Chapter 6

via Daniel 9:24-27

We will never see the unrestrained disaster which is coming to planet earth after the Rapture of the Church. We now move into chapter six where we begin to see this concept developed. One of the concepts that we have noted briefly is the concept of energy and ability. We noted it in relationship to worship.

The principle

1. Energy without ability is misdirected arrogance. Energy without ability produces mental attitude arrogance or inordinate ambition. When people have energy and no ability they become trouble makers, they cause trouble.

2. Energy without ability results in self-righteous arrogance, crusader arrogance. Crusader and self-righteous arrogance always combine to form the person who sticks his nose into someone else’s business, intrudes on their privacy, becomes a gossip, a maligner, the person who tries to run your life, the person who tries to control your life, tries to intimidate you.

3. Energy without ability produces conspiracy arrogance, sexual arrogance, iconoclastic arrogance, morality arrogance, the arrogance of Christian service, all too often. People who have energy but no ability to serve the Lord are always using their energy in pseudo systems of Christian production.

4. Ability without energy is lack of motivation and lack of self-discipline. In other words, the arrogance of laziness.

5. The controlled energy of hard work produces ability, and the ability channels hard work into fields of productive success. Ability is not inherent, it is acquired through hard work, through dedication, through plugging.

6. Energy plus ability equals the true drive in life.

7. Energy is basically created in the body but ability is created in the soul, and ability is created in the motivation of the soul, not the IQ in the soul.

8. Motivation in the soul produces the decisions to take in doctrine consistently, every day if necessary, regardless of circumstances, regardless of discouragement.

9. Both energy and ability are harnessed through perception and application of Bible doctrine.

10. Therefore, both energy and ability must be related to doctrine and wisdom, otherwise a pseudo drive is created. All pseudo drives terminate in the cosmic system.

Our Lord’s wisdom and ability during His first advent was derived from His residence and function in the prototype divine dynasphere and it resulted in the greatest of all victories in human history, the strategic victory of the cross. Our Lord’s wisdom coupled with His energy and ability at the second advent sets in motion the greatest reign in all of human history, the tactical victory of the second advent. In the meantime our Lord has provided the divine dynasphere for the royal family so that believers in the Church Age can face and overcome every disaster in life. Our Lord has seen fit through the vehicle of eschatology to give to us an account of the greatest period of historical disaster, duplicated often in our lives and in our lifetime but with a difference. We have the means of meeting any disaster, any tragedy in life and overcoming the situation.

We are now moving away from the concept of historical trends in this dispensation to the concept of historical trends based on prophecy. Historical trends of the Tribulation are determined by prophecy. Therefore we note an introductory principle to Revelation chapters six through eighteen.

1. Historical trends in the Tribulation are determined by prophecy. The Church Age is the dispensation of no prophecy. Hence, as an era of historical trends without prophecy they are determined by some means other than prophecy.

2. In other words, during the Church Age historical trends are determined by the decisions, the scale of values, the volition of the royal family of God [Church Age believers].

3. In the Church Age, as goes the believer so goes the historical trends. The dispensation of the Church is the only historical era in which the divine dynasphere is provided for the believers as the means of executing God’s plan.

4. Positive decisions to live in the divine dynasphere produce the historical uptrend.

5. Negative volition and decisions to live in the cosmic system produce the historical downtrend.

6. Decisions determine environment in this age, not environment decisions.

7. In all other dispensations or historical eras human decisions and actions were fed into the computer of divine decrees so that historical trends were programmed and revealed through prophecy.

Before we get into chapter six we need to note something about Israel’s time clock after the Babylonian captivity. This is given in Daniel 9:24-27. The Babylonian captivity was the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline to the southern kingdom by Nebuchanezzar and the Chaldean empire in the year BC 586. It lasted for 70 years. The temple was completed under the ministry of Haggai the priest and Zechariah the prophet in BC 516. The Persians sent back groups of people before this time but the time is measured from the time between the fifth cycle of discipline in 586 and the completion of the second temple in Jerusalem in 516. So we have after this period a new prophecy by which Israel’s historical trends are declared, beginning in 516 BC. This prophecy which would follow is called the prophecy of the seventy weeks. But that isn’t the correct translation, that is the one you get in the King James version. It is actually the seventy times seven, as the correct Hebrew says. So we have a period of 490 years in which one prophecy gives the whole story of the historical trends in Israel.

These historical trends are divided into three increments in the prophecy. The first is called seven weeks or forty-nine years. In that first increment we have the first 49 years of historical trends to client nation Israel. In this period the king of Persia issued a decree in April of 445 BC to restore Jerusalem, to rebuild it. This is the story of the book of Nehemiah and especially Nehemiah chapter two. Forty-nine years after that decree the walls and the streets of the holy city were completed. That is the first 49 years.

The second increment is a period of sixty-two weeks or 434 years. That period, the second increment which follows without interruption, bring us down to AD 32 when Christ was crucified. Between Daniel 9:26 and 27 we have the third increment. These first two increments together bring us down to Daniel 9:26. Then there is a gap, and we have already studied the doctrine of intercalation, so that the third increment of Israel’s historical trends is one week of seven years, and that is the Tribulation. The seven-sealed Doomsday book deals with this same subject. The third increment, the period of the Tribulation, or Daniel’s seventieth week is the subject of this chapter.

As we observe Daniel 9:24-27 remember that there are three increments, two in the Old Testament down to the time of our Lord’s crucifixion [the seven weeks and the 434 years], Daniel 9:24-26, but when we get down to verse 27 we are going to skip the Church Age and verse 27 will be Daniel’s seventieth week.

Verse 24 — “Seventy times seven [490 years] has been decreed for your people [the Jews] and your holy city [Jerusalem], to finish the transgression [in other words, to serve out your sentence under the 5th cycle of discipline. It will begin again in AD 70 and it is finished at the second advent of Christ], to make an end of sin [the baptism of fire at the second advent], to make reconciliation for iniquity [the regathering of Israel at the second advent, their restoration as a client nation to God in the Millennium], to bring in everlasting righteousness [the resurrection of the Old Testament saints at the second advent], to seal up the vision and the prophecy [the second advent will terminate the Jewish Age with the Jews and their 490 years], to anoint the holy of holies [the new temple of the Millennium].” Note that all six of these items will be fulfilled by the second advent of Christ.

Verses 25 and 26, the prophecy of the first two increments.

Verse 25, “Therefore you are to understand and apply this prophecy [because it is the historical trends for Israel from the time of their coming back in 516 BC into the land to around 30-32 AD] from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to Messiah the Prince [AD 30] there will be seven weeks [or seven times seven, 49 years] and sixty-two times seven [434 years]; it [the walls of Jerusalem] will be built again, with the streets and the moat, even in times of distress [the opposition of Sanballat and Tobiah].”

Verse 26, “Then after sixty-two weeks [after the second increment] Messiah will be cut off and have no one [for Himself, referring to Christ being judged for our sins]. Then the people [Roman people] of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary [the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline in AD 70]. And its end [the end of Jerusalem] with a flood [the Roman army overran the city]; furthermore, to the end [of the fifth cycle of discipline, the times of the Gentiles] wars and desolations are decreed.” The Jews will always have wars during that time.

Between verses 26 and 27 we have the dispensation of intercalation, the Church Age.

Verse 27, “And he [the prince that shall come, the dictator of the revived Roman empire] will make a peace treaty with the many [Jews] for one week [a seven-year peace treaty], but in the middle of the week [Tribulation] he will put a stop to the sacrifice and food offering; and cause the protection of the abomination of desolation [statue of himself], even to the end of the Tribulation. Consequently what is determined by prophecy will be poured out on the desolater [the Roman dictator will be judged].”

Daniel merely gives us an outline and as we move into our passage we are going to get the details not given in Daniel. This outline of Daniel takes us down to AD 30 and then skips over the Church Age for the last seven years. When the Rapture occurs time has stopped for Israel as far as God’s plan for them as a nation is concerned, and time will not resume until the Church is removed. Then they are given seven more years, the seven years of Daniel 9:27.

The outline of Revelation chapter six is as follows:

Verses 1-13, the historical trends of the Tribulation [general, not specific].

Verses 14-16, the nuclear activity of the Tribulation.

Verse 17, the anticipation of the baptism of fire.

The first seal: verse one gives us the seal, verse two gives us the characteristics of the seal.

Verse 1, we have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “next.” We have the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw which has to do with seeing, “And next I saw.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the factor action of these historical trends extended over the period of the Tribulation and gathers them into a single whole. In the first six seals we are going to see things that happen throughout the Tribulation. In the seventh seal we are going to see things that happen at a specific time in the Tribulation. The active voice: the apostle John is the author of the book of Revelation, the one who produces the action in seeing this vision. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. We are going to learn a great deal about what is happening now by what is going to happen in the future. People talk about learning from the past; we are going to learn from the future.

Next comes a temporal conjunction o(te which introduces a temporal clause and is translated “when,” “Next I watched when.” And then we have the nominative neuter singular subject a)rnion, translated “the Lamb.” It is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ and His strategic victory at the first advent, His victory at the cross. As the victory in the angelic conflict our Lord is worthy and qualified to open the seals which portray the historical trends of the Tribulation. The seals represent the prophecy of historical trends which is the pattern for all historical trends or dispensations except the Church Age. The Church Age is the mystery dispensation and its trends are determined by individual decisions rather than prophetical dissertation; it is the dispensation of the divine dynasphere, the dispensation of the royal family. In all other dispensations the impact of human volition is the printout of the divine decrees expressing the foreknowledge of God. That is exactly what we are going to see in the Doomsday book: an expression of the divine decrees for the Tribulation, an expression of the foreknowledge of God. Just as the omniscience of God programs the computer of divine decrees with regard to our thoughts, our motives, our decisions, our actions, so the foreknowledge of God takes certain printouts and reduces them to eschatological anticipation. So the foreknowledge of God provides in prophecy seven fat cows and seven lean cows. The seven fat cows are going to be seven years of prosperity; the seven lean cows are going to be seven years of disaster. And they are all going to be merged into one. Now, these seven years of prosperity and disaster in the Tribulation [there are not fourteen years in the Tribulation] are seven years of prosperity and seven of disaster all at the same time, depending on your attitude to doctrine. In time of great disaster you can have great prosperity but in time of great prosperity you can have great disaster.

Genesis 39:1-23: The principle of inequality

Most people think that inequality is a bad thing and some people think that inequality is a good thing, depending on which end of the spectrum they find themselves. But actually inequality is an historical trend, an inevitable historical trend. At the end of chapter six we are going to find in the Tribulation seven categories of society and they are all unequal. There is inequality in the Tribulation, there is inequality in the Millennium, there is inequality now in the Church Age, and there has been inequality in the past.

The first thing that we note is that society always exists in a state of inequality. There never has been and there never will be a time in history when equality can be or will be achieved. There are two reasons for this fact. First of all the devil is the ruler of this world and gives preferential treatment to his own cosmic slaves. Secondly, the sovereignty of God has made free will or volition the issue in the angelic conflict, which means the impossibility of equality in the human race. It is impossible. There will always be inequality because free will is the issue in the angelic conflict. That means that for volition to be the issue there must be freedom, and freedom guarantees inequality. Hence, there are two sources of inequality: the evil of Satan’s system and the freedom issue in the divine policy of the laws of divine establishment. A third concept can be added: there is inequality at birth combined with the concept of equality of opportunity to fail or succeed. We are born unequal but we are also born with opportunity. The very fact that God gives us life after birth means that we do have opportunity, opportunity of course to fail or succeed in life. However, inequality continues to exist whether you fail or succeed since we do not succeed or fail even to the same degree. Inequality in itself is not a bad thing, only the arrogance which resents that inequality or the self-pity which fails to adjust to that inequality.

Note further that from the seven categories of humanity which we will find at the end of this chapter that inequality exists in both time of prosperity and time of adversity. The Tribulation is a time of terrible adversity but there will still be inequality. In time of great prosperity there is still inequality. In fact you can’t have prosperity without inequality. If you are going to have prosperity you have to have someone who takes the responsibility, someone who invests, for example. That immediately separates from the ones who are the recipients of their pay.

There is a good and a bad state of inequality. Good inequality exists in the environment of freedom; bad inequality exists in the environment of freedom.

So whether historical prosperity or historical adversity, freedom or tyranny, inequality is inescapable and an unsolvable fact of history. Those who want to solve the problem of inequality, generally the liberals and the arrogant crusaders, always create new inequalities, as illustrated by the French revolution. Equality was the password of the French revolution and by sticking with that password they actually developed new inequalities. The real solution to inequality is not equality but happiness and the pursuit of happiness. There will always be inequality. The point is: the inevitable need within equality is happiness, happiness in all states of inequality. That means the freedom to pursue happiness. Happiness can and does exist in every category of society: some poor people are happy; some rich people are happy. Some failures are happy and some people who are successful are happy. Happiness exists among those who are unequal. We all have the same shot at happiness. Happiness or unhappiness depends on the believer’s attitude toward Bible doctrine.

We are going to look at Joseph. Joseph was high on the inequality scale. He was what we might call top dog in his family. Being one of the younger sons was very bad because there is always a group of people who can’t think straight and say that time and grades should be the issue, not ability; promotion on the basis of, How long have you been here?

What happens when some people are aware that in some way they are on the lower end of the totem pole is that they get into cosmic one, and they get jealous, bitter, vindictive and involved in self-pity. Self-pity is one of the most subtle and one of the worst types of arrogance, because then you start screaming equality from arrogance and you are very unhappy, and unhappy people become troublemakers. All unhappy people have the potential for becoming great troublemakers. The issue is: Are you adjusted to life? Do you have happiness where you are?

Jacob’s favourite son was Joseph, therefore ten of the brothers envied him. The ten brothers say, We are older, we have time and grade, therefore we should be running the thing. But Joseph became their leader. He had integrity, he had honour, he was by far the most honourable. Only eleven were in the picture at the time, Benjamin was too young. So there are eleven brothers and the one at the bottom is promoted over all of them and given his insignia of rank, a coat of many colours. His father gave him a tartan jacket and made him the chief over his brothers. And he reported their failures faithfully! So obviously there was envy and they plotted to kill Joseph. They were going to use murder to solve their problem but Reuben, the oldest brother, had enough sense to intervene and save Joseph’s life. But Joseph goes from the top to being a slave. Joseph has to go to school and school for him is slavery. Being a slave is not necessarily demeaning. It can be but that isn’t really the issue. Joseph is going to be a slave for quite a few years but that is a part of his education. The Jews were slaves for four generations and they stayed slaves for four generations, there was nothing they could do to break out of slavery, and yet there was great happiness in those four generations among certain believers, even though they were slaves and obviously unequal. And it was never changed until Moses came into the picture.

So Joseph goes to Egypt as a slave and that looks the end of the line — life is over, it is all through! All of this happened so that Joseph might realise the importance of our Lord, occupation with Christ, as per 1 Peter 1:7,8, and to prepare Joseph, to educate Joseph to be the greatest man in his generation in history, to be the Prime Minister of the most powerful empire that existed in that generation. To do so means to pass a lot of inequality tests. He starts at the bottom, “down there.” There is nothing demeaning “down there,” he is a believer “down there.” He worked hard “down there,” he had tremendous leadership ability and was a leader “down there”; he will be a leader at the top. And the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

This is the background for historical trends. It all took place in prison. As a result of being in prison Joseph became the greatest man of his day. Not only that, he became one of the greatest believers of all time. By the standards of human success he was the most successful. God provided the opportunity on the basis of the doctrine of historical trends. He will interpret historical trends. A dream is a prophecy; all historical trends are based on prophecy. He will be able to predict fourteen years of historical trends and do it in the area of the economy. The entire world was about to face a great depression, but always before a great depression there is a period of great prosperity which hides and disguises the coming of the depression. Greatest periods of prosperity in history have inevitably resulted in a depression. Great prosperity is often the calm before the storm and when the storm breaks the world will be caught off guard, but not Egypt, because one man is able to interpret historical trends from the Word of God as it existed in that prison and as it was presented to him through the dreams of three people.

Genesis 40:1-41,46

The first few words of Genesis 40:1, “after these things” certainly covers a multitude of injustices. A lot of people can say “I was unjustly treated” and they really weren’t, but Joseph really was, so he doesn’t say anything — yet. After being hated and persecuted by his brothers and after being tossed in a pit, and after being sold into slavery and shackled to a caravan, after being sold into slavery in Egypt, after being falsely accused by a frustrated woman and being cast into prison, he certainly shows a remarkable application of doctrine. No bitterness. One thing that none of us can ever afford, even for one second, is to be bitter about anything that has happened to us that has been unfair. Most of us will have realised by now that the ruler of this world simply cannot administer any kind of perfect environment, and sooner or later you are going to receive some unfair treatment. Unfair treatment is always a test to see if you will go in for one of the perhaps more subtle forms of arrogance: bitterness. No person who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is ever going to advance as long as he is bitter. Joseph certainly had an opportunity for bitterness, more than most people, and he certainly was not bitter at this point. So he passed the prosperity test, he passed the persecution test, he passed the success test, he passed the bitterness test.

The cupbearer is the man who always stands at the right hand of the king and makes all presentations to him. The baker is in charge of all of the food in the palace and is a prince. One of these two noblemen decided to poison the Pharaoh. Which one is it? That is the problem that the Pharaoh was facing. So like a smart Pharaoh he put them both in jail until he could find out who was guilty.

Verse 4 now shows us the pettiness of Potiphar. Once a mistake is made like Potiphar did, unjust treatment of someone, and there is no rectification of it, obviously then, he is on his way down. He has now become a very petty person. He probably suspected that his wife was lying and now all of his lands and his castle are falling apart because the only one who could administer them properly is in jail. By a series of events, prosperous and adverse, God is leading Joseph to the place of world leadership, as per Romans 8:28. Potiphar has demoted Joseph from rulership in his castle to being a servant in his prison. So Joseph is now the servant of his two rivals in jail. Potiphar, of course, thought that he was hurting Joseph by doing this. Potiphar didn’t realise it but he was hurting himself, he was pushing Joseph closer to becoming the greatest man of his age. As high court officials the two noblemen were permitted a servant and the pettiness on the part of Potiphar serves to further the plan of God, though it wasn’t intended that way. Later on Joseph would say to his ten brothers: “You meant it for evil; God meant it for blessing,” another way of saying “all thing work together for good.”

As a believer it is almost inevitable that somewhere along the line when you are doing well spiritually you are going to become the recipient of some form of injustice, some act of pettiness. When these things come along they can be very distracting unless you apply the doctrine you have learned. If you fail then you go down in your spiritual life, temporarily or maybe even permanently. Pettiness is intolerable to people who have become oriented to grace and that makes it all the more of a test. Every act of pettiness, while it is designed to hurt you, actually will promote you if you handle it by the application of Bible doctrine. And if God doesn’t promote you, you are not promoted. So here is the pettiness test that Joseph passed with flying colours. All great men, all men who are going to be great, all men who are going to reach the peak of success in any field, must as a part of their leadership profile have the ability to overlook pettiness by the application of impersonal love to the situation. Petty and mean people are small people and inevitably, if you succeed in something, you are going to encounter them.

