:6-7
And I saw another angel flying in midheaven with an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation, tribe, language, and people; and he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth, and sea and springs of waters."

Fear God; not the systems that demand our allegiance. Give Him glory; not the images that people use to claim it. Worship the Maker of heaven and earth, sea and springs; not the creature that rises from the sea.

During our Kairos prison ministry sessions we'll talk with all sorts of people on a wide range of spiritual matters. And with people who have a wide variety of beliefs. We talk with Christians, Jews, atheists, Muslims, and pagans. Everyone seems to be on their own trip.

In prison, your identity sets you up with safety and assurances to a certain degree. Who you're with, who you're against. What you believe and don't. All these things we sort of loosely define out here in the so called "free world" are matters of profound importance to the incarcerated. Because what you believe about life and death, temporal and eternal, can either save you or destroy you.

Many join these various forms of spiritual life to identify with a common purpose and not be forced to live in fear of everything and anything. I don't think most of these men believe even half the tenets of their chosen doctrines and doxologies. For the most part it's a put on. Like wearing a set of clothes and shoes. They wear what gets them where they're going. Gets them special attention, special dietary needs, gets them into special settings at special times. It's a choice to adopt a religious recipe to get them into a situation where they are not merely an incarcerated person, a number. Even if it's just for a moment here and there.

I recall a time and a conversation I had with one such man. He identified himself as a pagan. Specifically a warlock. His father was Neptune. His elemental power was derived from water. And he shared a lot about what his beliefs were. He had been making the rounds during our ongoing ministry after having graduated from one of our "four day" events. He was sharing these things individually with most everyone one of us on the team. And he would ask each team member how they felt about his beliefs and his presence among us during our Christian programs.

He was helpful during the events. Friendly. Not at all argumentative or unkind. Just there while we ran through our programs. And this one particular time he got around to me. Took me aside and shared his thoughts and asked me the same things he had asked pretty much everyone else.

How did I feel about him being there and not being Christian and in fact openly expressing his pagan beliefs?

I thought about his comments and asked him one simple question.

"Do you want me to tell you the truth, or do you want me to lie to you?"

He thought about this question, a little put back by it, and said to me, "absolutely, tell me the truth."

I told him, the way I see things, you're worshipping this elemental water god. Identifying yourself with water and the stars and planets that fall under his command. I on the other hand worship the One who created all these things; the earth and water, stars and planets and their courses they go. Simply put, you worship things that my God created. I'm not really sure why you wouldn't rather worship the Creator who created those things and who animates them, and brings life through them. It seems to me that He is far more worthy of our time and energy than the things He established for our sake. He gave these things to us so that we would have dominion over them. Why then would we worship a thing that we already have power and authority over?

That conversation is Revelation 14:6–7 spoken in a visitation room by two men instead of by an Angel from midheaven.

The angel’s gospel word is not just some abstract profession. It names the exact fork in the road I laid out named for that man. Worship the Maker of heaven and earth, sea and springs of waters; or worship the sea.

He had chosen the sea.

He had a father named Neptune, an element, a set of clothes that gave him a usable name inside those walls. Earlier I said most of the men do not believe half the tenets they wear. That is not cynicism; it is observation. It is like the mark in chapter 13 which is also a kind of clothing; a visible allegiance that buys them safety for a season.

The eternal gospel answers that kind of clothing by saying, "mark this." Fear God, give Him glory, the hour has come, worship the Creator.

I didn't argue the whole catalog of warlock practices with that guy. I did the one thing the angel does. I relocated the focus of worship. Created thing versus Creator. Water versus the One who made the springs. Dominion given to man versus man bowing down to what he was already meant to rule.

Acts 14:15
"Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them."

This eternal gospel is Genesis 1 still speaking, and Acts 14:15 still speaking, and Revelation 14:7 still speaking.

This pagan man asked every team member how they felt about his presence. Feelings are easy to manage and manipulate. Truth is not.

"Do you want me to tell you the truth, or do you want me to lie to you?"

The hilarious thing for me is I had heard that question on an episode of Cops. It was this drunk guy's constant refrain. He was being detained and questioned. And after every question the officers asked he would say it:

“Do you want me to tell you the truth, or do you want me to lie to you?”

I don't know why that came to me that day in the prison, but it felt right.

Later the man told me no one else even came close to responding in the way I did. Most talked about how everyone has their beliefs and how we're mother to judge them for those beliefs, we're just here to share our faith in Christ. And that's true. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't preach the gospel as "The Truth" above and beyond all these other so called "truths".

Why am I there if not to advocate for the Kingdom of God and the Son, Jesus Christ.

That "Truth" about Christ is the Eternal Truth. The eternal gospel. Nothing else even comes close. Even so, clarity and kindness can sit in the same sentence.

No, we do not pretend all spiritual paths are equal "trips." Because they're not. If we say they are we are liars. Straight up liars. We are frauds. And worse, we make Jesus into a liar.

This is why it is called eternal. It does not need a different recipe for the warlock, the Muslim, the atheist, or the man who only wants the special meal. It is the same Word.

The One who made the sea is worthy; the sea is not.

Christ is the One who will judge, and the One who still calls before the harvest.

We are called to preach the gospel to every nation. The angel does not fly in midheaven to negotiate. He proclaims. He doesn't treat the earth and all its inhabitants as a project or a debate trophy. Paul and Barnabas did not negotiate with Zeus and Hermes. They said, we are only human, turn from these worthless things to the living God who made heaven, earth, the sea, and everything in them (Acts 14:15). Same fourfold creation claim. Same relocation of worship. Same refusal to treat the creature as a rival worthy of equal airtime.

