Chapter 15

The beginning of the devil’s desperation is the middle of the Tribulation and two things occur at that time, both found in Revelation chapter twelve: the expulsion of Satan from heaven (12:1-12) and the seventh trumpet, the great holocaust attack on Israel (12:13-17). It must be remembered that all of this comes to pass because people ask for it. We are the products of our own decisions, one of the most basic concepts in the doctrine of historical trends. Nothing ever happens to the human race apart from bad decisions from a position of weakness. Then, secondly, we noted in chapter thirteen the devil’s two dictators: the Gentile dictator of 13:1-10, the dictator of the revived Roman empire and the leader of the ecumenical religious system which is the greatest concentration of evil of all time; then, in the last half of chapter 13, verses 11-18, we studied the Jewish dictator of the state of Israel in the last half of the Tribulation. In chapter fourteen we noted the divine victory during the time of the devil’s desperation. In verses 1-5 we studied the victory of the plan of God. In verses 6-20 the victory of the judgment of God and the concept of protocol in heaven, relating it to protocol as a part of the divine system in God’s plan for your life.

Next in chapters fifteen and sixteen, they go together: divine judgment during the devil’s desperation. In chapter fifteen we see protocol functioning in the seven last plagues in heaven and then protocol functioning in the seven bowl judgements on earth in chapter sixteen. In chapters seventeen and eighteen we have two chapters concentrated on the evils of religion and how religion is the most evil system that Satan has ever invented. We will see in chapter 17 the fall, the judgment of the political aspect of ecumenical religion, and then in chapter 18 we will see the fall of the so-called spiritual aspect of ecumenical religion. Actually, these two chapters, 17 & 18, are simply an amplification of the seventh bowl judgment. Then we will move on to chapters nineteen and twenty to the termination of the devil’s desperation. In chapter nineteen is the second advent of Christ, and in chapter twenty, verses 1-3, the imprisonment of Satan.

We should notice as we proceed that the seven last plagues of chapter fifteen are identical to the seven vials or bowls of chapter sixteen. They are synonymous terms. We know that from chapter 21:9. In heaven they are simply called plagues; on earth when they are administered we can call them bowls or grenades or vials.

In chapter 15:1-4 we have the sign in heaven. In verse 1 we see the last of the Tribulational judgements, the greatest historical disaster in all of man’s life on earth. Now we meet the execution squad. These seven angels are the execution squad.

This is said to be a great sign in heaven. We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then,” followed by the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw, “Then I saw.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, and this is the vision of the next two chapters, the seven last plagues or the seven bowl judgements. The active voice: the apostle John produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the vision of the seven last plagues of chapter fifteen which are synonymous with the seen bowl judgements of chapter sixteen. With this we have the accusative neuter singular direct object, and we have the adjective. The direct object is composed of a)lloj, meaning another of the same kind, another system of judgment, a system of judgment similar to the seven seals and then the seven trumpets. And with this we have the noun shmeion which means a sign or a miracle, something that is contrary to the usual course of nature. This means a miracle of divine origin which is performed by God as a vehicle of revelation or communication of Bible doctrine to those who have so far rejected it. God is going to get the attention of the negative part of the human race. “Then I saw another sign,” another sign because there are seven signs in the book of Revelation, starting in 12:1 at which point we noted them briefly. The Jews are constantly seeking signs or attesting miracles so that they were distracted from Bible doctrine and looked always for the miracle. So when we have a reference to signs in the book of Revelation we know that we are going to be dealing with Israel and the state of Israel. In John 4:48 our Lord said, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” He was addressing Himself to the Jewish nation, those who rejected the fact that He was the Messiah.

Principle: Miracles, supernatural activity, is not the basis for faith in the Lord Jesus Christ or perception of doctrine. The reality of doctrine is far greater than any miracle that anyone ever sees, and miracles generally become a distraction for miracles are performed by Satan and by Satan’s organisation. Therefore you do not assume in this time of a completed canon of scripture that a miracle means that a person comes from God. The person may be using a Satanic miracle for false teaching to gain adherents. The age of miracles is over, it ended with the completion of the canon of scripture. The reality of truth is found in Bible doctrine, not in the function of miracles.

Miracles or signs without doctrine are a distraction from doctrine but when the sign is given by God it is to teach Bible doctrine. This sign is in heaven therefore it is not visible to us, only through the eyes of John. It is not the performance of a miracle on the earth but a system of protocol related to the supernatural in heaven. Here we have a sign that teaches the eschatology of the seven last disasters in history.

The location of the sign: e)n plus the locative of o)uranoj, “in [the third] heaven.” Since this is a sign in the third heaven, the abode of God, it will be a teaching sign to introduce the eschatology of the seven last plagues. We know that this sign is doctrinal teaching, a teaching aid actually, in the field of eschatology because it is described by two adjectives. The two adjectives which follow: the accusative singular of megaj. Whatever it is, in the eyes of God it is “great”; and qaumastoj, which has several meanings as an adjective. It is used for things related to God, and it is the verbal adjective meaning marvellous, astonishing, noteworthy. “Then I saw another sign in heaven, both great and remarkable.” It describes the content of the seven last plagues, the greatest disasters of history. Judgment from God is always awesome, therefore it is noteworthy, it is remarkable, it is the means by which God evangelises and gives a last chance to those in history who are being judged to believe in Christ.

The concept is very simple: Divine discipline is for the believer; divine judgment is for the unbeliever.

We are now in the second stage of divine warning to the unbeliever. The grace of God is always there, grace precedes judgment, judgment is used to present grace in a stronger form. The seven pur sui vant angels who act as the execution squad are now introduced. They are said to be “seven angels,” e(pta plus a)ggeloj. These angels are pur sui vant messengers and they are all aristocrats. They must be able to think, to obey, to execute, under the system of protocol. In this operation none of the common angels, the angels who failed or the angels who did nothing during the prehistoric angelic conflict, are involved. This is a job for aristocrats. Aristocrats among creatures are always the right ones for the crisis. They will follow divine orders right down to the last point, and that is exactly what we have here. This is an execution squad of aristocrats, pur sui vant messengers from the angelic college of heralds. This squad will not go into action until chapter sixteen. The first of the seven will pull the pin on his grenade in 16:2, the second one in verse 3, the third in verse 4, the fourth one in verse 8, and so on. The order of battle in the administration of these seven judgements is very carefully handled in every echelon of the angelic college of heralds and we will note their various functions.

Next we have a present active participle from the verb e)xw. The lesson we probably supposed to learn here is that if you want a job done right give it to someone who is high-class enough to do it. The point is: scum never can do the job. The difference between scum and high-class in Christianity is the difference between life in the divine dynasphere and life in the cosmic system. In other words, Christians in the cosmic system, no matter what their social status may be, are scum and cannot do anything for God. The majority of born-again believers live in the cosmic system, therefore they cannot execute God’s plan on earth. And there were a lot of those in the prehistoric angelic conflict who are not doing the job. They didn’t do the job then; they are not given the job now. The ones who are ready for the crisis, the crisis personality, are believers living in God’s plan, function in God’s system. He has the right priorities, the necessary virtue. This execution squad is taken from the aristocracy, the angelic college of heralds. The same thing is true when God wants a member of the human race to do something. He gets the believer who is living in the divine dynasphere, the believer who is consistently positive, the believer who in that sense is the spiritual aristocrat, the crisis personality, the one who can stand in the gap. Always a minority of believers are involved but those are the believers that God can use.

So we have the present active participle of e)xw, and the pictorial present actually presents to the mind the eschatological events in heaven under the same concept we have studied, protocol. The active voice: the pur sui vant messengers from the angelic college of heralds, aristocrats, produce the action. They are a lower category of aristocrat, they are wingless angels, in contrast to their commanding officer who is a seraph. We have seen that their commanding officer was under the command of a staff: the king of arms, the officer of arms, the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father.

The circumstantial participle follows and we have with this an accusative direct object, and the direct object is first of all a numeral, e(pta, “seven.” Next is e)sxatoj, and that is very important. The word is “last,” “the seven last,” because this is the end of all historical disaster. All disaster in history is going to terminate with these events. This will be the last war in history and the whole topography of planet earth is going to undergo some tremendous changes. There are going to be all kinds of disasters and this is the last of it. We use the word “plague” here in the King James version which is more or less of a transliteration from the noun plhgh. Plhgh really means disaster but these are seven historical disasters or seven plagues.

Next we have the causal use of the conjunction o(ti, “because.” Then e)n plus the locative of a)utoj, “in them.” What is in them? The nominative singular subject qumoj, “anger,” “wrath”; and the possessive genitive of qeoj, “of God.” This is an anthropopathism. God does not get angry but to explain divine policy in terms of human frame of reference we have the word wrath or anger used. Then the aorist passive indicative of telew, “has been completed.”

The word which will come up in the next chapter is fialh, mistranslated as “vial” in the King James version. That is actually a bowl, and that bowl is going to be shaped more or less like a grenade and inside is the qumoj, the wrath of God. Each member of the execution squad pulls his pin, pours out the content of his bowl. There are seven of them and they are called the seven last judgements. They are far worse than anything the world has ever experienced or ever will. That is why the last half of this period is called “the great Tribulation”. And because it is so bad people would say there is no way you could live on the earth, but there will be millions of people who will survive these things — believers and unbelievers. One of the things we will learn is how they survive, why they survive.

“because in them the wrath of God has been completed.” The culminative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, namely the administration of the seven last plagues which are synonymous with the seven bowl judgements of the next chapter. The passive voice: the wrath or judgment of God receives the action of the verb, completion. The indicative mood is declarative for the eschatological reality of the completion of divine judgment prior to the second advent.

Translation: “Then I saw another sign in [the third] heaven, both great and awesome [or noteworthy], seven angels [the execution squad] who have seven plagues, the last ones; because in them the wrath of God has been completed.”

In verse two we have the victorious martyrs of the future. We are going to see a great principle, that those who have Bible doctrine, those who are believers and have learned truth, have great victory in death just as they do in life. Those who understand doctrine and believe it, those who utilise the rationales of the second stage of the faith-rest drill, always understand the fact that death is not a disaster and that there are no accidents in the spiritual life. When death overtakes anyone of us it is not a tragedy, it is not a disaster, it is time for the Lord to take us home. We understand that no one ever departs from this earth by death, believer or unbeliever, apart from the Lord’s permission. When people die in a so-called tragic way it has something to do with their decisions in life, and when believers die it has everything to do with God’s decision in heaven. For the born-again believer whether he was a winner or a loser in this life makes no difference. When he dies it is a victory, it is a celebration. He is absent from the body and face to face with the Lord, he is in an interim body and he is in a state of perfect happiness. The losers will have embarrassment only at the judgment seat of Christ. When the Lord calls anyone home it is His call. It is not even a guess, it is the Lord’s time, it is the right time.

We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then,” the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw, which means a vision given, an eschatological vision to John so that he can tell us about some future generation. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the vision of the Tribulational martyrs is gathered up into a single whole. The apostle John produces the action of the verb, he has given this doctrine. The declarative indicative mood represents the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. It is gong to happen in the future.

Here are some people who are going to die young. They are going to be martyred because in a short period of time after their conversion they learned a lot of doctrine. That means there will be some good Bible teaching from angels, from Moses, from Elijah, from a lot of different sources. The Tribulational is a period of great doctrinal teaching as well as great evangelism. And because these people refuse to accept religion they are going to be killed by religion.

We have a comparative particle o(j here which tells us “something like.” It means something like a sea of glass here, it is not a direct analogy. It is something very beautiful and described from the eye of John whose frame of reference goes to a magnificently calm sea. It is so calm and so clear that it looks like crystal. So we have the accusative singular direct object from qalassa, and with it we have a descriptive genitive u(alinoj, “sea of crystal.” It is something like a sea of crystal, something like a sea but it is calm, no waves. The sea of glass or crystal represents the interim state of believers who are waiting for the resurrection body in heaven. In chapter 4:6 the sea of glass depicted the interim state of Church Age believers as the royal family of God but in this passage we have something slightly different: believers of another dispensation. They are in a state, of course, of perfect bliss in their interim body while waiting for their Rapture. In this passage we have the interim state of Tribulational martyrs, those who are waiting for their resurrection bodies at the second advent. In the interim state these Tribulational martyrs have offered imprecatory prayers which will be answered in the administration of the seven last plagues or historical disasters which are synonymous with the seven bowl judgements. Two passages describe the Tribulational martyrs who are the sea of glass, 6:9-11; 7:13-17. This explains our sea of glass. It is refreshment, tranquillity, great happiness. The sea is of glass, it cannot be influenced by the winds and the tides, there is no rough sea in heaven. There is no unhappiness or misery for any believer immediately after he dies. The only time he would be unhappy would be to experience shame as a loser when it is time to pass out rewards and decorations and to see if he was on the honours list or not.

This sea of glass is said to be mixed with something, the perfect passive participle from the verb mignumi. The perfect tense denotes completed action with existing results from that action. It refers to the imprecatory prayers which occur at intervals as different martyrs join the host in heaven. The Tribulational martyrs do not spend all their time in prayer but occasionally as their numbers swell in heaven they offer this category of prayer. The existing results of this action are found in four chapters, chapter 15, the seven last plagues as a part of the function of protocol in heaven; chapter 16, the seven bowl judgements; chapter 17, the amplification of the seventh bowl judgment in the destruction of the political aspect of ecumenical religion; chapter 18, the destruction of the religious Babylon takes place. The passive voice: the sea of glass receives the action of the verb, which means that the tranquillity of the interim state is punctuated by certain activities such as the imprecatory prayers. The participle is circumstantial and used here as a relative clause. With this we have the instrumental of association singular from the noun pur, “fire.” The fire refers to the imprecatory prayers of the Tribulational martyrs.

The winner status of these Tribulational martyrs is mentioned next. We have the use of the conjunction kai, translated “even.” Then the accusative plural direct object, and in that direct object we have this form: touj. That is the accusative plural of the definite article used as a personal pronoun and referring to these who have died during the Tribulation — “even those.” Then the present active participle from the verb nikaw, “victory.” We translate it: “even those who have departed victorious.” The present tense of duration translated like a perfect tense in the English indicates that what has happened in time, these people were winners in time, winners over the great religious system which persecuted them, continues in their present interim state. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs who have advanced to maturity in the system produce the action. The participle is circumstantial.

The victory is said to be from the beast dictator, e)k plus the ablative of qhrion. It refers to the beast dictator of the revived Roman empire who is the religious ruler of the ecumenical system. No human being will ever exploit the cosmic system’s power like this future dictator will.

The victory of these Tribulation martyrs is based upon three factors. First of all, they made good decisions from a position of strength. Their position of strength is their knowledge of doctrine, their understanding of the divine system, the divine plan for their lives, as it exists in that period of history. Secondly, they have personal control of their lives and they make their decisions knowing the consequences will be death. Thirdly, they have a very fine personal sense of destiny. These Tribulational martyrs departed from life victorious over the beast dictator because they used a greater power than the most powerful person who will ever live as far as human beings. While the divine dynasphere is no longer the system for the Tribulation the divine plan has all of the categories in the divine dynasphere. The primary difference in God’s plan for the Church Age believer and these men of the future is that they have a slightly different ministry of God the Holy Spirit, it goes back to the time of the Old Testament. But apart from this the principle is the same: victory over the beast dictator is the result of becoming a winner by daily decisions for the divine system. The believer who is a winner has much greater power than the most devout Satanic servant in the cosmic system. Since Satan is the ruler of this world his servants often have greater political power but this power cannot force renunciation of Christ from a mature believer. The areas of victory over the beast dictator are given in the passage as it unfolds.

Next we have the connective conjunction kai, “both,” and then a preposition e)k plus the ablative of e)ikon. With it we have a)utoj, the intensive pronoun used as a personal pronoun, here a possessive genitive, “both from his image.” The image, of course, is the symbol of the dictator of the ecumenical religious system. Since idolatry is the best means of demon contact idolatry is necessary for the ecumenical religious system of the beast dictator. We have a second conjunction kai translated “and,” “and from the number of his name,” again we have a repetition of e)k plus a)riqmoj.

We have previously noted in chapter 13:14-18 that the number of the beast dictator is 666. All that 666 is is a part of computerised tyranny of the ecumenical religious system of the Tribulation. Computers have many applications. Most of them are good, many of them are not. Crime by computer is obviously one of the misapplications but computers are definitely here to stay and the fact that the dictator in the future is going to establish an ecumenical religious system and computerise the whole system these things should not surprise us at all. Of course there is no honour or virtue in Satan’s ecumenical religious system and we will see that in chapters 17 & 18. We have already noted the ID card issued to the adherents of Satan’s ecumenical religious system of the Tribulation, and it is tied up to a computer number. Apparently 666 is nothing more than a code number or representative of a code number for computerised tyranny. The religious persecution will be against those who reject the religious system through demonism, terrorism, social and economic ostracism, violence, torture, execution. All of these things will be experienced primarily by those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The principle: Religion destroys the privacy of the individual with its freedom plus self-determination, and this historical trend in the Tribulation, computerised tyranny, has already begun in this decade by technology.

We have to be very careful as so-called fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalists have a very bad habit of getting extreme and really going overboard. Computers have good applications and they have bad applications. That depends on the individual involved. So don’t be a stupid “fundy” and go around saying, “Down with computers”! Obviously the person who is making the application here is a genius whom we studied in chapter thirteen, verses 1-10. He makes maximum use of the computer to find out who is for him and who is against him. This means that computerised tyranny which is already used in some cases in some places apparently is going to be a thing of the future just as many of the blessings of the computer will be available. And, of course, this does not imply the proximity of the Tribulation because computers are here but it means that whenever the Tribulation occurs there will be a maximum use of it in the field of tyranny. Computerised tyranny must be related to something. Who would think of making the computer a system of tyranny? Well, what is the most evil thing in the world? Religion. And remember Christianity is not a religion, Christianity is a relationship with God through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a relationship, not a religion. But religion is salvation by works, by morality, by joining a church, by changing your behaviour pattern, by philosophical application. The world is filled with religion because Satan is the father of all religious systems, and in the future religion will make an evil application of the computer. Computerised tyranny, then, is a religious program system which controls through the computer the life of mankind on the earth during the Tribulation. The number 666 is nothing more than a code number in which the computer designates all members of Satan’s ecumenical religion in good standing during the last half of the Tribulation. 666 is merely the key to the memory bank, and the memory bank of the computer destroys both the privacy and the freedom of those who are outside the religion and becomes the means of persecuting of believers during this awful time in human history. So obviously this is an application with which we cannot agree. Any application which destroys the privacy of the individual is not a good application because without privacy you cannot have freedom.

The phrase “and over his mark” is not found in the manuscript at this point. Notice the difference in the translation. The preposition e)k in this context must take its meaning from the verb nikaw and therefore it is translated “over,” rather than the usual “from” or “by.” There is a comparison of power and the power of Bible doctrine resident in the soul versus the power of this great dictator, and there is a principle that comes out of this: the greatest power in the world is what you think. If you think erroneously it becomes a power for evil; if you think correctly according to truth and doctrine then it becomes a power for good. And so the greatest power in history is not the power of arms but it is thought in the soul. So the power of life is in the power of thought and the more doctrine you have you increase your power in the field of thinking.

Next we have a perfect active indicative from the verb i(stemi, and it means to stand, “and they stood.” It is a dramatic perfect tense, therefore a rhetorical application of the perfect tense used to describe a fact which is unusually vivid and to describe it in a very realistic way. Like the intensive perfect it emphasises the results of the action, the blessings of the interim state for the believer who died before his resurrection. He died as a martyr standing for doctrine, refusing to compromise doctrine. The active voice: believers in the Tribulation who are martyrs produce the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial, it expresses an additional fact of thought which is best translated in the English by the use of the f inite verb and the conjunction “and.” With this we have the preposition e)pi plus the accusative of qalassa, “on the sea of glass.”

Then they are said to be holding something: the present active participle of e)xw, “holding.” The present tense is a pictorial present, it presents to the mind a picture of eschatological events in the process of occurrence. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs produce the action. Again we have a circumstantial participle but emphasis here is on the fact that the action of the present participle is coterminous with the action of the main verb. The previous circumstantial participle is translated as a finite verb, so when we put it together it says, “they stood on the sea of glass holding” something from God, and that would be the accusative direct object of kiqara, “harp.”

The harp is a musical instrument and we note something of its significance as far as the Bible is concerned. The harp is a musical instrument but it is always associated with something in the Bible. It is associated with happiness. Hanging a harp, for example, on a willow tree is a sign of great misery. When you are not playing a harp is a sign of unhappiness. Hanging a harp on the willow tree is a sign of not only great misery but it means that because it is no longer in use there is no happiness in that vicinity. This was found in Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon.” The Jews were out under the 5th cycle of discipline. They were in a state of slavery, therefore they were in a state of misery. They no longer enjoyed the freedom and the blessing that they had previously known as a client nation.

So Psalm 137:1 begins by expressing the 5th cycle of discipline. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion [the hill which was the headquarters for the client nation]. On the willows in the middle of it [the river Babylon] we hung our harps.” So they hung their harps on the willows, indicating that they were in a state of great sadness.

Isaiah 24:8, “The gaiety of tambourines ceases, the noise of revellers stops, the gaiety of the harp ceases.” The harp is always associated as a musical instrument with some form of happiness.

Describing the 5th cycle of discipline in terms of no happiness, Ezekiel 26:13 says, “So I will cause the sound of your songs to cease, and the sound of your harps will be heard no more.”

It is concluded that the sound of the harp was the sign of genuine happiness based on the laws of divine establishment. The fact that these martyrs possess harps indicates that they are in a permanent state of happiness. The sea of tranquillity or the sea of glass indicates the blessing of he eternal state, as per Revelation 21:4, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; there shall be no more death; neither shall there be any sorrow, or crying, or pain; for the former things have passed away. The harp, therefore, makes a beautiful musical sound to accompany the content of doctrine in the psalm or hymn which will be sung in the next two verses, 15:3,4. The hymn sung by the Tribulational martyrs will express their happiness, their blessing, their point of contact for such blessing from their grace orientation and momentum while they were living in phase two. Note also that Bible doctrine resident in these Tribulational martyrs gives them victory over the power of the personality of one of the most powerful people that ever lived, the ruler of the revived Roman empire. Hence, they passed the people test. They also won over the pressure of organised religion, economic pressure, and public opinion pressure. They passed every test. Therefore they glorify the Lord and they enter into heaven for a well-deserved victory celebration.