And also, if you are on the other side of the fence, remember that pettiness is a boomerang. You hurt yourself, not the object of your pettiness. While given a very menial task Joseph is faithful, he is uncomplaining. God makes the most demeaning and small tasks in life a source of happiness and blessing. Joseph is now low on the totem pole again. He is a servant, he is a slave, but he is very happy. The two noblemen in the cell are very unhappy. Potiphar who has the castle nearby is also very unhappy. So being successful doesn’t mean being happy. God will provide prosperity to the soul that seeks Him but if you think that you are going to have prosperity without a testing or two you are wrong. Your prosperity will never bring you happiness unless you pass the tests that go with it. The wonderful thing about Joseph is his phenomenal humility, a humility which does not consider any job demeaning. In a place of humility and gross injustice obviously Joseph is keeping his eyes on the Lord.

Verse 5, Eventually the two men, the cupbearer and the baker, had a dream the same night and each dream had a meaning of its own. This is the turning point because the dream is Bible doctrine, before the completion of the canon of scripture. A dream was one way to receive doctrine. The only trouble is that these men are not capable of understanding what they dream because they have no frame of reference from Bible doctrine.

Verse 6, Notice that when Joseph came to them in the morning he was a very happy person. He is in a very difficult situation, yet he has great blessing and happiness. He saw that they were dejected. Note: Humility produces objectivity. Objectivity shows concern for others. In other words, Joseph isn’t standing around complaining about his life.

The two men are very quick to tell Joseph their problem because they are preoccupied with themselves. If Joseph had been bitter or cynical as a result of his circumstances he would have ignored the depressed state of the two noblemen, or he would have ridiculed their situation. So to be great in the adverse circumstances of life there must be the principle of application which comes from impersonal love. That is exactly what Joseph does.

Joseph interprets the dream of the cupbearer but in verse 14 is the first time we have seen a weakness in Joseph. He just couldn’t resist the temptation. Who is the one who is going to make Joseph great in his day? The Lord, the only one who can. When you start to lean on people as Joseph does here you just simply postpone God’s plan for your life. Joseph knows exactly what is going to happen, in three days this man is going to be back standing beside Pharaoh. And what does Joseph do? He was doing so well when he came in that morning and saw them dejected and asked the question. So he says: “When all goes well with you, remember me [put in a good word for me], mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison.” There is only one person who can get Joseph out of prison and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Joseph is talking to the wrong person.

After passing the test day after day he now flunks the same test. “For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in prison.” True, but it is just as if he is ignoring the fact that the Lord knows it too. The Lord knew billions of years ago that he was innocent. The Lord will get him out in the Lord’s time.

In life, timing is everything. Better to sit down in a demeaning situation until the Lord decides to move you up. But if you say: “I’m tired of being in a demeaning situation, I’m going to move myself up,” you have just moved yourself down. Joseph, as we will see, lost two years by this little phraseology right here: “I’ve done nothing wrong, get me out of here.”

In verse 16 we have to deal with another dream. Joseph told the chief baker what his dream meant. Notice that Joseph was honest. You have to realise the importance of integrity and one of the principles of integrity is to level with people. This does not mean sticking the nose into someone else’s business. This man asked a question. There comes a time when you will be asked for an opinion and then you have to decide that this is the time for honesty. Joseph is communicating doctrine here. Pharaoh was going to not going to lift the chief baker’s head up, he was going to lift it off, “and hang you on a tree.”

Verse 23, The chief cupbearer has the best memory in the land, he doesn’t forget anything. So notice how he uses his memory: “The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.” The chief cupbearer is not the kind of a person who would forget, but the Lord shut down his memory. Why? Because Joseph still has one lesson to learn and he will meditate on it for two years in jail. He will remember that it is the Lord who gets him out of jail, not some influential nobleman. Remember Jeremiah 17, “Cursed is the man who puts his trust in man and makes flesh his arm.” So Joseph failed on this occasion, he went to influence peddling. But it is not accident that a man with a perfect memory forgot Joseph. This was divine discipline, a lesson that Joseph had to learn. Because Joseph relied on the memory of a human being instead of the memory of the Lord the Lord caused the memory of the man to fail. Joseph had to learn the lesson of utter dependence on the Lord before he could be promoted to the palace of Pharaoh. The administration of Joseph’s was the greatest that Egypt ever had outside of the one Moses had for a short time and it was free from influence peddling. In the years to come Joseph must not depend on Pharaoh, Pharaoh will depend on Joseph. It took Joseph two more years to learn this lesson. God’s grace is sufficient for every situation.

Chapter 41 opens two years later. Again, you can fill in the interim very simply: Joseph was learning a great lesson. Now it is time for Pharaoh to have a dream. It is time to advance Joseph again because he has learned his lesson. He had been prepared for all of this by the demands of the faith-rest drill, by the tremendous pressures he had faced.

There are four ways of receiving doctrine in the Old Testament. First of all there are dreams, as we have here. Secondly, visions; third, trances. Visions and trances belong to prophets. Anyone could dream a dream. God spoke to many people before the completion of the canon of scripture, believers and unbelievers, but not now, the canon of scripture is closed. Dreams will open up in the Tribulation but right now it is a closed issue. Trances and visions belong to prophets only and in the time of Joseph the spoken word from God belonged to either a prophet or a priest.

In chapter 41:1-4 Pharaoh received from God a fourteen-year historical trend in the economy of the world, not just Egypt. Then the dream was repeated so that the dullest mind could grasp it. Pharaoh isn’t stupid but he certainly has two perfect illustrations and he could remember them. People often do not remember dreams but these dreams must be remembered, for the most obvious reason in the world: these are not ordinary dreams, this is the Word of God dealing with the subject of historical trends. The problem is that he knew what the dream was but couldn’t understand what it meant. “In the morning his mind was disturbed.” And no one could interpret them. The reason they couldn’t is because it is the Word of God as it existed at that moment. No matter how smart a person is as an unbeliever or a negative believer he simply cannot interpret the Word of God.

Now Joseph demonstrates sheer common sense, brilliant application of doctrine. The Egyptians were also sticklers for cleanliness. Joseph made the people who came to get him slow down so that he could come into the presence of Pharaoh as he should, acceptable, the right type of appearance for the situation.

Verse 16, “God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.” Joseph has tremendous humility. All truly great people have an unshakeable humility. It would have been easy to get proud and put a price on the interpretation. You never bargain with the truth. Note verse 25: “God has told Pharaoh what he is about to do.” Joseph has just said that this is a prophecy. We live in the dispensation of no prophecy. No historical trends are determined by prophecy in this dispensation. We do not have dreams and the interpretation of dreams, we have doctrine and truth. But this was back in part of the Age of Israel and prophecy determines historical trends. What we are about to study in Revelation chapter six are historical trends based on prophecy, just as Joseph is now going to reveal historical trends based on prophecy. The whole future history of the world is going to unfold before us in the book of Revelation and it will do so through prophecy. In other words, outside of our own dispensation, the Church Age, all historical trends are determined by prophecy.

So Joseph explains the dreams and the difference between them to Pharaoh. There will first be great prosperity. Remember the principle: All historical economic depressions always come suddenly. There are signs that they are coming but they come suddenly out of great prosperity. In a period of great prosperity people over extend and build up credit beyond what credit can stand. So there were seven years of great prosperity and then seven years of economic depression. One person understands the doctrine and the person who understands doctrine is the only person who can make the application of doctrine.

Principle: You have to understand doctrine before you can apply it. If you don’t you are going to distort doctrine and you are going to be shocked when things do not turn out the way you think they should. Learn doctrine before you apply doctrine.

Here we have Joseph now making the correct application but he does not ask for the job. This is advice, this is application. All good advice obviously is application of doctrine and he says in verse 33, “And let Pharaoh look for a man who is discerning and wise, and let Pharaoh appoint a commission over the land … ”

Verse 40 — Joseph is promoted and there is the beginning of the greatest man of his day. Joseph had learned his lesson very well.

The principle from all of this: Just as the omniscience of God programs the computer of divine decrees with every thought, motive, decision and action of every person in history, so the foreknowledge of God takes those printouts and reduces them to eschatology (prophecy). Eschatological anticipation of historical trends is necessary for right decisions on the part of the believer. Here our illustration deals with economic decisions. For example, the foreknowledge of God provided the prophecy of the seven fat cows and the seven lean cows. The omniscience of God fed it into the computer; the foreknowledge of God took the printout and reduced it to prophecy. The prophecy was revealed to the pertinent person in a dream.

When Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream — the prophecy of prosperity and depression — he outlined with it in application the policy which resulted in Joseph becoming Prime Minister of Egypt. The dream of Genesis 41 came to Pharaoh as an expression of divine foreknowledge, a prophecy of historical trends for fourteen years. But only Joseph could actually interpret this dream.

The application for us is going to be going to Revelation chapter six, looking at the people of the Tribulation. The Tribulation is a period of seven years, Daniel’s seventieth week. In that seven years there are going to be two categories of people. This is a period of concentrated historical disaster and we will see in chapter six that in the most disastrous period of history from the standpoint of its trends you can have great prosperity and blessing or you can have great cursing and discipline, and that your attitude as a believer toward doctrine determines whether it is going to be prosperity in the midst of adversity and historical disaster or cursing and discipline in the midst of historical disaster. In other words, for us looking at Revelation six Joseph’s fourteen years are compressed into seven. No matter how bad things get economically you can prosper in a time of historical disaster. But you cannot do it apart from doctrine. That is the application. For the positive believer there is prosperity in historical disaster but for the negative believer there is disaster in time of prosperity.

Revelation 6:1 — “Next I watched when the Lamb [the title of Christ in the first advent, referring to both salvation and the strategic victory of the cross].” So we have a subject so far in our verse. Then we come to the verb, the aorist active indicative of a)noigw. It means ordinarily to open but here it means to break open. The constative aorist refers to the momentary action of breaking that seal, the first seal, and we will meet in verse 2 the first horseman. The active voice: Jesus Christ in breaking the seal not only produces the action of the verb but it is indicative of the fact the He continues to control history. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact that our Lord Jesus Christ broke open the first seal of the Doomsday book of the Tribulation revealing the first historical trend. And in anticipation of that the first historical trend is dictatorship. Dictatorship comes when in any republic people lean on government to solve their problems. People ask for special privileges from government, people want government to help them when they are out of work, people demand from government what government was not designed to do in order to take up the slack for bad decisions, poor mental attitudes, and a host of other things that result in economic and historical disaster. In other words, the welfare state, the redistribution of wealth, and all assorted forms of communism which are evil, Satanic, and totally contrary to the issue of freedom. You cannot be free in the true and correct sense of the word in a welfare state or any form of socialism. It denies you the right of using your own free will in the environment of privacy of your soul to make decisions whereby you succeed or fail. The welfare state tries to deny the existence of failure and is therefore a great evil. In times of prosperity the welfare state goes toward democracy and democracy is the worst part of the majority destroying the government. In time adversity it goes toward dictatorship which is the inevitable result of misuse of government, i.e. the government denying the rights that God gave you.

God gave you as a member of the human race certain rights. We have noted them under the laws of divine establishment: the right of privacy, the right of freedom, the right to possess property and the sacredness of that property, the right to live, and all of these things are taken away under the first horseman — dictatorship. This always means that people in the land are weak so that a small group of people can control them, whether it is a junta in South America or a small oligarchy in some eastern European country. This is the tragedy of the time in which we live because all governments have gone in that direction.

The accusative singular direct object from e(ij indicates which seal it is that is opened, the first of the seven seals. With this is e)k plus the numeral e(pta plus sfragij, seven seals. “Next I watched when the Lamb broke open the first of the seven seals,” and this anticipates the first historical trend of the Tribulation presented in the form of prophecy.

With that we move into the concept which is behind all of this. So it says, “then I heard the first of the four angelic heralds speaking as with the voice of thunder.” The hearing is the aorist active indicative of the verb a)kouw. He gets a command from one of the angelic heralds. He is an apostle and therefore an angelic herald deals with him specifically on this subject. In other words, a high echelon person in the human race gets VIP treatment from heaven.

“then I heard,” the constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. John the human author produces the action in hearing the angelic herald. The indicative mood is declarative emphasising the fact that we use the ear gate in concentration just as with eye gate. And then we hear the first of the four angelic heralds “saying,” the pictorial present tense from legw. The first angelic herald bears the arms of our Lord’s second royal patent, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He announces the first historical trend of the Tribulation: pseudo rulership in the form of dictatorship in contrast to our Lord’s rule in the Millennium.

Then we have the analogy, o(j introduces it, “speaking as with a voice of thunder,” bronth, and thunder is a warning of coming judgment. The rise of dictatorships in the Tribulation is like the foreboding of thunder, the prophetic anticipation of an historical downtrend. With this the verse ends with a command to go to school to learn about the first horseman. The mandate is the present middle imperative of the verb e)rxomai, and the command is simply “come.” The direct middle describes the subject, the apostle John, as participating in the result of the action. He is going to learn and then teach. You cannot teach what you do not know and John must learn before he can teach it. This is the imperative of command, and the phrase “and see” is not only not found in the original manuscript but in each one of these verses introducing the first six seals you will find in the King James version the words “and see.” They are not in the original. So this is a mandate which gives John a front row seat to observe historical trends of the Doomsday book in the Tribulation.

Verse 2, Now we meet the first of the four horsemen. We look first at the conjunction kai which introduces the verse. It is sequential, translated “then.” “Then I looked,” the aorist active indicative of o(raw. He is all attention. When John goes to school he concentrates. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, it takes the entire vision of the first horseman, the white horse, and uses concentration in learning what it means. The active voice: John as the human author produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. Then we have the demonstrative particle i)dou, derived from the aorist middle imperative of o(raw, it means behold, it means “now hear this.” Then we have a nominative of exclamation which receives great emphasis by standing alone. This is a most unusual use of the nominative case, called the nominative of exclamation, and it is made up of two words: leukoj which means “white,” and i(ppoj which means “horse.”

The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. To the Romans a white horse depicted victory and conquest. The horse of Roman generals in a triumphal procession was as white as they could get it, a good grey, in other words. The rulers of the Persian empire rode white horses at all times as a badge of rank to be seen from a distance. The white horse to the Romans stood for dictatorship, it had the connotation of maximum authority. The white horse in the Bible is a symbol of several things: victory, leadership, rulership, but in our context it refers to dictatorship in the Tribulation as an historical trend.

There have been many dictators in history but the Roman dictator we now face is going to be the last, the greatest, and he will also have the biggest concentration of evil. The white horse represents victory, conquest and dictatorship. The rider comes up next. We have an articular present active participle from the verb kaqhmai which will be used in many ways by John, it was one of his favourite verbs. We have already seen it used for our Lord sitting at the right hand of the Father, “sitting on the throne.” Here it doesn’t mean to sit on a throne, it means to be mounted. The definite article used with the participle is used as a personal pronoun to identify this dictator, the dictator of the revived Roman empire during the Tribulation. There will be many dictators in the Tribulation. The futuristic present tense denotes a famous dictator who has not yet come into existence but his rise in the Tribulation is so certain that in thought he may be contemplated as already existing as a prophecy of a historical trend in the Tribulation. The active voice: the dictator of the revived Roman empire produces the action of the verb.

Now at this time there is no Roman empire, we are living in the Church Age and the last Roman empire has been gone for almost 2000 years. So what is this revived Roman empire? Western Europe, the old Roman empire, will have ten nations carved out of it that are in existence now and will be in existence in the Tribulation. These ten nations will form a confederation and then there will be a struggle in that confederation of united states of western Europe. Out of that struggle will come a dictator who will deceive further nations and the rest will then succumb and we will have a dictator. He is the beast that comes out of the sea, but right now we are noticing him as a trend. Historically there will always be weak people who in the interests of their own selfishness and arrogance will submit to a form of dictatorship. So dictatorship is a permanent trend of history.

“and he who was mounted” is the way we will translate it. The active voice: the dictator of the revived Roman empire produces the action. The participle is circumstantial for a historical trend in the Tribulation: the rise of this dictator. And we have a prepositional phrase, e)pi plus the accusative of a)utoj and it refers to the white horse.

“and the rider,” the reason we are going to translate it “the rider” is because whenever you have a participle it can be translated as a verb or an adjective or a substantive, and here it is translated as a substantive. So while it says literally, “he who sat on it,” we are going to translate it “and the rider,” the dictator of the revived Roman empire in the Tribulation.

The rider

1. The rider is identified as the great dictator among dictators of the Tribulation. He is the dictator of the revived Roman empire and is given five different names in the Bible, all of which are related to eschatological passages. He is called the beast out of the sea in Revelation 13:1-10; he is called the little horn in Daniel 7; he is called the prince that shall come in Daniel 9:25; he is called the scarlet coloured beast of Revelation 17:3ff; he is called the wicked one (literally, the evil one) in 2 Thessalonians 2:7ff. So he is the subject of a number of scriptures and therefore worth a study.

2. In the meantime we note the fact that the Tribulation will be characterised by dictators. We find in our country a lot of people who are crusaders and who want everyone to be a democracy, but there is no way that they are going to do anything but contribute to dictatorship. Dictatorship is not only a historical trend but it is going to intensify. In the next dispensation there will be more dictators than at any time in history, which means the people are generally weak. When people are weak they are inevitably destroyed by their weakness.

3. The historical trend of many dictators means the historical trend of many spheres of influence. Dictators have a hard time, they always come into power because the economy is bad. And when the economy is bad and they come into power, how do they manage to survive? They take a chance and declare war on someone else. Dictators must have something to occupy the minds of the people because they are not on a solid economic footing.

4. The decline of society throughout the world. The removal of the pivot of mature believers at the Rapture, the disappearance of client nations, the removal of God the Holy Spirit as the restrainer, the inevitable results of the rise of dictatorships, and the four great power influences or spheres of power, all result in dictatorships. The principle that applies today applies then: the greater number of dictators in any generation of history means the increase of economic disaster, world-wide depression, social degeneration, and military disaster.

5. All power spheres of the Tribulation will be under some form of dictatorship which is destructive to human freedom.

6. All of these dictators of the Tribulation are the direct result of many evil decisions on the part of many evil people. But remember that the evil factor in this world today is up and this is illustrated by the fact that the USA as a client nation to God has failed to fulfil its function as a client nation in the maintenance of internal freedom, lack of evangelism at home, failure of missionary activity abroad, and the failure to communicate Bible doctrine to believers. In other words, the failure to form a large enough pivot to offset the trends toward disaster.