Jesus should never be offered as one option among many options. We are not there to host a spiritual buffet. We are there because the Son is the Lord of all, the hour is real, and the gospel is not a recipe that changes with a man’s clothes.

The angel does not fly in midheaven to negotiate. Neither do you have to.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 13:13-15
"He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of the sky to the earth in the presence of people. And he deceives those who live on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who live on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause all who do not worship the image of the beast to be killed."

The test is the same as it has always been; who do you worship, and whose word do you obey when the fire falls and the image talks?

This is the ultimate blasphemy. The desolation setup in the temple courts. The AntiChrist announces himself as god. Sets up this speaking image. And kill anyone who doesn't worship it.

Like Nebuchadnezzar, he set up a golden image, gathered every official, and issued the decree; when you hear the music, fall down and worship. Whoever does not will be thrown into the burning fiery furnace (Daniel 3:1–6).

Three refused.

God delivered them, and the king himself had to confess that no other god can save like this.

Revelation 13:13–15 takes that pattern and intensifies it. The sign is no longer just a statue; fire falls from heaven in public. The image is no longer silent; breath is given so that it speaks.

Imagine what AI could do with it. Anything that can produce a convincing face, a familiar voice, a miracle on a screen, and then attach that spectacle to a demand is walking the same path Daniel 3.

"worship or you cannot buy or sell; worship or die"

The image speaks for God. The god of the earth. The god of the forged consensus, the earthly spirit. Refusal is treason against the only power that matters to the earth.

John already told us how to test it. The signs are performed "in the presence of the beast."

Their purpose is to make earth-dwellers make the image and then worship it. Truth is refused, a world is then handed over to the lie. Their talking image demands they worship the wounded beast. The blasphemy is complete, the Lamb is completely rejected. The test does its work. The tares are separated from the wheat. The test therefore does what tests always do. It does not create two kinds of people; it reveals them. So the fire, the voice, the image, the boycott, and the sword are not the last word. They are the sieve.

Until that hour the question does not change; when the image talks, whose name is on your forehead?

The Lamb who was slain is openly rejected, and another "lamb" with a dragon’s voice (13:11) has taken His seat in the public square. All people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave; are caused to receive a mark on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the name of the beast or the number of its name. This counterfeit seal goes where the true seal belongs. They're worshipping the creation instead of the One who created those things. They exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

Commerce, speech, and survival are then tied to that name, 666. Creation is no longer received with thanksgiving; it is enthroned and obeyed. No class is exempt. The forged consensus does not negotiate. It marks its own and punishes all who resist.

666 is the number of a man. The image is man-made. Creation taking the throne, the creature speaking as if it were the Creator. This is the beast's liturgy.

John doesn't let this scene stand unanswered.

"Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads" (14:1).

Two names.

Two companies.

One creation enthroned; one Creator blessed forever.

It's all about human autonomy and divine authority.

The beast’s liturgy is real, public, and lethal; but it is borrowed. One company lives by the word of a talking image. The other follows the Lamb wherever He goes.

Two names on the forehead. One has the Father's name the other the creations number. The beast wrote a man’s number there. God writes His own name. This is a battle over authority. The imagery is ownership, belonging, and public identification.

The "feelings" crowd isn't a consideration at this point. Revelation 14 does not weigh opinions and impressions. It weighs names. No one in chapter 14 is sorted by how the fire made them feel, how convincing the face was, or whether the consensus felt inevitable. They are sorted by whose word they obey when the image talks, and whose name they wear when buying and selling are turned into worship.

When the image talks, whose name is on your forehead?

Revelation 13:1
"And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.
Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads were blasphemous names."

Revelation 12 ends with the dragon, furious after failing to destroy the woman and her offspring, turning his rage toward those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Now the dragon stands on the seashore summoning powers to himself. Satan plants himself at the edge of that chaotic sea and calls forth his instrument. The political and cultural embodiment of himself. Ten ruling authorities. And institutionalized blasphemy. Literally showing contempt for the One true king who sits on His throne in Heaven.

For three and a half years he is given the opportunity to openly oppose and exhaust himself against all that God has created. Real war with the saints, exhausting, yet it is never sovereign. The dragon does not get an open-ended war. He is given a small window in which the beast is allowed to rage. And another restriction, the beast is permitted to spend itself against what God has made; it is not permitted to unmake it.

Out of that sea's turmoil rises a creature that looks like the sum of every previous empire Daniel ever saw.

Revelation 13:2
"And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne, and great authority."

The beast that rises is not a new species. It is the old empires fused into one. The leopard’s speed and cultural reach (Greece). The bear’s crushing weight (Medo-Persia). The lion’s devouring mouth and royal arrogance (Babylon). And it moves quickly, it tramples heavily, and it speaks with a mouth that claims what only God can claim.

Then comes the sentence that explains everything else in the chapter..."And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority."

The throne the beast sits on is on loan with delegated authority. Secondhand power. False prophets. False promises. The counterfeit kingdom. What looks like an unstoppable empire like nothing ever seen before, it is actually a gift from a defeated enemy who is running out of time.

False promises will later sell it as peace and security. The beast will set himself up as a man of peace. But the source of his power never changes.