Translation of verse 2: “Then I saw something like a sea of glass [the interim state of tranquillity belonging to the Tribulational martyrs] which had been mixed with fire [prior persecution and also the imprecatory prayers of 6:9-11]: even those who had been victorious over the beast dictator [of the revived Roman empire], both over his image [the abomination of desolation], and over the number of his name, and they stood on the sea of glass, holding harps [indicating great happiness] from God.”

In is inevitable that since these Tribulational martyrs are winners — they have taken a stand for Bible doctrine which has cost them their lives — that they would have something to sing. They are going to sing as an expression of their morale, as an expression of their mental attitude, as an expression of their happiness, as an expression of the fact that they are winners and they know that they are winners. In verse 3 we have the victory hymn of the Tribulational martyrs.

First of all we have the title of the hymn that they sing. This follows the Hebrew system of including in the actual verse itself the title that is going to be given. We have a connective conjunction kai translated “And.” Then the present active indicative of the verb a)idw, the Greek word for singing. The futuristic present tense denotes and event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already coming to pass. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs express their happiness in song. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of singing expressing happiness. The accusative singular direct object from the noun o)ide follows, the word for hymn or a song, sometimes translated “ode.” Then we have the possessive genitive singular from the proper noun from the word Mwsej which is more or less transliterated, “And they sing the song of Moses.”

Then a brief word about Moses, the appositional genitive of douloj indicates the thing that is emphasised here, plus the possessive genitive of qeoj, “the servant [or slave] of God.”

One of the nicest thing about using our freedom properly is to become God’s slave. It is by far the greatest status quo in life: the status quo with the greatest amount of happiness, the greatest amount of blessing, the greatest amount of virtue, the greatest amount of everything that is worthwhile. You have to work hard to become a slave and it is by far the greatest of all states as far as life is concerned. Once you are a slave of God, God as the slave-master provides everything that we will ever need and more besides. We have the greatest privilege in the world because we do not have to become involved or entangled in the affairs of this world, Satan being the ruler of this world, we can simply fulfil God’s plan for our lives and life becomes very simple and very meaningful and very wonderful.

The hymn of Moses is actually divided into two parts: the book of Exodus, chapter 15, and the other at the end of the ministry of Moses in Deuteronomy. The beginning of the ministry of Moses is characterised by the hymn celebrating the Lord’s deliverance of the Jews in the Red Sea incident. The end of the ministry of Moses is characterised by the hymn he wrote to teach the Jews after his death, Deuteronomy chapter 32. The purpose of the hymn of Moses is given in Deuteronomy 31:18-22.

Anticipating the apostasy of Israel in the land after the death of Moses our Lord said to him, “But I will surely hide my face in that day [the day of negative volition, reversionism, apostasy, scar tissue of the soul] because of all the evil that they will do [the cosmic involvement of the Jews of the next generation], for they will turn to other gods. Now therefore write this hymn for yourselves, and teach it to the citizens of Israel; put it in their mouth, in order that this hymn may be a witness for me against the citizens of Israel.

For I will bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I promised to their fathers, and when they are eaten and are satisfied and become prosperous, then they will turn to other gods and serve them [they wouldn’t pass the prosperity test],” no nation ever permanently passes the test of its own prosperity. Very few nations can stand over 100 years of prosperity, “they will both spurn me and break my covenant.”

This is why the hymn was written, and the singing of this hymn by the Tribulational martyrs is a reminder that they passed the prosperity test, and then some.

“Then it shall come to pass when many evils [cosmic involvement] and troubles have come upon them, that this hymn will testify before them as a witness (for it shall not be forgotten from the mouth of their descendants); for I know their motivation which they are developing today, before I have brought them into the land which I have promised them. So Moses wrote this hymn the same day, and he taught it to the sons of Israel.”

It is a hymn to remind every generation that the key to everything in life is not the prosperity they happen to be enjoying at the moment but how that prosperity came about. The key to almost everything in life is not what you have that you enjoy but, how did it come to pass that you have what you enjoy? How did it come about that you are prosperous? The real key is not what you are enjoying but the origin of what you are enjoying. And lest we forget, every blessing we have in this life, every bit of happiness, every bit of success, everything that it worthwhile, comes through the grace of God. God is the source of our blessing. And the same grace of God that gives us these things can remove them at any time, and generally the removal occurs because we can’t handle prosperity. So we have the song of Moses. It was taught to the children of Israel so that they would always associate their prosperity in the land with the source of all prosperity, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

A detailed analysis of the two hymns of Moses reveals the fact of the faithfulness and the grace of God through Israel, in spite of their many failures and many acts and functions of reversionism. He maintained them as a nation for almost 500 years even though they failed Him in time. These hymns are sung by the Tribulational martyrs who are now in heaven. Many of them are Jews who are living in the interim state as a part of their worship of our Lord Jesus Christ who is also the God of Israel. and even though Israel has failed as a client nation to God, and even though the Jews are scattered through the fifth cycle of discipline, the point of the hymn is the faithfulness of God. God is faithful to Israel and He will restore them top client nation status at the second advent.

The Tribulation is Israel’s darkest hour but while it is the darkest hour the principle must always be remembered that it is always darkest before the dawn. The dawn of Israel’s greatness will come at the second advent. At that time the unconditional covenants will all be fulfilled to Israel. In the meantime Israel strives mightily but they will never make it because the source of their blessing is the same as the source of our blessing — the Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, referring to the first part of the hymn of Moses in Exodus 15, the Lord will deliver regenerate Jews of the Tribulation at the second advent just as he delivered Israel from the armoured forces of Pharaoh by opening up the Red Sea. Therefore the Jews of the Tribulation who are believers in Christ must fulfil the same principle that the Jews fulfilled at the Red Sea under the command of Moses: “Stand still and watch the deliverance of the Lord.” To stand still means to do nothing, no crusader arrogance, no social action, no getting involved in this or that or the other thing. To stand still means to sit in the stands and watch the fascinating events of history unfold before your eyes. While people do not realise it your truly dynamic contribution to history is your spiritual advance from gate four to gate eight. So “watch the deliverance of the Lord” is one of the factors that was fulfilled by these Tribulational martyrs, and while they died from religious persecution they watched the deliverance of the Lord. This means that the historical disasters generation by the seven last plagues will not destroy either Israel or the entire human race.

Next we have the doubling of kai, which is translated “both and.” They sing both the hymn of Moses and then a second hymn, the descriptive genitive of a)rnion, “the hymn of the Lamb.” A)rnion refers to the saving work of Christ on the cross: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” All blessing from the Lord Jesus Christ begins with the most permanent of all blessing which is eternal salvation. From the moment that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ we come under logistical grace, whether we are winners or losers. Whether we succeed spiritually or whether we fail spiritually God is going to sustain us, God is going to provide for us, God is going to bless us, so that inevitably we are forced in to a position of thanksgiving when the reality hits. So we have a reference here to the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, who during His first advent became our substitute, was judged for our sins on the cross. He is described as the Lamb of God. Many times in the book of Revelation our Lord Jesus is described under this title. He is described under this title as a reminder that the source of all blessing in life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Next we have “and they sang.” We have the present active participle of the verb legw, which means to speak, to communicate. Here we are going to translate it singing, as a finite verb because it is a circumstantial participle, a pictorial present, to emphasise the lyrics, not the magnificent tune, whatever it was. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs in their interim state. Note that to play harps they must have an interim body.

The summary of that they sang is given in four lines. The first and third lines present a subject while the second and fourth lines give a vocative phrase which describe the uniqueness of the person of Christ related to His hypostatic union. Line one in the summary gives us the plan of God. The second line describes the power of God in the hymn. The third line the point of reference for God’s plan, and the fourth line the Millennial victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The first line is the principle of the plan of God and is described in terms of wonderful adjectives. We have the nominative neuter plural subject megaj. Megaj denotes greatness in relationship to visible phenomena. It was also used in connection with persons and objects who had force, power, or prosperity. Hence, it is often translated “powerful,” “dynamic” or “mighty.” Megaj was also used in connection with epiphanies of great deities and heroes. The general connotation continues in the Koine: great, splendid, magnificent, noble. With this we have a second adjective, the nominative plural adjective qaumastoj. Qaumastoj has a number of meanings: admirable, wonderful, remarkable, awesome. Both adjectives are in the plural indicating more than one facet of greatness plus more than one facet of being marvellous. We translate them, “great and marvellous.” The verb, because of the elliptical nature of the song, is left out. It would be the verb to be and we know this because the next word is a predicate nominative plural from e)rgon, correctly translated “deeds,” “works,” “actions,” “accomplishments,” “functions.” With it we have the possessive genitive from the personal pronoun su, “your deeds,” the deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ. This refers, of course, to the grace of God, and the whole point of the plan of God is found right here. It isn’t what we do, it is what God does, what God has done, what God will continue to do all of the way into eternity forever and ever. So the true concept of thanksgiving is right here as well as the true meaning of grace.

The concept

1. Everything in the plan of God is the work of God, the action of God, the deeds of God. Grace is God working for us. Therefore the source of thanksgiving, the source of all blessing: God the Father, author of the plan; God the Son, the executor of the plan on the cross and the basis of all blessing; God the Holy Spirit who gives us the reality of these blessings.

2. This is illustrated by the divine system of the plan of God for the Church Age believer. In the plan of God we have the divine dynasphere. It was given to us.

3. The first line emphasises grace as the policy of God in His plan for the believer.

4. We are saved by grace, therefore we are to live by grace. There is no difference in the pattern between salvation and the Christian way of life.

5. Under the policy of grace God does the work. God does the planning, God provides the means, God prospers or disciplines the believer, whatever is called for by His perfect wisdom.

6. Therefore there is no place in the plan of God for human merit, human ability, human success and attainment, or human personality dynamics. Grace excludes all human ability from the plan of God.

7. God is perfect; His plan is perfect. Man is imperfect, therefore man’s participation must exclude his human imperfection. A perfect God does not include in His plan human imperfection, sin and failure. So whatever you have by way of assets or defects neither is in the plan of God.

8. Grace does not permit human merit to function in the divine plan either at the point of salvation or at any time thereafter. The first line commemorates the grace of God as the policy of His divine plan for mankind: “Great and marvellous are your works.” This is just a summary, not the entire lyrics in the first line.

Note that saving grace, logistical grace, supergrace blessings, and even grace rewards in eternity all exclude human merit, human works, human ability, human self-righteousness that is human morality, human personality, or anything else that man can do by way of self-improvement. From the imputation of divine righteousness at salvation and the establishment of divine justice as the believer’s point of reference there is no room, no place for human works in any category. That means that all Christian service that would involve works must be motivated by the blessing of God. The intrusion of one good deed or function of human self-righteousness compromises the essence of God and therefore becomes legalistic arrogance, blasphemy in cosmic one. The divine system in which we function as believers demands our faithfulness, our consistent good decisions from a position of strength, but neither our faithfulness nor decisions are related to any form of human merit inside of the plan of God and the divine system. Nothing teaches grace like the doctrine of imputation and the doctrine of the divine dynasphere, and nothing attacks grace like residence and function in the cosmic system of Satan. It is therefore the quintessence of arrogance to assume that we as believers must help God. God does not need our help; we need His help, His grace, His plan, His system, His power, His protection, and the development of virtue which He has provided.

The works of God mentioned in the first line of this hymn include everything that God does in His plan, His system, His provision, for the believer in any dispensation. While we as believers in the Church Age make application to the divine dynasphere these Tribulational martyrs do not have the divine dynasphere. They sing of God’s policy and His plan in a different dispensation, but involving the same principle, not the same identical mechanics.

We are noting the victory hymn of the Tribulational martyrs. They are actually going to sing two songs, each is given a title. One is the song of Moses and the other is the song of the Lamb. We are not given the entire hymn, we are merely given the gist of it in certain lines.

It is inevitable that people in heaven will sing during the worst part of human history. The worst historical disasters of history are concentrated into the last eighteen months of the Tribulation when every conceivable thing that could go wrong goes wrong. Nothing goes right for anyone except for a few believers here and there who have Bible doctrine, and their prosperity continues while other believers make the decision not to renounce doctrine and are martyred. And while the worst period of human history occurs there is wonderful singing in heaven. This great singing and great happiness simply recognises that the divine judgment of homo sapien has always been the basis for preserving man on planet earth in history and that there would be no preservation of man, that we would not be here today, were it not for divine judgment.

How can any form of music be a distraction? It can be a distraction because the lyrics are false, or because the type of music simply appeals to the emotion without having it related to some form of doctrinal truth in lyrics.

We have next in our passage the content part of the hymn that God wants us to understand. We have the present active participle from the verb legw which introduces the lyrics. The present tense is a pictorial present presenting to the mind a picture of eschatological events in the process of occurrence. The active voice: this is a song for winners only and therefore the Tribulational martyrs who have all made a choice would rather be faithful to Bible doctrine than to live in the devil’s world when that becomes an issue. They are winners, they had control of their lives right up to the moment of their death, they had a personal sense of destiny, and therefore they sing under the concept of protocol this magnificent hymn in heaven.

The four lines which are given are not the lyrics of the entire hymn. They are given to us because they have meaning and application to our lives today. The first line deals with the plan of God, the second with the power of God, the third with the point of reference with God, and the fourth line with the Millennial victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Great and marvellous are your works.” This line is given so that we can understand that the plan of God is the work of God. Everything in the plan of God is great. That means that everything in the plan of God is the work of God, the action of God, the needs of God. The first line emphasises grace as the policy of God in His plan for the believer. We are saved by grace; we live by grace.

In our second line we have the doctrine of divine essence coming up because if there is anything that we need to understand it is not human power and what human power can do. We have a vocative singular beginning the second line, the vocative singular of the noun kurioj, “Lord.” It refers here to the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is undiminished deity, there never was a time when Jesus Christ did not exist, there never was a time when He did not have all of the attributes of God. Therefore He is so-equal and coeternal with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit. In Revelation 4:8 kurioj refers to our Lord’s third royal patent which He received as a result of the strategic victory of the cross. So whenever we find this we know that it is generally referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, though there is one passage in the New Testament where God the Holy Spirit is called kurioj or “Lord” and occasionally we will see God the Father called “Lord,” e.g. Psalm 2, “the Lord said to my Lord,” God the Father said to God the Son.

Next, to make sure that we understand that we are talking about Jesus Christ as God we have the generic use of the definite article plus the nominative singular, o( qeoj, “the God” or “God.” The definite article does not necessarily have to be translated. “O Lord, the God,” our Lord’s first royal patent as eternal God, coequal with the Father and with the Spirit. The generic use of the definite article comprehends a category which is distinct from all other categories. In other words, Jesus Christ as God is unique. As God our Lord’s royal title is Son of God, His royal family being the Father and the Spirit. This is a unique situation and it is always comforting to know when in the time in which we live there are so many uncertainties, so much instability, life can never go along on a level plane for any length of time, that we are related to the God of the universe. So this is called a nominative of explanation which emphasises the thought with great distinction. The nominative of explanation places a great deal of emphasis on the person involved in that noun.

Next we have a generic use of the definite article plus another nominative of exclamation, pantokratwr. This is an important word because some of the most powerful demons, the demons that influence the rulers and dictators of the world to gather people together for war and to cause trouble, are called kosmokratwr. We will meet the kosmokratwr in chapter 16 because they are responsible for the final world war in history. Pantokratwr is the title given to our Lord as over against kosmoskratwr, the most powerful demons in Satan’s organisation as the ruler if this world. We are going to translate this, “O Lord, the God, the omnipotent one.”

Now that is the line but it doesn’t explain what the line means. What the line means is the fact that we must inevitably understand what the Word of God reveals about the attributes of God, the essence of God, the characteristics of God. And to make sure that we understand that principle a third line is added in which we are once again going to see the emphasis on who and what God is, who and what Christ is, and how these thing relate to us personally. Anyone’s plan is no stronger than that person. God has a plan for your life and that plan comes from infinite eternal God. Therefore, understanding the character of God is very important. We must understand the essence of God to relate the wonderful plan He has designed for you.

We have a third line and it emphasises who and what God is. It begins with the fact that we have a point of reference now in our relationship with God but it doesn’t start out with the point of reference as such, merely the predicate nominative plural description of it. We have the predicate nominative plural from the adjective used as a noun, dikaioj. Dikiaoj means righteous but it must be understood that it is in the plural. Once we understand that we have a little bit of a problem. The plural includes two concepts of perfect integrity: the justice of God and the righteousness of God. When they are put together they are called holiness or the integrity of God. Therefore we have a reference to the believer’s point of contact which is divine justice, and the basis for the believer’s blessing which is the imputed righteousness of God. Therefore they are brought together under the plural of this adjective used as a substantive. First of all the believer has a point of contact which is always divine justice, not divine love. Secondly, he has a basis for blessing. All of us as believers possess God’s perfect righteousness as of the moment of faith in Christ. That grace pipelines goes from the justice of God to the righteousness of God. God has worked out a way to bless all believers, winners and losers, and to bless them without compromising His essence. There is no compromising His essence because all blessing in two categories, logistical grace and supergrace, come down the grace pipeline. They do not depend on who and what we are. While we will translate dikaioj “righteous” in the singular it must be understood that it is in the plural and that it includes both attributes of the integrity of God.

Next we have a predicate nominative plural from a)lhqinoj. A)lhqinoj means “true” and it is a reference to Bible doctrine by which the believer advances in the plan of God. There is no advance, there is no plan of God, until you can think and think doctrine. To think doctrine you have to learn doctrine. Every bit of thinking that you will ever do in this life is the courtesy of someone who started you out in life, and thereafter. You were taught words, vocabulary. Your ability to think will never exceed your vocabulary. For the losers who never learn Bible doctrine will never understand Bible doctrine, they will never grow in grace, they will never be in the plan of God. So we have the word “true.” It is the provision of Bible doctrine by which the believer learns the plan of God and advances in the plan of God.

We have studied the principle of virtue first, the mandate of God’s plan. Here we have something that goes with that, “righteous and true.” Since both of these are in the predicate nominative we have to have a subject. It comes next in the Greek but it comes first in the English, the nominative plural subject is o(doj. O(doj refers to a way, a path, a street, a road. With it is the possessive genitive of the personal pronoun su, “your ways”: the divine modus operandi of the plan of God, the whole concept of virtue first, the whole concept of the power system in God the Holy Spirit, the concept of the faith-rest drill, the concept of enforced and genuine humility, the concept of the perception and application of doctrine, the whole concept of momentum, the basis for everything that is true in the plan of God, all true motivation is motivational virtue directed toward God; all true function is functional virtue directed toward man and circumstances, the adversity tests which are a blessing in the life, and eventually, of course, arrival at the point of being a winner, gate eight, spiritual maturity. This is what God has planned for us. “Your ways,” the divine modus operandi, the plan of God, “your ways are righteous and true.” That is the fourth line, and the fourth line reminds us, then, that we must understand exactly what is meant by “your ways” and why He is called the “omnipotent one.”

Psalm 85:8, “I will hear what the God the Lord will say,” in other words, wisdom comes from God. Positive volition is expressed in the first line [I will hear]. That means respect for authority, enforced and genuine humility. So here we have the first stage in the function of GAP, reception. You are not going anywhere in the Christian life until you are briefed, until you hear what God has to say, and hear it on a regular basis as it is communicated from the Word of God, “for he will communicate peace [prosperity].”

Where it says “peace” in the King James version the word which is used in the Hebrew, shalom, has two meanings: peace between God and man and the prosperity which follows that. This refers to the removal of the barrier between man and God. Jesus Christ removed the barrier so that man by the work of Christ on the cross can have a permanent relationship with God. That is what peace means. “He is our peace,” says the apostle Paul. Then that word also connotes prosperity. Once we have accepted Christ as saviour all of us immediately come under a prosperity principle: starting with day one at salvation and continuing thereafter as long as we are on this earth we are under logistical grace. The first meaning of logistical support is that God has a purpose for your life. Our support comes from God, “to his people,” client nation Israel is in view by interpretation but by application it is our country, “and to his gracious ones.” Who are the gracious ones? They are the ones who keep us going, the ones in the pivot, the ones who arrive at gate eight, maturity, “but let them not return to stupidity.” When man neglects Bible doctrine he returns to stupidity.

Verse 9, “Nothing but his deliverance is near to those who respect [reverence] him.” Even in the worst of historical disaster of history during the seven last plagues there will be many believers who will survive. This reverence or respect would be our gate five: motivational virtue directed toward God. There is always deliverance for them. Why? “In order that glory may dwell in our land.” Respect comes from the laws of divine establishment. Reverence is virtue-first, motivational virtue. The result: Glory can only dwell in the land when there is a large pivot of mature believers. People who have accepted Christ as saviour, then, have entered into the system. God is perfect; God has a perfect system; God has a grace system. Those believers who follow the system are winners and provide prosperity for everyone else, blessing by association. It is the mature believer, the one who advances to maturity, who provides the blessing by association.

Verse 10, “Grace and doctrine have met together.” That is the secret to everything in life. God sustains through grace. Grace only meets with doctrine. God’s grace is there and we are all sustained by it, but the key to understanding the grace of God is doctrine. You will never know and understand the grace of God unless you are positive toward doctrine. Grace is the function of the justice of God in the imputation of divine blessing to the believer as a possessor of divine righteousness. Grace is the principle of the system and doctrine is the momentum of the system, so we have the principle and the basis for advance. For the system to work among believers in the fulfilment of the plan of God the believer must benefit from grace and he must learn Bible doctrine.

“Righteousness and peace have kissed.” Righteousness refers to the imputation of divine righteousness which not only provides justification at salvation but is the basis for all blessing thereafter. To understand the system the believer must understand the integrity or the holiness of God. Once grace and doctrine meet notice who does the kissing — righteousness and prosperity. Righteousness is virtue that develops from that indwelling righteousness of God. You are in the plan now. God is going to provide everything you need in the plan to make decisions, and that righteousness should be parlayed into love, capacity for happiness, capacity for blessing. But you don’t have that capacity until you have the virtue. Virtue first. If you love God you have motivating virtue and it comes from Bible doctrine. If you love God and have motivating virtue you will have functional virtue and that virtue gives you your capacity for life.

Verse 11, “Doctrine [doctrinal teaching] shall spring up in the land [client nations to God]; and righteousness [God’s righteousness] shall look down from heaven [the potential for great blessing].”

Verse 12, “Also, the Lord himself will give the good [divine blessing from X+Y+Z]; and our land [client nation] will give her increase [prosperity which comes from the pivot of mature believers].”

Verse 13, “Righteousness shall go before his face [before Him], that he [the believer] may march toward the way.”