Next in the exegesis of verse two is the present active participle of the verb e)xw, correctly translated with the conjunction kai, “and he had.” The progressive present tense signifies action in the state of persistence, therefore present linear aktionsart. The Roman dictator of the revived Roman empire in the Tribulation produces the action. This is a circumstantial participle which presents an additional fact which is often best rendered in to English by the conjunction “and” with the participle. Therefore we translate “and he had.” Then the accusative singular direct object from the noun tocon, translated “a bow.” Ordinarily the sword or the spear or the chariot is used to represent the conventional function of combat arms in the Bible.

The bow, therefore, requires a little careful scrutiny since we do not find the dictator holding a sword nor a spear nor riding in a chariot, he is riding on a white horse of conquest. The bow in the Bible speaks specifically of the infantry. The bow was an infantry weapon used by the Egyptians, the Assyrians and the Jews. The battle bow is what is meant here and, again, tocon refers to the battle bow of the infantry. The bow as an infantry weapon in the hands of a dictator must have some meaning for us. It represents here the concept of unconventional warfare in contrast to the sword or the spear which emphasise conventional warfare. So the unconventional warfare would mean guerrilla warfare or terrorism. The dictator comes to power mainly by the use of unconventional warfare.

The revived Roman empire of the Tribulation is composed of ten nations which are all part of the old Roman empire. It does not include the United States of America. There will be a jockeying for power as they combine to form a power block and there will be in one of these nations the dictator, but he isn’t known as that yet., and he conquers three nations before all of them finally come into line and form a power block under his dictatorship. When he does he becomes the little horn of Daniel chapter seven. The means by which he conquers three nations and brings all of the others in line is first of all the battle bow.

From time to time in history there is great emphasis on unconventional warfare and in certain generations of history unconventional warfare is the most successful means of conquest. The reason that guerrilla warfare is always successful is because the country that is fighting conventionally against a guerrilla type organisation and it has a lot of cowards at home In such a situation it is inevitable that the guerrilla warfare will be successful. That is what we have under the principle of social degeneration. Guerrilla warfare is successful in a degenerate society and combat arms, conventional warfare, is unsuccessful when it represents a degenerate society. The bow is going to be very prominent in the Tribulation, the sword will be too — the Armageddon campaign — but the bow does not imply that there will be no conventional warfare in the Tribulation, far from it. In verse four we are going to see the red horse and the use of sophisticated weaponry, and we are even going to get into the field of nuclear function in the Tribulation when we get to verses 14-16.

The implication of the battle bow, then, is obvious. This dictator of the revived Roman empire in the Tribulation will become the ruler of a ten nation confederation by the use of terrorism to gain ascendancy over those nations. Terrorism is always effective where you have a degenerate society. A degenerate society is intimidated by crime and terrorism. That is the principle of the bow.

In the last phrase in this verse we have the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai which is translated “also.” Then we have the nominative singular subject of stefanoj, “crown,” used here to indicate his success. This is a symbol of the dictator. The aorist passive indicative of didomi which means to give indicates that he rides to power on a historical trend. It doesn’t say God gave him the crown, it says a crown was given. The culminative aorist tense views the success, the crowning of the dictator of the revived Roman empire, in its entirety but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. He will be a dictator for those seven years of the Tribulation. The passive voice: the weakness of society, and the weakness of society includes bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is not good administration, it stifles those who have great potential. Weak bureaucracy, weak leadership, a degenerate society in those ten nations of the revived Roman empire receive the action of the verb, “a crown was given,” the subject is the crown and leadership was given because of their weakness. The indicative mood represents the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality, therefore declarative presenting a dogmatic statement not only of eschatology but also it is a statement of principle that is always true historically: there will always be times when a weak society acts as a vacuum to create a dictatorship. The society can be weak for different reasons. It can be economically weak. It was an economically weak society that brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany. It was a degenerate society that brought to power the communists in Russia. Wherever you have these terrible things happening there is a weak society which creates it. When you have this type of dictatorship and this type of problem in history it is the society itself that creates it, not God. And therefore the crown was given. God didn’t give it; weak society, in effect, gives it.

The success of the dictator is given with the intensive conjunction kai, “indeed,” and the aorist active indicative from e)cerxomai, “indeed he appeared.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the rise of the Roman dictator in the Tribulation and his career of conquest. The active voice: the dictator of the revived Roman empire in the Tribulation produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of his success during the Tribulation, a success brought to a sudden halt by the second advent of Christ.

We have something missing, an analogy. It comes next in our passage, i(na plus nikaw. I(na introduces a purpose clause, “so that.” Then the present active participle from the verb nikaw, “indeed he appeared as a conqueror” or “so that he might conquer.” We will translate it: “Indeed as a conqueror he appeared.” This means to appear on the scene of history during the Tribulational era.

Now we must remember the facts again. Why all of these dictators? The Rapture of the Church removes all pivots from all parts of the earth, all believers, in fact. It also removes the restraining power of God the Holy Spirit as administered through the divine dynasphere and other means. With all of those things removed you have nothing left but a weak society. There will be great evangelism and out of this weak society people will find Christ as saviour. Some will be martyred; some will live to become the basis for the population of the Millennium. But the weak society will create vacuums and into them walk the dictators.

“Indeed as a conqueror he appeared.” Then we have i(na, “in order that,” and once more the aorist active subjunctive of that same verb nikaw, “that he might conquer.” The constative aorist refers to a fact or action extended over a period of time: the Tribulation. The active voice: the dictator of the revived Roman empire produces the action of the verb. I(na plus the subjunctive mood, a purpose clause: the purpose of Satan who empowers this special dictator.

Corrected translation of verse two: “Then I looked, and behold a white horse: and the rider had a battle bow [the weapon of terrorism and guerrilla warfare]; and a crown [the dictatorship of the revived Roman empire] was given to him: in fact, as a conqueror he appeared on the scene of history so that he might conquer.”

Principle

1. While the rider of the white horse specifically represents the dictator of the revived Roman empire he also personifies all dictators of the Tribulation and, by application, all dictators of history.

2. One of the trends of the Tribulation is universal loss of freedom because of dictatorships.

3. In this passage we are not only looking at one dictator but we are looking at dictators in general inspired by Satan, influenced by the cosmic system, entering into a vacuum created by social degeneracy.

4. There is another factor. This means arrogant dictatorship. Occasionally in history there is dictator of great genius and humility who comes along and does something inspiring that last for a hundred years or so. For example, Julius Caesar. But here we are talking about the arrogance of the typical dictator. Principle: Arrogance seeks to dominate its environment whether it is a self-righteous, arrogant Christian in a local church or an arrogant self-righteous dictator in the Tribulation.

5. Arrogance seek to dominate its environment, and being frustrated in such domination becomes a troublemaker for that environment. In other words, arrogance is motivating evil resulting in many functional evils.

6. Arrogance motivates the function of the self-righteous believer in his crusading activity which violates the privacy of any individual and takes away the freedom of many.

7. The arrogant dictator in the Tribulation assumes that he knows what is best for everyone. This justifies his use of violence and therefore creates evil. Therefore he destroys their freedom; he substitutes his volition for everyone under the concept “Big Brother knows best.” He substitutes his own arrogant volition, therefore, for the function of millions of free wills.

8. In the trend of the Tribulation the white horse represents political dictatorship, but in every era of history there are arrogant people who seek dictatorships in other areas: social life, business life, professional life, even spiritual life, as well as political life where dictators flourish.

We are studying in the book of Revelation the historical trends which are presented prophetically. In all dispensations in the past historical trends were also presented prophetically. Prophecy is used to delineate historical trends, except for the Church Age. In this dispensation, the Church Age, all historical trends depend upon the volition of the individual believer. This means, of course, that your decisions as a believer are a determining factor in the survival of our country and it all relates to the fact of the divine dynasphere which is God’s game plan for this dispensation. Along with this is Satan’s counter attack in the cosmic system. The cosmic system is the system for Satan’s administration of the rulership of this world. It is composed of cosmic one which has twenty-six gates of interlocking systems of arrogance and cosmic two with its nine gates of interlocking systems of hatred. All believers make decisions every day which cause them to either reside in the cosmic system or in the divine dynasphere.

There is a time coming when the dispensation of the Church will terminate with the resurrection called the Rapture of the Church, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. This removes entirely the pivot, the client nation concept, from the earth and that leads to Daniel’s seventieth week or the Tribulation, the seven years which precede the second advent of Christ and His Millennial rule on earth. Therefore we are studying now the historical trends of this period.

We resume with the second seal which is presented to us in verses three and four. We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “and.” We have the introduction of the temporal clause with the temporal conjunction o(ti and is correctly translated “when.” Then we have the aorist active indicative of the verb a)noigw used for breaking open the seals. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it refers to a momentary action, the right of our Lord Jesus Christ as the God-Man, the unique person of the universe, the only saviour, to break open the seals. As the God-Man He continues to control history. The active voice indicates this principle: Jesus Christ who controls history produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact: our Lord Jesus Christ broke open the second seal of the Doomsday book of the Tribulation revealing a second historical trend. We anticipate verse four, the second historical trend is warfare.

The corrected translation: “And when he had broken the second seal, I heard the second angelic herald saying, Come.” “And see” is not found in the original, in fact this is the present active imperative of e)rxomai and is correctly translated “come.” This is the aoristic present tense, punctiliar action in present time. This is actually a direct middle voice in which the subject acts with a view toward participating in the results of the action. He will see the vision, he will record the vision and it will become a permanent part of the canon of scripture. This is an imperative of command. Always in the perception of Bible doctrine, always in spiritual growth there is the concept of authority, the authority of God delegating that authority in this dispensation through the Word of God, and then everything that is recognised as authority through that delegation, whether it is authority in civil life, whether it is authority in spiritual life, we have studied the concepts of the laws of divine establishment. Authority is absolutely necessary for humility. Humility is the basis for capacity for love, capacity for happiness, and capacity for blessing.

Verse 4, we see our second trend of the Tribulation. Also we meet the second rider of the apocalypse. We have, again, the sequential kai, and we have the aorist active indicative following of the verb e)cerxomai. The word means to go out, to come out, but here it means to make an appearance, an appearance on the scene of history, “Then appeared on the scene of history.” This is, of course, prophetical and is dealing with the Tribulation. The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety, the extension of warfare from this age to the Tribulation. The active voice: the wars of the Tribulation actually produce the action of the verb. The declarative mood is for the reality of the second historical trend, a trend that will never be discontinued until our Lord returns. You cannot stop war, you cannot prevent war, except through following the laws of divine establishment, but there never will be any period in history where there will be freedom from war until the second advent of Christ and then the swords will be turned into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks and man shall learn war no more. In the meantime warfare is a normal part of life. Man does not have the power to prevent them except by being militarily prepared.

This horse is called “red” in the King James version. Actually it is a part of the anarthrous nominative of apposition. What we have for a subject is one word, the nominative singular of a)lloj, a very strange subject. A)lloj in the Greek simply means “another,” and we translate “Then another.” Then comes the anarthrous nominative of apposition made up of two words, the adjective purroj meaning a flame coloured horse, and with it i(ppoj for the horse. Translation: “Then another, a fiery red horse, appeared on the scene of history.” Then we meet the rider, the articular present active participle from the deponent verb kaqhmai, meaning to sit, “the one who sat on it.” This is the personification of unrestrained warfare during the entire course of the Tribulation.

“to him was given,” the verb here means to be given authority or power, the aorist passive indicative of the verb didomi which means to give. Sometimes it is stated, sometimes it is not. In this context because of ellipsis it is not stated but the implication is that power is given or authority is given, “and to him was given authority [or power].” The culminative aorist tense views the concept of warfare in human history in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. In the Tribulation unrestrained warfare, conventional warfare, guerrilla warfare, nuclear warfare. The passive voice: warfare receives the action of the verb, the authority to function on the earth without restraint. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of unrestrained warfare during the Tribulation as the second historical trend prophesied. Power is given “to take,” the constative aorist of the verb lambanw which means to take, sometimes to receive. Here it means to take. The constative aorist is used for the fact that warfare is extended over the entire Tribulation. The active voice: warfare produces the action of the verb. This is the infinitive of intended result. That is, the intended result of human decisions and volition without the restraint of the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. When God the Holy Spirit is removed as the restrainer at the Rapture of the Church this means unrestrained warfare. The intended result is always a blending of purpose and result, the fulfilment of a deliberate objective for the Tribulation. Warfare is not always all that bad. Warfare has evils that accompany it but so does peace. People are victimised as much by peace as they are by war. It is only the liberal who somehow thinks that if you can get rid of war you could improve the environment and solve everyone’s problems. Far from it.

“to him was given the power to take peace from the earth,” the accusative singular direct object from the noun e)irhnh, “peace.” This implies, therefore, that there was or will be a period of peace just either just before the Rapture of the Church or immediately after the Rapture of the Church. There will just be a short period of time when there is peace throughout the earth but once the red horse comes on the scene of history there will be no peace until the second advent of Christ. In the formation of the power spheres of the Tribulation there will be a tremendous amount of warfare. We will note later that the Tribulation is composed of four great power spheres. They include the king of the west, the revived Roman empire; the king of the north which today would be comparable to the Russian communist bloc, the king of the south is the pan-Arabic bloc, and the king of the east is an Asiatic bloc. In the rise of dictators, as we noted in the previous two verses, there is always violence, terrorism and warfare. Satan’s attempt to provide a pseudo Millennium prior to the second advent is going to be a total failure. Satan will not be able to control history in any possible way and there will be tremendous unrestrained warfare. The Tribulation, then, will be a time of both local and world wars, a concentration of battles, campaigns and wars which can only be terminated by the second advent of Christ and His assumption of the rulership of this world. Before there could be any form, then, of permanent peace Satan must be superseded as the ruler of this world. That will occur, of course, at the second advent. This will never happen until the second advent and in the meantime our Lord has given us a prophecy in Matthew chapter 24:4-13.

Next in verse four we have references to the slaughter. The connective conjunction kai is used to introduce what precedes and is translated “and so” or “so that.” We have an idiom here, kai plus i(na, translated “so that” because the connective kai introduces a result and is generally translated “and so.” The future active indicative of the verb sfazw follows, “so that they might slaughter.” The gnomic future tense is for a statement of a historical trend in the Tribulation which may be rightfully expected under the circumstances of unrestrained warfare. The active voice: the population of the Tribulation would produce the action of the verb and the indicative mood is a potential indicative of circumstances, plus a potential indicative of impulse with the removal of the restraining ministry of the Holy Spirit after the Rapture.

Then we have the accusative plural direct object from the reciprocal pronoun a)llhlwn, and as a reciprocal pronoun it is presented as effected by an interchange of actions signified in the verb. Therefore we call it “slaughter each other.” The passage goes on to say, “so that they might slaughter each other: in fact a great sword was given to him.” Notice that in contrast to the bow by which dictator came to power on the previous horse we have now a great sword. This time we have maxaira, and this emphasises a tremendous amount of conventional warfare.

Corrected translation: “Then another, a fiery red horse appeared on the scene of history: and to the rider, to him the power was given to take peace from the earth, so that they might slaughter each other: in fact, a great sword was given to him.”

There will be warfare in the southern part of the Middle East during the Tribulation and the slaughter is described in Isaiah 63:6, “In my anger I will trample their armies, and in my fury I make them drunk [intoxicated], and I will cause their life blood to pour out on the land.”

Isaiah 34:5,6, “For my sword is satiated in heaven, it shall descend from heaven for the judgment of Edom, furthermore the people [the invading army] I have dedicated to annihilation on the battlefield. The sword of the Lord is saturated with blood, a great slaughter in the land.”

This anticipates two passages we will study later on in Revelation. Revelation 14:20, “They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and their blood gushed out of the press as high as the horses’ bridle for a distance of two hundred miles.” Revelation 19:15, “And a sharp broadsword proceeded from his mouth [second advent of Christ] in order that with it he might strike and kill the armies of the invading nations.”

The invasion of the king of the north into the land of Israel is described in Joel 2:20, and again we see the tremendous unrestrained slaughter, “I will remove the northern army far from you, in fact I will drive it into a desert area and its vanguard into the eastern sea [the Dead Sea], its rearguard into the western sea [Mediterranean]. Consequently its stench will go up and the smell will rise heavenward.”

Ezekiel 39:2-5, “Now I will turn you around, motivate you to push on, concentrate you from the remote areas of the north, and bring you against the mountains of Israel. I will strike your bow from your left hand, and make your arrows drop from your right hand [decimation of infantry]. And the mountains of Israel will fall, you with all your troops and allies; I will give you as food to all kinds of vultures and predatory animals. You will fall in open field; and I have decreed it, declares the Lord God.”

We are studying the four horsemen of the apocalypse as the first four seals of the Doomsday book of the Tribulation. The Tribulation has special historical trends noted for their lack of restraint. God the Holy Spirit does not restrain during the seven years of that very short dispensation. We can begin to categorise the four horsemen very simply. The first horseman riding the white horse is the great dictator of the revived Roman empire. Therefore he represents political power and the trends related to it during the Tribulation. The rider of the red horse represents warfare. Coming up is the third horse and it is connected with economic disaster or economic depression. There is a relationship between the three. When things become bad politically, when politicians are at the their lowest ebb, lacking integrity, and are full of arrogance and more interested in their own inordinate ambition than they are in the good of the country, then it is inevitable that you become entangled in other types of disasters. Warfare has a definite relationship to economy and always has since the industrial revolution began.

We have already noted the red horse and some of the principles related to warfare. We must continue this before we leave it entirely so we will now notice a few more things about warfare. We will note the principles of warfare and see how they relate to the next horseman which is economic disaster — the black horse. In warfare there are certain principles which have always been true and which have been established from ancient times by great commanders such as Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, to mention a few. They have always followed these principles and these principles are true in life as well as having pertinence to the concept of the profession of arms.

The first principle is called the principle of objective. Many businesses are going to fail in this time of economic disaster because they have not had a clearly defined objective and because they have not remained within the concept of that objective. Many businesses expand too rapidly and as a result they go out of bounds as far as their objective is concerned. In the military, for example, the purpose of a military operation is to attain the objective assigned or designated by whoever is in command. The objective constitutes the guide for the interpretation of orders, the formulation of decisions, and the deployment of troops. The selection of national objectives is called strategy and strategy depends on political, military and economic conditions which are variable. Under the principle of the objective this means that military is always and inevitably subordinate to the political as well as to the economic conditions. The first objective must always be the neutralisation or the destruction of the power of the opposing military forces to fight. This means decisive defeat and destruction of enemy armies. The second objective is to possess localities which contribute to the national objective. The mission assigned to a military force must be compatible with national objectives. So the principle of objective is very important and just as it is important with our first horseman, the political era must define the objectives, therefore it has repercussion with the second horseman, warfare. But where it really hurts the most is when a great nation has no clear cut foreign and domestic policy — and you can’t have one and have a welfare state — it means very definitely that you cannot have economic prosperity. Lack of national policy inevitably means that the government interferes with business, with the function of the military, and with everything in the hope of coming up with a lucky combination.

