Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisrael and Mishpachah and welcome to Part LXVIII (68) of our study of the Book of Revelation and to the continuation of last week's coverage of chapter 19, and verses 11-21. Normally I begin with a summary of the previous week's material but this time we will forego that as that is all we are going to occupy ourselves with today.

Without further ado, then, let me refresh your memories of the content of the current segment. I shall, for the detailed reasons given previously, be removing 'thigh' from the text at verse 16 and inserting 'banner' in its place:

"11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns (diadems). He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Davar Elohim (Word of God). 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. 15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty Elohim (God). 16 And He has on His robe and on His banner (flag, ensign) a name written: KING OF KINGS AND MASTER OF MASTERS (LORD OF LORDS).

"17 Then I saw a malak (angel) standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, 'Come and gather together for the supper of the great Elohim (God), 18 that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.' 19 And I saw the Beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 20 Then the Beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the Mark of the Beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. 21 And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh" (Rev.19:11-21, NKJV).

Knowing what we do about the messianic prophecies in the Tanakh (Old Testament) and their fulfillment in the New, it may be of interest to some of you that people used to write lots of books and articles about the 'messianic expectation' in the time of Yah'shua (Jesus) and be surprised by what they found. The theologians would comb and sift the ancient Jewish sources to yield every fragment of information about what Yah'shua's (Jesus') contemporaries were looking for as they awaited the coming of a Messiah. You see, because of the way we are built, with the need to have things presented to us as simply as possible, it comes as both a surprise (because it's unexpected) and as a disappointment (because by carnal nature we are lazy) to discover that as this scholarly enterprise has unfolded, instead of things becoming clearer they have only become more complicated.

Imagine, if you will, scholars 2,000 years in the future doing research on the 2020's and expecting to find that there were only, say, half-a-dozen church denominations - Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Messianic Jewish, only to discover that there were hundreds, if not thousands! So people are surprised to learn that many of the 1st century Jewish religious texts say absolutely nothing about a Messiah when the expectation was that that was all they would talk about. It is normally assumed by believers (because that's what their pastors and priests have been telling them) that every religious Jew 2,000 years ago was expecting a Messiah - the more so because the Roman yoke was so heavy and they had been waiting so long for deliverance - who would be a military conqueror and not a suffering servant. But, no, there were many back then who don't seem to have been waiting for a Messiah at all, even though the Tanakh (Old Testament) clearly speaks of a great prophet-to-come of the stature of Moses (Dt.18:15-26; cp.Ac.3:22).

Some texts, like the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, expressed the belief that there would be two Messiahs - two different people - one would be a royal or kingly Messiah and the other a priestly Messiah. Some Mormons have seized on this idea and claim their founder, Joseph Smith, was one of these two messiahs! Others were divided over this, with some saying the Messiah would be a wise king like Solomon, some a warrior king like David, and some saying he would be a Temple-cleansing king like Hezekiah. Hardly ever does one find a text that puts the whole prophetic puzzle together.

And that's just the texts themselves. We don't know how many people read those texts, or would have agreed with them if they had done. What we do know, however, was that there were several would-be royal or 'messianic' movements before and after the time of Yah'shua (Jesus), and that these movements attracted a good many people. In other words, Jewish religious people were as divided and confused back then about the messiah as Christian religious people are as divided and confused today about so many different things which has led them to split into thousands of denominations over 2,000 years, and all claiming to be 'led by the Spirit' or to be 'Spirit-filled'. This is why I am very sceptical and cautious about the many claims that are made and insist we must spend lots of time doing careful, meticulous research, something made much easier in our day by the information revolution and the Internet. We dare not put our trust in subjective claims unless the claims made by such are accompanied by the biblically expected signs with much power. And even then we need to test those in a world where now there is so much supernatural counterfeiting.