The believer is not told to walk in the way here, he is told to march toward the way, or march in the way. When you march you have a system of authority. When you march there is logistical support, there is a whole system behind you, and that whole system depends upon who and what God is.

That brings us right back to our phrase in verse 3. Here are people who sing of this very thing. “Great and marvellous are your works,” divine deeds which are the function of the grace policy of the plan of God. The second line gives us those nominatives of exclamation that describes the awareness, the love of God at gate five: “O Lord [Jesus Christ: His third royal title], the God [Jesus Christ as God: His first royal patent], the omnipotent one [the power of God’s plan for the believer].” The third line: “Your ways are righteous and true.”

When things are at their worst in the last half of the Tribulation believers in heaven are very happy because they now have confidence having seen our Lord face to face. Whatever doubts, uncertainties, instabilities that existed prior to coming to heaven once they are there they are very happy, they have a lot to sing about. We now notice they were singing, why they were happy, why they were occupied with the person of Christ.

We are noting the essence of God. The word “essence” comes from a Greek adjective, sometimes used as a substantive, o)usia. The Greek word means substance, hence essence. It means the inward or the true nature, the intrinsic nature, the qualities or the attributes of a person. Essence also implies being or existence and therefore before we can understand why these people are so happy and so blessed in heaven we have to understand the persons who makes it all possible. Each member of the Trinity has identical essence. From the standpoint of essence God is one but from the standpoint of persons God is three separate and distinct persons each having something to do with us and our plan.

The true theistic concept of the universe is that the universe is composed of material and immaterial. Matter is material; God is immaterial, John 4:24. Human creatures are both material and immaterial, 2 Corinthians 4:7, 16.

God lives; God is life. God does not possess life as we do but God actually lives. All life is from God but not of God as the pantheists claim. God is a person. Personality connotes both self-consciousness and self-determination. As a person God is sovereign and this is expressed and manifest in His self-determination through the function of His divine volition. Animals, lower creatures, are conscious but not self-conscious. Animals have determination but not self-determination. Man, on the other hand, is a person possessing to a limited degree both self consciousness and self-determination. God is infinite, He is an infinite personality with absolute will or sovereignty plus His absolute perfection. God’s absolute will and perfection characterises both His design and His execution — Ephesians 1:9,11. God is to an absolute degree all that constitutes personality. He is Himself; He knows Himself to be beyond comparison with any other being. God is the source of our blessing, the source of the plan, the system, the mandates, the entire concept.

In the song of Moses we should notice that there is a balance of what is going on. We have the earth during the Tribulation, the worst period for historical disaster. However, in heaven things are very smooth. We have the sea of glass concept, we find great happiness there and we find a lot of people who have their priorities straight and put Bible doctrine and the Lord Jesus Christ before any system of religion, any system of coercion. Inevitably they give up their lives in so doing so that they leave earth and go to heaven. There they have perfect happiness, they do not have any of the problems that people on earth have who are believers. Here on earth we cannot see Him; here on this earth we love Him whom we have not seen, our only seeing of God comes from our perception of Bible doctrine. But once in heaven in the interim body, and once the capacity has been raised from almost zero to one hundred percent, there is fantastic happiness; a happiness that does not depend on other people but a happiness which is truly oriented to one person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But we can have that happiness and blessing now without the interim body by simply understanding from the Word of God those things that pertain to divine essence. Actually there are three divine attributes which are pertinent to us and to God’s plan for us at the present time. These attributes are noted in part both in the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb in this and the next verse. The three attributes are God’s knowledge, God’s love, and God’s integrity. That is the order in which we develop the concept because without knowledge there is no love and there is no integrity or virtue among believers in the Lord Jesus Christ or human beings.

We start with the fact that billions and billions of years ago, long before any creature existed, long before the universe was created, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit eternally existed. Each member of the Godhead is eternal, each member of the Godhead has, therefore, eternal knowledge. Now what is eternal knowledge? Obviously it is a knowledge that is not learned, it is a knowledge that has always existed. It is a knowledge that is not acquired academically or through experience. God is infinite; His knowledge is infinite. It is superior, therefore, to any creature knowledge. There are only two categories of creatures who have potential and real genius knowledge: the angels and members of the human race. Time has nothing to do with God’s knowledge. It has everything to do with our knowledge, in fact our knowledge is related to how we use our time and how we relate our time to the priorities of our life. The future is as perspicuous to God as the past and since God is a person and since He possesses both self-consciousness and self-determination He therefore acts rationally. Always He acts rationally because His rational acts are compatible with His absolute will and perfection. Because God is infinite His knowledge is without boundary or without limitation. There was never a time when God did not know everything, He has never learned anything. Therefore, God’s knowledge is never complicated by ignorance or absurdity. God exists eternally, He is unsustained by Himself. He is also unsustained by any other source and therefore His knowledge is as unalterable as He Himself is. We are sustained by God. We, under the wonderful principle of His plan of logistical grace, are sustained by Him. We are totally dependent upon Him and couldn’t last a minute in the devil’s world without Him. Every blessing that we will have in times of historical prosperity or adversity will all be from one source, and we can look in one direction: “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.”

God cannot change or be inaccurate, therefore God’s knowledge cannot change. God’s knowledge is never partial, is never inaccurate, and it is never distorted. God’s knowledge, therefore, is as unalterable as Himself and God’s knowledge precedes both time and space. Therefore God’s knowledge is not subject to any limitation of time or space. God’s self-knowledge precedes God’s decrees with regard to history and that is because God is eternal. The decrees, of course, simply deal with history. God’s knowledge therefore cannot be more and it cannot be less than it is at any time.

Each member of the Trinity has two kinds of perfect knowledge. The first kind is subjective knowledge. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have perfect subjective knowledge, each one about Himself, and that knowledge is perfect. When we have subjective knowledge about ourselves it is distorted, it is arrogant, it is imperfect, and usually a tremendous hindrance. If we have too much subjective knowledge about self the kindest thing that can be said for us is that we have an unfortunate personality. But God has perfect subjective knowledge about Himself. Also, all three members of the Trinity have perfect objective knowledge about themselves. So they have two categories of perfect knowledge about self and when we put these two together in the theological classroom we call it the omniscience of God. Omniscience has to do with other categories as well. Self-knowledge deals strictly with the divine attributes: God knows Himself; God knows the other two members of the Trinity.

Omniscience is not all the knowledge of God but is one category only. Omniscience refers to creatures. All God’s knowledge about creatures has always existed. God has always known about every creature that has ever existed or ever will exist. Hence, omniscience is defined as God’s objective knowledge of the universe and His creatures, and since God is infinite it is without regard to time or any other space limitation. Omniscience is God’s knowledge of the universe and creatures and it is wonderful to know that someone really understands us. Our problem in this life is that we do not understand God. Our only way to understand God is through Bible doctrine, through perception of the attributes of God as they are revealed in the scripture. Omniscience, therefore, deals with the universe and with creatures. Omniscience knows everything that has ever happened since creatures existed.

The omniscience of God knows the alternatives of history, the probable and the reality, the potential and the reality. God therefore knows perfectly, eternally, simultaneously, all that is knowable, both actual and possible. The actual is fed into the computer of divine decrees to become human history; the probable is that which could have happened but which did not — the potential of life. Every minute detail of both angelic and human history is in the mind of God at all times. Therefore, omniscience perceives the free as free, the necessary as necessary, together with all the causes, conditions, relations, as one indivisible system of things, every link of which is essential to the whole.

There is no such thing as perfect happiness without eliminating all of the absurdities. Since we can’t have perfect happiness on earth we can have the next thing to it. We can through God’s system, God’s plan, God’s wisdom, the mandates that He has given us, the priorities like virtue-first, actually eliminate all that is absurd in life and have the most magnificent blessing. But in eliminating these things we do not develop a superiority complex. If anything we develop a greater sensitivity, a greater compassion, a greater understanding of all of those in our vicinity.

Then there is the foreknowledge of God. It is different from the omniscience of God. Omniscience feeds the computer; the printout is the foreknowledge of God. For example, John wrote the book of Revelation. He actually wrote it from the standpoint of God’s foreknowledge, not His omniscience. God’s foreknowledge simply looked into the computer, took out the Tribulation, took out the Church Age, for example — Revelation 2 & 3, and printed it for a moment and it is now called the book of Revelation. It is a printout before it occurs. Every bit of prophecy unfulfilled in the scripture is merely a printout from the computer before they happen to teach us, to help us, to orient first to God and then to our circumstances in life. So Revelation is designed for our blessing and the only thing we need to know about foreknowledge is that it is the printout of the computer of divine decrees. Nothing is foreknown until it is first decreed. Only the computer of divine decrees establishes reality, which means that foreknowledge follows as the printout of the decrees. The foreknowledge of God makes nothing certain but acknowledges what is certain: the content of divine decrees.

We have a relationship with God through knowledge, His knowledge of us, His knowledge of Himself, His knowledge of history, His knowledge of everything.

God is love, 1 John 4:16. God is infinite and eternal; God exceeds all boundaries of time and space. God always has existed. Eternal means there never was a time when He originated. Therefore God possesses eternal and infinite love, for like all divine attributes love belongs to the essence of God. God is immutable, therefore the love of God is unchangeable. The love of God has always existed, like God’s knowledge. There never was a time when God did not posses maximum eternal love, love that transcends any concept of time and space. The love of God is unchangeable, consistent, and compatible with His perfect essence.

In contrast to human love God’s love does not have to be sustained by emotion. Emotion out of place is where silliness begins and where we get into pseudo-spirituality. Emotion in its correct place is always subordinate to thought. When emotion takes over the soul then we have all of the disasters, psychoses, all of the systems of disorientation to reality in life. There is nothing wrong with emotion. God has given us emotion but He has given us emotion as the appreciator of truth. When there is no truth or doctrine in the soul the emotion immediately gets out of line. God is love but we must understand that God’s love is totally related to virtue and totally disassociated with emotion. Emotion in itself is a highly volatile and unstable attribute. It must be put within boundaries, it must be subordinate to virtue, to thought, to things that make it meaningful and wonderful. But God has no emotion and one of the most difficult things for man to understand, even in the face of divine revelation, is the fact that God’s love is perfect, the quintessence of virtue, and has no emotion whatever.

God’s infinite and eternal loves exists without an object or with an object. God has always been love whether there has been an object around or not. Before any creature existed God was love. Perfect love is resident in the perfect essence of God. That is where we begin to understand virtue-love. That is where we begin to understand impersonal love toward all members of the human race.

God’s love is perfect because God has perfect integrity. God has perfect virtue, the virtue of His justice and righteousness. Therefore God’s love cannot be separated from His integrity or His holiness. God has the perfect virtue for perfect love and the pattern is set, therefore, between the love which has eternally existed between the members of the Trinity. Each member of the Trinity loves the perfect righteousness of the other as well as His own. Divine love, therefore, is backed up by perfect virtue and is directed toward perfect integrity. God loves us because we have His righteousness and He has always loved His righteousness. Therefore we will always have His righteousness and God will always love us.

God’s love does not require an object but when the object is mankind perfect integrity plus perfect love results in divine impersonal love toward believers who have +R and divine impersonal love toward all mankind. When Christ died on the cross He demonstrated divine impersonal love toward all mankind. Remember that all personal sins were never imputed to us for judgment. The only sin by which we have been judged as spiritually dead was at the point when human life was imputed to the soul after birth. Simultaneously Adam’s original sin was imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. We were born physically alive and spiritually dead. Because we were spiritually dead with the help of the old sin nature we commit X number of personal sins and all of those personal sins were accumulated in the computer of decrees. God knew in eternity past all of the sins that would be committed in the human race. Therefore when Jesus Christ went to the cross and bore our sins He demonstrated His impersonal love toward the entire human race. The attitude of the human race could not destroy the virtue of our Lord.

Revelation 19:10, 11, the book of Revelation is a book to understand God, the events of the future are incidental, the future is in the hands of God. “And I fell at his feet to worship him,” worship comes from understanding God. There is no worship until you understand God. “Him” here is not God, it is a teaching angel, but John was so carried away by what he had learned that he thought that he was talking to God, so he feel down at his feet. But notice that the angel corrects him: “And he said unto me, See not [an idiom: Don’t you understand?]: I am your fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus .… for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” If you want the summary of the book of Revelation in one phrase, this is it: “the testimony [communication] of Jesus.” The story about Jesus, including the doctrine of divine essence.

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True”. The first thing we hear of the second advent are the attributes of our Lord Jesus Christ on that white horse. He is faithful; He is doctrine [truth].

Divine love is the only motive, divine justice is the only source of logistical grace. Divine love is personal toward believers who become winners through advance to gate eight; divine love is impersonal toward all believers in both interim grace and in the resurrection body. Divine love is personal, however, in eternal blessing and reward, but divine love is impersonal in the provision of grace.

There are three things we have to know about God in relationship to mankind to understand God’s plan and to understand why people are singing in heaven and are happy when things are bad on earth. When things are bad on earth it is reflected in sadness. “There is no singing in the streets,” as Isaiah put it, “no happiness in Israel.” But there is always singing in heaven. People in heaven do not see us but they do see the Lord and that is why they are happy.

The real key to understanding God and His plan for us is to understand His integrity. His integrity is our point of reference, not His love, not His sovereignty, not His omniscience. You have to have a point of contact. When you enter a house the door is the point of contact for the house. The point of contact for Christianity is the integrity or holiness of God. Behind that are all of these attributes: God is love, God is omniscient, God is sovereign, God is immutable, etc. But our point of contact is one half of divine holiness or integrity, the justice of God. God is fair to all of us, there never was a Christian who didn’t get a fair shake. God’s righteousness is the principle of divine integrity; God’s justice is the function of divine integrity. Therefore there is nothing man can do or say to change or influence, to coerce or bribe the integrity of God. All divine blessing for the believer originates from the justice of God. It flows down the grace pipeline to the righteousness of God which indwells every believer.

In Revelation 15:3 it says “they sing,” Tribulational believers who have had a rotten deal from ecumenical religion, from the dictator of the revived Roman empire. They sing both the hymn of Moses the servant of God and the hymn of the Lamb. In line three: “your ways [divine modus operandi in the plan of God] are righteous,” both the justice of God as the point of contact in the plan and the imputed righteousness of God as the recipient of all categories of grace in the plan. Why does the word “righteous” include both justice and righteousness? Because as we note in the exegesis it is in the plural, “and true,” the provision of Bible doctrine by which the believer advances in the plan of God.

In the fourth line we have the nominative of exclamation, also a vocative, of the noun basileuj, a reference to our Lord as the future ruler of the world, “O King.” With this is the descriptive genitive plural from e)qnoj, “King of the nations.” This is a reference to the nations of the Millennium and they sing about it in anticipation of the great victory which is about to occur.

In verse 4 we have a six-line summary of the hymn of the Lamb. We have had a four-line summary of the hymn of Moses, the servant of God. There are six lines here, just as in the previous hymn there are four lines. These hymns are being sung by happy people in heaven who understand the reality of God and His plan in detail.

We have in the hymn of the Lamb here a series of interrogatives. They begin usually with the interrogative pronoun or with the conjunction kai which links several of them. We begin therefore with the interrogative pronoun tij, translated “Who” since it is in the masculine gender. With this we have the aorist passive subjunctive of the verb fobew. Fobew is used with the double negative o)u mh. Fobew is a great word to use here for this reason: it not only means fear but it means awe, it means respect. Whether we are looking at it from its negative standpoint of fear or whether we are looking at it from its positive standpoint of respect for someone it always has the same connotation in its several meanings — no absurdities, no silliness. If you fear someone the absurdities are eliminated. When there is awe and respect in the presence of a great leader you eliminate the silliness, there is no nonsense.

The double negative with the subjunctive mood is an Attic Greek form of negation regarding the future. This, of course, is a passage dealing with the future. The future has to do with the second advent of Christ and a specific event related to it, the baptism of fire. This is a Classical Greek form which strengthens the negation. A double negative in the English is a positive; a double negative in the Greek is a stronger negative. The time will come when all people will fear the Lord and in a moment of time at the second advent all nonsense will be eliminated from the earth for the perfect environment of the Millennium will be free from absurdities, nonsense, and silliness. In other words, silliness, nonsense and absurdities all relate to the devil’s original sin of arrogance.

There is a great deal of difference between silliness and humour. Humour is related to virtue; silliness is related to arrogance. The gnomic aorist tense is for a point of eschatological doctrine which is so axiomatic in character, so fixed in its certainty, that it is described by the aorist tense just as though it were actually occurring now instead of at the second advent of Christ, a future time. The idiom is generally translated by the English present tense even though it is in the aorist, and we translate it “who will not fear.” The passive voice: the subject, mankind living on earth at the time of the second advent, receives the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood of emphatic negation means the potential subjunctive implying a future reference. It means at that time reality will come to everyone. Reality and orientation to reality eliminates silliness and at that moment of time, at the second advent of Christ, for both believer and unbeliever there will be reality. The element of contingency requires that the population of the Tribulation remain alive to the point of the second advent in order to experience this fear, this awe, this respect. People are going to live to lose their silliness.

Some of the better MSS add the accusative singular direct object su, not found in the King James version because it was not found in the original language group from which the King James was taken. It is correctly translated “you,” “Who will not fear you, O Lord.” Textus Receptus, an inferior group of manuscripts of the 9th century from which the King James version was translated, does not have su and it is because Codex Aleph and the papyri are much older. In the study of the science of textual criticism it is very important to get back the original.

The first line, then, refers to the attitude of people when Christ returns to the earth and every eye will see Him. The tactical victory of our Lord brings fear and awe from the entire surviving human race. There will be believers: they will have awe; there will be unbelievers: they will face reality with fear. So the second advent is the moment of truth, the moment of reality. The believer faces reality with respect and awe; the unbeliever faces reality with fear.

How you face reality is determined by what you have in your soul with which to face it. A lot of people never face reality so they never know what they have in their souls. Once you come face to face with reality what you really are will be manifest, and you will be able to know whether you passed the reality test or not by whether you are afraid or confident, whether you have fear of the Lord or respect for the Lord. That is the issue at the second advent.

Then comes the vocative kurioj referring to our Lord Jesus Christ who returns, “Who will not fear [or respect] you, O Lord.” This is a quotation from Jeremiah 10:7. The context of Jeremiah 10:7 is the evil and irrationality, the silliness and the nonsense of idolatry.

Note Jeremiah 10:3-8. “For the customs of the people are delusion.”

People set up two things in their life to give them stability: routine and customs. What is the difference between routine and custom? Routine is what you do every day; custom is what you will do, for example, on Thanksgiving — you will eat turkey, you will have a family gathering, you will do something outside of the routine.

“Because it [an idol] is wood cut from the forest.” Israel entered into idolatry at that time: silliness, vanity, nonsense. They worshipped something that is carved out of a tree, “The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. They decorate it [the idol] with silver and gold; they fasten it down with hammer and nails so that it will not fall over. They [the idols] are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, furthermore they cannot speak; they have to be carried because they cannot walk! Do not fear them for they can do no harm, neither can they do you any good.

“There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your person is great in power. Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? Indeed it is our due! For among all of the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you. But they are altogether silly and foolish [full of nonsense], they are taught by worthless wooden idols!”

Just as in the time of Jeremiah, so in the time of the Tribulation, the last half of it, there will be a saturation of idolatry. Idolatry is demon worship, according to Deuteronomy 32:17 which is part of the hymn of Moses.

There is a pattern to these five lines. The first line asks a question and the second line asks a question. The third line begins with a causal conjunction o(ti and the fourth line begins with the causal conjunction o(ti and then the fifth line also.

The second line begins with the conjunction kai, “and,” used to present the second question with regard to our Lord Jesus Christ at the second advent. Remember that this is being sung by Tribulational martyrs in heaven in the future, therefore we have the future active indicative of the verb docazw which means to glorify, “and who will glorify.” The future tense is a deliberative future used for a question of uncertainty in future time. The active voice: only the mature believer with maximum doctrine resident in his soul will fulfil the action. The indicative mood is interrogative.

It must be remembered that while generally speaking the book of Revelation describes the Tribulation, chapters 6-19, it is obvious that we are to derive application from the eschatology of the Tribulation. This question was written by John and it was circulated to the churches as well as representing future potential. The question for us at this moment: “who will glorify?” And then we have the accusative singular direct object from o)noma, meaning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. With it we have the possessive genitive from su again, “and who will glorify your person.” That is a question we need to answer before we get to thanksgiving so that thanksgiving will be meaningful.

Who glorifies the Lord, and how do they glorify the Lord? The person who glorifies the Lord is the person who takes in doctrine on a daily basis. You have to have facts before you can fulfil the plan of God; you have to know doctrine and you have to have the ability to learn it, the various gates of the divine dynasphere. The indicative mood is an interrogative indicative, it assumes that there is an actual fact or doctrine which may be stated in answer to the question. And there is. If you are taking in doctrine on a daily basis, if you are using rebound when necessary to guarantee and ensuring the filling of the Spirit, if your life is characterised by the rationales of the second stage of the faith-rest drill, the essence of God rationale, the logistical grace rationale, then you are beginning to be objective about life. If you have enforced and genuine humility then you have the teachability to learn doctrine. If you are functioning at gate four you will start making its applications.

In every dispensation God has a system by which the believer can glorify the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. To qualify you first of all have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you must be the possessor of eternal salvation. Once that is accomplished there is a system and the mandates remain the same for every dispensation. Always there is virtue-first and doctrine first. Since the Church Age is the dispensation of the royal family of God or the body of Christ the divine system for us is absolutely unique: the modus operandi of the divine dynasphere.

The second line: “and who will glorify your person?” Only the believer who advances, only the believer who has momentum in the plan of God.

The third line brings it down to a principle and we have the beginning of three causal clauses. O(ti is used as a causal conjunction and can be translated in a number of ways. It is translated here “because” or “since.” The next word is an adjective, monoj, used as a part of the subject referring to our Lord Jesus Christ, the basis of all thanksgiving. With this we translate also the word “you,” “only you,” our Lord Jesus Christ. However, what is said of Christ is also true of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit because next we have the word a(gioj which refers to holiness, virtue, integrity. Only God has perfect integrity so a(gioj is the fact of the hypostatic union of Christ. He has perfect integrity in His deity, but we have also noted that the humanity of Christ has perfect integrity because He was given at birth the first Christmas present, the prototype divine dynasphere. Our Lord was filled with the Spirit from His birth. Our Lord developed humility, enforced and genuine, in His family life and by the time He was twelve He had reached maturity. That is why the third line says, “only you are virtuous.” Only God has the capacity to be patient with us, only God has the capacity to find a way to give us things and bless us even though we are losers as far as His plan is concerned. All of this is related to His holiness. God gives us blessing because one half of His holiness, divine righteousness, is inside of us, and He imputes all of these blessings, all of this divine support, all of this keeping us alive, to us from His integrity or holiness.