He wages war for forty-two months. Long enough to test the church. Testing the gospel's power to keep the people of God. Blaspheming the word. The persecution of worship in Spirit and Truth. He will present himself as the man who can still the chaotic sea; peace after turmoil, security after fear, unity after division. The mouth that is like a lion’s will not only roar; it will also soothe. And his promises will sound reasonable to a world already exhausted by its own unrest.

So the war he wages is not only military or political. It is liturgical. He blasphemes the Word. And he does this because the Word is the only thing that can expose him. And many will gladly worship him. Reveling in that blasphemy.

Don't think it can happen?

All people are essentially good. No church will blaspheme God.

Have you not been paying attention to what's going on now?

Where did we ever get these ideas?

Scripture says the opposite; there is none righteous, not even one, the heart is deceitful, the natural mind is hostile to God.

Blasphemy does not always start with cursing the Name above all names. It starts with replacing the Name’s verdict with a kinder one. It plows the road and creates a soft landing for the rise of the beast.

Maybe it feminizes the deity. Maybe it puts salvation in the hands of social justice causes. Maybe it literally makes its god from a transhumanism perspective.

Once the Word is no longer allowed to say “none righteous,” something else must fill the silence. A deity remade in our preferred image.

A salvation we can manage through causes. A future we can engineer until the creature no longer needs a Creator. Dualism. A refined "platonic" love that never has to kneel. Some sort of Gnostic spiritual awakening. Reincarnation. The centered-self circle of life that promise we will get another turn instead of facing the Judge.

Each one replaces the Name’s verdict with a kinder story. You are not a sinner who must be born again; you are a spark that only needs to remember, evolve, or recycle.

Don't you see the common thread?

All these spiritual expressions keep humanity bound to the perishable. There is no resurrection. No eternal joining with the Creator. Dust is just dust.

Every one of those paths leaves a person inside the perishable. Causes we can manage. Futures we can engineer. Dualism that flees the body instead of waiting for its redemption. A love that never kneels. A secret awakening. Another turn on the wheel. The centered-self circling back to itself. All of them say the same quiet thing, dust is just dust, and you must make your peace with that.

There is only recycling, refining through a mechanized trans-human future, or just forgetting.

No resurrection of the body.

That is why they feel kinder. They never require you to die with Christ or to be raised with Him. No rebirth. No intercession. No future that outlasts the grave.

But none of these things are the last word.

The throne he sits on was given by a defeated enemy. The authority he wields is second-hand. The life he pretends to give is not the life the Father gave the Son.

You have already been told what the beast cannot do. He cannot unmake what God has made. He cannot silence the Word that exposes him, or snatch away those whose names are written in the book of life.

Dust is not the end.

Our gospel labor is not in vain.

Rebirth is real.

The Intercessor lives.

The body that is sown perishable will be raised imperishable.

The imitation can try to mimic these things, but he cannot truly mimic an empty tomb without smoke and mirrors.

The dragon's rule is built on the sand on which he stands.

The Lamb is on the throne.

Hold to the testimony.

Keep the Word.

Worship in Spirit and in truth.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 11:1-17
Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,
"The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever." And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying,
"We give You thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the One who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign."

What looks unfinished on the ground is already settled before the throne. Heaven announces the transfer of power first. Though the world has not yet bowed to the Creator, the seventh trumpet does not wait.

Quickly now the revelation moves from two witnesses in sackcloth to the kingdom has changed hands. All by the sound of a trumpet blast.

John is told to measure the inner sanctuary, the altar there, and the worshippers. And warned to not measure the outer courts that will be trampled for three and a half years.

Why is he told to measure the sanctuary and everything in it?

It's about ownership. Boundaries. What belongs to God and what belongs to the men of the world for a time. He is told to measure the sanctuary, the altar, and the worshipers because those three things are the one place the world NEVER gets to redefine. No matter what the storyline or who the storyteller is, what's God's is God's always. God's sanctuary is ALWAYS His. And this is why He jealously guards it.

He measures it because He will not let the storytellers of the outer court rewrite the sanctuary. And they will and they do attempt to narrate the truth according to their own agenda. Even going so far as to erecting an abomination there.

They will try. They always have. The outer court is the place where the nations are allowed, for a measured season, to tell the story their own way. They trample. They celebrate over the witnesses’ bodies. They send gifts. And at the height of the lie they set up an abomination in the place that looks most like holy ground; an image, a claim, a man seating himself as if he were God (Daniel 9:27; 11:31; Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:4).

It's their attempt to accomplish an archetype for Christ. Like raising up the bronze serpent on the pole, or Jesus Christ raised up on the cross. They erect this thing as their own symbol of creative genius.

But it's a stolen gesture, not a true one. The bronze serpent was lifted because God said to lift it. The Son of Man was lifted up because the Father gave Him. The outer court copies the shape of the lifting and it is empty of the power of the Lamb. Its power is fabricated, phony, holographic. It wants the pole and the spectacle without the blood that actually speaks. It wants a savior it can invent, display, and control. It is a manufactured sacrament.

It looks like worship, but I t is only on display. Visible, impressive, empty. But a counterfeit sacrament only works if it occupies the space of the real one. They want the outer courts to feel like the sanctuary so the nations will bow to what they invented.

The measuring forbids this substitution. The blood that speaks is already there. The worshipers who belong to that altar are already counted. The inner room is already claimed. No AntiChrist substitute can claim its true power. The holographic savior can dominate the unmeasured courts for forty-two months; but I t cannot become the definition of what God has marked as His.