The second principle in warfare is called the principle of offensive. It is a very simple one: the offence is the only action by which a decision is gained. Offensive brings victory; defence can only avoid defeat. So it is imperative that all thinking, whether it is strategical or tactical, be geared to offensive concepts, not defensive. The only effective way to wage war is to act on the offensive, destroying the enemy armies. The offensive increases the effectiveness of the force adopting it, it raises morale, it permits concentration of effort, it allows freedom of action. This is what makes nation great. The defensive should be used to assist the offensive action elsewhere, to gain time, to utilise good terrain, to compensate for weaknesses. The offensive should be used where there is any reasonable chance of success.

Now, change to the word “marketing” and you have exactly the same concept. A company obviously has to go on the defensive from time to time to compensate for its weaknesses but the offensive is the whole concept of marketing.

The third great doctrine in military history is the principle of mass. Mass is a military term for combat power. Furthermore it means concentration of combat power at the point of maximum effectiveness. Mass or combat power includes numbers, weapons, tactical skills, discipline, fighting ability, resolution, morale, leadership. Success in warfare is attained by the proper employment of mass in a main effort to attack at the proper time and place for the accomplishment of a definite purpose.

What does mass mean economically? Good management. Not good labour, good management. It means courage, honour, integrity among those who invest money. You cannot have economic prosperity without good management. In all of the history of the world the demands of labour in the last three decades have been the highest. When a bricklayer makes twice as much as a college professor there is something wrong, there is no premium on brains and everything gets out of kilter. That is the principle of mass.

The fourth principle of warfare which can never be ignored is the principle of economy of force. Economy of force is the means by which the mass is employed in the main effort. And, again, remember that mass is combat power and includes, numbers, weapons, tactical skills, discipline, fighting ability, resolution, morale and leadership. The time and place of the main effort having been determined men and means are conserved by reducing their employment in other directions to the minimum consistent with safety. This is a principle which can be brought over to the economic very quickly. There has been a tremendous amount of wastage, a digression from the concept of economy of force because the political nature of our country. The demand for a welfare state and its function is opposed to the economy of force principle and the welfare state always tries to make people equal by guaranteed incomes. We have already seen that equality will never exist. It will only exist as a destructive force. So the economy of force is the means by which one successfully co-ordinates the various units in a military organisation for victory, and there must be the successful co-ordination in economy as well.

Number five is the principle of movement. Movement means the manoeuvre of combat elements. In the offensive this principle is used to bring mass into close grips with the enemy in order to secure decisive results. Movement is designed to place mass in the best place for attack. Movement is most effective when concealed. In many cases movement is only possible by the effective employment of fire power. The same thing is true in economy.

The principle of surprise is number six. To obtain maximum effectiveness with minimum loss of life surprise must be employed. It may take the form of time, place, direction, force or tactical weapons. The main factors of surprise are threefold: preparation, secrecy, rapidity. They also can be used effectively in marketing principles.

Number seven is the principle of security. Security embraces all the measures taken to guard against observation and surprise, to ensure against hostile interference with operations, to gain and maintain the power and momentum of free action.

Number eight is the principle of simplicity, simplicity, of course, being a relative term. Military plans should be simple so as not to sponsor complicated movements. Orders should not be ambiguous but direct and free from contingencies. Frequent changes of plans should be avoided. Unity of command must be observed.

Number nine is the principle of co-operation. Teamwork demands that all military units and persons involved in a mission work together to accomplish the mission. To do this co-ordination must be secure.

We now move into verse five: “And when he [our Lord Jesus Christ] had broken the third seal I heard the third angelic herald say, Come.” We now see what happens: the sequential conjunction kai and the aorist active indicative of the o(raw, meaning “I looked” or “I watched.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the vision of the black horse, the third trend of the Tribulation. The active voice: the apostle John as the human author of the Tribulation produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact which precedes the actual vision of the black horse. We have a connective kai and then the demonstrative particle i)dou which is translated, “and behold.” Then we see what is third, the nominative of exclamation which by standing alone has great emphasis, a nominative of exclamation made up of an adjective and a noun. The adjective is melaj which means “black”, and the noun is i(ppoj, “horse,” “then I looked and behold a black horse.” Black means economic depression which is called in the Bible by the word “famine.” Jeremiah 4:28 explains the word “black,” what it means in the Bible. “Therefore the land will mourn, and the heavens will become black [economic depression], because I have spoken and will not change my mind, I have decided and will not turn my back.”

Now how do we know that black means economic disaster, Lamentations 4:6-10: “For the punishment of my people [Israel as a client nation to God] is greater than that of Sodom which was destroyed in a moment without a hand turning to help them. Their princes were purer than snow and whiter than milk; their bodies more healthy in appearance than rubies, their appearance like sapphire. But now their appearance is blacker than soot, they are not recognised in the streets; their skin is shrivelled on their bones, it has become dry as a stick. Those killed in battle are better off than those who die of famine [economic depression]; racked with hunger they waste away from lack of food from the ground. With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children who became their food when my people Israel were destroyed by economic depression.”

Why were the appearances of people blacker than soot? Because they were dying of famine. The personification of economic depression follows and there is a tremendous dissertation on the whole story of economic depression and all of the problems related to it.

The doctrine of economic depression (or famine)

Jesus prophesied that during the course of human history there would always be three things in history and they would not be eradicated until the second advent: wars famines and natural disasters. And since the Bible advocates free enterprise under the laws of divine establishment any violation of this law inevitably results in recession and depression. When man tampers with the natural laws of supply and demand, when political powers tamper with the concept of capitalism there is inevitably economic decline. Man does not have the power to adjust economy. Since the Bible advocates free enterprise it is inevitable that when anyone tries to tamper with free enterprise they are going to destroy or distort the economy. In the natural course of life, then, economic disaster occurs periodically in history. For example, what should the believer do in time of economic disaster? Well, it isn’t what he should do, it is what God does for him. The mature believer will be delivered in time of economic depression, Job 5:20; Psalm 33:18,19. During the economic disaster of the northern kingdom in the days of king Ahab God provided for Elijah through logistical grace, first by the ravens, 1 Kings 17:6, and then through the widow of Zerephath, 1 Kings 17:9-16. Cf Psalm 37:18,19.

There are two kinds of people who try to tamper with God’s laws as far as economy is concerned : politicians and preachers [false teachers obviously], Jeremiah 5:12, speaking of politicians and preachers: “They have lied about the Lord, they said, ‘He is not; misfortune will not come on us; consequently we will never see military disaster or economic depression’.”

Jeremiah 14:13, “But I said, ‘O Lord, O God, behold the prophets are telling them that they will not see military disaster nor will they have economic depression, but I will give you permanent peace in this place, they promise’.” Here is Jeremiah quoting the prophets and the politicians.

Famine is used to test believers with regard to doctrine and the provision of logistical grace, Genesis 12:10; 26:1.

Famine is used as a divine judgment and a punishment of nations who violate the laws of divine establishment with regard to economics, Isaiah 51:17,19. Cf. Jeremiah 14:15,16; 15:1,2; 29:17; Ezekiel 5:16.

The inevitable results of energy without ability is what we are studying in the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The white horse: political incompetence or political arrogance, or both. Political disaster always has two categorical results. First we have the man riding the white horse — incompetence in government. Regardless of the type of government incompetence exists: in the foreign policy, the red horse or warfare without victory, therefore military disaster; in the domestic policy, the black horse or the government destruction of free enterprise through its interference, regulation, socialism, the welfare state, redistribution of wealth, all of which are disastrous.

The white horse of political disaster, then, results in the red horse of military disaster plus the black horse of economic disaster. Military disaster always represents failure in foreign policy; economic disaster always represents failure in domestic policy. The two are always linked to the white horse, failure in political function. The white horse of political arrogance and incompetence obviously then reflects social degeneration among the citizens of any national entity. Therefore social degeneration becomes the cause of both economic depression and military disaster, and these result in the fourth horse which we have not yet studied: the ashen horse representing disease and death. Death always is the grim reaper, it reaps the harvest of the first three horses: political decline or the white horse, military disaster or the red horse, economic depression or the black horse. Therefore the first four seals, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, ride in every dispensation but are more devastating in the Tribulation because God the Holy Spirit is not functioning in His restraining ministry. Therefore what we are studying is far worse than anything which we face today.

Translation of verse 5 so far: “And when he [our Lord Jesus Christ] had broken the third seal, I heard the third angelic herald say, Come. Then I looked, and behold a black horse [economic disaster].”

The next phrase has to do with the concept of economic disaster. We notice again that these three seals are all related. Remember the principle: political disaster or poor national leadership results in two related disasters, warfare and economic depression. Hence, the order of the horses is important. Political disaster, the white horse, means two bad policies — domestic: economic depression; foreign: military disaster.

Now we have the personification of economic depression as it will occur in the Tribulation. The connective conjunction kai is followed by the articular present active participle from the verb kaqhmai, to sit. The definite article is used as indefinite pronoun to define a category, economic depression personified. The futuristic present tense denotes the personification of economic disaster as the historical trend of the Tribulation. The active voice: the personification of economic depression produces the action of the verb, the Tribulation is going to be a terrible time of economic depression. The participle is circumstantial for the third horseman of the apocalypse. With this is the prepositional phrase e)pi plus the accusative singular of the intensive pronoun a)utoj, “on it.” All of this is simply the literal translation and the idiom should translated “and the rider.” The participle is translated as a substantive and the rider, that is, the one who sat on it, is the personification of economic disaster in the Tribulation.

With this subject, the rider, we now have the verb, the present active participle of e)xw, “and the rider has.” The present tense is a customary present and denotes what reasonably may be expected to occur in the Tribulation because of the white horse, dictatorship or government; and the red horse, military disaster. In other words, poor leadership in a national entity, corrupt or degenerate leadership resulting from a degenerate society results in warfare. Warfare creates special markets and superficial prosperity which results in economic collapse, like France in the reign of Louis the XIV or Germany in 1918. The active voice: the personification of economic depression, the rider of the black horse, produces the action. The circumstantial participle is translated like a finite verb. We have the object of the participle, the accusative singular direct object from zugoj meaning a yoke, a lever of balance or pair of scales. And then the next prepositional phrase, “in his hands.”

Corrected translation: “And when he [our Lord Jesus Christ] had broken the third seal, I heard the third angelic herald say, Come. Then I looked, and behold a black horse [economic depression]; and the rider had a pair of scales in his hand.”

The pair of scales indicates the scarcity of food. It also anticipates the next verse, inflation, for scarcity of food and inflation always travel together in economic collapse. Inflation is the enemy of economic recovery and the hypocrisy of economic prosperity, the deceiver of people and the road which poor government rides to power. The poor government in the case of our passage, the white horse, is a dictator but it could be just as easily our government.

What does inflation mean? First of all, under an incompetent government like the rider of the white horse it means high taxes, and either no profits or false profits. Inflation is the dream world of those economic standards related to the laws of divine establishment, inflation is a dream. True economic standards must be related to free enterprise and capitalism. Credit must be based on some standard. The standard can be gold or property or the gross national product. It has to be something of intrinsic economic value. When credit is based on inflation minus a standard of intrinsic value and the market place is saturated to the point of destroying supply and demand then paper currency is no longer a promise of a prosperous GNP, it no longer reflects a gold standard or any other concept similar. It is simply hope as a medium of exchange.

The second trend of warfare throughout the Tribulation results in economic depression with its famine, inflation, starvation, millions dying of hunger, and unmentionable suffering. And, of course, not unjust suffering but suffering resulting from the wrong decisions of millions of people. We are the products of our own decisions. Man is still the product of his own decisions during the Tribulation.

Verse 6, we begin again with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “then,” followed by the aorist active indicative of a)kouw, “then I heard.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the apostle John produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact related to the vision. With this we have a comparative particle w(j which introduces the characteristic quality of our Lord’s voice speaking from the middle of the throne. It is translated, “as it were a voice.”

“Then I heard as it were a voice in the centre of the four angelic heralds saying,” the present active participle of the verb legw. Our Lord Jesus Christ now describes in terms in which the Bible was written, inflation. The pictorial present tense presents to the mind a picture of inflation in the process of occurrence. The active voice: Jesus Christ in the centre of the throne, as in Ezekiel chapters one and ten, produces the action. This is a statement of judgment as well as the third historical trend of the Tribulation. Now we have the statement, the nominative singular subject xoinic. Xoinic is a dry measure of that time. It is roughly equivalent to a quart. A xoinic of grain was the daily ration for one person. In other words, it was just enough to keep one person alive for one day. And here we have a xoinic of sitoj which means wheat. Then we have the genitive of description or the genitive of price from the monetary noun denarion, which is the Latin denariuj, translated: “a quart of wheat for a denarius.” But that doesn’t tell us what a denarius is. It was actually at this time a Roman silver coin which would be worth about eighteen cents in our concept but that isn’t even the meaning of it. It means a day’s wages. This is taught in Matthew 18:28; 20:2, 9; 22:19; Mark 6:37; 12:15; Luke 7:41; 10:35; 20:24. In other words all you can buy for a day’s wages is just enough to buy enough food to keep you alive for one day. Therefore we are looking at famine prices — inflation. This is tantamount to starvation prices.

Next we have in corrected translation: “and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages.” Barley was the basic food of the poor and it took much more to sustain life. Three quarts of barley could only do what one quart of grain could do. Those who had families had to live on barley and obviously a family of more than two would starve to death in a very short period of time. Again, the barley represents starvation wages. The denarius is just enough to buy a little food and nothing else; no other necessities except a little food which would result in malnutrition, loss of energy, ill health, death from either disease or starvation or both. Even if you worked very, very hard you could not make enough money to live, and inflation is the name of the game here.

Remember the principle: the Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. At the time of writing in Revelation a denarius or a day’s wages would ordinarily buy 16 to 20 quarts of wheat. Obviously in normal times one day’s wages or a denarius would buy food, shelter, clothing, and a lot more. But in time of economic depression the denarius or a day’s wages can only buy just enough to stay alive, but not for too long. So we are talking about disastrous inflation, 200 per cent inflation.

Now we have the connective kai used to introduce a result from what precedes and therefore this time kai is translated “furthermore.” With this we have the negative mh, “furthermore do not.” Then we have the verb a)dikew with the negative mh, “do not damage.” The constative aorist is for a negative action extended over a period of time. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: those who have some form of liquidity, some cash flow, or wealth of intrinsic value produce the action in the sense of prohibiting the destruction of luxury items. Those who produce the luxuries receive a mandate. It is always true, even in the greatest of economic disasters, that there are some who are prepared for it one way or another. There are some who have the ability to handle it and their demand is not just to stay alive but they are looking for luxury items. True luxury items are mentioned in this passage. The subjunctive mood plus the negative mh is known as a subjunctive of prohibition, therefore it is a mandate, a mandate for luxury items on the part of a few.

The double accusative gives us the two luxury items. They may not sound like luxury to us but they very definitely were at the time of writing. The first is e)laion which means olive oil. In other words, energy fuel. Olive oil can be construed as both an energy as well as a luxury food. Olive oil was used in preparing foods and in lamps for lights and other energy ways. We also have a luxury beverage, o)inoj, wine. This is another way of saying that in time of economic depression or famine those who have liquidity or those who have capital get richer. The rich get richer always in a time of economic depression. They have the means of supporting or capitalising or gaining at the best possible price those things that would increase their wealth. That the wealthy maintain their way of life is illustrated by luxury food, by energy, and luxury beverage, good wine. There has never been an economic disaster in history without having those who are prepared for it by the possession of capital, and they always survive. They survive under a principle of the laws of divine establishment. Those who have acquired capital and liquidity always survive (apart from those who are evil) because they were prepared for it, and this is a part of category #1 truth, the laws of divine establishment. Wealth is not evil, it is the basis of economy and there is no true economy without someone possessing wealth and therefore investing. Therefore it is inevitable that in time of economic depression there are those who have liquidity and capital who will survive and succeed.

In all economic disasters there are survivors. You as a believer should be a survivor. There is no excuse for not surviving. All you have to do is go back and apply the principle of logistical grace. If you are daily in the Word, if you have been growing in grace, the principle is a very simple one: “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope [confidence]. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is thy faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion’, says my soul, ‘Therefore I will have confidence in him.’ The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” There is your capital and your liquidity for time of economic disaster.

We came into this world by physical birth and we have life because after we came out of our mother’s womb God imputed life, and imputed life means that God has a purpose for each one of us. In other words, it is God’s desire that each one of us believes in Christ and therefore have eternal life since Jesus Christ suffered for us on the cross, bearing our sins, taking our place. But one thing is certain: we are all going to die, and there comes a time when death gives us our most lucid moments about life. To see things in the light of eternity is one of the principles by which we should live. We should live every day as unto the Lord, every day in the light of eternity, every day in relationship to those around us in a way that expresses the integrity, the love, the honour, and all of the assets of the divine dynasphere. Death is one of the great realities of life. Probably some people never wake up an realise what life is all about until they are dying, and then it is too late. And there is no question about it, with whatever thought pattern is left life does pass before you because the person who is dying does more concentrating, apart from certain diseases where it is impossible, than they ever did in living. So what we need, just once in a while, is just a little bit of the smell of death to really face what life is all about and to appreciate people — loved ones, friends, and to appreciate what doctrine has done, and above all to appreciate the invisible, eternal God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Death means one of two things for every Christian at the point of dying. The point of death means the greatest of blessings, dying grace, or it means the greatest punishment, the sin unto death. There is no in-between. Either you go out under the sin unto death or you go out under dying grace. And there is really only one thing that prepares you for dying and therefore prepares you for living. That is the principle. Whatever prepares you for death prepares you for life. Whatever in dying gives you a true scale of values becomes the means for providing an appreciation for life. The fact that God provides in death is the subject of Amos 5:8, and the fact that death is a promotion for the believer is Philippians 1:21, and the fact that women, because they are responders, have a much more difficult time facing the death of loved ones is taught in Jeremiah 9:20-25, and the fact that the sin unto death does not bring glory to God is taught in Isaiah 38:18, and the fact death is always a matter of the sovereignty of God (God’s decision is based on prior knowledge of all the facts) — Psalm 68:19,20. It is always a good idea to have a relationship with the one who decides that you are going to die. We have seen how God delivers from death, Job 5:20; Psalm 33:19; 56:13; 116:8, and we have seen that there are things that are stronger than death, Song Of Solomon 8:6, “Love is stronger than death.” The fact that God can prolong life has been noted in Psalm 102:19,20, 23,24; 118:18; Proverbs 14:27.

What is even more important is what happens after death. For the believer, we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord, “no more sorrows, no more tears, no more pain, no more death, the old things are passed away,” the interim body, the time of great happiness.