The fourth line also begins with the causal conjunction o(ti, and so does the fifth line, and once again in the fourth line we are going to have a cause, related now to history, “because all nations.” We have as our subject the adjective paj plus the noun e)qnoj, both of them in the nominative case, “all nations.” We are talking about nations at a certain point in history. We are still on the subject of the end of the Tribulation and the second advent of Christ. This is referring to nations in an attitude toward God in the future, the future being the second advent of Christ. That is why we have the future active indicative of the verb h(kw which means to come, “all nations will come.” The predictive future anticipates the Millennial reign of Christ after the second advent. The active voice: all the nations of the world will come to our Lord Jesus Christ when He begins His reign. Jesus Christ will return to the earth, supersede Satan as the ruler of this earth, and literally rule for a thousand years.

The worship of nations in the Millennium is the subject of many passages of scripture and is, of course, a part of the eschatology of the Millennial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 2:8,9; 24:1-10; 66:1-4; 72:8-11; 86:9; Isaiah 2:2-4; 9:6,7; 66:18-23; Daniel 7:14; Zephaniah 2:11; Zechariah 14:9. Nations will come to our Lord Jesus Christ ruling in Jerusalem to worship Him. The continuation of the fourth line tells us that is exactly what they are going to do.

We have the connective conjunction kai followed by the future active indicative of the verb proskunew, the word for worship. The future tense is a predictive future, it anticipates the eschatology of the Millennium. The active voice: the Gentile nations of the Millennium, however they are divided, will produce the action. The action of the Gentile nations portrays the ultimate triumph of our Lord Jesus Christ in both the prehistoric angelic conflict as well as the extension into human history. The indicative mood is declarative for the eschatological reality of international worship of our Lord Jesus Christ during the Millennium. It is very important to understand that there will never be international worship of our Lord until the Millennium. There will always be nations in opposition to God until the second advent, in fact the greatest opposition to God among nations will occur during the Tribulation.

Finally, we have the improper preposition e)nwpion plus the genitive of su, referring to our Lord Jesus Christ, “and they will worship before you.” The fact that nations will actually worship before the Lord Jesus Christ is a phenomenon that could only exist when He is the personal ruler of the world. They have to see Him to worship Him, they have to benefit from the perfect environment that He will provide. This means they will worship Him because they are personally materially benefiting from His rule. People will go along with any system of government that benefits them personally no matter what system it may be. People are selfish inevitably.

The word for “worship,” proskunew, calls for some amplification because people apparently have a great deal of difficulty understanding what worship is. So we notice a few passages of scripture.

Psalm 29:1,2. In this particular psalm we have the principle of application of doctrine under the word “ascribe.” “Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of power [believers who are advancing and who have momentum in the plan of God, absolutely necessary for worship], ascribe to the Lord glory and power. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name; worship the Lord in the majesty of his integrity.”

To understand the integrity of God is to begin to understand the principle of worship. It must always be applied.

The New Testament passage in which our Lord discussed worship is found in John 4:22ff where a Gentile woman came to the Lord and had a conversation with Him about worship, and how they worshipped on the mountain where He was standing. This led to a short dissertation on the principle of worship as it existed at that time and as it would exist in the Church Age. “You worship what you do not know [ignorance of doctrine guarantees malfunction of worship]; we worship what we know [the true concept of worship has always been knowledge. From knowledge of doctrine worship springs]; for salvation is from the Jews.”

To understand the true meaning of worship in the Age of Israel they had to understand that salvation is from the Jews. In other words, in the Old Testament times and specifically in the dispensation of Israel they had a system of worship which taught salvation and other doctrines. To understand worship in the Old Testament you had to understand the Jewish system of Levitical offerings, the articles of furniture in the tabernacle and later on in the temple. When these things were understood then worship could be understood for all of these articles dealt with the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Ritual was used because the canon was not yet completed and it was much easier to communicate through training aids. The ritual was a system of training aids. Therefore our Lord said at the end of verse 22, “for salvation is from the Jews.” He was also announcing the fact that He had come in the flesh as the son of David. He came as a Jew, He would go to the cross as the perfect Jew and He would bear the sins of the world in His own body on the cross.

Verse 23, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in doctrine,” note the absence of definite articles. The absence of the definite article in front of “spirit” means the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and in front of “truth,” the ministry of Bible doctrine. This is, of course, a prophecy of the Church Age and the divine dynasphere, “for such people the Father seeks to be his worshippers.” The Father seeks those who know doctrine to be His worshippers, and that is why our Lord concluded in verse 24: “God is spirit; and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in doctrine.” He was anticipating the function of the divine dynasphere, and the reason He says “the hour now is” is because inside the prototype divine dynasphere the humanity of our Lord was filled with the Spirit at gate one and He had learned in His humanity maximum doctrine at gate four. He was referring to His own function inside of the prototype divine dynasphere but He would give to the royal family of God the operational divine dynasphere with that same gate one and that same gate four so that all worship in the future would relate to the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. You cannot worship unless you are filled with the Spirit; you cannot worship unless you know Bible doctrine.

Philippians 3:3, “For we [believers in the Church Age] are the true circumcision,” in the past Israel was a client nation to God, the custodian of Bible doctrine, “who worship in the Spirit of God,” and then he adds something because Paul wrote when the Lord Jesus Christ had been glorified. He had been resurrected, He had ascended, He was seated at the right hand of the Father, and He had received His third royal warrant, “and glory in Jesus Christ, furthermore put no confidence in the flesh.” To the extent that believers put confidence in the flesh it is impossible for them to worship. This means probably that a very small percentage of born-again believers actually ever fulfil the principle of worship during their lifetime, for there must be no confidence in the flesh, we must glory in Jesus Christ — gate five of the divine dynasphere, we must worship in the Spirit of God. All of this requires knowledge of Bible doctrine. Human worship is the expression of the believer’s category one personal love from gate five. As we are filled with the Spirit, gate one, and as we learn to rebound so that we can recover life inside the divine dynasphere and be freed from the cosmic system of Satan, as we have enforced and genuine humility — which is teachability, we produce, therefore, the power, objectivity and the teachability to function at gate four — the momentum gate: perception and application of doctrine. The first result is always motivational virtue directed toward God, and that motivational virtue directed toward God is the true functional worship. It includes three factors: personal love for God which comes from knowledge of Bible doctrine; confidence in God which comes from Bible doctrine; worship of God. All true worship begins for us as we develop the motivational virtue of gate five. When we develop motivational worship at gate five we also develop capacity for life. That is why gate six comes next, it gives us the capacity for life through impersonal love, through courage toward man and circumstances, and true virtue-morality. So the divine dynasphere then becomes the key to the function of our royal priesthood in worship. And while worship is the priestly function of the believer at gate five of the divine dynasphere it is not a true function apart from the interlock of the gates which precede. So the concept of worship becomes very important. The worship function demands life and residence inside of the divine dynasphere.

Revelation 4:10,11, “The twenty-four elders [angelic staff officers from the angelic order of battle] will fall down before him [the glorified Christ] who sits on the throne, and they will worship him who lives forever and ever. Then they will lay down their crowns before the throne, and say, ‘You, O Lord, are worthy to receive glory and honour and power.”

In order for the angelic creatures to give these things in worship — glory, honour, power — they have to possess them. You cannot give in worship what you do not possess. Inasmuch as the elect angels are in their eternal form they have glory, so they can give to God glory. They can also give Him honour and they can give Him power. While we are not yet in our resurrection bodies and our permanent form for glorifying the Lord in that sense we can give two out of the three categories: honour and power.

The reason for this is given at the end of verse 11, “because you [referring to our Lord Jesus Christ] have created all things, also because of your sovereign will they existed and they were created.” This becomes the basic concept, therefore, for worship.

Giving glory means face-to-face worship in a resurrection body. At present under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit the believer can give a form of worship which he possesses — a mind to concentrate on doctrine, a voice to sing His praises, a volition to perpetuate perception of doctrine and from that to give from the blessings we receive. Capacity for worship must precede the function of worship and until we have a resurrection body we will not be able to give glory. This body of corruption which we now possess cannot give glory to God as the highest category of worship. Corruption must put on incorruption; this means the resurrection.

Our passage in the fourth line says “because all nations will come [to Jerusalem] and they will worship before you.” This is a Millennial passage and we note the principle behind it. The worship of the Millennium is based upon two factors: our Lord provides perfect government throughout the world and perfect environment. This means that there are two categories of people who are going to worship: Millennial believers with doctrine and those who are simply enjoying the benefits of perfect environment on the earth as unbelievers. When Satan is released after his thousand years of imprisonment those who have given superficial worship to our Lord, unbelievers who are simply benefiting from perfect environment, will move over to Satan’s camp for the Gog revolution.

In Psalm 2 we see some of the concepts in this hymn which is sung at a future time. Verses 1-3 is the situation in the time of the devil’s desperation. In other words, it starts in the last half of the Tribulation.

Verse 1, “Why do the nations rage [the eschatology of the devil’s desperation], and the people plot in vain?” It is a time of great conspiracy.

Verse 2, “The kings of the earth take their stand [the revived Roman empire, the power blocs of the Tribulation take a stand against God], and the rulers plot together against the Lord, and against his anointed one [God the Son],

Verse 3, [This is what they think] “Let us break their bands [the authority of divine establishment], let us destroy their restraint [the function of divine establishment], let us throw off the chains [the basis by which God protects the human race].”

Inverses 4-9 we have the plan of God the Father mentioned.

Verse 4, “He [God the Father] who is enthroned in heaven laughs: the Lord scoff at them.”

Verse 5, “Then [at the end of the Tribulation] he will speak in his anger [God the Father judges, the source of the seven last plagues], and he will terrify them in his wrath.”

Verse 6, “But as for me [God the Father] I have installed my king [coronation of Christ after the second advent] on Zion, my holy mountain [the ultimate and tactical victory of our Lord in the angelic conflict].”

Verses 7-9, Jesus Christ controls history.

Verse 7, “I will proclaim the decree of the Lord [the printout of the computer of divine decrees]: he [God the Father] said to me [God the Son], You are my Son [first advent]; today [moment of the virgin birth] I have begotten you.”

Verse 8, After His death, burial, resurrection and ascension, “Ask from me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, plus the very ends of the earth as your possession [the Millennium].”

Verse 9, “And you will rule them with a sceptre of iron; and you will shatter them to pieces like pottery.”

Verses 10-12, divine advice to the nations of the Tribulation.

Verse 10, “Therefore you kings [rulers, become wise — perception of the gospel, perception of doctrine]: be warned you rulers of the earth.”

Verse 12, “Kiss the Son [faith in Christ, perception of doctrine], lest he become angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled [the approaching judgment, grace before judgment]. Blessed are those who take refuge in him.”

In Psalm 66:4 we have the worship that will occur in the Millennium. “All the earth shall worship you [Jesus Christ], and will sing praises to you; they will sing praises to your person.” That will occur on earth while the angelic choir is singing in heaven.

Psalm 86:9, “All nations shall come and worship before you.”

Isaiah 2:3, “Many people will go and say, Come, and let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us concerning his ways, and that we may walk in his paths: for instruction will go forth from Zion, and the word of God from Jerusalem.”

In Psalm 22:27-31 we have another such category of information.

Now for the fifth and last line of the hymn, we start with the conjunction o(ti for the third time. It is used for the third, fourth and fifth lines, “because.” Then we have a nominative plural subject from dikaiwma which means “righteous acts,” “because your righteous acts,” a reference to our Lord’s judgements at the second advent. They include the sentencing of Satan to a thousand years in prison plus the elimination of all unbelievers from the earth in the baptism of fire, plus the Millennial rule of Christ deciding what nations will exist in the Millennium and what nations will not. With this is the aorist passive indicative of the verb fanerow which means to manifest or to be revealed, “because your righteous acts have been revealed.” God is perfect virtue, as we have studied, and from that perfect virtue comes perfect justice to everyone as well as every nation in the world. God’s justice extends to nations, to groups of people, and to individuals as well. The culminative aorist tense views the righteous acts of our Lord at the second advent in their entirety and regards it from the viewpoint of what results — perfect environment on the earth for 1000 years. The passive voice: the righteous deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ received the action of the verb, manifestation to the entire world. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of a series of eschatological actions of the Lord Jesus Christ at the second advent.

Now we have the entire hymn to the Lamb in its summary. The first line: “Who will fear you, O Lord,” a reference to the attitude of the world population at the second advent of Christ, including fear, awe and respect. The second line: “and who will glorify your person.” That brings us up to maximum worship. Only the mature believer of the Tribulation will glorify the person of Christ. The third line: “because only you are holy [only you have perfect virtue, perfect justice and righteousness].” The fourth line: “because all the nations will come [to Jerusalem] and they will worship before you.” The fifth line: “because your righteous acts have been revealed,” the action of our Lord Jesus Christ is the news of the Millennium.

In verses 5-8 we have the vision of the heavenly temple or the barracks of the execution squad.

Verse 5 — the continuation of the vision. We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then,” followed by the prepositional phrase meta plus the accusative neuter plural of o(utoj, “After these things,” a correct and precise idiom to indicate the relationship between previous history and the present moment being described. “After these things,” therefore, includes the vision or great sign of the seven last plagues, verse 1; the vision of the victorious martyrs, verse 2; the victory hymn of the Tribulational martyrs, verses 3-4. The principle is a very simple one. Prophetical subjects must be developed in the sequence of divine thinking.

Here God’s policy is grace before judgment, always. There is always a grace period prior to any judgment of history and that grace period gives opportunity to reverse bad decisions from a position of weakness under the principle of repentance or changing one’s mind. There are two categories of repentance which exist to reverse the repercussions of divine judgment. The first is the decision to believe in Christ, the decision of salvation. This is called the repentance of the unbeliever. Repentance simply means a change of mind. The second is the decision of rebound, the repentance of the believer resulting in deliverance from the cosmic system.

“Then after these things,” after the vision of the Tribulational martyrs in heaven and their victory hymn, “I looked,” the aorist active indicative of o(raw. Looking here has to do with concentrating. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. This can be classified as the vision of the source of the seven last plagues or the seven bowl judgements. The active voice: the apostle John as the human author of the book of Revelation under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of eschatological doctrine and the fact that much of historical disaster comes from the court in heaven and it protects mankind, perpetuates the human race.

Next we have the connective conjunction kai, “and,” which introduces the result from what precedes. We now approach the problem of the seven last “grenades” or plagues. They are related to the Tribulational martyrs and their imprecatory prayers. Now we see the barracks of the execution squad. The word “behold” in the King James version is not found in the original language. The next word is the nominative singular subject from naoj, “temple,” and with this we also have a temporary form of worship, the genitive of apposition skhnh, “tabernacle.” So they are both together: the permanent temple and the tabernacle. The tabernacle is the memorial in heaven to the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in His strategic victory of the angelic conflict, the first advent.

The beast dictator has too much power in order to get any laughs out of this, therefore he has no sense of humour because his power has added to his arrogance. Arrogance has no sense of humour. When facing the power of Satan and his beast dictator the humour must be subtle. Therefore the paronomasia of Revelation 13:6 linked to John 1:14, and now brought out again. But something is added to it. Notice the two words again: naoj then skhnh, the two are linked together. What is so funny about this is that Satan can’t stand the fact that our Lord tabernacled among us and now coming out of the temple is going to be a tabernacle that will destroy Satan’s power on earth. So the temple is the barracks from which the execution squad will advance. With all of his great power the beast dictator who is the political ruler of the revived Roman empire and the leader of ecumenical religion in the Tribulation cannot perceive the humour of this paronomasia. Reason: he cannot laugh at himself, he takes himself very seriously. When confronted with humour as a weapon he can only riposte with slander.

When believers are beyond the power of evil, evil counterattacks with a distance-type shooting called slander. Doctrine resident in the soul is more powerful than the power of evil as demonstrated by this parry of humour. The skhnh was when our Lord was on earth — the tabernacle; now we have a barracks in heaven and the barracks in heaven is going to send an execution squad to the earth.

Tribulational martyrs have demonstrated that they were beyond the evil of the dictator in two ways. First of all, doctrine was more important than their life. Hence, they became martyrs because their priorities were straight. Secondly, the interim life for the Tribulational martyrs in heaven is totally beyond the influence of Satan who is confined to earth during the last half of the Tribulation. The humour of this is the fact that they are in heaven. Satan sent them to heaven through torture and execution; now that they are in heaven they are beyond his power. Satan only had power over these believers while they were on earth. He killed them and immediately they are out of his power. Furthermore, they go up and they knock on the door of the barracks and they say, “Send out the execution squad”. And that is exactly what will happen. The imprecatory prayers means sending out the execution squad.

So we have so far: “Then after these things I concentrated, and the temple, the tabernacle.” The arrogant preoccupation with self in cosmic one cannot see the humour between skhnh and skhnow, the two words that are used in the pun.

Principle

1. Like all people with more power than they can handle the beast dictator has no sense of humour, for in arrogance he takes himself too seriously.

2. When arrogance is faced with humour it must retort with slander. Why? Slander is the weapon of the weak to attack the strong. The sins of the tongue are always the weapons of the weak to attack those who are strong, those who are beyond their power. The one who slanders is weak and the object of the slander is strong, so it is the weak attacking the strong.

3. With maximum doctrine resident in the soul the Tribulational believer is beyond the power of the all-powerful beast dictator.

4. In life doctrine in the soul puts the believer beyond the power of the dictator, while in death the interim life in heaven puts the believer beyond the power of Satan. So there is a double protection of all believers: a wall of fire on earth; an interim life in heaven.

5. The beast dictator cannot learn the lesson of humour. With all of his vast power over life and death he cannot control the believer with maximum doctrine resident in the soul.

6. Bible doctrine resident in the soul of the believer is more powerful than all categories of human power. In other words, no one can destroy your power of thinking, only you can do it by bad decisions.

7. Therefore the Tribulational martyr is beyond the dictator’s control in life because of the greater power of Bible doctrine resident in his soul. Furthermore, the Tribulational martyr is beyond the dictator’s control in death because of his residence in heaven in a state of perfect happiness. In heaven the Tribulational martyr is also beyond the power and control of Satan who has been cast out of heaven in the middle of the Tribulation. Therefore, the humour of it all: they have gone in death where Satan cannot reach them — a bad joke for Satan but a great source of humour to the believers. Even those believers who are losers are beyond the power of Satan in heaven. In death the loser believer is absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. The loser has no more sorrows, no more tears, no more pain, no more death. The loser cannot lose his salvation and the interim life is a blessing to him.

Satan, who has delegated the great power to the beast dictator, has been driven out of heaven permanently in the middle of the Tribulation and therefore he cannot follow, accuse or follow up on martyrs.

Next we have a subjective genitive from the noun marturion, “testimony.” So we have another word added to the joke now. That temple is a testimony; that tabernacle is a testimony. Humour can be a testimony when humour is related to doctrine, “and the temple, the tabernacle, which serves as a testimony” is the way you translate the subjective genitive. The subjective genitive occurs when the noun in the genitive case, marturion here, produces the action being related as the subject to the verbal idea and the noun modified. So we translate not “of” testimony as in the King James version, but it is the temple, the tabernacle, which serves “as” a testimony, subjective genitive case. And where is this testimony? “In heaven,” e)n plus the locative of o)uranoj.

That temple is the testimony in heaven to the grace of God, for in that temple is the tremendous execution squad. That is where the entire system of angelic hierarchy, the great knighthood, the great aristocracy of elect angels are barracked. The tabernacle in heaven is an eternal testimony to the first advent of Christ. It includes, therefore, the concept of both Christology and soteriology. The tabernacle in heaven is an eternal memorial to the virgin birth, the hypostatic union, the function of the humanity of Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere, the doctrine of impeccability and His qualification therefore to bear the sins of the world. It also includes every concept of propitiation and redemption, the unlimited atonement and, of course, the concept of reconciliation. The tabernacle links Jesus Christ as the God of Israel with His omega glory which is found in Deuteronomy 6. The tabernacle reminds Israel that the cross must come before the crown, therefore two advents are necessary to fulfil the unconditional covenants to Israel. The first advent provides eternal salvation and defines Jewish recipients of unconditional covenants at the second advent as those who believe in Christ only. The second advent provides the historical circumstances for the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants whereas the first advent provided the basis for giving to certain Jews those unconditional covenants, they must have the righteousness of God, and those covenants will be fulfilled from the justice of God to the indwelling righteousness of God at the second advent. The tabernacle has the testimony of linking the Jewish Messiah with the Lord Jesus Christ whose first advent fulfilled all of the prophecies regarding His saving work on the cross. The tabernacle is the eternal testimony, therefore, to our Lord’s strategic victory in the historical phase of the angelic conflict. The tabernacle is the eternal testimony to the fact that no human being could ever be in heaven apart from the saving work of Christ. The tabernacle is a part of that great castle, that great barracks. The shadow soteriology and Christology of the Mosaic law is no longer preserved on earth except in the Word of God. Instead it is now a part of that great castle and that great barracks from which all of the judgements of the Tribulation emanate. Those who reject the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ can only anticipate divine judgment both in time and in eternity. Furthermore, they will have no capacity and no way of coping. Therefore the source of divine judgment or the seven last plagues is the temple of the tabernacle in heaven which teaches many facets of doctrine and certain principles: that the greatest power on earth can never harm or touch even a hair of your head as long as you are a believer and inside of the plan of God. This tabernacle in heaven, therefore, is a tremendous memorial to our Lord Jesus Christ.

The tabernacle is said to be opened, the aorist passive indicative from the verb a)noigw. There are many gates to this great castle. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. There is a barracks gate and this is the one that will be opened. The passive voice: the great castle in heaven called the temple, the tabernacle, is opened at one of its special gates. The indicative mood says this is important. The opening of the gate of the temple will release from the barracks the execution quad. These are seven great historical disasters which we will study in Revelation 16,17,18, 19, the seven last plagues, the seven bowl judgements, the seven grenades of history. They will be the last call to the population of the world to accept Christ as saviour before the second advent occurs. Once Christ returns it is too late to believe in Him for salvation and all unbelievers will be removed from this earth and cast into fire, as per the baptism of fire.

Verse five: “Then after these things I concentrated, and the temple, the tabernacle which serves as a testimony in heaven was opened.”