The third woe has done its work quickly.

(vs.18) "And the nations were enraged..."

Wrath answers wrath. But heaven does not argue with their fury. Instead a sign is given unto them:

Revelation 12:1-2
"A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was pregnant and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth."

This is no holographic pole. No invented savior on display. The King has come.

Israel bears the promise, through sacrificial love, not spectacle. The true archetype is not lifted by the nations’ genius; He is born through the people God has already claimed.

Then the opposing sign:
Revelation 12:3-4

A great red dragon, seven heads, ten horns, seven diadems, tail sweeping a third of the stars, standing before the woman so that when she gives birth he may devour the child. This is the manufactured sacrament unmasked.

The lifting up in the outer courts tried to counterfeit what has already happened. Resurrection and ascension, the Son given by the Father, seated where no holographic pole could ever reach. The dragon is left snapping at empty air.

The Claim still stands. The King has come. The dragon cannot devour what the Father has already received. What’s God’s is God’s. The storytellers of the outer courts are already too late. They're whistling over their own graves. From the beginning the Accuser has been rebelling against God's images in humanity. Day and night this rebellion took place.

The Claim did not wait for the dragon to admit defeat, the child is already seated. The seventh trumpet has already sounded.

The Accuser’s war is not first against a temple building or priesthood. It is against the image bearers. God made man in His image and set him in the garden; the serpent moved to unmake that claim. Day and night he stood before God accusing the brothers; naming the image bearers a fraud, the worshipers as trespassers.

He never stopped. He swept a third of the stars. He waited at the birth. And he still accuses. So the storytellers of the outer court can keep on whistling. And the Accuser can keep talking day and night.

And God has already protected His Claim, His elect.

Isaiah 16:1, 3
"Send the lamb to the ruler of the land, from Sela (Petra) by way of the wilderness to the mountain of the daughter of Zion."

"Hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive. Let the outcasts stay with you; be a hiding place to them from the destroyer."

The woman flees into the wilderness (Jordan) to a place prepared. The outcasts are hidden, not handed over. The destroyer does not get the last word. God protects His claim by preparing a place, by forbidding the betrayal of the fugitive, by sending the Lamb toward Zion while the nations still trample.

The sanctuary stays His.

The child is already seated.

And the outcasts are hidden from the destroyer until the throne in the tent of David is openly established. The elect were already marked before the outer court learned to whistle. The sanctuary was already measured before the abomination was set up. The child was already caught up before the dragon’s mouth closed. The place in the wilderness was prepared before the woman ran.

What’s God’s is God’s. The seventh trumpet only announced what the measuring and the hiding had already secured.

What an embarrassment for the dragon. No wonder he is so angry.

He sent his minions to the birth and the child was already gone.

He accused day and night and the brothers were already marked.

He taught the outer courts to whistle over their graves and heaven had already measured the sanctuary and hidden the outcasts.

Their manufactured sacrament is still on display while the Lamb is already on the throne.

Humiliation with no place to hide.

So he is furious.

Revelation 12:12
"woe to the earth…because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time."

His anger is the tell.

He rages because the claim is already lost to him.

No wonder he's angry. He's late, and he knows it.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 10:3
"and he cried out with a loud voice, as when a lion roars; and when he had cried out, the seven peals of thunder uttered their voices."

Seven is the number of completion. These thunders are full, distinct, authoritative words. Words that remain hidden until the seventh trumpet sounds.

What the text actually does with those words is important. John hears them. He is ready to write. Heaven stops him.

"Seal up the things which the seven peals of thunder have spoken and do not write them down" (10:4).

Verse 7 then says that in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound.

"the mystery of God is finished, as He preached to His servants the prophets."

The mystery announced long ago reaches its completion at that trumpet. The completeness cuts both ways. The thunders are complete in themselves. The mystery is complete when the seventh trumpet sounds. And the written Revelation we do have is also complete for its blessed purpose.

What God seals, He seals. What He writes, He writes. The church is there to watch, endure, and keep prophesying. And most importantly, they are to not add, not to subtract, but to keep the words that are written by God as He has instructed.

This is why the next command is so practical. John is told to take the little open scroll and eat it.

It is sweet in the mouth and bitter in the stomach.

Then he is told, "You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings" (10:8–11).

The sealed thunders do not cancel the open word. The Lord has spoken the truth about the completed time. For us it remains a mystery, but into creation it has thundered. Just as He spoke our universe into existence, He has now spoke into existence its last day.

What's important to realize in this is that two things can happen at once. Hidden speech and published speech can stand side by side. God is not asking the church to live on what He refused to record. He is asking the church to live on what He did record. But the unrecorded testimony isn't negated because it isn't revealed. Its authority stands, whether or not mankind hears and understands it.

Hidden speech and published speech occupy the same moment. The seven thunders speak with full authority; John is forbidden to write them. The little scroll is already open; John is commanded to eat it and prophesy again. Mankind is on a need to know basis. One word is sealed from the church’s page. The other is placed on the church’s tongue. Neither cancels the other.

As is said in the Old Testament:

Deuteronomy 29:29
"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law"

We are given the testimony of God's word to instruct our minds, to inform our faith, and to guide our ways. If you think about it from that ongoing ministerial position, there is no need for God's people to know what the final word is. We're just told that it is spoken. That much we know.