In any case, these different viewpoints concerning a 'messianic expectation' should not discourage us. Quite the contrary. By learning what people thought, and why, we can make sure we don't repeat the same mistakes of the past and jump uncritically onto every prophetic bus claiming to be divine. We can also learn about what people back then thought a Messiah should do. (And by the way, we can apply the same execise I want to now take you through in testing all the thousands of so-called 'prophets' and 'apostles' crying out to be believed). So I hope this exercise will be useful.

One of the central tasks facing a Messiah, it seems, is that He would have to fight the decisive battle against Israel's enemies, both the pagan hordes who were always coming in fresh waves to overwhelm Yahweh's people (Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans to name but four from ancient times), and the renegades within Israel who were colluding with their pagan masters and corrupting the pure life of Elohim's (God's) people. This would then go hand-in-hand with the task of purifying the people's worship by renewing or restoring the Temple. It is because Yah'shua (Jesus) showed no sign of being a military leader, and because He showed no interest in cleaning up the Temple, that many said then, and many have said since, that He couldn't have been in any sense thinking of Himself as 'Messiah'.

That's what they thought back then and people are thinking similar thoughts today about the Second Coming with many who don't expect a literal, physical Second Coming (like the Jehovah's Witnesses and many liberal Christians) at all, many who think He has to clean up the 'Church' first and so are looking for 'revival' (He won't - He intends to gather the Remnant out of the 'Church' and leave the 'Church' to decay and be taken over by the One World Religion), and many who think like the 'Kingdom Now' Christians that He will cause Christians to secure political power and transform the world politically and militarily, a reason so many Zionist Christians and Jews support every military action of the Republic of Israel (He won't - the political system, as we've learned in the Book of Revelation, is slated for complete destruction). So believers are thinking about the Messiah today in pretty much the same way the Jews thought back then.

People today are quick to forget (or just plain don't want to know because they prefer arm-of-flesh solutions to spiritual ones - military might as against spiritual warfare) just how radical Yah'shua's (Jesus') own redefinition of the Jewish expectation seems to have been. Throughout His public career He took as His main theme the belief which the apostle John has been celebrating on and off throughout the Book of Revelation, namely, the Kingdom of Elohim (God) because He frames the idea of a 'kingdom' in very different terms to the way that the carnally-minded do. Cast your minds back to chapter 11 where the 7th malak (angel), after he had blown his shofar (trumpet) cried out:

""The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Master (Lord = Yahweh) and of His Messiah (Christ), and He will reign (as the King which He has now become) for ever and ever" (Rev.11:15, NIV).

Literally (and, in my view, more accurately) translated:

"...the kingdom ('reign' - ISRV = rulership, sovereignty) of the world has passed (been transferred) to our Master (LORD = Yahweh) and His Messiah..." (Rev.11:15, KNT).

And as we saw two weeks ago in the first half of chapter 19, and verse 6:

"HalleluYah! Yahweh our Elohim (God), the Almighty, has become King (Ruler, Sovereign) ('YHWH El Shaddai reigns' - ISRV)" (Rev.19:6b, KNT).

This understanding is critical because most Evangelicals just don't 'get' the 'Kingdom' aspect of the Four Gospels (because they're almost entirely focussed on Paul's writings) even though they, like us, pray the Master's (Lord's) Prayer, saying, "Thy Kingdom come...on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt.6:10, KJV), i.e. 'may Your Kingdom rulership above in the heavens come...to this earth below in the physical'.

Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself spoke of victory - but it was not the victory that we might expect (and the Zealots before us) through human military action over the forces of Rome which would require another human imperial power to accomplish it that would have mutated into, and ended up as, simply 'another Rome' or 'another Babylon'. Indeed, when others like the Zealots wanted to fight Rome, Yah'shua (Jesus) hinted strongly if strangely that this was missing the proper target or mark, and was therefore a sinful idea...something the 'Kingdom Now' people and their 'neo-conservative' military and political instruments need to seriously think about and repent from. You see, the true enemy was the dark, satanic power that stood behind Rome and all other pagan empires, including our highly demonised modern élites. Yah'shua (Jesus) spoke about fighting a battle with the real enemy, haSatan - 'the satan', 'the adversary', the one who has led all humanity, Israel and the 'Church' included, into rebellion against the Creator-Elohim (God), Yahweh. And - this is the critically important thing - please note it well, underline it with the thickest marker you have, and many times - Yah'shua (Jesus) taught that the ultimate way to fight this true battle was by giving up His life to crucifixion. We fight the same fight, on a human level, by overcoming the fleshy nature and engaging in spiritual warfare for the souls of men and the welfare of the Remnant.