The ritual testimony to the person and the work of Christ is found through the tabernacle in several dispensations. In the Age of Israel it is called the tabernacle of Moses. Then it was called the temple of Solomon, then the temple of Zerubbabel. In the Church Age there is no tabernacle on earth and the representation of it all is the Eucharist or the Lord’s table. In the Tribulation we see where the tabernacle went, it is a part of the temple, the great castle in heaven, the abode of God and certain forms of knighthood among the elect angels. Ritual testimony to the person and the work of Christ in heaven is not only verified by many passages which we have noted, Revelation 11:19; 14:15; 15:5-8; 16:1, but also in the Millennium. There will also be a Millennial temple on earth in Ezekiel chapters 40-47, and again animal sacrifices will be offered in that temple of the restored Israel. The reasons for it are many but among others it is the fact that Israel is restored as a client nation to God. However, in the eternal state there will be no temple, as per Revelation 21:22, “And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty one, and the Lamb of God, is its temple.”

Very shortly we will be studying Revelation chapter sixteen, the chapter of great historical disaster. Every category of historical disaster is included in it. Therefore, of course, the subject itself demands that we spend some time discussing some of the problems of disaster. As long as believers of our generation identify themselves with stupid thinking we are not prepared for either personal disaster or collective disaster.

Believers today are making the same old mistake, they are being propagandised by the press, by human viewpoint in every possible way. The world is never going to be destroyed by nuclear weapons but as long as believers identify themselves with the mob [public opinion] they can never be prepared for disaster. Mobs are used by demagogues to promote violence and to unnerve legitimate local and national governments. There is, of course, nothing in mob psychology to prepare a person for either personal disaster or historical disaster. Jesus saw the fallacy of public opinion at a certain point in His ministry. It has always occurred even though they did not have newspaper print or the high-tech technology for communication that we enjoy today. But the same situation existed during our Lord’s ministry as exists at this moment in our history: believers are being led astray every day because they cannot think in terms of truth, in terms of doctrine, and they are very easily being propagandised by public opinion. Our Lord realised this with His disciples who were born-again believers, and as born-again believers He brought them to a certain point. No one ever taught like our Lord who was obviously the greatest communicator of the truth who ever walked on planet earth. Yet, our Lord came to the place where He could no longer effectively teach and bring people past a certain point spiritually. Therefore He did something about it. He separated those who would continue to be positive from those who would not. He demonstrated to us those who are believers and will fail in time of disaster.

Our Lord saw the fallacy of public opinion; He recognised that believers can only advance to a certain point when they are under the influence of the mob. The Lord, therefore, must separate believers both mentally and spiritually from the influence of erroneous public opinion and the machinations of the mob. Our Lord must also separate these believers physically from this same mob.

So we note three case histories: the story of three distracted believers, believers who did not grow past a certain point. They are believers who are now in heaven in their interim bodies and in a state of great happiness, but believers who were losers in life and this will be reflected in the fact that they will be losers in eternity — no knighthood, no decorations, no rewards accrue to these believers. All three of them fail and we will analyse why they fail. These three believers did not even come to the point of testing, they did not enter into the disaster situation. They were not qualified to do so, they merely merged back into the mob to be lost to the history of their generation.

The first one we will study is going to be a pseudo-intellectual. He is distracted by his own arrogance, his lack of humility or teachability, his rejection of authority, his extreme self-centredness, his lack of virtue. But he was very strong in sincerity, he was emotionally unstable, he was disoriented to reality, and above all he had a false sense of security. He is a scribe, he is a believer with no dynamics for disaster, therefore he will not get into the boat, the boat being the plan of God for momentum in the spiritual life. To us the boat represents the divine dynasphere and its eight gates.

The second is a conventional believer. He has a false system of human protocol; he rejects divine protocol in the plan of God. This believer is distracted by the protocol of society and therefore rejects the protocol of the plan of God. This believer lacks the priority of virtue-first and he will not get into the boat of the divine dynasphere, therefore he will fail in disaster and will never face testing.

The third distracted disciple is the believer with wrong priorities. He is distracted by people and especially by his own love life. Not only does this believer have the wrong priorities but he is confused about the subject of love. He really doesn’t understand love and not understanding love he has no capacity for love, therefore he emphasises the wrong things in love. So not only is he a loser spiritually but he is a lousy lover. Furthermore, this distracted believer has failed to properly interpret history, hence he will not be prepared for disaster.

Matthew 8:18, we have the transitional use of the conjunctive particle de, properly translated “now.” It indicates a crisis but not the kind of crisis that most people recognise as such. Jesus alone understands that His congregation of believers have now reached a critical point in their spiritual lives because too many of them are being influenced by other than doctrinal concepts. It is an old, old story; it happens in every generation. Too many of His disciples are not prepared for the crisis which is about to occur in their generation.

The nominative subject I)hsouj in the Greek with the definite article defines someone whose identity is clear to the readers. It is our Lord Jesus Christ who is the subject and He anticipates the crisis, anticipates disaster, and therefore makes proper provision for those who are positive. “Now Jesus saw,” the aorist active participle of the verb o(raw. Our Lord Jesus Christ understood the trends of history. As God He knew them billions of years ago; as true humanity with maximum doctrine resident in His soul, from His own function in the prototype divine dynasphere, He was qualified to understand the trends of history; not only the overall picture but what was definitely affecting His own congregation. The active voice: our Lord Jesus Christ produces the action from His application of doctrine. This is a temporal participle and translated “when Jesus saw.”

And what did He see? The accusative singular direct object from the noun o)xloj, “crowd.” He saw what many of us have seen: public opinion at its lowest ebb, because public opinion based on all sorts of false concepts and erroneous premises. For example, the nuclear freeze group. Anyone with an ounce of common sense plus a little doctrine realises that the only deterrent that the communist Russian empire recognises is the potential of force.

The crowd has gathered in approbation because our Lord has performed a couple of miracles. The messages, the obvious integrity and courage of our Lord Jesus Christ, has attracted the mob but it is primarily the performing of several miracles that has impressed them. The historical circumstances, of course, at the moment were filled with uncertainty for the middle east which was a powder keg at the time of our Lord’s ministry. The Jews were looking for a leader. Always in the approach of historical disaster people look for a leader. For this reason the crowd had come to Jesus Christ. They had not come for salvation; they had not come for doctrine; they had come to Him as a leader, a potential deliverer from Rome. They weren’t even thinking about deliverance from sin or thinking in terms of spiritual life.

A few things about this crowd as Jesus saw them, because it is true of mobs today just as it was then and mobs down through history:

All mobs are emotional, they are fickle, they are irrational. Furthermore, approbation from a crowd, the masses, becomes a distraction for anything worthwhile. So we have in any mob the breeding ground for arrogance, and mobs function inside the cosmic system. Those who depend upon the crowd for approbation generally have no capacity for life, they are very shallow and very superficial people. They have loss of honour and integrity, if they ever had any n the first place, and they end up with a distorted scale of values, and many of them become demagogues and politicians. Approbation from the crowd when taken seriously destroys moral courage, distracts from doctrine, and guarantees a life of misery in the administration of divine discipline to the believer. Since all mobs are irrational and emotional, and therefore incapable of reason and thought, they fall apart in historical disaster. A crowd destroys human freedom, therefore. A crowd destroys human freedom by demanding equality, everyone in the mob wants to be equal. There is no such thing, of course. Mobs intrude into privacy, they destroy property, they reject authority. A crowd or a mob, therefore, becomes an instrument of evil. No mob has ever been an instrument for good, though they often represent causes that are good or semi-good. A mob easily succumbs to rumour, they are suckers for propaganda, they are victimised by any demagogue who will promise them a Millennium. Freedom is lost in a crowd or a mob and every person who is a part of a mob or a crowd is a slave to irrational and insane emotions. By insane emotions is meant the crowd turning to violence. Violence is a form of evil and in a mob it is disorganised evil.

A mob is a distraction to the perception of doctrine. There are many people in the crowd who have believed in Christ. There are believers and unbelievers in the crowd but there are believers who are being influenced by the mob more than they are being influenced by Bible doctrine. Therefore Jesus must separate the disciples from that crowd. Separation from the mob is necessary to establish our Lord’s authority, His teaching ministry, and to continue their momentum so that there will be in client nation Judea a wonderful pivot of mature believers. All believers who advance to maturity must separate themselves mentally from the thinking of the mob. Every believer must make decisions regarding his life and regarding the content of information which he hears. He has no basis for filtering out what is false unless he has previously learned what is true with regard to Bible doctrine. This means that the positive believer from his own free will must separate himself from all distractions, from all influences, and all false priorities in his life. And at some time this is a test, and it is a test which is given before disaster comes. Separation, then, becomes a positive decision from a position of strength. It means that the believer continues to have control of his own life and he will have a true personal sense of destiny.

“Now when Jesus saw the mob around him.” Obviously seeing the mob around Him He recognised the danger and, of course, the same thing is true today even as it was true then. Therefore the primary responsibility for the pastor-teacher is to communicate Bible doctrine to those who are willing to listen without coercion. You can’t be forced into learning doctrine, and if you are shamed into learning doctrine you will peel off, even as one of the three categories we are about to study.

Our Lord saw the danger of the mob. And what did He do about it? At this time He had the opportunity of separating them. Today our Lord is not ministering on earth but He has provided a substitute for that boat which will physically separate from the mob, the divine dynasphere, God’s plan for the believer.

“Now when Jesus saw the mob around him,” the aorist active indicative of the verb keleuw. It means to give a very strong command, a very dogmatic command, to give a mandate in no uncertain terms. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The indicative mood of keleuw indicates this is the main verb. Our Lord made an estimate of the situation before He gave His commands. It was a correct estimate of the situation. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Our Lord Jesus Christ produced the action by the assertion of His authority in a command situation. We will translate it: “Now when Jesus saw the mob around him he gave orders”. There is no teaching, there is no explanation, but He first of all must establish His authority with believers who are going on in the spiritual life. Believers who are going to have momentum must have established in their soul the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. That authority is delegated today in the written Word and the communication of the written Word. That is why we have the gift of pastor-teacher for that communication.

So first of all the first issue is the authority of our Lord who is teaching the doctrine as over against the attractiveness of the mob. Therefore He gave orders. The expression of the order is in the aorist active infinitive of the verb a)perxomai, “he gave orders to depart.” The culminative aorist tense which views the departure in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, a separation from the thinking of the mob, the influence of the mob, for their spiritual growth. All of us at some time make decisions of separation in order to establish the higher priority of growth in grace, the glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a middle voice in form but it is active in meaning, it is a deponent verb, and therefore the believer must produce the action of the verb in order to advance spiritually. This is the infinitive of intended result. When the result is indicated as fulfilling a definite objective, it is a blending of purpose and result. Then we have prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the adverb of place from peron, “to the other side.”

Corrected translation: “Now when Jesus saw the mob around him he gave orders to depart to the other side.”

That means to cross the lake. The lake refers to the Sea of Galilee. In this manner the Lord is going to separate positive from negative volition. This is just as true today. The pastor must so teach that there will be from time to time a separation of positive from negative volition. The job of the pastor is not to be popular but to be faithful in teaching the Word so that negative volition is irritated and moves on, and positive volition stands fast to grow in grace. The command to cross the Sea of Galilee causes a crisis among the believers in the crowd. It results, therefore, in several classifications, several categories of believers. Some of these believers are positive and some are not. At this particular point all appear on the surface to be positive. Superficially they are positive but in reality there are different priorities and there are different reasons why these people are following our Lord, why they are a part of His congregation. Therefore our Lord is going to eliminate the weak sisters.

We begin with the case of the first distracted disciple. This distracted disciple is a loser, verse 19-20. “And a certain scribe came and said to him, “Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.”

We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then.” We have a nominative singular from the adjective numeral e(ij, meaning “one”, but used here with the indefinite article to indicate a category. He wasn’t the only one in this category but he is typical of it and therefore he is used. The nominative singular subject tells us what kind of a person he was. He was a grammateuj which means a scribe. Grammataeuj was used in the Roman world for a secretary or a clerk, but it was used in the Jewish world for a scholar, a brilliant student, an expert in the Mosaic law. This scribe or scholar is named because he represents a category, the pseudo-intellectual whose arrogant hang-ups distorts doctrine into a system of rationalism or empiricism, or just a series of confusing epigrams. This man was attracted to our Lord because being smart and having a good intellect he recognised a greater intellect. People who are smart are often initially attracted to people who are smarter. This man was attracted therefore by the obvious genius of our Lord Jesus Christ. He could have been a genius himself but he was a pseudo-intellectual, he was a liberal, and beneath the veneer of his intellectualism was a tremendous emotional distraction. His genius was destroyed by arrogance. Arrogance takes a person who is a genius in IQ and makes him a very vain, superficial type of person. We translate it, “A certain scribe.”

Then we have an aorist active participle from proserxomai, which means he approached respectfully. There was nothing in his demeanour to indicate what he was really like. Always remember that when you are in a position of leadership. What people appear to be on the surface is not what they really are. You have to put them under some kind of pressure to find out what makes them tick, and what makes them think. And so it says that he approached respectfully. The constative aorist gathers it up into a moment of time. The active voice: the scribe, full of self-confidence, a pseudo-confidence, approaches with his pseudo-intellectualism and assumes that he is going to handle this magnificently.

A circumstantial participle gives us attendant circumstances, “and he said to him.” He addresses Him, respectfully. He calls Him didaskoloj, “Teacher.” The respect with which he came forward indicates the fact that he has learned something from an intellect superior to his own. The pseudo-recognition of His intellect does not means that he respects His authority. This man will always be superficial because he will never think that anyone is really quite as smart as he is. He sees the brilliance of our Lord; he envies it; he is arrogant; he is hanging around to pick up a concept or two; he is simply trying to emulate our Lord. He is a very superficial person with tremendous potential of intellect. So many people with a potential of intellect, so many people with a high IQ, lose out. Most geniuses are losers, not winners. They are losers because of one thing: arrogance. They have inordinate ambition and inordinate competition. This man is competing with our Lord. This person in arrogance assumes that his own quickness with words has made him superior to others, and as is often the case with smart people — those who are divorced from reality to the extent that they are filled with arrogance — this assumption of superiority over others divorces him from reality. This man’s potential, which was great, was destroyed by his arrogance.

None of us are free from the danger of this problem. Whatever potential we have in life is destroyed by arrogance. Therefore, to whatever organisation to which we belong it must have a system of authority and a system of discipline in order to curtail arrogance and to recognise potential. Any successful business has found a way to curtail the arrogance of the employees so that a maximum benefit can be gained from their true potential.

Arrogance has blinded this smart believer and it has neutralised his real value. Being smart and having quick perceptive ability the scribe attaches erroneous importance to his pseudo-intellectuality. He is self-centred, divorced from reality, and the result is that he lives in a dream world, and the dream world divorced from reality always produces emotional instability. This man is never prepared for disaster. He also suffers from the occupational hazard of lacking common sense. A genius does not have to lack common sense, but it is inevitable that anyone who is smart will be lacking in common sense because of arrogance. To the extent that arrogance exists in the life of any person who is smart to that extent they are divorced from reality and they have no common sense. A much dumber person with common sense is the person who will stand up in the crisis.

The thing that guarantees this man’s destruction is the fact that he has a self-righteous morality; he has arrogant self-righteousness and he cannot cope with reality in normal situations, obviously he will not be able to cope with abnormal situations. He is emotionally unstable and as a result he is not going to get into the boat. This kind of person will never advance inside the divine dynasphere, the plan of God for the believer in this dispensation of the Church.

What did he say to our Lord after that respectful approach? People who are often obsequious in their approach are merely looking for a way to outdo. They are arrogant and it is not genuine or even enforced humility. Beware of the obsequious. He says, “I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest,” but that isn’t what he said at all. That is simply what the King James version erroneously translates.

There is the future active indicative of the verb a)kolouqew, and it does mean to follow, “I will follow.” The future tense is a predictive future for an event expected to occur in the immediate future. The active voice: this is a false statement produced by the scribe. The scribe produces the action of the verb but the declarative indicative says this is really what he said, even though it is false. The dative singular indirect object from su, the indirect object often indicates, “Look I’m benefiting you by following you.” He says, “I will follow you,” and this is a dogmatic statement and is exactly what he said, but not all of what he said. The dative case implies that he is doing Jesus a favour, dative of advantage to our Lord. He is making a dogmatic statement for show and a bluff, and he is a faker. How do we know? Because he adds something. He says, “I will follow you anywhere,” o(pou, an adverbial particle. But then he adds e)an plus the subjunctive mood in the verb, a third class condition: “I will follow you if — if you go.” The present tense of a)perxomai again, a tendential present, used for an action which is alleged but may not take place. The active voice: Christ produces the action allegedly. The subjunctive mood is potential, and he is saying in effect, “Look, for the sake of these knuckle heads I am with you Lord. I know that you are smart, these other people are all stupid so I am going to make a public statement to let you know that I am with you.” Typical arrogance.

By the use of the third class condition the scribe not only doubts the departure of Jesus but impugns His motivation. Pseudo-intellectualism is constantly impugning motivation of others. That is a part of the superficiality that develops in a person who would otherwise have great intellect. People with great intellect are often very superficial people. The reason is because of this one factor: they impugn motivation. They assume that no one’s motivation would be any different from their own. Being arrogant and self-righteous the scribe who is a scholar in his own right thinks of success in terms of a large crowd, and the reason he says “if you go” is because he knows that the Lord wouldn’t leave such a large crowd because he himself wouldn’t leave such a large crowd. He can’t even imagine Jesus walking out on this tremendous mob of people who are now following Him. He can’t even begin to understand that when you have too large a group of any kind there are always people in there who aren’t going to go along, and somewhere along the line leadership with courage must smoke them out so that of their own volition they will peel off.

The scribe typifies the smart person whose arrogance destroys his potential. He would follow Jesus as far as the boat and when our Lord finally gets in the boat it is goodbye. He only follows the Lord as long as it does not interfere with his personal concepts, his personal comfort, and his arrogance. Without doctrine the scribe has neither integrity nor moral courage to venture out into the unknown circumstances, and he is not going into a dangerous sea, he is not going into uncertain conditions, and he is not going to leave that crowd. We might call his condition spurious enthusiasm. It is an artificial enthusiasm and it indicates the fact that he has emotional problems even though he is brilliant. Brilliant people are not rational unless they are free from arrogance. This disciple, therefore, was really precipitous instead of perceptive. He was intellectual, he was emotional, he was sincere, he was overtly dedicated and enthusiastic, he was impulsive, he was arrogant, he was a total failure.

We are studying the dynamics of disaster in preparation for a continuation of our study of the

book of Revelation. We are doing so from Matthew chapter eight, a very excellent passage for several reasons. First of all because it is a passage dealing with believers who fail to handle disaster on this earth, and the reasons why they do. Generally it is because believers are living inside of the cosmic system and they identify themselves with public opinion which in time of great apostasy and in time of the various categories of degeneracy means a mob.

Identification with the mob means that believers cannot be prepared for disaster. We note our Lord’s answer to the scribe, beginning with the connective use of the conjunction kai which is used here in a sequential sense, “Then Jesus said [replied] to him.” Now we are ready to develop a syndrome which is characteristic of this man and it will come from our Lord’s reply. The subject of the first half of the syndrome is the name of an animal in the Greek, a)lwpec, a fox. It is in the plural so He is referring to the foxes categorically. They possess something. The Lord uses a shallow and very superficial answer but which will describe in detail the scribe’s syndrome. So He says, “The foxes have dens [lairs].” The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. In our Lord’s day the fox differed from most canine types in that he burrowed a hole for his lair or his den. The fox is regarded here as insignificant and yet he has shelter, even if he has to take the burrow of another animal. And even though the fox is small and insignificant as an animal he does have a home or a shelter. And the point immediately was probably caught by this man because he obviously would take someone else’s shelter but beyond that is the concept of his human security which is more important to him than anything else. This scribe, as a teacher of the law, would like to appear pious to those around him and to his contemporaries, But at the same time he is so taken with human security that he will not even pass himself off as a mediocre believer. When there is a conflict between human security and the modus operandi of the plan of God the scribe who operates on his emotion will peel off. His superficial attitude will not give him any strength for any form of testing, any form of disaster. So he has what we will call the fox syndrome. But it is just part of the syndrome; it is really the fox-bird syndrome. The scribe has already selected human security for his happiness.

That is his whole concept of happiness and yet, sooner or later, all of us as believers are separated from any form of human security in order that we might realise the true source of our security. Inside of the divine dynasphere is a fantastic temporal security. It comes from the logistical grace provision. God has provided for us logistically and as long as God has a purpose for our life on this earth we will remain on this earth. Therefore, sooner or later, all of us have to face a certain category of disaster testing and that has to do with the separation of any form of human security in order that we might recognise the true source of our security in time, just as we recognise that by faith in Jesus Christ we have eternal security forever and ever. So the scribe has selected human security for his happiness. He relates this to his emotion which gives him no strength for the crisis. Consequently he is going to fail because of the fox syndrome. If Jesus cannot offer more security than that of a fox then, of course, the human security orientation becomes a distraction to him. He is not told where they are going to stay, what they are going to do, what kind of a crowd they are going to gather. The scribe apparently had a very low opinion of the fox and of the fox’s chance for survival. He assumes that the fox has no real security and no chance for survival, and because security is the priority of the scribe he loses the greatest possible system of security

one can have in life, a security that guarantees against disaster just as it provides for capacity for prosperity. So we will call it the fox distraction. Emotional fervour and good intention is not equivalent to following Christ and advancing in the plan of God. This believer will have no more momentum in his spiritual life. Though a scholar and a student he has failed to distinguish between the security of the plan of God and human security. Emotion destroys his moral courage and he makes a wrong decision from a position of weakness. He will lose control of his life and he will never have a true personal sense of destiny even as he will have a false sense of destiny as a great teacher of the Mosaic law. Furthermore, the believer’s emotions never function properly until doctrine comes first. Even though this is a person of great intellect he will be tripped up by his own emotions.

The analogy between our Lord and the fox will turn away the scribe in great disgust. He has

emotional zeal but it is meaningless in facing a small distraction called the security test. Security consciousness and spurious emotions therefore hinder learning doctrine and continuing at gate four. The fox distraction is the negative volition of this intellectual person based on living by his emotions. He has therefore become very superficial in his thinking. The scribe is typical of shallow and superficial believers who never learn enough doctrine to have the right priorities and to understand God’s plan. Spurious emotion divorces him from reality in normal times so that abnormal times of historical crisis will destroy him. He will never be in the boat.