The purpose of what is written is obedience, not omniscience. The church is on a need-to-know basis, and God has already decided what we need. We do not need the transcript of the seven thunders in order to watch, endure, eat the scroll, and prophesy again. We need to know that the thunders spoke, that their word was complete, and that heaven forbade the writing of it.

It's never a good idea to question the Lord’s methods. And it's especially forbidden to try and rewrite the story to suit our motives. Heaven does not invite John to improve on the vision. It stops his pen. That is not a suggestion about method. It is a command about the limits of the servant.

This is a principle the universal church should apply across the board. This principle is not local to this one vision. It is the church’s longstanding rule for handling the Word.

The secret things belong to the Lord.

The revealed things belong to us.

Why?

That we may observe them.

The church does not live by what God refused to record. The church lives by what God did record. Curiosity about sealed things is not a calling.

Editing the open word to fit our motives; because of our fears, our systematic theology, our cultural practices, or our Magisterium controls, is not a legitimate ministry. And it's important that the church leadership get this right. The servant’s limit is part of the servant’s faithfulness.

We have no right nor calling to manipulate any of the Word revealed to humanity. What is given is given and should be kept and preserved.

Why?

Why not put God's Word to work on the things that are on our hearts? Isn't our conscience the movement of The Spirit? Doesn’t He inform our souls by moving our hearts? Why then wouldn't God want us to make application of His Word in ways that address these groanings?

Why?

Because, fear will try to soften the hard sayings. A system will try to make every line serve the system. A culture will try to baptize its habits into law and call them fidelity. And a teaching office will try to stand beside the text as a necessary decoder, or above it as its arbiter and final ruling court.

Yes, The Spirit does apply the Word. He does convict, and illuminate, and He leads the sons of God. The Word is living and active; it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). And yes, Scripture is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

Making application is not optional.

And groanings are not imaginary.

But He does so according to the will of God. And The Spirit does not take us beyond what God has spoken. So here again we see the interplay between revealed and hidden.

The same interplay is at work in our hearts that was at work in John's vision. The Spirit applies what God has spoken. He does not extend the canon. He convicts, illuminates, and leads the sons of God according to the will of God, and the will of God on this point is already public. The Word has already been spoken. The truth has already been given. And nowhere in this revelation are we given permission to write in the missing lines.

So application is required, and groanings are real, and still the limit holds.

So when we study and make application we need to take seriously the prayer:

Psalm 19:14
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer."

When you sit in the councils, in the Bible studies, in the midst of the congregation, and especially before the altar, you had better be prepared to honor this sacred prayer.

That prayer belongs in every place the Word is handled. And the pulpit is no place to relax those servant’s limits. Psalm 19:14 is not a closing sentiment. It had better be the guiding force of every testimony.

Honor the prayer as you speak, as you teach, as you sit among the saints, and as you stand where holy things are set forth. Let the words of the mouth and the meditation of the heart be acceptable in His sight.

What God seals, He seals. What God writes, He writes. Keep what is given. Until the seventh trumpet sounds, that is the faithfulness of the servant.

I have it. Here is knowledge. That's enough for me.

Aka, the Bible said it, I believe it, that's all I need to know.

"I want to know one thing—the way to heaven…God himself has condescended to teach the way...He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book!…Let me be homo unius libri."
-John Wesley

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 10:7
"but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as He announced to His servants the prophets."

This mighty angel is standing with one foot on the sea and one on the land, raising his hand to heaven, and swearing by the eternal Creator that there will be no more delay.

Who is this angel?

He came down from heaven wrapped in a cloud. There's a rainbow on his head. His face is like the sun. And His feet like pillars of fire. And probably the most obvious detail, He holds a little open scroll.

He raises his right hand and swears by "Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things in it, the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it."

These visual details reflect the glorified Son in Revelation 1:13–16 (face like the sun, feet like burnished bronze/fire) and the "Angel of the Lord" appearances in the Old Testament. The cloud, the rainbow (Revelation 4:3), the lion-roar, the open scroll, and the stance that claims both sea and land all look like the Creator taking possession of what is His. This is the same Lord who will later appear as King of kings now appearing in angelic form to announce that delay is over.

And do not be confused by the oath, "he swears by the eternal Creator", The Lord does swear and can only swear by Himself.

"For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself." (Hebrews 6:13)

"By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD." (Genesis 22:16)

So, If this divine figure is the Son, He is swearing by the Godhead, by the Father, by His own eternal life and creative work. This is consistent with how Jesus comports Himself in relation to The Father.

The waiting the martyrs were told to endure "a little while longer" is at its end.

The innumerable multitudes have already been saved. Now the time has come for the judgement.

But first...

The same voice that forbade John to write the seven thunders now commands him to go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.

And John goes.

He asks for it.

And the Lord who has just sworn that the delay is over places the open scroll in the prophet’s hand and says, "Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey."

And following that the Lord says, "You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and tongues and kings."

And so, the story isn't finished. There is still prophecy to come.

The seventh angel is about to sound. The prophet has swallowed the word. What was open in the Lord’s hand is now in John’s belly.

Chapter 10 ends with the Lord putting the open scroll into John and sending him out again. Chapter 11 is the beginning of that. The camera view drops from the cosmic stance down onto a measurable court and a city that can be counted in cubits and months. Not another throne-room scene. The scene fades in to the earth, to the sanctuary and city, to a limited holy space and a trampled outer court.

And this is no longer heavenly time, it is not abstract; it is now forty-two months, 1,260 days, three and a half years, and yet remains a future event.

"Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months." (Revelation 11:1-2)

This is Daniel's time, times, and half a time. Daniel sees the week from the side of Israel, sanctuary, covenant, sacrifice stopped, and abomination (Daniel 7:24; 9:24–27; 12:7; 12:11–12).

Revelation 11 uses the same measures. Forty-two months = 1,260 days on a 360-day prophetic year (42 × 30).

Now two witnesses prophesy 1,260 days in sackcloth (11:3). Notice that the number of days, thirty days less than Daniel mentions.

The two witnesses fill the half-week of testimony and treading. Daniel’s extra days sit on the far side of that witness. After the abomination is set, after the shattering of the holy people is complete.

John is not left to guess who these two witnesses are.

"These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth." (Revelation 11:4)

In the book of Zachariah chapter four he's given a vision of two olive trees. The prophet is woken and shown a lampstand of solid gold, a bowl on top, seven lamps, and two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on the left. These are the word of the Lord given "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit". And the olive trees are, "the two anointed ones who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth."

Priest and prince, oil and light, Spirit and word in a ruined city. They do not rebuild with the temple with stone this time. Instead they prophesy in sackcloth. Fire comes from their mouth. They shut the sky. They turn waters to blood. They strike the earth with every plague as often as they desire.

And when they finish their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss makes war with them, overcomes them, and kills them.

That eaten scroll has become two living witnesses. And even though the city and its temple and people have tried to make it the property of the Beast, the Lord firmly plants His word like two trees in the midst of this time of abomination.

For 1,260 days the lamp of God's word does not go out. Then their bodies lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom (known for sexual immorality) and Egypt (known for idolatry and hardness of heart), where also their Lord was crucified.

The peoples and tribes and tongues and nations look at their dead bodies for three and a half days and do not permit them to be laid in a tomb. Those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them and make merry and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.

And after three and a half days, the breath of life from God enters them.

They stand up on their feet.

And great fear falls upon those who see them.

They're called home to heaven.

"Come up here!"

And as they are going up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watch them; there is a great earthquake.

A tenth of the city they built for themselves falls.

Seven thousand people are killed in the earthquake.

The rest are terrified and give glory to the God of heaven.

What is this? Worship? Revival? Redemption?

John does not say they washed their robes. He does not say they came out of the great tribulation. He does not say they follow the Lamb wherever He goes. He says they were terrified, and they gave glory to the God of heaven.

Was it already too late for them?

The seventh angel has not yet sounded. The mystery God announced to the prophets is not yet finished.

In this book, refusing to give glory is the settled posture of those under wrath (16:9). Giving glory however, even in terror, is the first movement the gospel demands.

Too late would mean the door had closed.

In Jerusalem that hour, the door has just been shaken but not permanently shut. Many have now looked upon the One they pierced. And He leaves them in fear and glory at the edge of the third woe.

It seems to me that some in this time are the fulfillment of parable prophecy. These seem to me to be the last minute eleventh hour laborers. The Landowner (The Lord) goes one more time out into the streets and says to the men still standing idle, "Why have you been standing here idle all day long?"

They answered Him, "Because no one hired us."

It's not their fault. They weren't hanging around with the Beast and his acolytes. They weren't lazy and keeping bad company. They weren't being greedy, mean, wicked, and selfish.

They were just honorable people. Waiting on the call.

Yeah right 🙄

Friends, do not baptize them into innocence. They were not standing in the marketplace with clean hands, waiting honorably for a call that never came. Remember this is the city nicknamed Sodom and Egypt. This is the same street that would not allow two dead prophets a tomb. This is the same population that made merry and sent gifts to one another, like it was Christmas, while the two witnesses lay unburied.

"The rest" are simply the ones the earthquake did not kill.

They gave glory when the ground opened and the cloud took the men they had watched die.

So if they are last-minute laborers, they are last-minute laborers in the real parable; not the sentimental one. The eleventh hour does not find the respectable overlooked. It finds the idle, the late, the ones who had no answer except that they were still there when the Owner walked by again.

The denarius The Lord gives, if it is given, is gift; just as it always has ever been. Not earned. Not merited. Not worked for. Not owed. It is The Lord’s gift.

John still does not say they washed their robes. He does not say they follow the Lamb. He says they were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

But that is not nothing. In this book of revelation it is the first word the gospel asks of a hard city.

I hope they mean it with good intentions. I want them to be saved. Because if even they can be saved, then I know our God is truly merciful. Unlike how so many have reported about Him.

I want them saved because their case is the hard case, and I've always been the advocate for the hard cases. And because I known our God is beautiful and merciful, full of grace, even at the eleventh hour.

If glory torn out of them by an earthquake can become a washed robe, then no one gets to say the Owner only pays the first crew who looked clean at dawn.

"The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth" (Exodus 34:6)

"He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love" (Micah 7:18)

This is my God.

He is generous, not because the marketplace was full of noble men. The thief on the next cross over had no hours left to work.

I am not arguing for these Johnny-come-lately laborers so much as I am arguing with the rumors, and the bad rap going around about my God.

The seventh angel has not yet sounded.

Don't wait. Don't put off grace. Don't deny it and burn up in what's about to come. Instead, repent and believe the gospel. Which means take it to heart. Let it take hold of your heart. Let it transform your mind.

The mystery He announced to His servants the prophets is not yet finished. The Lord who stood on sea and land and swore that delay is over still calls. Not by might. Not by power. By His Spirit.

This is my God.