There is a principle to be noted which is found in Job 5:19ff, “In six [categories of] troubles he will deliver you.” The word for “deliver” is the Hebrew word natsal and it means to rescue or to deliver when you are in a place where you can’t do much for yourself; in other words, a hopeless situation. It emphasises the divine function of logistical grace which in our dispensation is the wall of fire and/or the divine dynasphere. Then the word “seven” means seven categories of trouble, “in seven categories of trouble evil [the function of Satan administered through the cosmic system] will not touch you,” the qal imperfect of naga and it means to meddle. Meddling is irritating. It means not touching in the sense of not meddling with you, irritating you. It doesn’t mean you won’t be there, it means it won’t irritate you.

Beginning in verse 20 we have that logistical grace wall of fire parlayed into deliverance of the believer who cracks the maturity barrier. Out of the six categories of trouble four are mentioned to show us what is meant. The first one is the black horse, “In famine [economic depression] he will preserve you from death.” While people are dying [the ashen horse] you are not going to die, you are going to be preserved. And then there is the red horse, warfare, “and in war from the power of the sword” And that is not just a promise to those who are in the military, it is a promise to civilians.

Verse 21, there is also social degeneration, and social degeneration comes from maligning, judging, society ridiculing and making life miserable for you. “You will be hidden” is the niphel perfect from the Hebrew chabah. The niphel stem is passive voice, which means you can’t yourself ever justify yourself to society. When people malign you and judge you you can’t justify yourself. The niphel stem is passive and it means God will provide your protection. There comes a time when what people think of you is not nearly as important as what God thinks of you, and this is when you face some form of social disaster, social ostracism, and especially when we have social degeneracy which is a part of the first horse, the white horse; “neither will you be afraid,” the qal imperfect of jare, meaning a perpetuation of courage; “of destruction,” the Hebrew word is shod and refers to death, violent death in many cases; “when it comes.” You may be a pariah to society but if you have Bible doctrine you will receive protection from God.

This is the fourth horseman. In the four categories we have out of the six that are mentioned there are six disasters from which we will be rescued. Furthermore, in seven no evil will touch you. The four that are mentioned are the same as the four horsemen of Revelation chapter six.

Verse 22, “You will laugh at death.” In other words, you will be very relaxed in economic depression, and you will also laugh at the wild animals of the earth. You have nothing to fear from them says this verse. The fascinating thing is that we are going to see those same wild animals and study them very shortly in our context. What do wild animals mean? It means at certain times in history animals destroy a great deal of life. The animals can also refer to nuclear weapons, conventional weapons, cars, and a lot of other things. But the believer who is in doctrine is preserved from all of these things.

Verse 23, “For your contract will be with the stones [the weapons] of the battlefield; and the wild animals will be at peace with you,” none of the instruments of death can remove the mature believer from this life until God permits. Only the integrity of God can transfer the believer from time to eternity. No believer can be removed until the Lord is ready to take him home to heaven but once the Lord calls the believer home nothing can retain him on this earth. The believer cannot die until the Lord decides. The exception of course is suicide and that does not mean loss of salvation but it cancels out any possibility of any reward in heaven.

Verse 24, “Therefore you will know that your tent [human body] is in a state of prosperity [dying grace], for you will visit your home [heaven] and you will not forfeit blessing or reward.”

Verse 25, “You will know that your seed will be numerous,” an idiom for prosperity of the loved ones left behind. Not only is there dying grace for you but blessing by association for the next generation. Whoever is related to you in any way who is still alive will have blessing by association; “and your descendants like the grass of the earth,” you will have an impact even beyond your death.

Verse 26, “You will come to the grave in a full age, like a shock of corn it is season,” the illustration is of timing and is taken from agriculture. There is a right and a wrong time to pick corn. God will decide when it is time for you to depart.

Verse 27, “Behold this doctrine, we have investigated it, this is the gist of it; hear it and apply it to yourself.”

Revelation 6:7, we have noted before the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “then” or “and when,” along with the temporal conjunction o(ti introducing a temporal clause, the aorist active indicative of the verb a)noigw. These things occur and recur in each of the verses which introduce one of the four horsemen, one of the first four seals. The constative aorist refers to a momentary action of breaking the fourth seal. The active voice: Jesus Christ who controls history breaks open that seal. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact: our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who controls history breaks open the fourth seal of the Doomsday book of the Tribulation revealing the fourth historical trend — death in the Tribulation. Then we have the accusative singular direct object made up of an adjective for the substantive sfragij, meaning seal, and we have the beginning of our corrected translation: “And when he [our Lord Jesus Christ who controls history] had broken open the fourth seal of the Doomsday book.”

Once again we have the repetition of the aorist active indicative of the verb a)kouw, meaning to hear. John once again records what he has heard, “I heard the fourth angelic herald.” The objective genitive following a)kouw made up of the adjective numeral for four plus again that substantive zoion, and it doesn’t mean a beast, it refers to an angelic herald. The word “come” is a mandate. The aorist of the present middle imperative gives the order, “Come.” The present tense is a aoristic present for punctiliar action in present time. John will see in a point of time the vision of the fourth horseman. The direct middle describes the subject, the apostle John, as participating in the results of the action of the verb. He will give us a development of the fourth horseman which is death. The imperative mood of command means this is a mandate and obviously in the order of rank the angelic herald ranks the apostle.

Translation: “And when he [our Lord Jesus Christ] had broken the fourth seal [of the Doomsday book] I heard the fourth angelic herald say, Come.”

Verse 8, Now we begin the pale horse, the ashen horse. We begin with the sequential use of the conjunction kai translated “then.” The aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw follows, and it means to look or to see. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the vision of the pale or ashen horse, the fourth historical trend of the Tribulation. The active voice: the apostle John, the human author, having obeyed the angelic herald now produces the action of observing the vision, recording it as the fourth general historical trend of the Tribulation; “and behold,” the nominative of exclamation which by standing alone receives great emphasis and has two words which follow. The adjective is xloroj, an adjective meaning yellowish green. It is a perfect description of someone who is suffering from sea sickness and the phrase that we use in the English, “green around the gills,” pale or ashen. It means death pallor. With this we have the noun i(ppoj, “horse,” “Then I looked, and behold, an ashen horse.” We anticipate this horse as death and therefore we take time to consider the classification of death.

Death — there are seven different categories of death found in the Bible

1. Physical death, defined as the separation of the soul from the body so that the person involved no longer lives on planet earth. Death cannot separate the believer from God, Romans 8:38,39. Physical death is a matter of the sovereign decision of God based on His perfect knowledge of all the facts in each case, Psalm 68:19,20. God can and does prolong life on earth, Psalm 102:19, 20, 23,24; 118:18. God also delivers the believer from death, Job 5:20; psalm 33:19; 56:13; 116:8. The believer who attains maturity departs from life under the principle of dying grace, Psalm 23:4; 116:15. Resurrection is the victory over death, 1 Corinthians 15:54-57. Physical death is also defined in terms of no appointment with judgment (for the believer), Hebrews 9:27. Death means the end of pain as far as planet earth is concerned, Revelation 21:4. Death means an eternal inheritance, 1 Peter 1:4,5. Death means a new home, John 14:1-6. It means the realisation of eternal life, it means waiting for the resurrection in the interim body. For the believer whose momentum carries him to gate eight of the divine dynasphere death is profit forever and ever, Philippians 1:20,21. For the believer who spends his life in the cosmic system death is a horrible experience. However, better an end with horror, the sin unto death, than to have horror in eternity, hell or the second death. The believer living in the cosmic system dies under the discipline known as the sin unto death.

2. Spiritual death of the human race. That begins at the moment of life.

3. There is a positional death of the believer, identification with Christ in His death and all of its significance — retroactive positional truth, positional death. Identification with Christ in His death means where He was judged for our sins He also rejected human good and evil, the policy of Satan. Therefore we are in union with Him in His death and we must reject the policy of Satan, we have been given the opportunity of doing so.

4. Cosmic death of the believer which is synonymous with being out of fellowship.

5. The productive mortality of the believer — dead works. This comes from the believer who is most zealous for the Lord but is living in the cosmic system and suffers, of course, from arrogance. The production of Christian service must be totally free from the cosmic system.

6. Sexual death, described in two passages related to one man, Abraham. It explains the origin of the Jewish race actually. It is found in Romans 4:17-21; Hebrews 11:11,12.

7. The second death, which is the eternal lake of fire for the unbeliever.

8. The sin unto death for the believer.

Before us, of course, is physical death as an historical trend, the inevitable result of the first three horsemen. The rider on the white horse is dictatorship, the personification of bad government as a recognition [result] of social degeneration in a given nation. There is the red horse, warfare. There is the black horse, economic depression.

Now we have come to the fourth horse. “Then I looked, and behold, an ashen horse.” Next comes the connective kai and the articular present active participle from the verb kaqhmai, to sit. The definite article is used as an indefinite pronoun to define a category, the personification of physical death. The present tense is a futuristic present, it denotes the rider as the personification of death in the Tribulation. The active voice: the personification of death in the Tribulation produces the action. The participle is circumstantial but the participle is used as a substantive, therefore we translate it, “the rider.” Or it can be translated: “Then I looked, and behold, an ashen horse: and the rider [the one who sat on it, literally],” the personification of death in the Tribulation. “On it” is simply a prepositional phrase made up of an adverb, e)panw. It is used as an improper preposition with a)utoj in the genitive, and that is the intensive pronoun used as the personal pronoun and it is simply translated, “sat on it” or “the rider,” being a simpler translation. Whenever possible simple translations are better because simple phrases are for everyone.

The next four words in the Greek are an idiom of possession and they form what is called an anacoluthon, “and the name to him the death” is the way it is translated literally, the nominative singular of the noun o)noma, “the name.” With this we have the dative of possession from a)utoj again, the intensive pronoun used as the personal pronoun, third person singular, referring to the rider on the horse. Then we have the predicate nominative from the noun qanatoj, “death.” And while it is literally translated “a name to him the death” it is an idiom and is correctly translated into the English, “his name was death.” Death occurs in all dispensations but death is a very special trend in the Tribulation due to warfare, famine, disease, terrorism, violence on an unprecedented scale for those seven years. As a matter of fact in this passage we will see that one quarter of the population of the earth will be taken by death during the Tribulation. Hence, a trend of history becomes an intensified trend of history during the Tribulation. Furthermore, death from natural causes seems to disappear while the mortality rate goes higher and higher.

It is very similar to what we had in medieval times in the middle ages. Life expectancy in the middle ages was very low and at one point went all the way down to the teens. That is exactly what is going to happen in the Tribulation, the shortening of life expectancy due to all of the things we have studied.

We are then introduced to where they are all going to go if they are unbelievers. We have the connective kai introducing a result from what precedes, translated either “furthermore” or “in fact,” “his name was Death, in fact.” Now we come to the problem, the nominative singular subject from a(dhj, called “Hades.” Unfortunately, in the King James version it is translated “Hell” and Hell is not a transliteration of anything. It is not a translation and it is not a transliteration. The translators have taken this word “Hell” and have used it for four Hebrew words and several Greek words, and all of these words in the Hebrew and in the Greek have different meanings — four different places and only two of them are actually synonyms for each other. So we have a problem. First of all we will get the exegesis out of the way and then tackle the problem of Hell. Hades is the word here, and the subject. The final Hell does not yet exist. It has been prepared for the devil and his angels and its existence will come into being and we will see it at the end of Revelation. Hades was the place for all departed dead prior to the resurrection of Christ.

We note first the imperfect active indicative of the verb a)kolouqew. The word generally means to follow, it also means to accompany, to go along with, but here we have its military terminology. It also means in the military to march along with, to keep step with, and we will translate it that way, “his name was Death, in fact Hades was keeping step [marching along with] with him,” the prepositional phrase meta plus the genitive of a)utoj, translated “with him.” The intensive pronoun a)utoj refers to death.

Our problem is to deal with the doctrine of Hades. The Hebrew word is sheol; the Greek word is a(dhj. It all began when our Lord Jesus Christ said to one of the dying thieves: “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” Paradise is also called “Abraham’s bosom.” Until the resurrection of Christ all born again believers of the Old Testament went to Paradise/Abraham’s bosom in the heart of the earth. They did not go to heaven as such. This compartment of Sheol or Hades, of course, has all the benefits of heaven. Then, after the resurrection of Christ, this compartment of Hades called Sheol or Abraham’s bosom was moved to the third heaven so that all of the Old Testament saints had a permanent change of station as of the resurrection of Christ. When our Lord ascended He was, in effect, the first human being to ever be in heaven. Then, of course, the transfer of the Old Testament saints in their interim bodies, they have no resurrection bodies yet. All of these Old Testament saints are going to return with Christ, and that is when they will get their resurrection bodies. Then they will be involved in the Millennial reign of Christ. The believer of the Church Age gets his resurrection body at the end of the Church Age. The Millennial saints receive their resurrection bodies at the end of the Millennium.

Next, below the compartment called Paradise or Abraham’s bosom there is what is called “a great gulf fixed,” and then the second compartment of Hades is called “torments.” Tormentsis where all of the unbelievers go after death. It is in the heart of the earth. And so when we get to Revelation chapter twenty and we are studying the great white throne and it says, “death and Hades delivered up their dead [the unbelievers],” then you know it is the second resurrection and we have the resurrection of all unbelievers since the beginning of time for the great white throne judgment. That is called “Hades” in Revelation chapter twenty, but it is only one compartment of Hades.

These are the two compartments related to the human race. Now we have two more related to angels. The next two compartments are prisons for angels.

The first of these is called Tartarus. Jesus, when His soul was in Abraham’s bosom, His spirit was in the presence of the Father, His body was in the grave. His spirit went to Tartarus and He made an announcement to the angels in Tartarus. There is a certain brand of fallen angels in Tartarus. In Genesis chapter six there is a category of fallen angels that tried to hinder the true humanity of Christ and the strategic victory of the first advent. So these who were involved are imprisoned in Tartarus.

Then there is another prison called the Abyss and certain demons who are worse than most of the demons, and have caused certain troubles, are actually in the Abyss. The demons in the Abyss are going to get out of jail in the Tribulation and they are going to cause some very special trouble. And, next to Satan, the toughest of all demons is their leader down there whose name is Abaddon. With Satan and Abaddon both loose on the earth you have the full meaning of the word “tribulation.” It will be the worst period in all of history. Demon possession and demonism, and demons using the bodies of certain categories of animals, like scorpions, are going to attack the human race. It is right out of science fiction but it is not fiction. All of this is going to happen in the future.

At the great white throne judgment all the unbelievers are going to be brought up and judged. Then they are going to be cast into the lake of fire. But the Bible doesn’t call it Hell, it is called the lake of fire. That is the final Hell. But it is also called in the Hebrew, Tophet and Gehenna, so we have the final Hell called Tophet, Gehenna and lake of fire. “Hell” is the word used for all of these places in the King James version and it is total incompetence. It destroys these tremendous distinctions that are very important in the interpretation of the Word of God.

The doctrine of Hades

The Hebrew word for Hades is sheol, and it refers to a vast subterranean area of the departed dead of the human race and certain categories of angelic creatures. It is estimated to be in the heart of the earth but that is not necessarily it. Several passages imply this but the location is really unknown. The implication comes when Abaddon, the most incorrigible of the demons, is released from the Abyss and there is an opening there and they come right up out of the earth. That is where we decide that it must be in the heart of the earth. The dying are said to go to sheol in Numbers 16:30; Ezekiel 31:15,17. Those who are believers of the Old Testament were said to be delivered into the power of sheol, Hosea 13:14; Psalm 49:16. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation, Hades is used for the Hebrew sheol. Prior to the resurrection of Christ all human dead went to Hades where two compartments were designed to receive them, namely Paradise and Abraham’s bosom. Between the two there was a great gulf fixed. All unbelievers are still in torments until the great white throne judgment. In addition there are two compartments in Hades for fallen angels, and they are separate compartments — Tartarus and the Abyss. Tartarus is reserved for the fallen angels involved in the infiltration and cohabitation of Genesis chapter six. They are called “sons of God,” beni-ha-Elohim. The Abyss is a special prison for certain demons whose restraint is necessary for the continuation and perpetuation of human history. They had to be removed from the scene in order for the angelic conflict to continue.

Hades: the first compartment. Nomenclature: Paradise/Abraham’s bosom. It is defined as the place where all the Old Testament believers went after physical death. Illustration: Luke 23:39-43, “And one of the criminals who was hanging there hurled insults at him [at Christ], saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Deliver yourself and us!’ But the other criminal answered, and rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not have respect for God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? In fact, we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but he [our Lord] has done nothing wrong.’ And he kept repeating, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom!’ And he [Jesus] replied to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise’.” Paradise is the residence, then, of the Old Testament believers who died up until the Church Age.

Our second passage on Paradise is found in Ephesians 4:8-10, “For this reason the scripture says [according to Psalm 68:18], ‘When he [Christ] had ascended up on high, he led captives [Old Testament believers] in a triumphal procession from their state of captivity [Paradise],” hence they were transferred from Paradise to the third heaven. [This is also taught in Matthew 27:52-53] (Not this doctrine only, that he ascended, what does it imply except that he [Christ] also descended into the lower parts of the earth? The one who has descended is the same person also who ascended far above all the heavens),” the third heaven, the new Paradise.

The prophecy is given in Psalm 16:10, “For you will not abandon my soul in Sheol; neither will you allow your Holy One [Jesus Christ] to undergo decay [reference to His resurrection].” His soul came out of Hades, not Hell, for the resurrection, Acts 2:27,31, the fulfilment.

The second compartment is called Torments. This is the residence of all unbelievers until the end of the Millennium. In the great white throne judgment, Revelation 20:11-15, “Hades emptied its dead,” the second resurrection for judgment in the lake of fire. There are only unbelievers in the second resurrection. In Luke 16:19-31 we have the details of Torments and the great gulf fixed. In the description of the last judgment in Revelation 20:13 Hades “gave up the dead which were in it.” Verse 14 says, “Both death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This [the lake of fire] is the second death.”

The third compartment is Tartarus.

Genesis 6:1-6

Tartarus is the residence of a group of fallen angels. They are called in Genesis chapter six, beni-ha-Elohim, translated “sons of God,” a slight misnomer. The concept: Satan has two major attacks on the Lord Jesus Christ. The first one was an attempt to frustrate the incarnation, to keep our Lord from becoming true humanity; and, after becoming true humanity through the virgin birth, to keep Him from going to the cross and being judged for our sins. This attack was first on Adam’s seed. The “seed of Adam” is a title of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the fourth chapter of Genesis Cain murdered Able because Abel was in the line of the seed of Christ. He was motivated by Satan to commit that first murder in the human race; he was motivated to cut off the incarnation and to keep our Lord Jesus Christ from being true humanity.