Then our Lord moves to the birds, “the birds of the atmosphere have roosting places [or nests].” He makes a very important point of this because at the time of the writing of the Bible the shotgun had not been invented and birds were much more secure then than they are now. So it appears that Jesus makes an analogy between the scribe with all of his potential, never to be realised spiritually, and these two animals. For example, the fox is clever; so is the scribe. The fox is a smart animal; the scribe is smart. The fox has a lair, a den, a burrow; the scribe has a very narrow and limited sense of human security. Actually our Lord is comparing the scribe’s concept of security and happiness through security as not much more than the lair, the den, or the burrow of the fox. To the fox the lair is his security, but security is never security as long as some more powerful or craftier animal is around to take it away from him. Human security is challenged daily and always proves to be insecurity as well as no happiness. The greatest insecurity results from being security conscious. Security conscious believers rarely advance past a certain point in the Christian life, for the only real security is found not only in faith in Christ but in His marvellous plan which He has provided. We soon learn from gate two of the divine dynasphere that the greatest security in life comes from the application of the doctrinal rationales to the situation. Security, therefore, is related to the divine dynasphere.

So we have the bird analogy. While the fox is analogous to the cleverness of the scribe the bird illustrates his prominence, his wealth, and his success. He is not only a successful teacher of the law but apparently a person of some means. Again, the Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written, and this was written before birds lost a great deal of their security through the shotgun. The bird in the atmosphere was much safer than the fox on the ground and the nest of the bird offered more security than the lair or the den of the fox. The bird, therefore, represents the fact that this man had a form of success and fame, he had great approbation, and he had wealth. This is why he was hanging around our Lord, why he accepted Christ as saviour, to add to his own career. The scribe is clever, like the fox, and he has a form of human security like the bird. A believer who will not depart therefore from the conventional comfort of society, for the unseen benefits of growing in grace, is illustrated by this man. Here is a believer who clings tenaciously to the visible, to the conventional pleasures of life. He refuses to advance beyond a certain point and he will not even have the opportunity of being tested by the crisis.

Jesus concludes, “but the Son of Man has no place where he may recline his head.” In other

words, the Lord Jesus Christ is not promising any form of human security, not that the believer doesn’t have as a part of logistical support all of the blessings that relate to human security from time to time, but as long as human security is an issue the advance in the spiritual life is over. The interesting thing about mentioning the head is that the head is apparently the area which contains the soul, which is immaterial and invisible, and the soul of our Lord contains more doctrine than any other human being. Therefore, resident in His soul are the greatest treasures of life, and He has no place to rest His head. But that is not very meaningful because God the Father is sustaining His humanity inside of the divine dynasphere and He will sustain Him all of the way to the cross where He will be judged for our sins, and then He will sustain Him in resurrection, ascension and session at the right hand of the Father. So the fact that the most important head in history has no place to recline is totally meaningless. The scribe with his superficial scholarship, his pseudo-intellectualism, his arrogance, his spurious emotion, his human security orientation, his lack of faith-rest dynamics, is obviously a failure. This believer will never advance, he will live out his life in discipline and misery and failure, and it won’t even take major historical disaster to make him unhappy. Just normal little frustrations will do it all. He obviously has no dynamics for disaster. His only use is to act as a testing point for his friends who are positive to doctrine and who will very shortly leave him behind. The scribe, therefore, illustrates the believer who because of his arrogance and his cleverness is impressed by the superficialities of life. He is very fond of human

approbation; he is impressed by the large crowds our Lord has gathered. He is impressed by the miracles, he is interested in the teaching system of our Lord because he is a teacher, and he envies the popularity of our Lord Jesus Christ at this moment. The importance of doctrine eludes him in the pursuit of his false system of security.

And so the fox was clever and the bird was secure, and Jesus takes the fox and the bird and

applies the analogy to Himself when He says, “I have no place to rest my head.” In reality He wasn’t applying anything to Himself, He was applying it to the first failure who by human standards was not a failure at all but by the standards of the plan of God was a total failure. The fox was clever, like the scribe, but his cleverness was shallow and based on impulse and emotion. His security was shallow, based on interest in happiness from that standpoint without realising that he had the wrong priorities. His cleverness produced arrogance while his lust for human security produced complacency. He is self-righteous; he is arrogant; he is very very moral but it is the morality of arrogance, not the morality of virtue. And so in reality he is just another tumbleweed which blows across the page of scripture and then vanishes forever. He will be in heaven but he will not be rewarded. We will be able to note him as having only his resurrection body and nothing to show. And as far as his life on this earth is concerned, as of this moment, he has dedicated himself to a life of great misery and unhappiness.

That brings us to the case of the second distracted disciple is verse 21. “Then another of his

students [disciples] said to him, ‘Suffer me to go and bury my father’.” Going to his father’s funeral is not wrong, it is not sinful, it is not immoral, it is not evil, it is a normal and wonderful function. So we are not dealing with sin in this case, we are dealing with another form of superficiality — the protocol superficiality of human society. The pseudo-intellectual disciple called Jesus “Master,” but we should notice that in every case history we find a little more advance in the spiritual life. This person recognises Him as Lord, kurioj. Very few believers ever get to the point where they recognise Jesus as Lord. He is Lord, and we are in union with Christ in this dispensation. Therefore the Lordship of Christ is not an issue in salvation, saviourhood is the issue in salvation, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” But to recognise Jesus as Lord requires momentum, gates five, six, seven, and eight, and very few believers get that far. So this man has made some progress in his spiritual life, as noted by the opening vocative singular. He said, “Lord.” From the vocative it is obvious that he has learned some doctrine, he has spent some time in our Lord’s Bible class. The first disciple recognised Jesus as a professor, some one he can emulate and learn from to enhance his own reputation. This believer, however, is very concerned about people and is therefore very different from the first case. This man obviously loved his father and wanted to attend the funeral, but not so much out of love, as we will note, but from the standpoint of protocol, conformity to the regulations of society. That is more important to him than to continue in the plan of God and perception of doctrine. Society is more important. There are a lot of believers who are this way because there are a lot of legitimate functions in life that are not related in any way to sin or evil. The funeral is merely used as the illustration here. Where the protocol of society is concerned, however, this disciple is inflexible. Traditional observance of a funeral takes precedence over the mandates of Jesus Christ, and that is the issue. Conformity to the customs of society is very important to this man. He is therefore oversensitive to his social life and under-sensitive to his Lord and saviour. If anything in life comes before Bible doctrine, before residence and function in the divine dynasphere, obviously the believer is not prepared for crisis. Recognising Jesus as Lord obviously indicates he is more spiritually advanced than the previous case history who has no spiritual advance at all and no momentum. This man is influenced by what people think rather than by what doctrine says. That is the tragedy of the second case history. Public opinion is more important than occupation with the person of our Lord

Jesus Christ. What this man actually said was, “Lord permit me first to go and to bury my father.” He didn’t say “Suffer me.” The aorist active imperative is what is used here and that is what makes so much difference, the aorist active imperative of e)pitrepw. If we were in the indicative mood or in the subjunctive mood it would be certainly a polite request, one that could be dealt with very quickly and the issue could be explained, the man would understand and not attend his father’s funeral. But this is an imperative, a gnomic aorist tense for the fact that this case history regarded permission as already granted. So we begin to see a little arrogance cropping up in the fact that having a little doctrine he decides he has all the answers. He assumes that a little is a lot and this is just the beginning of his arrogance. So when he puts it in the imperative mood he is simply assuming that the Lord would recognise this as a legitimate excuse and He would recognise that certainly he should go to the funeral of his father before he did anything else by way of taking in doctrine or advancing in what we would call the divine dynasphere. The imperative mood expresses, therefore, the fact that this man has already decided. The imperative of entreaty has the force of urgency or request, it doesn’t have the finality of a command but it implies “I know that you are going to permit me to do it, I know that I have a legitimate excuse.”

There are probably millions of believers today with “legitimate” excuses as to why they do not take in doctrine every day. They are not growing spiritually and they are not prepared for the crisis. They easily fall apart simply when public opinion overpowers them, as the media is doing today. He also used an adverb of time, prwton , here: “first.” This is the most important. First things first, I must conform to society, I must attend my father’s funeral. “Permit me to go and bury my father,” which is simply an idiom which says, Permit me to go and attend my father’s funeral. This believer has become entangled with the protocol of society rather than the protocol of the divine dynasphere. If he failed to attend his father’s funeral his friends and those with whom he had social relationship would ostracise him. This believer thinks more of the approbation of his friends than he does of approbation from the Lord. Therefore he will never advance to gate five, he will never really get in the momentum pattern. There is too much of a conflict. It was convenient up to this point to follow the Lord but now that controversy exists following the Lord or having momentum in the spiritual life becomes inconvenient.

Again, there is nothing wrong with going to his father’s funeral but that isn’t his problem. The problem goes beyond the attendance at the funeral, it goes to the fact that he will never get away from the concept of human approbation. He will always be distracted by his friends and loved ones and will never pass that simple test that doctrine is more important than any person in life. He will live out his life, therefore, inside of the cosmic system and will eventually die the sin unto death. He had great potential and he started out well as so many believers do in their early enthusiasm with regard to doctrine. His father is dead and the son cannot do anything for his father. He has had enough doctrine to realise that his father is in heaven, a place of perfect happiness. He is now facing a test. He cannot add to or take away anything from his father’s present happiness in the interim life. He will see his father in eternity. So the real issue is what other people will think when he does not attend the funeral. And so: “What will they think if I do not attend the boss’s party? What will they think if I do not do this, or that, or the other thing?” If there is a conflict between doctrine and something you want to do or something that will advance you personally by way of a party, by way of a social life of some sort, even a business life of some sort, then doctrine always loses out. When doctrine loses out in normal circumstances you can count on it that you will never ever pass any momentum testing, and when the crisis comes you will fall apart and act like any unbeliever would in your category.

So in life we make our decisions, and this, of course, was a wrong decision. Even the desire to do it was wrong and he has already made up his mind. The imperative mood is the imperative of stubbornness. He had already decided he is going, it is just a matter of a little protocol to come to the Lord and get permission. He will never be able to get past this problem of friends and society. Social life is a more important than spiritual life to him. Our Lord knows the facts; that is the omniscience of His deity. The fact is that this person with all of his sweetness, protocol, and saying the right thing, underneath is a very stubborn person. Once the conflict comes stubborn people demonstrate that they do not have gate three, the virtue of enforced and genuine humility. This man’s stubbornness will take him right out of the picture. The only thing the son can do by attending his father’s funeral is to satisfy the protocol of his social life, and public opinion and the opinion of society is much more important than obedience to the divine mandate given immediately before: “Follow me.” While this disciple has enough doctrine, by the way, to also be very famous as an evangelist he is more concerned about what people think of him. He is typical in many ways of evangelism. Like so many evangelists he appears to be ashamed that his friends will discover that he didn’t do something, some legalistic thing, that protocol demands.

The reason we say that he is an evangelist is because Luke also writes on the same subject.

In Luke 9:60 we have what our Lord says by way of an answer: “But you, and only you, go out and you keep proclaiming everywhere the kingdom of God.” He was an evangelist. A part of his problem was that he wanted to be well thought of rather than to communicate the truth. Matthew 8:22 — “But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me’.” That means move on in the spiritual life, continue your momentum, the present active imperative of a)koluqew which has to do with momentum. He answers an imperative with an imperative. It is a second mandate, so this man is given an opportunity to rethink his position and make an other decision. This is the progressive present for action in a state of persistence — linear aktionsart: Keep moving. The active voice: the second distracted disciple is commanded to produce momentum and to keep going. He is on the right track and should not make a wrong decision at this point. The verb and the command is fulfilled literally by entering the ship, the ship representing the plan of God to us. So it is a matter of keeping moving. Then He makes a rather startling statement when He says, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” There are seven kinds of death in the Bible; there are two here: the subject dead, “let the dead,” referring to other people in society who are spiritually dead in some cases and in other cases are operationally dead, believers who no longer advance in the plan of God. Our Lord runs two categories together here: those who are unbelievers and those who are believers living in the cosmic system. This man is about to identify himself with these people so that he will be like them. It is inevitable that we are like those with whom we associate. This is our Lord’s attempt to protect him from allowing society [his friends] to dominate his thinking. A funeral is a legitimate function, just as a party is a legitimate function, or a football game or a concert, but at some time you have to choose between what is the plan of God and what is a distracting yet legitimate function. That is this man’s problem. In the time of great personal problems, natural disasters, or historical crisis, those wonderful parties, the pleasures, the great social life, the entertainment, will not carry a person at all in the crisis. There is no substitute for Bible doctrine. Both legitimate and inspirational pleasures simply do not sustain. They are wonderful for the moment but they have no permanent sustaining value. A funeral is not regarded as a pleasure but it falls into the category of social protocol, and the conflict is obvious. Society says to this man, “You show up at the funeral or we’ll cut you off”; the Lord says: “Follow me.”

We move to the third distracted disciple, beginning in Luke 9:61, “And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow you; but let me first go and bid them farewell which are at home at my house.”

We have a transitional particle, the post-positive conjunction de, translated “now,” the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai, “also,” and then the word e(teroj meaning he was a believer but he is still in a different category. If it had been the same category then it would have been the word a)lloj. But this is a third category to demonstrate that certain believers can never succeed in the crisis, “Now another disciple also said.” He is a believer, he uses the vocative kurioj, and just like the second disciple he establishes beyond doubt that he has already learned some doctrine.

This believer is also sincere, but sincerity is not a virtue in the plan of God. The priority of the plan of God calls for virtue-first, but the virtue of the plan of God comes at gates five and six: motivational virtue directed toward God; functional virtue directed toward man and circumstances. This believer, therefore, fulfils the principle of 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except through the Holy Spirit.” This man is also emotional but he is emotional without capacity for it. He has a very serious family problem: he loves his wife and children. There is nothing wrong with loving wife and children but he has placed them on a pedestal and therefore he has placed them above Bible doctrine so that he is distracted from it. This means that he has a wonderful situation but no capacity to enjoy it. The most intimate relationships in life and the greatest expressions of love have no prosperity, only unhappiness, unless there is capacity for that love. The capacity for love always comes from virtue, not from rapport, not from attractiveness. With this there is capacity for love and therefore family relationships are meaningful, but without this they are not meaningful. The very fact that the man wants to go back and say goodbye to his family means that he is using his family as an excuse to avoid getting into that boat.

Notice a gradual change as we move from one to the other. The pseudo-intellectual was the first. The second man had his problems in the field of pseudo-security. The third is a man who used his family as an excuse for making wrong decisions, therefore his family fronts for him. Verse 61 says, “And another said to him, ‘Lord, I will follow you.’ This is the future active indicative of the verb a)kolouqew, taken from our Lord’s mandate, for the Lord had said, “Follow me.” And this is a predictive future for an event which is expected to occur at a future time. In other words, this man wants to procrastinate for alleged family obligations. He alleges to have family obligations and he must take care of them first. People lose track of the principle that our first obligation as believers is to the Lord so that all other obligations can be fulfilled with virtue, honour, integrity, and a capacity. This is ignored. The active voice: this is the third distracted disciple who intends to produce the action of the verb. He is sincere about it. At a future time he will follow the Lord but at the present he cannot. And this is the potential indicative of obligation, he feels that his obligation to his family is much greater than his obligation to the plan of God and to the Lord. While this is an expression of good intention and motivation it also indicates the clarity of issue in the mind of the disciple. His priorities are wrong — family first and foremost, family before doctrine. So this third category of believer understands the issue and what decision he could make but he wants to procrastinate. He hasn’t the virtue, the integrity, to follow through.

The principle: Good intentions are no guarantee of fulfilling God’s plan for your life. The expression of good intentions does not mean the execution of the Christian way of life. The expression of good intentions is no substitute for life inside the divine dynasphere. Many people are losers even though they understand the issue. They express good intentions but these good intentions are as far as they go. Good intentions do not mean good decisions.

“I will follow you,” he says, “but ...” The is the adversative use of the conjunction de, “but.” And then he uses the adverb of priority, prwton, and by using that adverb he expresses his erroneous priority. He first of all wants to have permission to express his goodbyes to his family. In other words, he wants out.

While there are many similarities between the second and third distractions there are also great differences. This believer is not distracted by the protocol of society, as was the second, but he is distracted by the fact that he doesn’t really want to go, yet he knows he should. Therefore he must rationalise in his soul some excuse so that he will not have a guilt complex for failure to live up to the plan of God. Believers who have no capacity through Bible doctrine, no capacity for life, inevitably always rationalise their modus operandi and justify their failure. This man will spend his life justifying wrong decisions, justifying his failures. He is a weak sister, he is a loser. He demonstrates, then, that even to state an honourable and a virtuous function does not mean that he is honourable and virtuous, he merely hides behind the facade of his own cowardice. While this appears to be a normal request made to our Lord it is made at an abnormal time, the approach of natural disaster, the momentum testing which will soon follow. This believer will never be tested for momentum, he will spend all of his time suffering because of his bad decisions from a position of weakness, his loss of control of his own life and, inevitably his false personal sense of destiny. The emphasis here, then, is placed on following the Lord into an unknown situation where natural and historical disaster will be a source of testing. This distracted disciple has placed his family as his number one priority. This is his excuse. Many believers fail disaster testing today because they have wrong priorities.

Failure, also, to properly interpret contemporary history results in not being prepared for disaster, and like the other disciples he has no ability to properly interpret contemporary history. He interprets it in terms of his own personal lust and selfishness rather than in the light of doctrinal categories. Obviously the Lord has an answer for him: “Now Jesus replied face to face with him, ‘No one, after having put his hand to the plough ...’ ” Here is a believer who started out the right way with great enthusiasm, with great positive volition, but it was very temporary. He put his hand to the plough. After putting his hand to the plough, fulfilling the priorities of the plan of God, but he got into the same problem that so many do. He finally entered gate one of cosmic one, the function of motivational evil. He looked back. Arrogance guarantees the perpetuation of negative volition in the life. To break the habit of negative volition toward doctrine, to get back to doctrine, not as a convenience of come once in a while to Bible class but as a regular thing for the momentum of the spiritual life, is a very difficult thing because arrogant people are inflexible and they cannot break the pattern of negative volition.

The word “fit” in verse 62 is an incorrect translation. This man is a believer and “fit” is not what it says. It actually says “glances back.” We have the verb blepw which means to glance, not to look. The word for “look” is o(raw. He glances back after putting his hand to the plough, and it is a pictorial present for the events on the process of occurrence. The active voice: it is a believer who has momentum, who has started out well. It is a circumstantial participle expressing the attendant circumstances of the loser.

We should notice that “things behind” include many things which are distractions. Many of them are legitimate things that should occur. Everyone has certain responsibilities to family; everyone has certain responsibilities in life. But these responsibilities must never take priority over God’s plan and Bible doctrine. Ordinarily, the objects of love synchronise and there is no conflict with the plan of God. Occasionally there will be a testing but where capacity exists, where virtue exists, where integrity exists for momentum in the spiritual life this should not be a problem. The Lord Jesus Christ must, of course, receive number one priority through residence, function, and momentum inside the divine dynasphere. This disciple in his arrogance will fail to understand the analogy answer and he will become disenchanted and disillusioned and will peel off in negative volition. He will be a casualty before the crisis. The principle: A believer who is a casualty before the crisis never survives historical disaster.

The words “is fit,” “Is” is simply the present active indicative of e)imi. It is a retroactive progressive present and denotes what is begun in the past, distraction and negative volition, and continues into the present. The third distracted disciple produces the action. It is a declarative indicative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. The word “fit” is a predicate nominative singular from the compound noun e)uqetoj. E)uqetoj is made up of an adverb e)u, meaning well or rightly, and the verb tiqemi which means to place, and actually it means well-arranged, adapted, useful. It comes to mean in modern English, well-adjusted.

Note, then, the corrected translation: “No one, after putting his hand on the plough and glancing backward, is well-adjusted to the kingdom of God.”

“Kingdom of God” is used under the concept of plan of God during the transitional period our Lord was on earth and anticipates the Church Age.

Ploughing is analogous to momentum in the plan of God, the momentum of perception and application of doctrine at gate four. This man went farther than the others but he, too, is a loser. There must be the plugging, the persistence. Persistence is the name of the game.

In Matthew 8:23 we meet those who are qualified. “Nevertheless, when he [our Lord Jesus Christ] boarded the ship, his disciples followed him.” These are the ones who are positive to the plan of God. They were pluggers, they were persistent in the perception of doctrine. They stayed with the ship. They continued their momentum and they finally arrived at occupation with Christ. They entered the ship, gate seven: momentum testing, historical crisis coming up. They are unremitting in their perseverance where doctrine is concerned and they do no allow wrong priorities to distract them as far as God’s plan is concerned. These disciples follow our Lord into the boat, not knowing where He is going, not knowing what is on the other side for them. But they recognise a principle and they use it: they know that the battle is the Lord’s, they know that the logistical grace provision is theirs, and therefore there is no hesitation. It is necessary for them to be tested on the sea before they will ever be ready for the great historical crisis which will come at the end of our Lord’s ministry.

Before any believer can face the storms of life he must get into the ship, he must get into the plan of God and stay with it. No storm or testing ever becomes a blessing in your life until you live and have momentum inside of the divine dynasphere. Because the ship is on the water and isolated from the normal functions of life it is a great time for disaster testing. When the believer enters the classroom of the local church he is also isolated from normal functions in life. The classroom of the local church eliminates certain distractions so that concentration on doctrine will result in perception of doctrine, and once the believer gains momentum from consistent perception of doctrine then, gate seven, comes the testing, then comes the storm. But no storm is a test for blessing for the believer until the believer makes his consistent and daily decisions to put his hand to the plough for living in the ship.

That brings us now in verse 24 to the crisis. “And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with waves; but he [our Lord Jesus Christ] was asleep.”

We have a demonstrative particle i)dou here and it could be translated, “And so, look what happened.” When it says in the King James version the word is not tempest at all. In fact it is not the Greek word for storm, it is the Greek word for shaking, seismoj. It means a shaking on the water, therefore a storm. The word megaj means it was a great storm. The aorist middle indicative of ginomai means that it occurred suddenly, there was no build-up for it. The constative aorist means it was a sudden thing, there was no time to prepare — no time to look up a few verses, no time to offer a prayer.