We spoke a lot last week about the military aspect of Revelation 19 but we must now interpret the symbols used in terms of what we know Yah'shua (Jesus) did on the cross and not merely suppose that chapter 19 is literally talking about some military action to be taken by Heaven in the future - with or without human agents and armies - even if the outcome of that action appears the same. Once more, this is symbolic language, truly pointing to a reality which lies beyond it. Yah'shua (Jesus) isn't going to literally appear in Jerusalem on a white horse with a sword poking out of His mouth carrying a flag (or flashing his thigh if you still believe most English Bible translations) and wearing red robes with 'King of Kings, and Master of masters' written all over both. And those of us who have died and are returning won't be sat on literal white horses either. Is He physically returning, then? Of course.

Yet it would be a great mistake, of the highest possible order, to suppose (as 'Kingdom Now' and others Christians and Messianics have sadly done, and are still doing) that this passage predicts, and legitimates in advance, an actual physical battle between the followers of Yah'shua (Jesus) (whether as a multi-national force, the United States, or any other supposedly 'Christian' nation) and the followers of other gods (or no gods at all like the communists). This would be as equally a grand error as it would be to suppose that the reality which corresponds to the Beast or 'Monster' (KNT) that comes up from the sea is an actual physical creature with the heads, horns and so on described in chapter 12. But is he a literal, physical person like Messiah? Of course. This is not an attempt to spiritualise everything away but to simply recognise allegory, metaphor and symbol for what they are - allgories, metaphors and symbols.

The victory announced here in todays' segment of text is therefore a victory over all pagan, satanic and atheistic power, which means, amongst other things, a victory over man-made political systems and over their chief instrument of power, coersion and violence itself. The symbolism used is absolutely appropriate because it is taken directly from the passages which speak most powerfully, and are most regularly referred to in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament), of the Triumph of Messiah, and in three main Tanakh (Old Testament) chapters which should always be read in conjunction with Revelation 19:

• 1. Isaiah, chapter 11, where the Messiah will judge the nations with the sword of His mouth;
• 2. Psalm, chapter 2, where He will rule them with a rod of iron; and
• 3. Isaiah, chapter 63, where He will tread the winepress of the wrath of Elohim (God).

As John's readers would have known well by now, the actual weapons which Christ uses to win the battle are His loving self-sacrifice in making blood atonement for sin and in releasing cosmic power to begin the task of New Creation. And so it was, that the 16th century Catholic poet, hymnodist and priest, Robert Southwell (1561-1595), penned this beautiful poem in which he gloried in the paradox of Yah'shua (Jesus) and His victory:

With tears He fights, and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield.
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows made of weeping eyes.
His martial ensigns cold and need,
and feeble flesh His warrior's steed.

I am not saying that this is the only way that we can best make sense of the spectacular portrait of Yah'shua (Jesus) in verses 11-16 but I certainly believe it is the primary one, and that we will most likely lose our way if we do otherwise. This is how the King of kings and Master of masters (Lord of lords) comes before the world. The ultimate justice which drives His victorious battle (v.11) is the justice of Elohim's (God's) ahavah (love) and chesed (mercy), which will not work with anything other than the Davar or Word (vv.13,15), and will not be dressed in anything other than purity and holiness (note, if you would, the 'shining, pure linen' (KNT), 'white and clean' (NKJV), of verse 14, matching the Bride's dress in verse 8). Love will win the day, because in the person of Yah'shua (Jesus) it has trampled the grapes of wrath once and for all (v.15). Again, I am not saying this is the only way of viewing these verses, but it is certainly the primary one and we should never diminish that. Will literal warfare and bloodshed be a manifestation? It certainly looks like it, at least as far as the judgment of the wicked is concerned, otherwise passages like Isaiah 4:1, which describe the aftermath of terrible warfare on earth, don't make a lot of sense. We must not make the mistake of allegorising everything because there is bound to be a physical response and impact to judgment and love in a physical sense too.