Amen 🙏🏼

A third of mankind slain, yet the rest "did not repent of the works of their hands" (Revelation 9:20–21).

Judgment has been severe, but hardness of heart still remains.

I wonder if we understand that psychology of this situation?

The psychology in Revelation 9 is not mainly "they didn’t have enough information." It is that judgment can land on a people and still leave the will unmoved.

John lists what they refused to abandon:

The works of their hands, demons, idols that cannot see or hear or walk, and then murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, and thefts (9:20–21). The problem is not ignorance of pain. It is attachment to a way of seeing the world that must not be surrendered. Scripture names these attachments in several overlapping ways.

Idolatry first, then the rest. The murders and the rest sit downstream of "the works of their hands." When a culture remakes the human persons value according to its own usefulness or desires, killing them or sexually abusing them becomes easier to justify and harder to repent of, because repentance would require admitting that the idol was false in the first place.

Pharaoh saw plague after plague and still asked, "Who is the Lord?" Hardness of heart is not the absence of consequence; it is the refusal to let consequence dethrone the self.

Romans 1 describes people who "knew God" yet "did not honor him as God," so their thinking became futile and their hearts darkened. They exchange the truth for a lie and then need a story that makes the exchange feel moral and makes them out to be good people in the end.

We've seen this painfully clearly before us these past few weeks as our society witnessed the worst of this hardness of heart played out in the Lindsey Clancy trial and the subsequent revelations about the jurors and how they became a hung jury.

What Revelation 9 describes is a people who can look at death and still keep the story that lets them remain the righteous ones. Two things can be true at once, and a culture under pressure to find justification for doing unjust harm to the truth, will try to make only one of them true. The jury was charged with judging the merits of the evidence presented in the case, not make determinations based upon personal preferences, experiences, world-views, ideological differences, or facts not given into evidence. They are there to consider reasonable doubt on the grounds of the evidence, not on what might have been the case or what others have experienced in similar cases.

A jury is not asked to be a representative sample of the nation’s feelings. It is asked to judge this evidence under this oath. That distinction matters for Revelation 9, because hardness of heart often does not announce itself as rebellion. It announces itself as a better, kinder way of seeing things.

In the subsequent interviews following the mistrial, the mood of the 11 jurors was that they were righteous and the one hold-out juror was unreasonable and maybe even unlawful. It was apparent that if they could they would have found him criminally responsible for harming the defendants chances at being safe and finding treatment.

Reasonable doubt is a narrow thing. It is not a mood, a cause, or a group identity. It is a decision as to whether the evidence in this record left a conscientious person unable to say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she was criminally responsible when she clearly and methodically used the exercise bands on little Cora, Dawson, and Callan to strangle them to death. To chase down one child that had ran away in horror of what her mother had just done to her brother. To manage the situation with planning and forethought. To even go so far as to research the internet to plan the timing of the murders using Apple Maps to track her husband's absence from the home.

The record the jury was given was not a fog. Prosecutors put in the timing work on her phone; Apple Maps, not a vague wander through the internet, to measure how long Patrick would be gone if he drove to ThreeV, a restaurant farther than their usual places.

They put in the sequence of three separate strangulations with exercise bands, each requiring continued pressure after a child lost consciousness.

They put in her (Clancy's) own later account that she took Dawson down first, then returned for Cora, then went back up for Callan. They put in minutes, not a single flash. That is what "methodical" means in a courtroom. Not a theory about other mothers suffering from undiagnosed mental illness, but acts that take time, order, and the overcoming of a small body that does not die on contact.

A juror is free to conclude that psychosis can coexist with maps and minutes, and horrific crimes against innocent defenseless children. The law does not require illness to look like chaos in every gesture. What the law does not permit is to set the maps and minutes aside because they spoil a kinder gentler story that speaks to a society at large. The law does not permit the need for reform in the medical profession to take precedence over the facts at hand.

What the law does not allow for is to treat the facts as optional once they threaten a story the wider culture needs to have a conversation about.

"She was ill"can be evidence.

However, "therefore the planning does not count" is not evidence.

The "medical system failed her" can be a later public argument, but it's not evidence that should be calculated into reasonable doubt. It cannot become the verdict’s substitute for what really happened in the basement to those poor kids.

Reform of doctors, pharmacies, and postpartum care may be urgent. But it is not the question written on the verdict slip. Yet in every subsequent interview with the 11 jurors and in multitudes of "conversations" in the media spaces, the principal was only those social concerns about women's rights and health concerns and choices. Instantly lost, or never making a showing at all in these "conversations" is the wellbeing of the kids.

Which brings us back to where we began.

How does society witness the destruction of a third of all humanity, wild and destructive demonic creatures, vast cosmic and geological alterations to the known universe; and yet still hold-out on kneeling in repentance to the King of the Universe.

A people can watch a basement and still talk as if the main subject were women’s health, systems, and choices. The children become the missing term. Not because anyone stands up and says they did not matter, but because the conversation that follows their death has already chosen its new center of cultural significance. Once the center is the living adult and the reforms she represents, Cora, Dawson, and Callan can be named and still not govern the total meaning of the event. That is how a culture keeps itself righteous even with tiny corpses in the courtroom.

Fire, smoke, brimstone and sulfur. A demonic cavalry on the march. The cosmos itself is already coming undone under the earlier trumpets. And yet the survivors do not kneel.

They keep the works of their hands.

They keep the demons and their deaf and dumb idols.