One thing that is very important in this passage and one thing that must be learned: prayer is a great weapon in Christian service but it is not designed to help you in a crisis. This doesn’t mean that prayer doesn’t have a place but it does mean that when a crisis comes suddenly you do not have time for prayer, the only thing you have time for is whatever doctrine you have learned and can apply. The three categories of believers which we have studied were incapable of even facing the test but the believers who did have the momentum and were aboard ship and who could face the test, prayer was not the answer to this type of crisis. Application of doctrine from their own souls was the only thing they could use. And the suddenness of the storm turned them into cowards even though they would be winners later on they flunked the test. They flunked the test because they could not think under pressure. The storm was the crisis, the disaster. The disaster, of course, is testing but testing is always designed for blessing and the blessing comes from the application of doctrine, not prayer — the ability to take doctrine resident in your own soul and apply it without anyone counselling you. Two things cannot be used: counselling and prayer. These disciples flunked the test because even though they had the doctrine and knew the right doctrines they couldn’t apply them. They couldn’t apply them because they turned coward. A coward is a person who cannot think under pressure.

The storm, of course, is designed to teach the futility of human resources. There is no preparation, no ability, no genius, no system of human philosophy that can handle the historical disaster illustrated by the storm. Only the disciples, by the way, who were positive to the plan of God faced the storm; only believers living inside of the divine dynasphere are so tested by storms which prepare them and give them dynamics for great historical disaster. In the storm positive believers learn who and what Christ is, and therefore the storms of life teach the higher form of security from God. The sea is very much like the circumstances of life — variable. One moment the sea is perfectly calm and very beautiful, representing the pleasant circumstances of our life; the next moment the sea becomes stormy and awesome in the fury of its power, representing disaster and crisis in the circumstances of life. The ship represents the plan of God, the divine dynasphere with its mandates and its priorities; and with maximum doctrine resident in the soul the believer can have his greatest blessings in the storm. The fact that the disciples failed merely emphasises the point. They could have succeeded, they could have had the wonderful privilege of riding out the storm and enjoying every minutes of it.

The adverse circumstances of life are like the stormy sea, they provide uncertainty, they indicate lack of human control, they indicate that the resources of life apart from what God has provided are absolutely useless. The ship is the only place of safety in the storm just as the divine dynasphere is the only place of security, safety and blessing in this life. We can’t afford to be out of the divine dynasphere for five minutes. Bible doctrine resident in the soul is the basis of capacity for happiness and blessing and the ability t handle the adversities of life. Bible doctrine resident in the soul is the key to our strength and our stability. Many believers never get into the ship because they are distracted by the cosmic system, but those who do face the storm not as a discipline but as a blessing. All adversity which comes to you when you are living in the divine dynasphere is testing and the only place of security in the storm is the ship no matter how unstable it appears to be in the storm. The ship is the divine dynasphere with its mandates, its priorities, its momentum from perception of doctrine. The divine dynasphere, therefore, is the believer’s wall of fire. Suffering for blessing is one of the categories that will be noted in this storm. This means that suffering is intimately linked to blessing for believers who put their hand to the plough, who consistently live inside the divine dynasphere. You cannot have blessing from suffering and from adversity and from disaster unless you have Bible doctrine resident in your soul, and that comes from residing in the divine dynasphere.

God does not deliver the believer by cancelling the crisis, He delivers by intensifying the crisis and forcing us to go away from human resources to the Bible doctrine we have stored in our souls from persistent perception of doctrine in Bible class. The blessing, therefore, comes not from avoiding the storm but from riding out the storm; not from the cancellation of the storm but going through it. The mature believer is delivered in the storm, never from the storm. The real blessing is in the storm so that storm reality must be intensified so that the believer comes to the end of any human resources he may choose to insert into the problem. The inserting of human resources into the crisis is like salvation by works or spirituality by works, and one must come to the end of his resources.

“So that the ship was covered [buried] in the waves.” The Greek word is the present passive infinitive of kaluptw which means to be buried. When the disciples embarked with our Lord the sea was calm, and while the sea was calm our Lord went to sleep. With crisis and disaster there is always a calm before the storm and during the calm before the storm the only preparation which can exist is that which is in the soul, life in the divine dynasphere resulting in the perception of Bible doctrine. Therefore, as always, the doctrine must be in the soul. It must be transferred there by the daily function of GAP.

The storms always come suddenly, without warning, and this illustrates the fact that we do not need warning for disaster when we consistently put our hand to the plough or when we are living in the ship of the divine dynasphere. What the disciples needed to ride out the gale was the filling of the Spirit, the second stage of the faith-rest drill, the plan of God rationale, the essence of God rationale, the logistical grace rationale. They needed to function at gate four, the application of doctrine; gate five, occupation with the person of Christ. There are many preparations for disaster so that when it comes suddenly it does not destroy the individual. The only real help in time of the storm, then, is not prayer and not counselling but the resources of doctrine which you possess in your own soul. God uses prepared people; prepared people are inculcated with Bible doctrine. No human preparation can avoid catastrophe in time of disaster, only your faithfulness at the plough which is the daily momentum that you have inside the divine dynasphere.

“but he was asleep,” the imperfect active indicative of the verb kaqeudw, “he kept right on sleeping. He continued sleeping in the storm. The imperfect tense is linear aktionsart in past time which means that the fury of the storm, the roll of the ship, did not awaken our Lord. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb by sleeping very peacefully. It must be remembered, of course, that only His humanity was sleeping. Deity cannot sleep, does not sleep; it is only the humanity of Christ which is sleeping. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that our Lord was not in any way disturbed by the storm. It wasn’t necessary for Him to get up and counsel them. They had in their own souls everything they needed for the crisis and therefore they did not have to awaken our Lord. And while the storm raged on the Sea of Galilee our Lord continued to sleep. Why didn’t the humanity of Christ awaken and give them assurance? This is not the way to meet disaster. Disaster is met by thinking — right thinking, doctrinal thinking, doctrinal rationales, application of doctrine to experience. They had the doctrine, they didn’t need any personal attention or encouragement from others to pass the test.

While the storm raged on the Sea of Galilee our Lord Jesus Christ continued to sleep. Now, again, we go back to the doctrine that these people should have applied but did not at this time. Jesus Christ is eternal God and He is also true humanity in one person forever. When it says our Lord was asleep, the imperfect of keqeudw, it means His humanity was sleeping. The deity of Christ was not sleeping and was thoroughly cognisant of the storm. The Lord did not need to awaken to counsel the disciples, they had enough doctrine to handle this situation, the Lord does not test them beyond what they are able to stand. They knew the doctrine of the hypostatic union and therefore they should have applied it under the essence of God rationale. Believers in disaster do not need personal attention, they need application of doctrine. Our Lord slept so that the disciples could learn this lesson.

So no matter how strong the wind or how high the waves with Christ in the ship, sound asleep, they are perfectly safe. By sleeping in the storm our Lord teaches these disciples the importance of the inner resources of doctrine. He is doing them a favour by remaining asleep. They must faith-rest the disaster, they must rely on doctrine rather than personal encouragement from someone else. A smooth trip means no utilisation of the Bible doctrine that they have learned, no use of the plan of God rationale, the essence of God rationale, the supergrace rationale, the imputation rationale. So our Lord kept right on sleeping. With the Lord on board that ship could not sink. No storm of life is greater than the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 4:4, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.”

The disciples had their eyes on the storm instead of having their eyes on the Lord. Testing through catastrophe and disaster always brings out what we really are. All we have to do to be prepared for any disaster in the world is to take in doctrine on a regular basis. It all forms into a system and the system develops for us whatever problems that we are going to face. No one ever becomes strong until he has passed this category of pressure testing. They will learn from this pressure test in this storm that doctrine can be applied and must be applied. The disciples who were too distracted to embark on the ship will never learn the lesson and they are losers throughout life no matter what life brings their way. Their suffering is always discipline but never for blessing. Believers living in the cosmic system never suffer for blessing.

Verse 25, panic under pressure. We have a connective kai introducing a result from what precedes. We translate it “Consequently.” We have the aorist active participle of proserxomai, “and they approached.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist gathering up into one entirety all of these disciples doing their best, doing whatever they could, working their way to where our Lord was sleeping. Then we have the aorist active indicative of the verb e)geirw which means they woke Him up. Again, it is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety, they kept shouting at Him until they woke Him up. “Consequently, having approached they awoke him.”

Human panic assumes that the Lord is sleeping and therefore not paying any attention to them, whereas in eternity past Christ had already paid attention to them. Human panic is the source of pseudo-prayer, of fear, worry, anxiety, guilt-complex, all of which are sins and, furthermore, sins of motivating evil. The disciples were not thinking. Courage is the ability to think under pressure and at this moment we have one hundred per cent cowardice. It never occurred to the disciples to ride out the storm and see what the Lord had for them. Remember that only the humanity of Christ was sleeping. They were perfectly safe for the Lord knew in eternity past their circumstances at this moment and He has made perfect provision for them. They were on one trip where it would be impossible for that ship to sink and therefore they missed all the fun. It was totally unnecessary for them to wake up our Lord for underneath every one of them were the everlasting arms of Deuteronomy 31:27. Jesus Christ is eternal God. The eternal God is a refuge — He was their refuge. They were perfectly safe. This was, therefore, their great opportunity for the faith-rest drill. They could have claimed a few promises and started thinking in terms of that doctrine they knew. The only doctrine they had to deal with was the doctrine of Christology because the great issue with all of them at this point was that they all failed at the same point: gate five, occupation with the person of Christ. They failed in the field of Christology; they failed to apply the essence of God rationale to the situation.

We have the present active participle of legw. Legw is translated in many ways. It means to communicate and it doesn’t always mean to speak or to say. Here it means to shout or to scream, present linear aktionsart, they were screaming. They were in panic palace, therefore they were screaming, not yelling. Yelling would have meant that they were thinking. The active voice: frightened disciples produce the action of the verb. These men aren’t always going to be cowards, they are just cowards at this moment so they will learn never to be cowards again. It is possible to be a coward once and then become a very courageous person, and that is what is going to happen to these men. They are going to learn something. The complementary participle completes the idea of the action expressed in the main verb, and we translate it, “and they woke him up screaming.” And the vocative they screamed: Kurioj, Kurioj, “Lord, “Lord.” The interesting thing is that the vocative they used in the key to everything. That should have started them thinking. Kurioj is our Lord’s title for deity, they addressed Him as God. As God, Jesus Christ had delivered them in eternity past and they should be enjoying the storm. This vocative is a reminder that the believer must concentrate, must think in time of pressure. But you have to have something with which to think, you have to have the content of doctrine; and it has to be learned in calm times, in times of tranquillity, that is why we have Bible class, a relatively tranquil time to learn doctrine. Then we have an aorist active imperative of sozw which means here “deliver,” “Deliver us.” In other words, they were saying, “Help, help.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. One man would say it, another person would say it. This is an imperative of entreaty, it doesn’t convey the finality of a command but it has the force of urgency. Irrationality is manifest in the entreaty for deliverance when they are already delivered from the storm from eternity past. Jesus Christ asleep or awake aboard ship is the stabiliser of that ship and no storm or disaster can destroy the ship while our Lord is sleeping. With Christ sleeping during the storm the disciples should have been alerted to the meaning of it all and to therefore have a marvellous ride. Security plus capacity for life means that the disciples in the ship should have been enjoying the storm. Actually the Lord designed it for their blessing and it was only their own failure, the use of their own volition, that caused it to be a time of great panic and misery.

Then the disciples used the present passive indicative of a)pollumi. Why are they in the ship? The Lord commanded them, the aorist imperative. It was an order. Is God going to command them to get aboard a ship so that they could go out in the middle of the sea and sink? No, they are in the Lord’s will in the middle of that storm and they should have known they were in the Lord’s will when they boarded ship. They were in the Lord’s will, therefore they were perfectly safe. Yet, here they are saying, “We are about to perish [we are being wrecked].” The culminative aorist views the punishment that the ship was taking from the storm in its entirety but emphasises the potential of shipwreck. The passive voice: it was actually the disciples, not the ship, who were being wrecked. This is the potential indicative, the ship was not breaking up but their emotions were breaking them up. Their emotions were out of hand in cowardice and they were cracking up, the ship was not.

Verse 26, the reprimand for the disciples. The storm is still raging and the Lord shouted at them. “Consequently he shouted at them.” The nominative neuter singular from the interrogative pronoun tij, “Why, are you cowards?” They were cowards because they couldn’t think. We are all potential cowards unless we can think in terms of doctrine under pressure. Then we have a predicate nominative, the word for coward is the Greek word deiloj.

Note that the Lord reprimands the disciples in the ship before He rebukes the sea. By doing this the Lord establishes the priorities of the situation. Obviously the Lord thinks. First the disciples are censored, then the Lord will expunge the storm. The disciples are out of hand matching the fury of the storm. There is no difference between the fury of the storm and the disciples. The storm is shouting and howling and screaming , and so are they; and it will take a long time to bring the disciples under control because their recovery demands the daily positive volition toward doctrine over a given period of time. But the storm will be instantly controlled because the material universe responds instantly to our Lord’s authority and command. The Lord’s dealing with the storm is a simple thing but with the disciples it will take more than a command. The disciples must learn and relearn doctrine so that the application will be instantaneous, reflex action, next time. Cowardice and fear ruined them on this occasion; next time they will know better and consequently the inculcation of doctrine will do its work.

Fear always wipes out capacity for life, capacity for love, capacity for happiness, but God has provided doctrine resident in the soul so that while the storm rages your soul can be calm and tranquil. Circumstances do not change one’s attitude where doctrine exists in the soul. The disciples had the doctrine but they hadn’t learned to apply it; they are going to learn a great lesson. This fear of the storm was not lack of doctrine but failure to apply doctrine. Some people have doctrine but they have not learned to apply it.

Our Lord calls the disciples one word in the Greek, o)ligopistoi. O)ligoj simply means little, and pistoj means faith. It can be translated, therefore, “you short-time trusters.” They are short-time trusters. At the point of boarding the ship they obeyed the mandate of our Lord. They boarded under very calm circumstances. They left behind the three categories of believers who are losers from the beginning. But when they stepped aboard that ship they were winners, they were moving in the right direction. They were also aware of the fact that they were winners and therefore their victory made them vulnerable to defeat. The defeat is that they were short-time trusters. Only during the calm were they trusting the Lord. They were great believers as long as everything was going all right but once things were going wrong they became short-time trusters.

As long as things are pleasant, relatively quiet, believers can apply doctrine under calm circumstances, but as soon as the tranquillity is replaced by the storm, as soon as the crisis arises and the disaster occurs, they simply cannot apply the doctrine that they have learned. They are like the soldier who shoots well on the range but under the pressure of combat forgets all of the lessons he has learned. So the vocative answers the question: “Why are you cowards, you short-time trusters?” Theyare cowards because they are short-time trusters. In other words, they are fair weather believers. As long as there is no challenge they are content to enjoy the messages and miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ, but when the crisis approaches and disasters come they go into shock and their doctrinal thinking is frozen in the deep-freeze of their fear. Doctrine is there but they will never use it in disaster until they learn that Christ is not only their Lord but Christ is the Lord of the storm — just as we have to learn that Christ is the Lord of the disaster.

Jesus Christ controls history, He has provided for us in logistical grace everything necessary for the crisis and for the disaster. We will never be taken from this life until He is ready to take us and until His plan is for our departure. So the logistical grace rationale should have occurred to them. But God does not intend for the believer to run to Him or anyone else in time of disaster since He has provided the basis for utilising inner resources. The believer must throw away his crutches. In other words, as the apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:7, “we walk by faith and not by sight.” This means that every time we seek help or counsel from another we are weakened. They sought advice from the Lord but the Lord had already given them advice in many, many messages. He had said it all before.

Doctrine is taught so that doctrine can be applied. The disciples have already learned the necessary doctrine, therefore our Lord is sleeping. So He reprimands them, but He doesn’t stop there. He then turns and reprimands the storm. “At that time,” the correlative adverb tote, an adverb of time. Just as soon as He had reprimanded them He immediately turns to deal with the storm. The storm has no soul, it is just wind, water, temperature. It then says he got up and reprimanded, the aorist active indicative of e)pitimaw, “rebuked,” and it says that it became perfectly calm. Note that He reprimanded the disciples from a sitting position. They awakened Him and He called them cowards. He was either sitting or reclining but when he goes to reprimand the sea He is in standing posture. Why? The disciples were in the classroom where the posture of the teacher is not the issue, but the storm was on parade where the posture of the commanding officer must be compatible with the situation. He is the commanding officer of the storm. So there is protocol for every situation and our Lord observed not only the priorities of reprimand but the posture for such a category. There is a posture for communicating to the mentality of mankind and there is a posture for communicating to the fury of the material universe.

The verb implies voice usage. The voice of our Lord could be heard above the sound of the wind and the waves. Where the Word of God penetrated there was instant obedience and instant calm no matter how great the turmoil. Protocol must always be the servant of sound doctrine but never the master of doctrine. The storm with all of its fury came to instant calm. It heard the voice of our Lord once and obeyed; the disciples had heard the voice of our Lord many times and had failed. When protocol becomes the master it is a distraction to doctrine, a deterrent to spiritual growth. What appeared to be a miracle was merely the Lord controlling His own creation. Remember that His creation responded to Him immediately whereas believers must on a daily basis use their volition to respond.

There is, of course, a certain amount of superficiality that always accompanies any failure. That is given to us in verse 27. Believe it or not, here is an explanation as to why these positive disciples failed. They were impressed with the wrong things. They were impressed with the power of our Lord and the miracles He performed instead of the doctrine which He had been teaching them daily. No believer can be impressed with the Lord until he is impressed with what the Lord thinks — doctrine, the mind of Christ. You never really get to know another person until you get to know exactly what he thinks, and that often takes a little time and some pressure. It is easy for the Lord to perform a miracle, it only means that the Lord is using His volition, His sovereignty. However, it is difficult to reach believers with Bible doctrine because they not only have free will but they are preoccupied with the things of this life, the things that they are doing are more important. The excuses are always legitimate but the priorities are always wrong. Doctrine must become a reality in the soul before the unique person of Christ can become real to the individual in the storm. The disciples were impressed with the reality of the storm, they were frightened, but not with the reality of Jesus sleeping in the storm, the key to utilising the second stage of the faith-rest drill.

The men were “amazed.” They are called men now instead of disciples. Up until now they had been called maqhthj, students, which is all the word disciple means; now they are simply called a)nqrwpoj, men, ordinary human beings. Every word in the Bible is important and when the Word of God changes and calls them just “men” they have lost track. The tragedy of so many in our generation is that believers are just people, just ordinary people acting like anyone else. The reason is because of no positive volition. Maqhthj: disciple, student, positive volition; men: negative volition, they had just gone back and joined the mob, they are no better or no worse, no different, but essentially, as far as God is concerned, they are written off as losers. They haven’t lost their salvation, they have just lost the whole significance as to why they are left behind in this life.

Instead of using of using doctrine in the crisis they acted like ordinary, cowardly, stupid men. Therefore, the Bible calls them men in contrast to students or disciples which they were called in verse 23 when they embarked on the ship. They were still learning then; now they are not learning at all. No one is ever the same after passing through a test or disaster such as this. The disciples are now men, the worse for having gone through the storm. Doctrine either makes the believer greater in the storm or worse, he is either a winner or a loser. Only the inculcation of doctrine and its proper application really counts.

To prove that these are really men we have the aorist active indicative of qaumazw. It wasn’t the disciples who were qaumazw, “amazed,” it was “men,” the same people called men. As men they were astounded by the miracle; as disciples they would have been astounded by the doctrine. So they are called men. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. At this point they are losers and therefore they are impressed by the miracle, not by the Word of God. The active voice: the believers in the ship, formally called disciples or students, are now simply called men. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of their superficiality. Once you fail to pass the test in a disaster you immediately become a superficial person. As disciples and being positive toward Bible doctrine they were winners, or potential winners, but as men and being negative toward doctrine they are now just shallow, superficial people.

Our life on earth is what we think, and if we become impressed with the miracles of life, as it were, if we become impressed with the emotional aspect of life rather than the rational aspect of doctrine then we are just superficial losers. With emotion now dominating their souls these men now demonstrate the superficialities that can overtake any one of us at any time, and that is to be impressed by what we see in life rather than what we think.

In verses 5-8 we have the vision of the heavenly temple or the barracks of the execution squad.

Verse 5, the continuation of the vision. We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then,” followed by the prepositional phrase meta plus the accusative neuter plural of o(utoj, “After these things,” a correct and precise idiom to indicate the relationship between previous history and the present moment being described. “After these things,” therefore, includes the vision or great sign of the seven last plagues, verse 1; the vision of the victorious martyrs — verse 2; the victory hymn of the Tribulational martyrs, verses 3-4. The principle is a very simple one. Prophetical subjects must be developed in the sequence of divine thinking.

Here God’s policy is grace before judgment, always. There is always a grace period prior to any judgment of history and that grace period gives opportunity to reverse bad decisions from a position of weakness under the principle of repentance or changing one’s mind. There are two categories of repentance which exist to reverse the repercussions of divine judgment. The first is the decision to believe in Christ, the decision of salvation. This is called the repentance of the unbeliever, repentance simply means a change of mind. The second is the decision of rebound, the repentance of the believer resulting in deliverance from the cosmic system.

“Then after these things,” after the vision of the Tribulational martyrs in heaven and their victory hymn, “I looked,” the aorist active indicative of o(raw. Looking here has to do with concentrating. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. This can be classified as the vision of the source of the seven last plagues or the seven bowl judgements. The active voice: the apostle John as the human author of the book of Revelation under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of eschatological doctrine and the fact that much of historical disaster comes from the court in heaven and it protects mankind, perpetuates the human race.

Next we have the connective conjunction kai, “and,” which introduces the result from what precedes. We now approach the problem of the seven last “grenades” or plagues. They are related to the Tribulational martyrs and their imprecatory prayers. Now we see the barracks of the execution squad. The word “behold” in the King James version is not found in the original language. The next word is the nominative singular subject from naoj, “temple,” and with this we also have a temporary form of worship, the genitive of apposition skhnh, “tabernacle.” So they are both together: the permanent temple and the tabernacle. The tabernacle is the memorial in heaven to the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in His strategic victory of the angelic conflict, the first advent.

The beast dictator has too much power in order to get any laughs out of this, therefore he has no sense of humour because his power has added to his arrogance. Arrogance has no sense of humour. When facing the power of Satan and his beast dictator the humour must be subtle. Therefore the paronomasia of Revelation 13:6 linked to John 1:14, and now brought out again. But something is added to it. Notice the two words again: naoj then skhnh, the two are linked together. What is so funny about this is that Satan can’t stand the fact that our Lord tabernacled among us and now coming out of the temple is going to be a tabernacle that will destroy Satan’s power on earth. So the temple is the barracks from which the execution squad will advance. With all of his great power the beast dictator who is the political ruler of the revived Roman empire and the leader of ecumenical religion in the Tribulation cannot perceive the humour of this paronomasia. Reason: he cannot laugh at himself, he takes himself very seriously. When confronted with humour as a weapon he can only riposte with slander.