If the military imagery is just that (in the primary sense) - imagery - so it follows that the picture of birds swooping in, like so many vultures, to gorge themselves on the flesh of those who follow the Beast and the False Prophet, is likewise. If the Whore has been dealt with in chapters 17 and 18, now it is the turn of these two, the great imperial system and the local political élites who promote it and deceive the nations. Here they all are for one last battle. (Indeed, as I mentioned in passing last week, the well-known Narnia story, The Last Battle, by C.S.Lewis, owes a good deal to the Book of Revelation, not least his brilliant portrayal of the ways in which the Beast and the False Prophet deceive the people). Their fate is to be thrown alive 'into the lake of fire which burns with sulphur (brimstone)' (v.20, KNT) which is an echo of various biblical passages, not least the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18. Again, this is not to deny that there will be a literal, physical Beast/Antichrist and a literal False Prophet, who will be cast into literal, physical Lake of Fire, or that literal, physical armies will be clashing. It means that believers are not to be involved, on earth, in any kind of physical, Islamic-type jihad. Our warfare is spiritual for the most part.

Today we are increasingly oppressed by the wicked forces of the satanic élites, and the local propaganda machines like online social media and the educational, cultural and political institutions that promote their diabolical cause. Many otherwise well-intentioned people are taken in by the lies and deceits which these systems continue to pour out. Revelation 19 stands as a promise to the first, and a warning to the second. Once you understand who Yah'shua (Jesus) was, and is, and the significance of the victory which He has won in His death and resurrection, there can be no doubt as to the final outcome. Lies and deceits will continue to spread, even after penultimate exposure and judgment so we must be on our guard and not celebrate local victories prematurely. But know this: the King of kings and the Master of masters (Lord of lords) was, is, and will be victorious. In the meantime, there must be no compromise with the devilish system that will continue to run our affairs here for a little bit longer, and a determination to pursue holiness at all costs.

Next week we shall move into chapter 20 and the glorious Millennium. Until then, be watchful, in prayer and doing battle as true believers always have always done for two millennia. Yahweh bless you all, in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen

Acknowledgements

[1] Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone - The New Testament for Everyone Commentary Series, Vol.19 (SPCK, London: 2011)
[2] E.W.Bullinger*, Commentary on Revelation (Kregel Classics, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1984)
[3] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (JNT Publications, Clarksville, Maryland: 1992)
[4] ESV Study Bible (Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois: 2011)
[5] The NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995)
[6] Ed. J.R.Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (MacMillan, London: 1909)
[7] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007)

*E.W.Bullinger was a brilliant Anglican clergyman and scholar whose works merit careful study by serious students of the Bible. He was, however, seriously in error in at least three main areas, namely, (1) he believed the 'Church' has been raptured before the Book of Revelation opens, (2) he believed that the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 are 7, literal Jewish churches or assemblies yet to come, and (3) he believed in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture.

• C. The Far Future
  • C1. Chapter 19
    
    • C1.1. Yahweh's Victory Celebration (19:1-10)
    • C1.2. The Beast Defeated (19:11-21)
  • C2. Chapter 20
    
    • C2.1. The Millennial Reign (20:1-6)
    • C2.2. The Final Judgment (20:7-15)
  • C3. Chapter 21:1-21
    
    • C3.1. The New Heaven & Earth (21:1-5)
    • C3.2. The New Jerusalem (21:6-21)
  • C4. Chapter 21:22-22:21
    
    • C4.1. New Jerusalem (21:22-22:7)
    • C4.2. 'I am Coming Soon' (22:8-21)