The second attempt is in our passage — Genesis chapter six. When Satan discovered that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to come in the flesh, not only through the seed of Adam but through Abraham’s seed, there were several attacks at that point. The first attack was when Sarah was in the harem of the Egyptian king in Genesis 12:10-20. The second attack came when Pharaoh commanded to kill all the male line of Israel in Exodus 1:10,15,16. Another attack came when Pharaoh attempted to destroy all Israel in Exodus 14:13-19. Then it was discovered that Abraham’s seed was now boiled down to the seed of David. Therefore Satan made a renewed attack upon the line of David. There was the case of Jehoshaphat’s son. Jehoshaphat was a very famous king who arranged a marriage between his son Jehoram and Athalia, the daughter of Jezebel, 2 Chronicles 18:1. Then Jehoram killed his brothers to hang on to the throne, 2 Chronicles 21:4. Then the Arabians killed all the sons of Jehoram except the son by Azariah called Jehoahaz. Then in 2 Chronicles 21:16ff we have the fact that Athalia, the mother of Jehoahaz, killed all the royal seed in an attempt to destroy any possibility of our Lord coming in the flesh as the seed of David, to head off that promise. One of them survived called Joash, 2 Chronicles 23:3. In the case of Hezekiah, Hezekiah was in the line and he was childless when he was attacked by the king of Assyria, Isaiah 36,38,39. He was preserved until he had a son and an heir.

The next attack is found in the book of Esther, Haman’s plot to annihilate all the Jews. By this time the seed of David had become so widespread from the four sons of David and Bathsheba that this was an attempt to destroy all of the line by destroying all the Jews. The attack also on Joseph’s seed is also a part of the problem: the dilemma of Joseph when he discovered that Mary was pregnant — Matthew 1:18-20. The procedure in those days was to take her out and have her stoned. When he realised that it was the fulfilment of the virgin birth passage in Isaiah chapter seven he understood the issue and did no such thing. Then, after the birth of our Lord, a great attempt was Herod’s command to kill all the children who were born at that time, Matthew 2:13-18.

All of this was an attempt to destroy the line between Adam and our Lord Jesus Christ. There were other attacks as well. So in the Old Testament we summarise by saying that Satan’s main attack was against the Lord Jesus Christ, to keep Him from becoming true humanity and undiminished deity in one person forever — frustrating, in other words, the hypostatic union. Before the cross Satan attacked the line of Christ and the incarnate person of Christ; since the cross Satan’s attack is against the written Word. So Satan attacked, first of all, the living Word in the Old Testament; in the New Testament times his attack is against the written Word. Therefore Satan attacks the royal family of Christ which are the believers of this age, in various ways and through various ministries.

Now in our context we see one of the most dramatic attempts, a conspiracy on the part of Satan to destroy any possibility of our Lord Jesus Christ being the last Adam. In the Old Testament times Satan was constantly trying to find ways to hinder the incarnation. We see Satan’s great attempt to frustrate the virgin birth, the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the session of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the reception of His third royal patent (the most critical one). The angelic infiltration of this chapter was an attempt to destroy “the seed of the woman,” the incarnation, and what better way to do it than to destroy true humanity on the earth by intermarriage with angelic creatures. The resultant progeny would not be true humanity and Christ could not come into the world except through true humanity. A secondary principle is the fact that in this context we have a complete explanation of classical Greek, the culture, the art, the music, the science, the sex of the ancient Greeks and how they put it all together to finally come to the fifth century BC, the age of Pericles in Athens. It also explains why most of the human race was destroyed.

Genesis 6:1, “Now is came to pass, when mankind had become numerous on the fact of planet earth” — that is when Satan had his idea, “and that beautiful women were born to them.” This verse indicates the tremendous population explosion of the antediluvian civilisation. There have only been four civilisations. Seven dispensations; four dispensations. The first one is called the antediluvian civilisation, from the creation of man to the flood. Then there is the post-diluvian civilisation, from the flood to the beginning of the Millennium. The third is the Millennial civilisation and the fourth is the eternal civilisation. We are looking at the antediluvian civilisation.

The increase of the population, of course, means the increase of sin natures. More sin natures means more evil, more adherence to the cosmic system. More evil means more lawlessness, more violence on the earth as a result of man living in the cosmic system. Also, by the tenth generation from Adam there is no reference to the Sethites and the Cainites as separate families and tribes. In other words, by the tenth generation the line of Seth and the line of Cain had amalgamated. The marriage of Ham and his wife is an illustration. The separation of the two lines was no longer there. The Cainite line was filled with disillusion from a study of science, from their culture, from their urban society, and they, of course, rejected the solution to life and the happiness and blessing God has designed for them, by rejecting Christ as saviour. They entered into intellectual pursuits, they had a very scintillating society saturated with hedonistic pleasure; all of this in the line of Cain which eventually amalgamated with the line of Seth. The antediluvian population was generally unregenerate, reversionistic, lots of saturation in the field of cosmic involvement and, suddenly in one generation a tremendous excess of beautiful women.

The family of Noah, eight people who were the only believers among the millions of people on the earth at that time. There were originally nine on the earth at that time actually. The first believer was Methuselah, whose grandson was Noah. Methuselah died the day the flood came. The antediluvian civilisation had no rain — perfect weather. So there were nine people out of millions who were actually born again at this time when the plot was hatched by Satan.

Verse 2, “Then the sons of Elohim.” This is a technical word, beni-ha-Elohim, and it is unfortunate that it is translated “sons of God” because in Galatians 3:26 you discover that we are the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, but here we are talking in the Hebrew about a very technical word used for angels only. It is used for angels in Job 1:6; 2”1; 38:7, and it is used once in the Chaldean of Daniel 3:25 also for angels. It is never used for human beings, it is only used for angelic creatures, the incarcerated fallen angels of 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6. When the word “Son of God” in the singular is used it is used for our Lord Jesus Christ; it is one of His titles. When it is used in the plural, “sons of God” in the New Testament it is used for believers, but here in the Old Testament this is a highly technical Hebrew word.

“Then the sons of God,” qal imperfect of the verb raah. The qal imperfect means linear aktionsart, they “kept seeing, [they kept watching] these daughters of men [mankind].”

As a result of these fallen angelic creatures cohabiting with women there were literally thousands of people on the earth who were half human and half angelic, therefore not true humanity, a super race half way between angels and human beings. You can begin to see why the flood. You cannot have a crossing the line between the angelic race and the human race and bring our Lord Jesus Christ to the cross. This was the big issue. “and they took for themselves women from all whom they observed.” In other words, the qal perfect from bachar means that they seduced them.

Verse 3, “Then Jehovah [God the Father] said, “My Spirit [God the Holy Spirit who was restraining mankind as well as using His power in evangelism] shall not convince man forever, in his going astray [his reversionism] he [man] is also flesh; nevertheless his days will be one hundred and twenty years.”

When this statement was made man had one hundred and twenty years to be converted before the flood. That was nothing in that time because people lived almost a thousand years. So “he also is flesh,” that is, man was still true humanity on the earth before the flood. We know of nine, there were others. But the infiltration kept going simply because negative toward the truth, toward the gospel, toward establishment, and toward doctrine. By the end of the 120 years there were only nine members of the human race who were still true humanity.

Verse three is significant because it gives us a principle which we will study in the book of Revelation: grace always precedes judgment.

Verse 4, here is where we are going to meet ha Nephalim. It is mistranslated in the King James version, we will transliterate it.

“The Nephalim [the fallen ones: half human, half angel, the super race] were on the earth in those days [the 120 years before the flood], consequently, when the sons of Elohim [the demons, fallen angels] copulated with the women of mankind, and the women gave birth to these Nephalim, the same were heroes which from ancient times were famous men.”

— ancient times, meaning antediluvian times. Who were some of these Nephalim? Orpheus, Persius, Hercules, Minos, Thesius, Jason, Castor and Pollux, and so on. They were violent and they were lawless. These are the old Greek heroes in contrast to the later Greek heroes of the Trojan war. So we have the Nephalim and they are said to be heroes. This explains why Tartarus became necessary.

The trend of simultaneous progress and degeneracy are a part of this picture. There is a famous author by the name of G.H. Pember who wrote a book called “Earth’s Earliest Ages.” He said on page 214: —

“And hence there sprang up a thick crop of frauds and assassinations, of open quarrels and violence, until the whole earth was filled with corruption and bloodshed”. He made an analysis of this area. He went on to say, “And yet all this seems to have existed side by side with the greatest of luxuries, a refined culture, a love of art and music. Such minglings of things apparently incongruous have not been infrequent in the post-diluvian times. The profligacy, immorality, and sensuous intellectuality of Athens are an example. A parallel also might be sought in the descriptions given by Tacitus, Juvenile and others in the times of the Caesars. For then the whole body of society was corrupted and even the streets of Rome were accustomed to constant violence. And yet the worst of vices, the most absolute immorality, the most profligate gluttony, the most wanton cruelty prevailed in company with splendid magnificence. A high appreciation of music, sculpture and art generally, and a taste for literature, and especially for poetry, so great that recitations and readings were a common amusement.”

So having a high culture in society does not prevent violence and evil. Satan has never been able to work out that particular problem. This passage, then, confirms the fact that behind Greek mythology is the factual skeleton of the Nephalim. If the flood occurred in 2245 BC, which is one of the more acceptable dates, then the angelic infiltration and the age of the older heroes would be 120 years prior to that date. Therefore the age of the Nephalim or the older heroes is roughly around 2500 BC.

Verse 5, “Then the Lord observed that the evil of mankind was great on the earth, and every frame of reference for the thoughts of his right lobe was not only evil but malignant evil all the day.”

The cosmic system reached a saturation point for the older heroes of Greek mythology. Murders, rapes, tyranny, dictatorships, plots, schemes to control power, wide travel for plunder, great robbery and piracy, more saturation of reversionism than the earth had ever known, the presence of the super race, not true humanity. The saturation of evil reached the point where the human race was in the process of destroying itself, and therefore the grace judgment of our Lord in bringing about the universal flood.

Verse 6, “Therefore Jehovah himself repented [He changed His mind] with regard to man that he had made man on planet earth, and was grieved in his right lobe”. These are anthropopathisms. An anthropopathism ascribes to God a human characteristic which God does not really possess, but in order to cause man to understand some divine policy human attributes and functions are used. God doesn’t change His mind, this is simply an anthropopathism.

This prepares the way to understand Tartarus from the strategic victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 3:18-22

We begin by noticing the corrected translation of Jude 6, “And the angels [the sons of God of Genesis chapter six, verse two, beni-ha-Elohim] who did not guard their own beginning [their own status quo, they did not remain within the angelic realm], but who deserted their own habitation [their proper dwelling place in the first and second heavens], he has incarcerated them in everlasting chains under thick darkness for the judgment of the great day [the judgment of all fallen angels who will be cast into the lake of fire at the end of human history, Matthew 25:41]

2 Peter 2:4, “For if God did not spare the angels that sinned [a reference to the infiltration of Genesis 6:2], but incarcerated them in Tartarus with chains of thick darkness, he delivered them to punishment [judgment] constantly being guarded.”

This prepares the way for understanding 1 Peter 3:18-22, the most detailed passage in the Word of God on the compartment called Tartarus. It explains that while our Lord’s body was in the grave for three days and three nights his soul was in Paradise. He made a trip down to the third compartment called Tartarus to make His victorious proclamation which is recorded in the second chapter of Hebrews.

1 Peter 3:18, “Because Christ also once and for all has died on behalf of sins.”

The word “suffered” in the King James version is incorrect. It is the aorist active indicative of the verb a)poqnhskw, and it means to die, not to suffer. And it has to do with the spiritual death of Christ on the cross at that point when He provided salvation. The culminative aorist tense views the event of our Lord’s spiritual death on the cross in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The existing results include our so great salvation. The active voice: Christ produces the action of the verb with the result of the strategical victory of the angelic conflict, the strategic victory which is celebrated in Colossians 2:14,15 and Hebrews 2:14,15. The declarative indicative mood represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. This is the mood of certainty and unqualified assertion.

So we begin by noting our Lord’s strategic victory in 1 Peter 3:18, for His strategic victory during the first advent is the basis for His proclamation to the fallen angels in Tartarus. He went down there because these angels are in prison because they were a part of Satan’s great plan to frustrate the coming of the humanity of Christ. Satan realised in the antediluvian civilisation that the only possible way to keep our Lord Jesus Christ from that great strategic victory (in other words, to keep Him from becoming true humanity for only as true humanity could He be judged for our sins. As eternal God He cannot sin, He cannot be judged for sin, He cannot have contact with sin, He cannot tempt, He is absolute total and infinite perfection) was to attack the humanity of Christ to attempt to prevent Him going to the cross and bearing our sins. Once the virgin birth occurred the attacks changed from against Christ to against the Word of God. The original attacks in the Old testament were against the living Word, Jesus Christ; now they are against the written Word, the canon of scripture and Bible doctrine.

So we begin: “Because Christ also has died on behalf of sins, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous” —

He was righteous because He lived in the prototype divine dynasphere. Jesus Christ in His hypostatic union is eternal God. As eternal God He has perfect righteousness and cannot sin. But His humanity lived in the prototype divine dynasphere and resisted all temptation though he was tempted far beyond anything we have ever known. So as eternal God in the hypostatic union He is not able to sin; as true humanity living in the prototype divine dynasphere He was able not to sin. This is the true doctrine of impeccability. Our Lord would not have been true humanity in the prototype divine dynasphere if the angelic infiltration of Genesis six had succeeded,

“in order that he might bring all of you [believers] face to face with the God, on the one hand having received death in the flesh, but on the other hand having received life by means of the Spirit.”

God the Holy Spirit had a definite part in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Both the Father and the Spirit were involved in the resurrection of Christ.

Verse 19, we have the victorious proclamation mentioned. “By means of which [Holy Spirit. In other words, the means by which the soul of our Lord in Paradise made the trip to Tartarus for the victorious proclamation and whose ministry was to sustain our Lord during the incarnation] also he [Christ] having received transportation,” the aorist passive participle of the verb poreuomai. The word means to go from one place to another and in the passive voice it means to be transported or receive transportation. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, it takes this occurrence regardless of its extent or duration and gathers it up into one entirety. In other words, our Lord’s soul was in Paradise and by means of the Spirit He was transported to Tartarus, the great prison of darkness. The passive voice: Christ received the action of the verb, He was transported by means of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is a circumstantial participle and it has antecedent action as an aorist participle. In other words, the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb and the main verb was mistranslated in the King James version which has the word “preached.” It is the aorist active indicative of the verb khrussw, and it means to make a proclamation, to make an announcement of policy as a herald. As a matter of fact the human heralds are called by the noun khruc. Khrussw is cognate and simply means to make a public proclamation as a herald, to announce a policy. This is a constative aorist gathering up into one entirety the proclamation of our Lord. The active voice: Christ announced His strategic victory at the cross to those who came closest to frustrating it and destroying true humanity in Genesis chapter six. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic and absolute assertion of doctrine. Our Lord succeeded in the strategic victory of the angelic conflict at the cross. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. This announcement is dative of indirect object, it is made to pneuma [in the plural] “spirits.” Angels are often called spirits. They are said to be “in prison,” e)n plus the locative of the noun fulakh, “prison,” “made a public proclamation of victory to the spirits in prison.” Tartarus is a prison for certain demons.

The spirits in prison are identified in verse 20. We have the enclitic particle pote, and pote means “once.” There is now “which” here. We will translate it with the aorist active participle of a)peiqew. Peiqew means to obey; a)poqeiw means to disobey, “having disobeyed.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, it gathers up into one action the angelic infiltration of Genesis chapter six. The active voice: these spirits in prison, the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:2, perform the action. This is a temporal participle having also antecedent action. The action of this aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, therefore in corrected translation we begin verse 20, “Having disobeyed once upon a time when the patience of God himself kept waiting in the days of Noah.”

The patience of God which kept waiting is the imperfect middle indicative of the verb a)pekdexomai, which means to patiently wait, to wait from the ultimate source of one’s own perfect character. Our Lord waited from His holiness and He waited for 120 years for the antediluvian population to respond to the grace message. For 120 years there was a grace period, and they ignored the grace period. Therefore, the flood came and destroyed all but the believers.

In the Tribulation there is a grace period we will be studying in the next chapter where 144,000 evangelists are going to present the gospel in the same intensity by which it was given for 120 years before the flood. When this grace period is over then Satan is permitted to open the door of the Abyss and his number two demon, Abaddon, will come out with a tremendous demon army and they will attack these people who are negative toward Bible doctrine in the Tribulation.

“while the ark was being constructed.” We have here a temporal participle. The ark itself was a part of Noah’s ministry of evangelism, “in which [ark] a few, that is, eight souls, were brought to safety through water.” Being “brought to safety is the aorist passive indicative of the verb diasozw, to be brought to safety. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which views the events in the process of occurrence but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, 40 days and 40 nights of rain, and water covered earth. The ark floated with eight souls, called “souls” because they had made a decision for Christ, they were aboard the ark for that reason. They were the only believers alive on the earth when the judgment came. That means that all of the unbelievers, the super race, were under the water. The believers were brought to safety “through water,” the same water that destroyed or baptised the unbelievers.

Verse 21, “which also corresponds to the baptism that now saves us … ”

What baptism now saves us? Spirit baptism. At the moment you believe in Christ one of the 36 things that happen to you is God the Holy Spirit entered you into union with Christ. That is the baptism of the Spirit. Water baptism doesn’t save you. Peter makes it very clear that this is not water baptism. Remember that Peter personally heard the prophecy of the baptism of the Spirit in Acts 1:5. Peter declared that the prophecy of the baptism of the Spirit was then fulfilled, Acts 11:15-17.

“not the removal of human dirt as in a bath,” in other words, this is not water baptism. The word rupoj means dirt, “but the pledge of a good conscience toward God.” A good conscience simply refers to the fact that at the moment God the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Christ one of the things that happens is that our sins are removed. We start with an intrinsically good conscience because at the moment of salvation He has blotted out as a thick cloud our transgressions, He has removed them as sins.

The final phrase then adds: “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Again, Spirit baptism is the pledge of a good conscience toward God for all members of the royal family. The possession of an old sin nature makes the pledge of a good conscience toward God impossible. We still have the old sin nature after salvation. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which produces both retroactive and current positional truth, not only links us with the strategic victory of the angelic conflict at the cross but provides the basis of a good conscience of a good conscience toward God. For we are identified with Christ in His resurrection and that means the good conscience toward God. That is current positional truth. No one is acceptable to God on the basis of his works but on the basis of God’s work: one of them is the baptism of the Spirit identifying us with Christ in His resurrection. Therefore dia plus the genitive of a)nastasij, “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Then we have that wonderful statement of the completion of the strategic victory of our Lord, the basis of His third royal patent —

“who is on the right hand of God, having gone to heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been subordinated to him.”

This is just briefly the concept we find in this passage. Angels have been subordinated to Him. Our Lord went to Tartarus to make an announcement of His strategic victory to those who did the most to frustrate it and are imprisoned because of it [Genesis 6].