When believers are beyond the power of evil, evil counterattacks with a distance-type shooting called slander. Doctrine resident in the soul is more powerful than the power of evil as demonstrated by this parry of humour. The skhnh was when our Lord was on earth, the tabernacle; now we have a barracks in heaven and the barracks in heaven is going to send an execution squad to the earth.

Tribulational martyrs have demonstrated that they were beyond the evil of the dictator in two ways. First of all, doctrine was more important than their life. Hence, they became martyrs because their priorities were straight. Secondly, the interim life for the Tribulational martyrs in heaven is totally beyond the influence of Satan who is confined to earth during the last half of the Tribulation. The humour of this is the fact that they are in heaven. Satan sent them to heaven through torture and execution; now that they are in heaven they are beyond his power. Satan only had power over these believers while they were on earth. He killed them and immediately they are out of his power. Furthermore, they go up and they knock on the door of the barracks and they say, “Send out the execution squad”. And that is exactly what will happen. The imprecatory prayers means sending out the execution squad.

So we have so far: “Then after these things I concentrated, and the temple, the tabernacle.” The arrogant preoccupation with self in cosmic one cannot see the humour between skhnh and skhnow, the two words that are used in the pun.

Principle

1. Like all people with more power than they can handle the beast dictator has no sense of humour, for in arrogance he takes himself too seriously.

2. When arrogance is faced with humour it must retort with slander. Why? Slander is the weapon of the weak to attack the strong. The sins of the tongue are always the weapons of the weak to attack those who are strong, those who are beyond their power. The one who slanders is weak and the object of the slander is strong, so it is the weak attacking the strong.

3. With maximum doctrine resident in the soul the Tribulational believer is beyond the power of the all-powerful beast dictator.

4. In life doctrine in the soul puts the believer beyond the power of the dictator, while in death the interim life in heaven puts the believer beyond the power of Satan. So there is a double protection of all believers: a wall of fire on earth; an interim life in heaven.

5. The beast dictator cannot learn the lesson of humour. With all of his vast power over life and death he cannot control the believer with maximum doctrine resident in the soul.

6. Bible doctrine resident in the soul of the believer is more powerful than all categories of human power. In other words, no one can destroy your power of thinking, only you can do it by bad decisions.

7. Therefore the Tribulational martyr is beyond the dictator’s control in life because of the greater power of Bible doctrine resident in his soul. Furthermore, the Tribulational martyr is beyond the dictator’s control in death because of his residence in heaven in a state of perfect happiness. In heaven the Tribulational martyr is also beyond the power and control of Satan who has been cast out of heaven in the middle of the Tribulation. Therefore, the humour of it all: they have gone in death where Satan cannot reach them — a bad joke for Satan but a great source of humour to the believers. Even those believers who are losers are beyond the power of Satan in heaven. In death the loser believer is absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. The loser has no more sorrows, no more tears, no more pain, no more death. The loser cannot lose his salvation and the interim life is a blessing to him.

Satan, who has delegated the great power to the beast dictator, has been driven out of heaven permanently in the middle of the Tribulation and therefore he cannot follow, accuse or follow up on martyrs.

Next we have a subjective genitive from the noun marturion, “testimony.” So we have another word added to the joke now. That temple is a testimony; that tabernacle is a testimony. Humour can be a testimony when humour is related to doctrine, “and the temple, the tabernacle, which serves as a testimony” is the way you translate the subjective genitive. The subjective genitive occurs when the noun in the genitive case, marturion here, produces the action being related as the subject to the verbal idea and the noun modified. So we translate not “of” testimony as in the King James version, but it is the temple, the tabernacle, which serves “as” a testimony, subjective genitive case. And where is this testimony? “In heaven,” e)n plus the locative of o)uranoj.

That temple is the testimony in heaven to the grace of God, for in that temple is the tremendous execution squad. That is where the entire system of angelic hierarchy, the great knighthood, the great aristocracy of elect angels are barracked. The tabernacle in heaven is an eternal testimony to the first advent of Christ. It includes, therefore, the concept of both Christology and soteriology. The tabernacle in heaven is an eternal memorial to the virgin birth, the hypostatic union, the function of the humanity of Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere, the doctrine of impeccability and His qualification therefore to bear the sins of the world. It also includes every concept of propitiation and redemption, the unlimited atonement and, of course, the concept of reconciliation. The tabernacle links Jesus Christ as the God of Israel with His omega glory which is found in Deuteronomy 6. The tabernacle reminds Israel that the cross must come before the crown, therefore two advents are necessary to fulfil the unconditional covenants to Israel. The first advent provides eternal salvation and defines Jewish recipients of unconditional covenants at the second advent as those who believe in Christ only. The second advent provides the historical circumstances for the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants whereas the first advent provided the basis for giving to certain Jews those unconditional covenants — they must have the righteousness of God, and those covenants will be fulfilled from the justice of God to the indwelling righteousness of God at the second advent. The tabernacle has the testimony of linking the Jewish Messiah with the Lord Jesus Christ whose first advent fulfilled all of the prophecies regarding His saving work on the cross. The tabernacle is the eternal testimony, therefore, to our Lord’s strategic victory in the historical phase of the angelic conflict. The tabernacle is the eternal testimony to the fact that no human being could ever be in heaven apart from the saving work of Christ. The tabernacle is a part of that great castle, that great barracks. The shadow soteriology and Christology of the Mosaic law is no longer preserved on earth except in the Word of God. Instead it is now a part of that great castle and that great barracks from which all of the judgements of the Tribulation emanate. Those who reject the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ can only anticipate divine judgment both in time and in eternity. Furthermore, they will have no capacity and no way of coping. Therefore the source of divine judgment or the seven last plagues is the temple of the tabernacle in heaven which teaches many facets of doctrine and certain principles: that the greatest power on earth can never harm or touch even a hair of your head as long as you are a believer and inside of the plan of God. This tabernacle in heaven, therefore, is a tremendous memorial to our Lord Jesus Christ.

The tabernacle is said to be opened, the aorist passive indicative from the verb a)noigw. There are many gates to this great castle. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. There is a barracks gate and this is the one that will be opened. The passive voice: the great castle in heaven called the temple, the tabernacle, is opened at one of its special gates. The indicative mood says this is important. The opening of the gate of the temple will release from the barracks the execution quad. These are seven great historical disasters which we will study in Revelation 16,17,18, 19, the seven last plagues, the seven bowl judgements, the seven grenades of history. They will be the last call to the population of the world to accept Christ as saviour before the second advent occurs. Once Christ returns it is too late to believe in Him for salvation and all unbelievers will be removed from this earth and cast into fire, as per the baptism of fire.

Verse five: “Then after these things I concentrated, and the temple, the tabernacle which serves as a testimony in heaven was opened.”

The ritual testimony to the person and the work of Christ is found through the tabernacle in several dispensations. In the Age of Israel it is called the tabernacle of Moses. Then it was called the temple of Solomon, then the temple of Zerubbabel. In the Church Age there is no tabernacle on earth and the representation of it all is the Eucharist or the Lord’s table. In the Tribulation we see where the tabernacle went, it is a part of the temple, the great castle in heaven, the abode of God and certain forms of knighthood among the elect angels. Ritual testimony to the person and the work of Christ in heaven is not only verified by many passages which we have noted — Revelation 11:19; 14:15; 15:5-8; 16:1, but also in the Millennium. There will also be a Millennial temple on earth in Ezekiel chapters 40-47, and again animal sacrifices will be offered in that temple of the restored Israel. The reasons for it are many but among others it is the fact that Israel is restored as a client nation to God. However, in the eternal state there will be no temple, as per Revelation 21:22, “And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty one, and the Lamb of God, is its temple.”

Verse 6 — the seven angels are the pur sui vant angels, the execution squad, those who will administer the final seven judgements of the Tribulation. They are said to possess something, the articular present active participle of the verb e)xw which means to have and to hold. The definite article is used as a relative pronoun. This is a descriptive present tense. The active voice: the execution squad produces the action. This is a circumstantial participle plus the fact that the action of the present participle is coterminous with the action of the main verb. They are said to have the seven plagues. These seven plagues will be described in other ways very shortly. The seven angels therefore hold seven grenades which are called here the seven last plagues or death blows. They will also be called vials, which is an incorrect translation, they are the bowl judgements of the last half of the Tribulation. Revelation 21:9 is the key passage which tells us that these seven last plagues are identical with the seven so-called vials or bowls in chapter sixteen.

The important thing to note is the uniform worn by this execution squad. Remember that the execution squad is not made up of privates, it is made up of one of the highest echelons of aristocrats among the elect angels and while they are the lowest in the aristocratic order they are still part of the aristocracy. For example, we have at the very top the king of arms. He is the top of all of the people in the angelic college of heralds and is the highest elect angel. He would be comparable to Moses or Paul. Then we have a couple of officers of arms immediately under him, and after that the four angelic heralds, all seraph rank angels. We also have a cherub rank and this includes the pur sui vant officers, one of whom commands the execution squad in our passage. Then there will be seven pur sui vant messengers and these, of course, are the execution squad sent by God. So only the highest-ranking elect angel aristocrats are permitted to handle this kind of an action.

The uniform is described as follows: “dressed in pure linen, also they were wearing a golden baldric across their breasts.” The translation which is given in the King James version is not correct, it doesn’t even begin to describe what they were wearing. The perfect passive participle from the verb e)nduw tells us the uniform that was to be used. The perfect tense is the perfect of existing state in which the past completed action is dropped from the thought and attention is placed on the existing state.

Everything in the Word of God has meaning and purpose, there are no wasted words. Often they do not have direct application to us but in this case they certainly have a pertinent challenge. Some day some of us are going to be in our resurrection bodies and will have the most fantastic uniform, and everything on the uniform will represent the fact that the wearer was a winner. This adds up to something: the uniform they were dressed in here — pure transparent linen. What does that mean to us? It means that some are going to be losers — in heaven with a resurrection body, and that is it. There will be nothing to show for the time on earth. There were no decisions that were compatible with the Word of God, there was no concept of the plan of God, and therefore life was lived out on this earth as a loser. Suffering and misery will be confined to this life and to the judgment seat of Christ where there will be chagrin because of failure. Others will surpass those believers for one reason only: they made right decisions from a position of strength and they kept on making them. There is no such thing as equality in heaven.

So they came out of the barracks dressed in linon, “linen,” and it has very definite meaning. It is the angelic equivalent to the uniform of glory which covers whatever type of resurrection or permanent body the elect angels possess. There are two adjectives which go with it. The first is kaqaroj, which means pure. When it is used for believers later on in chapter nineteen it has to do with the resurrection body and ultimate sanctification. We have not only the imputed righteousness of God now but in the future we will have a perfect righteousness. And with this a second adjective, lamproj which means transparent, shining, or bright, “pure and transparent linen.” This is their basic uniform and being a member of the angelic college of heralds is one of the highest honours and decorations given to elect angels as a result of their performance during the prehistoric stage of the angelic conflict. This is their eternal state, their eternal body, and it also indicates something of their decorations.

As angelic heralds administering the seven last judgements of the Tribulation this uniform represents their Lord and master, Jesus Christ. Hence, the adjective kaqaroj represents the impeccability of Christ during the first advent, whereas the lamproj represents the deity of Christ, and together they remind us of the hypostatic union. This means that the uniform worn by the pur sui vant messengers reflects the strategic victory of our Lord Jesus Christ in the angelic conflict. Therefore all judgment has been delegated to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Next we have the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai which provides additional information. It is translated “also.” With it we have a perfect passive participle plus a reference to what is actually being worn. The perfect passive participle plus the prepositional phrase that follows is correctly translated: “Also they were wearing a golden baldric slung across their chests.” They are wearing one of the highest and most distinguishing types of decoration related to the time of the Roman empire when the golden baldric was set up in order to carry decorations. This is the uniform of the execution squad that will go into action in the next chapter.

Translation: “Then the seven angels who have the seven plagues came out of the temple, and they were dressed in a uniform made of pure and transparent linen, also they were wearing a golden baldric slung across their chests.”

The golden baldric not only indicates the honours and the decorations these elect angels won as winners before man was created but they also indicate war. In this case, it will be God’s war against evil and that is exactly what the seven last plagues will do. Remember, the angels are from the college of heralds and they wear victory symbols of our Lord’s first advent. “Pure”: the impeccability of Christ; “transparent”: the deity of Christ; “linen”: our Lord in hypostatic union.

Verse 7, the chain of command in the administration of these last plagues. Now, one of the angelic heralds actually gives out to each one of these angels his own special grenade to be used as one of the seven last judgements.

It is said here that one of the four living creatures, one of the heralds from the angelic college of heralds, gave to the seven angels or pur sui vant messengers seven golden bowls. These seven golden bowls are mistranslated in the King James version. The Greek word is fialh and it is actually a bowl with a very narrow neck, so we might call it a grenade.

“Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls which have been filled with the wrath of God who lives forever.”

When it says that they have been filled it means that this has been prepared a long time ago. Until the time for divine judgment comes the herald is the custodian of these seven grenades which contain the seven last judgements. These seven last plagues also answer the imprecatory prayers of the Tribulational martyrs. And there is a principle which comes out of this: God leaves no loose ends in history. Every evil perpetuated against believers, regardless of the dispensation, is put into the computer of divine decrees and at the appropriate time is judged. There are no loose ends in history and this, of course, was great consolation to the Tribulational martyrs. God remembers the victims; evil never remembers the victims. Evil always concentrates on the culprit — on his nice personality, on “he’s been punished enough”, the problems we have today in the administration of justice in our country. But God always remembers the victims, whether they are the victims of disorganised evil like crime or victims of organised evil like governmental persecution. Even though Satan is the ruler of this world no form of evil gets away without punishment from God. There is no evil ever committed in human history that is not handled by the higher court of heaven. The higher court of heaven always functions and the timing of the higher court is perfect, and therefore the importance of what we should call “the patience of the saints.” As believers we have to be patient. As believers we may not even see God’s administration of justice but it will occur and therefore we can avoid the usual problems that people seem to have. The want revenge themselves, forgetting that “vengeance belongs to me, I will repay saith the Lord”. They want to do something about it themselves, they want to get involved themselves, they have a bad mental attitude because of what has happened. But God leaves crimes against believers always punished; they never go unpunished. And since God’s timing is always perfect, either in blessing or in judgment, the believer must avoid becoming personally involved. To this extent all believers, sooner or later, from the function of gate six must become professional — the function of impersonal love, the principle that you do not get upset about your enemies or about injustice which is perpetrated in your direction.

Principle: If the courts of the land will not prosecute leave it to the higher court of heaven where justice is always done.

We have noted the impatience of the Tribulational martyrs in the offering of their imprecatory prayers, 6:9-11, especially verse 10: “How long, O lord.” The rationale which comes out of this: God is perfect, therefore God’s timing is perfect. God’s timing is perfect in blessing; God’s timing is perfect in the administration of judgment.

The content of the bowls or the grenades is then given, the aorist active participle from the verb gemw. It means to be full. It is translated like a perfect tense and the reason is because the culminative aorist views the contents of the grenades in their entirety but regards them from the viewpoint of existing results, the administration of the seven last plagues to planet earth in the last half of the Tribulation. The active voice: the seven bowls, the seven golden grenades, fulfil the action of the verb. We notice that these golden grenades are filled with the wrath of God. Wrath is an anthropopathism referring to divine judgment. Seven bowls contain seven last judgements on the human race in the last half of the Tribulation. It should be noted that verse seven is retrospective exposition and fills in the missing link in the chain of command which we studied in the previous chapter, verse 14.

We have noticed now two things in this transitional chapter. First of all, the protocol in heaven which began in 14:17 and goes through 15:7. We will note next the action on earth when each grenade is thrown as a judgment on mankind.

The doctrinal application of protocol in heaven is very important. Note the seven applications of what we have been studying:

1. There is order in heaven. This means that there is order and protocol in God’s plan for us in time. The plan of God always follows protocol; the plan of God follows a no-nonsense policy, no silliness, no absurdities. Protocol is a reminder of this principle. The application should be noted: 1 Corinthians 14:40, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” Protocol becomes thoughtfulness as a part of the plan of God; it becomes sensitivity; it becomes the function of impersonal love toward all, recognising the privacy of others, the right of others to make their own mistakes or their own success. In other words, avoiding the doctrine of the long proboscis is a part of the protocol principle as expressed in gate six of the divine dynasphere.

2. The highest-ranking aristocracy of elect angels is involved in the chain of command and the execution of divine policy. Note that divine protocol is being executed by the greatest aristocracy in heaven, just as the highest-ranking order of knighthood in the royal family of God will rule and execute judgment for one thousand years of history, in the Millennium. Always, however, God does not permit the peasant to rule; He never permits the scum to function in His organisation. When God wants something done He uses royalty. But you must remember that royalty is acquired. Whatever a person is born is inconsequential. The issue is that aristocracy is always acquired. In human life aristocracy is inherited and that is why aristocracy eventually becomes degenerate, because what is not acquired but in inherited often becomes the means of corrupting through arrogance.

3. The success of the mission is based on respect for authority and the virtue of protocol. Respect for authority develops the virtue of protocol in every echelon of command and function.

4. Effective protocol demands virtue, virtue-first. Protocol is meaningless without virtue. Those who carry out this mission of judgment, the seven last plagues, have demonstrated maximum virtue during the prehistoric angelic conflict.

5. The divine plan for the believer in time cannot be fulfilled apart from respect for God’s authority, the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the living Word; the authority of Bible doctrine as the written Word. So in addition to all of the various categories of authority in life there is the higher consideration, respect for authority in the spiritual realm.

6. Good planning precedes good execution. Chapters 14 and 15 are planning chapters.

7. Any judgements resulting from bad decisions produce hopeless, self-destructive misery. Any judgements originating from God and the protocol of heaven result in the preservation and blessing for some portion of the human race. Add to that the fact that the human race will never be destroyed because of backfire divine judgment.

Verse 8, It should be noted that once the administration of the seven plagues occurs on earth normal times are gone. True historical disaster is always characterised by abnormal times. This is reflected in the fact that in verse 8 the temple is closed. The closing of the temple is a very important lesson. We have, for example, “the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God,” the ablative of source as the object of the preposition e)k, “from the glory of God.” The source of the smoke is the glory or the essence of God. This emphasises the fact that no human being can afford to ignore the attributes of God. The smoke which John saw represents the fact that God is invisible and cannot be seen by human beings, and therefore the smoke indicates the invisible presence of God. Smoke is the perfect manifestation of God to the unbeliever who has rejected both God’s eternal existence and the divine attributes. So, as it were, man’s negative volition produces his own fog (smoke) in his life. God is only manifest to the believer who is positive toward pertinent doctrine and therefore smoke is cleared away by the believer’s positive volition toward doctrine. Some people live in an atmosphere of smoke or fog. But here God is dealing with the unbeliever and therefore the smoke. The only reality of God to the unbeliever is divine judgment. The cloud of smoke in the temple represents the holiness of God. We have studied this concept before in Isaiah 6:3,4. When the Jews assembled under Mount Sinai to meet God the manifestation of His presence was smoke, Exodus 19:18. Smoke from God is related to the function of divine justice and judgment, Psalm 18:8. Cf. Ezekiel 10:2-4, the cloud was the smoke of the glory of God; Exodus 40:34.

The glory of the Lord is the perfection of His character and therefore the judgements of the Lord are just as perfect as the blessings of the Lord. There is nothing unfair, nothing cruel, nothing wrong, nothing that is non-virtuous about these judgements. They are said, therefore, to come “from the glory of God, and from his power.” The omnipotence of God linked with the justice of God indicates the fact that God has the power to execute judgements as well as the perfection to be fair. Furthermore, all divine power is always related to divine justice and this means that whether God is using His power to bless or to curse divine justice is the frame of reference. This is illustrated, of course, by the cross where our sins were imputed to Christ and the Father judged them. The justice, then, of God the Father supersedes the love of God the Father in the function and the modus operandi of His justice.

“Furthermore,” says the last half of the verse, “ no one was able to enter the temple,” the aorist active infinitive of e)iserxomai means the temple was closed. That means entering for worship, entering for any function, and the infinitive is preceded by dunamai. The imperfect of dunamai is the imperfect of description. The active voice: no one in heaven can produce the action of the verb, meaning regenerate creatures who frequently inhabit the temple. The indicative mood is declarative for eschatological reality. The aorist infinitive is ingressive, it means as of this moment no one entered the temple until these judgements were completed. Not even in heaven can creatures, both angelic and human, stand in the presence of God when He is judging a segment of the human race. The function of the justice of God in judgment is overpowering and even creatures in heaven cannot endure the pressure, “until these seven plagues had been completed [administered by the angels].”

Translation of verse eight: “Then the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; furthermore no one was able to enter the temple until the seven plagues administered by the seven angels had been completed.”

During the time of historical disaster from divine judgment routine-type worship in the heavenly temple is interrupted until this judgment is completed. And why mention it at all? Since we are not going to enter the temple at that time, why mention it? We will be in heaven at that time but why does it tell us that we are going to be shut out of the temple?

Historical disaster and personal disaster disrupts normal function in life. That means that it disrupts normal expression of worship in the local church, and it means to us that the opportunities that you have had to take in doctrine on a consistent and daily basis are going to be shut down. It means that the teaching of the Word of God under normal circumstances of tranquillity will no longer exist.

It is probable that in our lifetime we are going to see this happen. You won’t be able to come to Bible class, you will be on your own just like the disciples were in the storm when our Lord was sleeping. They were on their own for a purpose — so that they could use the doctrine they had learned. But they failed. Therefore, they were losers. And just as they were losers in the past there is going to come a time when the doors are going to be shut and you are not going to have the opportunity you have had in the past. And note: Your social life, your pleasures, and the reasons that you could not come to Bible class will not sustain you. All of the fun times that you had will not sustain you, and they won’t carry you in disaster. All they will do is bring out the fact that you are a weak sister, that you are a loser, that you are not a winner at all. And just as lack of Bible doctrine means lack of capacity for life and love and happiness it also means that lack of Bible doctrine means no ability for disaster. Disaster is coming, and when it comes normal routine functions of life, its teaching of the Word of God under tranquil circumstances will not longer be available. Then you will discover that all of the things that were more important to you than Bible doctrine, everything that was more important on your priority list — your business responsibilities, your social responsibilities, your children — not sustain you when disaster hits.