They keep the murders of innocent babies, born and unborn.

The judgement against them has been severe yet they are not moved. Because they can't. They're too invested in what drove their self-righteousness for so long.

Not because they lacked spectacle. They had more spectacle than any jury, any news cycle, any medical panel. They lacked surrender.

The idol is the story that must not be dethroned. The idol is them. They are still the ones who see things truly; they are still the good people; the real problem is elsewhere. A hung jury can watch three small bodies explained in open court and still make the lone holdout the problem.

God help us all!

🙏🏼 Amen

Revelation 8:6
"And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them."

The seventh seal has been opened. Heaven has gone silent. The prayers of the saints have risen with incense. And that censor has been slammed into the earth wreaking havoc.

The judgments that then follow are not impulsive. They are prepared. Sequential.

That word "prepared" matters. These angels have stood before God with the trumpets already in hand (8:2). They take their places. They get ready. Heaven moves with measured purpose, not panic.

Heaven is response, not a reaction. The silence was not emptiness. It was the pause in which the prayers of the saints were received. The incense was not decoration. It was the gathered cries of the church mixed with the fire of the altar. The censer thrown to earth was not a sudden outburst. It was the answer. Then, and only then, the seven angels who already held the trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

God does not scramble when evil rises. He does not invent judgments on the fly. This Day has been prearranged.

The trumpets were already in their hands.

The sequence was already written.

This is important because it reveals our God's omnipotent power. What looks like sudden havoc on earth is the measured reply of a throne that has been listening all along. He hasn't missed a trick. Nothing on earth has caught Him off guard. The rise of evil, the delay that feels like silence, the sudden shaking when the censer hits; none of it is improvisation. This is the APPOINTED DAY!

What looks like the world spinning out of control is the world being held to account on a timetable only heaven sees fully. So the church does not have to scramble either. We do not have to invent courage when the next trumpet sounds. We take our place now, because the sequence is already written and the instruments are already in hand.

Revelation 8:7
"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 trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up."

Hail.
Fire.
And blood.

And the land is hit before the sea, the fresh water, or the lights in the sky. It's the life support system that is damaged, limited in its scope by a third. It's the first proof that this is still warning, not annihilation. The earth is scarred, not erased. The food chain is wounded. How we understand the earth is altered in a huge way.

Hail, fire, and blood together are the language of Exodus. It's Egypt’s plagues brought onto a global stage. Before God judges the earth's kings, He judges the ground under their feet. The appointed Day does not begin with the beast or the armies. It begins with the creation that has been groaning, the earth that has received both the blood of the saints and the idolatry of the nations.

This is blood for blood. Fire for the pagan altar fires. Hail for the cold shoulder of the wicked. It is the character of the God who answers in kind. His response is to give them what they gave. The earth that drank the blood of the saints now receives blood mixed with the hail and fire. The altars that burned for other gods now meet fire from the true altar. The nations that turned a cold shoulder to the Lamb now feel the hail that once fell on Egypt.

Now He's got their attention. The land itself has become the preacher. Trees gone in part, grass gone entirely, hail and fire and blood visible to every eye that still has eyes. He's stripping away all their preparation.

They hoarded. They prepared for every eventuality. Armed and ready they packaged survival for the long haul. The first trumpet goes straight at that illusion. The land they counted on; the trees they would cut, the grass that would feed the herds, the soil that would grow the next harvest, is the first thing set on fire. Hail, fire, and blood do not merely scar the scenery. They burn the warehouse.

👇 continued
Human preparation is always built on the assumption that the ground will still be there. Store the grain. Guard the well. Stock the bunker. Arm the compound. The first angel sounds and the ground itself answers; "you do not own the life-support system. You only borrowed it."

Enough remains to keep men alive. Enough is taken to show that their long-haul packages were never the real refuge. The hoard cannot replace the land. The weapons cannot replace the grass. The survival plan cannot replace the God who appointed the Day. That is why the judgment is limited to a third and yet still devastating. This willful preparedness will fail to prevent the preparedness of the angels.

The significant difference is that Heaven prepared by decree. Mankind on the other hand has always been living on borrowed time.

Here's the reality check:

Men prepare as if the loan will never come due. They treat the land as property, the harvest as guaranteed, the future as something they can stockpile. Borrowed ground is mistaken for a fortress.

So the church that already knows the difference does not live like the hoarders and does not panic like those whose plans just got burned up and the ashes washed away by the floods caused by melting hail.

Now the realities of hunger loom. The first trumpet does not stop at spectacle. The hail melts. The fire leaves ash everywhere. What the flames do not consume, the meltwater washes and erodes the scorched earth.

Pasture gone, trees gone in part, stored grain that depended on the next growing season suddenly looks thin. The life-support system that was only borrowed now shows its true condition. Not yet the famine of the later seals and trumpets in its fullness; this is only the beginning.

Enough remains to keep men alive. Enough is taken away so that empty stomachs begin to preach what the hoard refused to say. Now they see the ground was never theirs to keep.

Hail and fire mingled with blood. What a combination.

All three at once.

Hail alone could be dismissed as weather. Fire alone could be called wildfire. Blood however, mixed with both removes the excuse. This is not nature misbehaving. This is the altar answering the earth that drank the blood of the saints and burned offerings to other gods. The land is not only scorched. It is signed in blood.

The first trumpet has sounded. Hail, fire, and blood have done their first work. The next instruments are still in hand. Therefore we stand.