Corrected translation of 1 Peter 3:18-22, “Because Christ also once and for all died on behalf of sins, a righteous one on behalf of unrighteous ones, in order that he might bring all of you face to face with God, on the one hand having received death in the flesh, but on the other hand having received life by means of the Spirit; by means of which Holy Spirit also he [Christ] having received transportation [to Tartarus] made a public proclamation of victory to the spirits in prison, who having disobeyed once upon a time, when the patience of God himself kept waiting in the days of Noah [120 years] when the ark was being constructed, in which [ark] a few, that is, eight souls, were brought to safety through water, water which also corresponds to the baptism that now saves [Spirit baptism] — not the removal of human dirt as in a bath, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is on the right hand of God, having gone to heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been subordinated to him.”

Hebrews 2:9-16 is a passage which tells us what our Lord said in Tartarus.

Verse 9, “But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than angels [the humanity of Christ], now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death [the strategic victory of the cross], so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Verse 10, the result, “For in bringing many sons to glory it was fitting that God [the Father], for whom and through whom everything exists, to bring to the objective through suffering the author of their salvation,” this is what our Lord taught them in Tartarus.

Verse 11, “For both he who sanctifies [Jesus Christ through the baptism of the Spirit] and those who are being sanctified [the royal family of God] are all from one source [God the Father is the author of the plan]; for which reason he is not ashamed to call them [royal family] brethren,

Verse 12, “saying [quoting from Psalm 22:22],

‘I will declare your person to my brothers [Christ to the royal family],

[Antiphonal response] In the middle of the Church I will sing your praises.’

Verse 13, “And again [quoting Isaiah 8:17],

‘I [the royal family] will put my trust in him.’

And again [quoting Isaiah 8:18],

‘Behold, I [our Lord Jesus Christ] and the children [royal family of the Church Age] whom God the Father has given to me.’

Verse 14, “Since therefore the children share in common blood and flesh, he also himself in the same manner shared their humanity [in carnation of Christ], in order that through death [the work of Christ on the cross] he might render powerless [neutralise, destroy] him who had the power of death, the devil;

Verse 15, “and release [or free or liberate] from Satan’s cosmic system who through fear of death was subjected to slavery all of their lives,” the strategic victory of Christ frees people from the cosmic system.

Verse 16, “For obviously he [Christ] in the first advent did not assume the nature of angels, but he did take on the seed of Abraham.” (He didn’t assume the nature of angels, that was cut off in Genesis six. But He did take on the seed of Abraham, that was the true humanity which came from the line of Shem)

Now this briefly is the victorious proclamation, the message given by our Lord Jesus Christ to the “sons of God” or the fallen angels imprisoned in Tartarus, the third compartment of Hades. The infiltration of these “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2 did not frustrate the incarnation or the first advent of Christ. In fact, several factors preserved the human race as true humanity and frustrated the genius conspiracy of Satan to destroy the human race with angelic genes.

First there was the flood which destroyed the progeny of the beni-ha-Elohim, through their human volition gave them the same opportunity for salvation and deliverance that Noah had. The second way in which Satan’s plan was frustrated was when our Lord incarcerated all the fallen angels involved in the sexual infiltration with the women of the human race and the removal of the ability of any angelic creature to procreate so that Genesis six could never be repeated.

The Abyss is the fourth compartment of Hades. It is defined as the jail for a certain category of demons who for one reason or another are incorrigible and had been incarcerated after Genesis chapter six. Tartarus is for the demon infiltration of Genesis six only. After Genesis six certain demons have gone to jail. The word in the Greek for abyss is a)bussoj. It is found under such names as “the deep,” Luke 8:31; Romans 10:7 in the King James version. It is called the bottomless pit in Revelation chapter nine, as well as in 7:17 and chapter 20. The fact that the Abyss is a part of Sheol is documented from Romans 10:7 which is quoted from Amos 9:2 which mentions Sheol, the Hebrew equivalent of Hades.

When our Lord Jesus Christ was dealing with the demon-possessed man of Gadarene across from Galilee, in the dialogue, Luke 8:30,31, the demons had this to say: “And Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered this man. And they [the demons] begged him repeatedly not to order them into the abyss.” So it is concluded from this passage that demons who violate certain rules of the angelic conflict extended into human history are banished into the Abyss.

In the Tribulation these demons will be released from their prison, the Abyss, to be a part of the administration of punishment of unbelievers. When Moses and Elijah finish their great television ministry of the Tribulation they will be killed by the demon Abaddon who is the king of all the demons in the Abyss. He is mentioned in Revelation 9:11. This demon king is called in the Hebrew Abaddon and in the Greek Apollyon.

Revelation 9:11, “They [the demons] have a king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in the Hebrew is Abaddon [meaning destroyer], and in the Greek his name is Apollyon.”

Revelation 11:7, “And when they [the resuscitated Moses and Elijah] have finished their testimony, the supernatural monster that comes up from the abyss [Abaddon] will make war with them, and overpower and kill them.” In other words, the angel demon of the abyss indwells and empowers the dictator of the revived Roman empire. This is taught in the ecumenical religious passage of Revelation 17:8. What happens to ecumenical religion? It will be judged at the end of the Tribulation.

Revelation 17:8, “The beast that you saw [the dictator of the revived Roman empire who is possessed by the demon of the abyss] was [the Roman empire in the time of John] and is not [the fall of the Roman empire in 476 AD], and will come out of the abyss.” What makes this dictator so great? He is indwelt by the super demon who is next to Satan, “and he goes to his destruction.” The abyss, by the way, will be the Millennial jail for Satan where he will serve out a 1000-year sentence while Christ rules on the earth.

Revelation 20:1, “And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand.

Verse 2, “And he seized the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him [chained him] for a thousand years.

Verse 3, “Then he threw him into the abyss, he both shut and sealed it over him, so that he should not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things [the Millennium] he must be released for a short time [that has to do with the Gog revolution].”

Revelation 6:8 8, “Then I looked, and behold an ashen horse: and the rider, his name was Death; in fact Hades was marching in step with him.”

Now we have one more sentence in verse eight. It is a complete sentence and it begins with the conjunction kai, “and.” This is a connective conjunction introducing a result from what precedes, so we translate it “furthermore.” Then we have our subject: the nominative subject of the noun e)cousia and it means freedom of choice, right, authority, warrant, absolute power. Here it is the ability to do something, “and authority was given,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb didomi. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The passive voice: both death and Hades receive the action of the verb, matching in step with each other. The declarative indicative is for the reality of this historical trend in the Tribulation. With this is the dative plural indirect object from a)utoj, the intensive pronoun used as a personal pronoun, “to them,” “authority was given to them,” i.e. to death and to Hades marching in step, “over,” the preposition e)pi plus the accusative of tetaros, an adjective numeral. And with it the genitive of gh, the noun for planet earth, “and authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth.” “Of the earth” is a partitive genitive, and a noun may be defined by indicating in the genitive the whole of which something is a part. So one quarter of the population of the earth are going to be taken out by death and Hades.

The purpose for that is expressed next in the aorist active infinitive of the verb a)pokteinw, and it means to kill. The constative aorist refers to an action extending over the entire period of the Tribulation. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: Death and Hades, the fourth horseman, produce the action of the verb marching in step. This is an infinitive of actual result. What follows are four prepositional phrases describing the areas in which this power or authority is given to death to kill one quarter of the earth’s population in less than seven years. The greatest killers in the Church Age have been such things as the flea and the mosquito, but in the Tribulation four different categories produce the devastation of the human population of planet earth. The killer will come under the category of the four prepositional phrases, the first of which has to do with war and crime.

The sword is the first one, e)n plus the instrumental of r(omfaia, and it refers to the heavy Thracian broadsword. The sword includes all categories of warfare here. Ordinarily when the word sword is used just for conventional warfare we get maxaira. The Tribulation will be characterised by unrestrained crime, terrorism, violence, warfare, so that people [mostly unbelievers] will die by the millions from this source. Note that a quarter of the population being killed from this trend refers to unbelievers only. A lot of believers are going to die in the Tribulation but we will study them in the next chapter. Note also that since Hades marches in step with death, and since Hades is now the residence of dead unbelievers — only since the resurrection of Christ — it follows that only dead unbelievers are involved in this trend.

So all of Satan’s forces are now in three areas of life. First of all we have planet earth, and around planet earth the first heaven. We call those that are operating under Satan’s command as the ruler of this word, demons. But there are two other categories. In the heart of the earth we have already studied Tartarus which deals with the Genesis chapter six crowd. Then there is the Abyss where the toughest of all the demons are, and they have a king, as we have noted — Abaddon or Apollyon.

It is no accident that one fourth of the population of unbelievers on the earth shall die under horrible circumstances depicted by these four prepositional phrases since they are the products of their own decisions. People are the products of their own decisions in time; people are the products of their own decisions in eternity. It is a matter of decision. There are people who are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire because they made decisions — negative volition at God-consciousness, negative volition at the point of gospel hearing. These four prepositional phrases indicate what happens to the degenerate society of the Tribulation and how they are the products of their own decisions.

There is a second prepositional phrase, and this one refers to economic depression, e)n plus the instrumental of the noun limoj, referring to economic depression or famine, “and with famine.” It means hunger, famine, death caused by economic circumstances. The tremendous and widespread wars of the Tribulation inevitably are going to result in economic disaster. The production of food and its packaging is going to break down in the Tribulation. Logistics will monopolise the food supply of the military and its capability in that field and the removal of one fourth of the earth’s population means death to millions of people from economic depression, malnutrition, starvation. But this judgment from the Lord is a fantastic manifestation of His honour, His integrity, and His faithfulness to the Word. Demon possession at that time is going to reach an all-time high, as we will study in Revelation chapter nine. By their own decisions unbelievers will be demon possessed. They will suffer from demonism as never before in history. In fact, the greatest period of demonism is not in the past but in the future, and the detriment to freedom, life and civilisation, the perpetuation of the angelic conflict to the end of human history, all of these things are involved. Therefore the disastrous results of so many demon-possessed unbelievers will neutralise by millions, and destroy by millions; by war, economic depression, disease and violence.

The third prepositional phrase is a little misleading. Again we have e)n plus the instrumental, this time from the noun qanatoj which is often correctly translated “death.” Qanatoj means death; it also means terminal illness. Hence it has a connotation of disease. We translate here: “and with disease” or “and with deadly diseases,” i.e. terminal illness. Disease will destroy millions during the Tribulation. And you will note that demons and Satan cannot protect unbelievers from loss of health and consequently many are going to die of various diseases.

This brings us to the fourth prepositional phrase: we have the preposition u(po plus the ablative of qhrion. This is the ultimate source connotation in the ablative and while it is translated “and by wild animals of the earth,” it means the wild animals are a direct source. In other words, there is a principle that comes out of this:

1. The retraction of civilisation [civilisation is going to be withdrawn during the seven years of the Tribulation] results in the increase of wild animal life that will prey on human beings.

2. The Tribulation will be a time, for example, of man-eaters in the animal kingdom.

3. In the Tribulation there will be a sudden and dramatic increase of death from wild animals of all categories.

4. Add to this the fact of demon possession of animals, changing their ordinary and shy behaviour into aggression toward man, and you have a tremendous loss of life to wild animals on planet earth; something we have not experienced for centuries in human history.

5. The fact of demon possession of both man and animals is the fact of this phenomenon.

Summary of the four horsemen

1. Death or the ashen horse is the grim reaper, the inevitable result of the unrestrained function of the first three horsemen of the apocalypse. God the Holy Spirit no longer restrains history after the Rapture of the Church.

2. Political decline, the white horse, meaning also social degeneration, has two categorical results: foreign policy disaster — the red horse, military disaster; domestic policy disaster — the black horse, government destruction of free enterprise, government regulation and interference with free enterprise, socialism, the welfare state, redistribution of wealth, unjust and discriminatory taxation.

3. Therefore the white horse of political arrogance and incompetence reflects the social degeneration of the people of a nation.

4. Social degeneration produces an incompetent form of government and political disaster which in turn results in military and economic disaster.

5. The result is the function of the fourth horseman, death, who reaps the results of the other categories in this adverse historical trend.

Terrorism

Terrorism is simply a play put on for the purpose of attracting an audience with the objective of changing government, or forcing a government policy or philosophy to change. The best place to recruit terrorists and specialists for terrorist activity is in the prisons. Another pertinent remark was that the terrorists strive to create the image of the mass; that is, the terrorist attempt to create in the mind of the government that they are stronger and more powerful than they really are. By using the media and through their violence they begin to obtain the support of the masses which previously was only a mirage. The terrorists also attempt to get the government to react and then to overreact. When the government does overreact then more and more the populace will turn against what they see as a repressive government and side with the terrorists.

Reasons presented for terrorism.

1. Bringing into an awareness any act of violence to attract attention.

2. To alter the public beliefs concerning terrorists to promote the power of the terrorists.

3. To destroy the enemy — which would be government, the military, the police, any form of establishment authority.

4. To exhaust the opponent through anxiety — the up tight mode, Where will they strike next? — leading to overreaction.

5. Live training drills and preparation for all-out revolution. The masses and the people will not fight unless they have been exposed to it.

6. To provoke fighting and tension among their opponents.

7. To force their opponents to divert their resources.

8. To get each of us to overreact.

9. Personal self-interest.

10 Revenge.

We are through now with the study of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and move to verses 9-11, the fifth seal. In this particular seal we are going to study the Tribulational martyrs. The very fact that there is unrestrained historical disaster inevitably means that there will be some martyrdom among believers.

Verse 9, we note the Tribulational martyrs. We begin with the connective conjunction kai plus the temporal conjunction o(te, which means we are going to have a temporal clause. Kai o(te, “and when.” The aorist active indicative of the verb a)noigw indicates the breaking open of the fifth seal, “And when he had broken open.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it refers to a momentary action, the breaking open of the fifth seal of the Doomsday book. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb, the declarative indicative for a simple statement of fact. Our Lord Jesus Christ broke the fifth seal of the Doomsday book revealing the fifth historical trend, the martyrdom of certain believers during the Tribulation.

Next is the aorist active indicative of o(raw, “and I saw.” The observation indicates a vision. The constative aorist, again, contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the historical trend of believers dying during the Tribulation. The active voice: the apostle John, writer of the book of Revelation, produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of historical fact: there are many born again believers who will not survive the Tribulation. They are said to be “under the altar,” the adverb u(pokatw is used as a prepositional phrase. This is used simply to dramatise the fact that when Tribulational believers die they do go to the third heaven, they are in a place called the altar. The noun refers first to the altar of burnt offering or the altar of blood sacrifices. It is the brass altar in the forecourt of the tabernacle or temple when it was on the earth. Here, of course, it has a slightly different meaning related to martyrdom. The direct object of the verb is the word yuxh and it is correctly translated “souls.” While the soul is invisible the reason that John can see them is because when any believer dies he receives an interim body in heaven, and they are visible because they occupy an interim body waiting for their resurrection [of the Tribulational martyrs at the second advent]. So they have a relatively short time in heaven. This is the time of great interim blessing for these believers of the Tribulation who give their lives for Bible doctrine and evangelism in the Tribulation. The interim body pattern applies, of course, to all believers who die before they receive their resurrection bodies.

With this we have the articular perfect passive participle from the Attic Greek verb sfattw, and it has been corrupted into the Koine to be sfazw. It means to be butchered, or to be murdered in this case. The definite article used as a relative pronoun refers to the believers of the Tribulation who are martyred. Also, of course, this is used as a demonstrative pronoun. And with this the intensive perfect tense represents the completion of the martyrdom and emphasises the existing results, they are located in heaven. This is actually an emphatic method in the Greek of presenting a fact or a condition, hence a very strong way of saying that a thing is. The passive voice: the believers of the Tribulation receive the action, and it is a circumstantial participle.

The corrected translation: “When he [our Lord Jesus Christ] had broken the fifth seal, I saw under the altar [of burnt offering] the souls of those who had been murdered [or butchered].”

While many of these believers have not been saved very long their sacrifice for Bible doctrine apparently counts as maturity. Remember that you have a very short span of time for the Tribulation. While many of these believers have not been saved very long to advance to maturity they still have a profile in heaven that will be rewardable or not rewardable. They will still fall into the same category that we have today: winners or losers. In the meantime, for the short period of time that they are in heaven as martyrs and they enjoy the great interim happiness in the interim body. The fact that they are seen under the altar of burn sacrifices, that is, the brass altar representing the cross, emphasises their fantastic virtue of impersonal love developed through intensive perception of doctrine during the short span of their spiritual life on this earth. Remember that all believers of the world go up in the Rapture terminating the Church Age and the Tribulation begins with no believers on the earth. Therefore the longest anyone could possibly be a believer in the Tribulation is seven years.

These Tribulational believers fulfil the principle enucleated by our Lord in Matthew 16:24,25 — “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to deliver his soul shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul [or life] for my sake shall find it’.”

The perception of doctrine in the Tribulation will have to be concentrated and intense. It will demand, therefore, probably some unprecedented self-denial because of the shortage of time. The taking up of the cross is the motivational virtue of personal love for God and the functional virtue of impersonal love for man. Remember that the Christian way of life in our dispensation is best summarised by words like dunamij or a)gaph, the love complex or the divine dynasphere. God has given us two commissions: priesthood and ambassadorship. All of this is accomplished in this dispensation inside of the divine dynasphere. This concept is represented for the Tribulational believers under this principle: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself.”

Self-denial is really not self-denial. This is one thing that is a little misleading. Self-denial is simply personal love for God, and the only way we can have personal love for God is through perception of Bible doctrine. It is the doctrine we do not apply to mankind and to experience; it is the doctrine we learn that we apply to invisible God. Many of the doctrines we learn in the field of soteriology and Christology are only applied to God who is invisible, and we develop through the perception of these doctrines a personal love for God. This personal love becomes the motivating factor. It is true that in the Tribulation there is no divine dynasphere but the same principle and the same pattern of life for the believer applies. They will have the opportunity for personal love for God as the means of motivation in life, personal love for Him who is invisible. Denying self is the principle for these Tribulational believers. In denying self all they really do is demonstrate from the doctrine that they learn a tremendous personal love for God. The way they take up their cross is their impersonal love directed toward mankind, an impersonal love which results in many cases of martyrdom in the Tribulation. Then, of course, the concept of taking up the cross is simply a functional virtue toward man. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He picked up His cross, was despised and hated, and yet it did not change His impersonal love for mankind. When He went to the cross He was ridiculed by people standing around. Yet He died for their sins. That is impersonal love. And that will be the pattern in the Tribulation as well.

So there is an intense concentration on doctrinal teaching for these people after salvation. And “following the Lord” is the martyrdom of those Tribulational believers who place Bible doctrine above their personal safety and who place love of God above any personal consideration, including loss of life; losing their life on earth but finding a far greater life in heaven. For in Matthew 16:25, again, it says: “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.” And they find it in being absent from the body and face to face with the Lord under the altar which is described in this passage. The deliverance of their souls into heaven means loss of life on earth but loss of life on earth means finding a far greater life in heaven, the interim body.

There are two reasons for martyrdom in the Tribulation. The first one is given in the next phrase of verse 9, the preposition phrase dia plus the accusative of logoj. With that is the possessive genitive of qeoj, “because of the Word of God.” That means, of course, Bible doctrine. The spiritual growth of positive Tribulational believers through a concentrated effort in learning doctrine is a challenge to the devil as the ruler of the world, and it is a challenge to his cosmic system operating without restraint during the Tribulation. The principle is applicable to any dispensation: the Word of God always has been the greatest opposition to Satan’s cosmic system.

God permits the slaughter of certain believers who have great momentum in the Tribulation but their death does not stop Bible doctrine. No matter how great the believer is who dies with Bible doctrine he is removed because of his positive attitude toward doctrine, but Satan can’t stop doctrine. Bible doctrine is never hindered; Bible doctrine never slows down. Doctrine keeps advancing with or without the believer there to learn it. Nothing can stop the power of doctrine, it is greater than any creature or any system of human power and, what is far more important, any system of Satanic power.

The second reason is also given in the next prepositional phrase. They had a testimony or a deposition of doctrine. Specifically they had a deposition of category two doctrine, the gospel, plus their own personal integrity. This is all brought out by the connective conjunction kai plus dia and the accusative singular of marturia, a deposition or a testimony, and we translate that, “because of the Word of God and because of the testimony [the deposition],” “which they had maintained,” the accusative singular from the relative pronoun o(j whose antecedent is marturia, and the imperfect active indicative of the verb e)xw. This is the imperfect of duration and that is why it is translated “maintained” instead of “had.” The active voice: Tribulational believers produce the action. These are ones who are martyred. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of historical reality.

Principle

1. These positive believers in the Tribulation are not only consistent in the perception of doctrine, the use of their time in that direction, but they are also are consistent in the production of virtue. Their lives are dramatically changed at the point of salvation, they get right into doctrine and there is the production of virtue. With the production of virtue comes the function of true evangelism. Virtue should precede evangelism. [E.g. soup kitchens and rescue missions: feed them before the message, which is optional. The whole process should be a grace process. Whether they want to hear a message or not should be a matter of their own volition]

2. These Tribulational believers are not the evangelists of the Tribulation, however, but they are dynamic first in their life and then in their message. By dynamic is meant grace modus operandi.

3. So important was doctrine in their scale of values that they would not compromise the Word to save their own lives.

4. Life was not as dear or happiness as sweet to compromise them by the rejection or the renouncing of our Lord Jesus Christ, the living Word, or Bible doctrine, the written Word.

5. Doctrine was more important than life; integrity was more important than happiness. So these magnificent believers of the Tribulation sacrificed their lives to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Corrected translation of verse 9: “And when he [our Lord Jesus Christ] had broken the fifth seal, I saw under the altar [of burnt offerings] the souls [the lives] of those who had been murdered [butchered] because of the Word of God [Bible doctrine], and because of the testimony which they had maintained.”

No matter what the dispensation the Word of God is the key to everything. To be positive toward the Word after salvation is the only basis for spiritual momentum and integrity, the only basis for glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no substitute for the perception of doctrine; there is no basis for coping with blessings and disasters of life, and the changes that often occur in our lives between blessing and disaster, apart from perception and application of Bible doctrine.

Verse 10, one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Word of God: imprecatory prayers. In this verse we come face to face with the imprecatory prayers of the Tribulational saints. Is there a place for avenging yourself on someone through prayer? In other words, is there a place for the imprecatory prayer?

We start out with the connective conjunction kai, translated this time since it introduces a result from what precedes, “furthermore.” Then we have the aorist active indicative of the verb krazw which means to scream, to shriek, to cry out, and it also means to call out and that is how it is used here. It is used as a part of an idiom actually meaning to shout. They shout from under the altar. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: Tribulational believers, martyrs, believers with great rejected integrity, produce the action of the verb. The declarative mood represents the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality in heaven.

We have the rest of the idiom, the instrumental singular of manner from an adjective and a noun. The adjective is megas and the noun is fonh, “with a loud voice.” So we translate it literally: “Furthermore they called out with a loud voice,” but when you put megaj, fwnh and krazw together it means simply to shout. So we will translate it its correct idiom: “Furthermore they shouted.” They are not screaming, they are not crying, they are just merely making themselves heard.

Then the present active participle of legw, used merely to indicate the content of what they shouted, it means to say or to speak. In the present tense it is a pictorial present, it presents to the mind a picture of the event in the process of occurrence, prophetically. The active voice: the Tribulational martyrs in heaven in the future will produce this action. Because the participle is circumstantial it is best rendered in the English by the use of the conjunction “and” with a finite construction of the verb. Therefore we translate, “and said,” “and they shouted and said.”

Then they asked their question by using a temporal conjunction e(wj plus pote, correctly translated “How long.” When they come to the vocative they do not use the word that is used for our Lord in the Church Age, but they are actually in the process of offering an imprecatory prayer. Instead of addressing Him as Lord, kurioj, they used the word despothj, from which we get our English word despot. Despothj is a Classical Greek word. It was used by Pindar to connote an owner or a possessor of slaves. The noun connotes unlimited authority and power. It means absolute ruler, the unlimited possibility for the exercise of power, and they chose the word wisely. When used by the Tribulational martyrs now residing in heaven it emphasises God’s power, God’s authority, and their recognition of the fact that Jesus Christ controls history. And even though they have been martyred they recognise their martyrdom as being a part of God’s plan for the Tribulation, which immediately excludes any bitterness in their attitude. Their attitude is free from anything that would possibly hinder a prayer.

In the New Testament, then, despothj has both a secular use, where it occurs ten times, and it is used for Jesus Christ as the God-Man who controls history. Then question is how to translate it. The best way would be either “mighty Lord” or “sovereign Lord,” “furthermore they shouted and said, O sovereign Lord,” referring to Jesus Christ as the God-Man, Jesus Christ in hypostatic union, the one who controls history.

With this we have the nominative masculine singular definite article, and this is the generic use of the definite article o(. The generic use of the definite article emphasises the uniqueness of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that is why it is not translated. The generic definite article does not have to be translated, “How long, O sovereign Lord.” Then follows the adjective a(gioj, used to describe the integrity of the deity of Christ: His righteousness and justice, the two attributes of divine holiness or integrity. Next we have the adjective a)lhqinoj, and that describes the integrity of the humanity of Christ. So “holy and true” does not really give the whole story. Then we put the question: “How long.” And e(oj pote means “How long will it be?”

Then we have the rest of the question: “before you judge and avenge our blood on the population of the earth.” This is a double appeal to our Lord Jesus Christ. When they say, “O sovereign Lord, holy and true,” it has a double appeal, and they appeal to the integrity of Christ as God by using the word “holy,” the appeal to the integrity of Christ as true humanity by using the word “true.” The Tribulational saints certainly understood the doctrine of the hypostatic union and the knew how to apply it to disasters that existed in that period. Again, note the fantastic ability of these Tribulational ability to apply doctrine to a disastrous situation. Instead of addressing Jesus Christ as kurioj they appeal to Him as despothj which emphasises His hypostatic union. They understand how the Lord has entered into the feeling of our infirmities in the hypostatic union — Hebrews 4:15. The appeal to the hypostatic union in imprecatory prayers is compatible with their emphasis on the justice of our Lord Jesus Christ as the one who controls history, the justice of our Lord to rectify the terrible injustices which were done to them by demon-possessed men and demon-possessed governments. While an imprecatory prayer is generally defined as a prayer for vengeance it is used here as an appeal to the justice of God as a part of His divine integrity. And since God the Father has delegated all judgment to God the Son — John 5:22, it is an appeal to the integrity and justice of both the humanity of Christ and His deity in hypostatic union. That means that the adjectives mentioned in the vocative address, a(gioj and a)lhqinoj, emphasise the justice of our Lord’s deity and the justice of our Lord’s humanity with a total emphasis on the integrity of Jesus Christ to deal with this matter. They are not dealing with it, they are asking Him to deal with it, and therefore they are expressing an imprecatory prayer.

Verse 10b, the important phrase in this passage is the word “avenge.” If there is one thing we have learned as believers it is the simple fact that “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” We do not have the right to take revenge, to get even, to “show” someone. As a part of Christian integrity revenge is out, it is one of the concepts of evil which is developed in cosmic one and cosmic two. Yet here we find believers in the next historical era, the next dispensation, talking about revenge, “How long, O Lord, before you will judge and avenge our blood on the population of the earth?” This introduces the subject of imprecatory prayers.

An imprecatory prayer is generally defined as a prayer which is offered to God in which justice is demanded for some form of persecution, for some form of antagonism and hostility directed toward the one involved. The imprecatory prayer of the Tribulational martyrs was foreshadowed by imprecatory prayers which are the subjects of many of the Psalms. So we go to the Psalms to define, to categorise and to understand the meaning of imprecatory prayer, and to try to answer a question for each one of us: Do you and I as believers have the right to go to God in prayer and demand the execution, the destruction, the ruin of some person, believer or unbeliever?

So we begin by looking at Psalm 13, where in the first four verses we have one of the milder imprecatory prayers. In verse 1 we need only the first two words: “How long?” And then we go to the end of verse 2: “How long will my enemy triumph over me?” Then in verse 3, the beginning: “Look on me and answer, O Lord, my God.” Then verse 4 says: “My enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him, and my foes will rejoice when I fall’.”

The purpose for this is merely to show that we as members of the human race can get very impatient when we are subjected to injustice. Injustice is always a test. If injustice comes from a person it is people testing; if it comes from a system of an organisation it is system testing; if it comes from some form of relationship between man and woman then it is just normal for the time in which we live.

The question is, when you start talking to God in prayer about your problems and about your relationship with other people, do you have the right to pray: “Ruin them, destroy them, kill them, hurt them”? The first thing we note is the frame of mind of such a prayer. Psalm 13:4 gives us our key. At this point it appears the Psalmist is more disturbed about his image than he is about his relationship with the Lord, and therefore obviously that kind of imprecatory prayer is not going to be answered, because he says: “My enemy will say, ‘I have defeated him’, and my foes will be very happy.” The issue there is that this imprecatory prayer is wrong. It is out of line for the most obvious reason: when you are more concerned about what people think of you than the Lord then spiritually you are in trouble. Here it is a case of arrogance speaking: “This is what my enemies will say, they have defeated me.” In other words, this is the prayer of arrogance. Arrogance is hypersensitive. It may just be that the arrogant person here, when he says, “my enemy” and “my foes,” has simply produced these enemies and these foes by his own involvement in cosmic one, the interlocking systems of arrogance.

In Psalm 13 the prayer is not answered. The person who is offering the prayer is in self-induced misery. He has made these enemies; he is hypersensitive; he is wrong. “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.” The prayer isn’t answered.

Psalm 54, we have a different category of imprecatory prayer. In the first verse and the first word we have the key. This is really a prayer for deliverance.

“Deliver me, O God, by your person, vindicate me by your power.” The prayer for deliverance. It is not so much imprecatory at first though it is included by the time we get to verse 5. But the key here is deliverance and vindication, and the basis for vindication is divine power.

Verse 2, “Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth.

Verse 3, “Strangers are attacking me, and men of violence seek my life; men who have no regard for God.

Verse 4, “Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my soul.”

With that background there is a legitimacy to what is brought in in verse five.

Verse 5, “Let the evil return to those who slander me,” that is a legitimate imprecatory prayer. This follows the principle of doctrine that when you are slandered and you are maligned, and you do not try to defend yourself but leave it in the Lord’s hands, then the Lord will answer this prayer. The evil will return to the slanderer.

“In your faithfulness, destroy them.” Now notice carefully: the victim here who is offering the prayer does not seek to destroy them himself; he does not retaliate himself. In effect, this imprecatory prayer puts the whole matter in God’s hands. He goes to court and in effect says, “Let the evil return to those who slander me; in your faithfulness destroy them”. In other words, he does not try to take the option from God. All vengeance on your part against someone else is blasphemous in that they take the option from the sovereignty of God and put it in your hands. Therefore one of the worst areas of sinning is retaliation. You may have a just cause when you start but the moment you retaliate you have lost your just cause.

The entire Psalm 143 is an imprecatory Psalm, but the last two verses are especially pertinent and help to get the feel of an imprecatory prayer.

Verse 11, “for your name’s sake [for the sake of your person], O Lord, preserve my life.” This is a desperate imprecatory prayer because life is in danger.

“In your righteousness [integrity] bring my life out of trouble.” So here is an imprecatory prayer that depends entirely on the integrity of God.

Verse 12, “In your grace silence my enemies, ruin [destroy] all who afflict my soul; for I am your servant.”

This could be classified as a very bold imprecatory prayer, it is not the kind you want to try when you are new to Christianity. This is really a mature believer. Because, you see, if you are wrong in this prayer then the whole thing falls on you.

Another imprecatory Psalm is Psalm 35.

Verse 4, “May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame; may those who plot my ruin be turned back and humiliated.” This is no imprecatory prayer to kill someone, to destroy them. Notice the words: “be disgraced,” “put to shame,” “humiliated,” “turned back.” Those words means the frustration of whatever they are doing that is unjust. The injustice is brought out by the fact: “May those who seek my life be disgraced.” He doesn’t ask for their death. To pray for the humiliation of someone is beneficial. This is obviously a mature believer because he is praying for humiliation. Humiliation leads to humility; humility leads to true orientation to life. Virtue begins with humility. Humiliation is enforced humility.

Verse 8, “May ruin overtake them by surprise; may the net [they’d tried to trap him] which they hid to trap me entangle them; may they fall into the pit [that they have dug].”

Verse 15, “But when I stumbled they gathered around and laughed in glee; attackers gathered against me when I was unaware, they slandered me without ceasing.”

Verse 26, “May all who gloat over my distress be put to shame and humiliated; may all who exalt themselves over me be clothed with shame and disgrace.”

Obviously, in this imprecatory prayer in Psalm 35 he is dealing with arrogance on the part of others — injustice, unfairness — and therefore the various phrases are in line with the Word of God. Everything. however, is left to the integrity of God. The case is stated; God is the judge. Therefore it is legitimate.

Psalm 69 gives us another imprecatory prayer.

Verse 4, “Those who hate me without a cause.” This obviously is a case of where there is unjustifiable antagonism, “are more than the hairs of my head; those who would destroy me are powerful.”

Verse 22, “May their table set before them become a snare; and when they are in prosperity, may it become a trap,” they are trying to prosper at his expense. The table set before them is prosperity, an idiom. For those who are unjustly and unrighteously prosperous their prosperity is a snare. That lines up with doctrine. That is exactly what happens to people whose prosperity comes through sin, evil, injustice, lack of integrity.

Verse 23, “May their eyes grow dim so that they cannot see, and may they suffer from terrible nervousness.

Verse 24, “Pour out your wrath on them, let your fierce anger overtake them.

Verse 25, “May their camp be desolate; may none dwell in their tents.

Verse 26, “For they have persecuted him [David] whom you yourself has disciplined, and they gloat over the pain of him [David] whom you have wounded.” The Lord rightfully disciplined David but the Lord doesn’t need help. Therefore the legitimate use of the imprecatory prayer. When one has sinned and been under discipline from God is to pray these things under the concept that, You have already spanked me, I don’t need it from them.

The most powerful of all of David’s imprecatory prayers is found in Psalm 109; it emphasises the legitimacy of this function.

Verse 1, “O God whom I praise, do not remain silent!

Verse 2, “For they have opened their wicked and deceitful mouths against me; they have maligned me with a lying tongue.

Verse 3, “With words of hatred they surround me, they attack me without a cause.

Verse 4, “In return for my friendship [love] they act as my accusers; but I am in prayer [about this].

Verse 5, “They repaid me evil for good, and hatred for my love.”

Verse 6, “Appoint an evil man to oppose him; and let Satan [this is exactly what the Hebrew says] stand at his right hand” — that means to let Satan do the punishing of this slanderer.

Verse 7, “And when he is tried, let him be found guilty; and let his prayers become sin [another way of saying, Don’t let his prayers be answered].

Verse 8, “Let his days be few; let another take his office.

Verse 9, “Let his children be orphaned, and may his wife be a widow.

Verse 10, “May his children be wandering beggars; may they seek alms far from their ruined homes.

Verse 11, “Let creditors seize all that he owns; may strangers plunder the production of his labour.

Verse 12, “May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his orphaned children.

Verse 13, “May his posterity be cut off; let their names be blotted out of the next generation.

Verse 16, “For he never thought to show kindness, but he hounded me to death, he persecuted the needy, the broken-hearted, he put to death the despondent of soul.

Verse 20, “May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers, and to those who speak evil against my soul.”

Imprecatory prayers were legitimate in the Old Testament. The legitimacy of imprecatory prayers in the Church Age is doubtful. It is far better to put the matter in the Lord’s hands is far better than to bring down disaster on someone else. However, in the Tribulation, which is the end of the Jewish Age [Daniel’s seventieth week] as well as a dispensation in its own right, the Tribulational martyrs will offer imprecatory prayers in heaven, and they are legitimate.

To pray for someone’s death, to pray that the Lord will turn Satan loose on them, that the next generation will be beggars and then die, is incompatible with being a member of the royal family of God, even though it is just. In our dispensation the command is to cast you cares on Him who careth for you. Put the matter in the hands of the justice of God. Imprecatory prayers are not recommended.

Remember that in the Tribulation these prayers are legitimate, and when they are legitimate they always follow doctrine. They always appeal to the integrity of God, they always recognise that the sovereignty of God must make the decision. The application of the doctrine of impersonal love precludes offering an imprecatory prayer in this dispensation. We are commanded to love our enemies, not pray them out of existence!

The corrected translation of Revelation 6:10 — “Furthermore they shouted, and said, O sovereign Lord [our Lord Jesus Christ in hypostatic union], holy [the integrity of Christ as God] and true [the integrity of Christ as true humanity], How long will it be before you will judge and avenge our blood on the population of the earth?”

The interim state of these martyrs: they are offering a strong imprecatory prayer, or they are asking the question which is imprecatory. Why did they say, How long? Not because they are miserable.

Verse 11, We have the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai, translated “also.” Then the nominative feminine singular subject is composed of two words, leukoj and stolh, “white robes.” I(mation is the usual word for robes but here we have stole which is a long flowing robe. I(mation was used in Revelation 3:5 for the uniform of glory worn over the resurrection body. I(mation is used for clothing in general as well as the translucent uniform of glory, but stolh, used here, has a different connation. The pur sui vant angel sitting on the empty tomb of our Lord after He was resurrected, Mark 16:5, was said to be wearing a stolh, not i(mation. And by comparing leukh stolh in Revelation 7:9, which is the other passage on these martyrs, with our context it is concluded that the white robes here are the interim body of the Tribulational martyrs. This is not unreasonable since the interim body of believers who die during the Church Age is described as face to face with the Lord. They are said to be face to face with the Lord here and wearing white robes.

“Also a white robe” is in the singular. Note that the white robe is anarthrous, there is no definite article with it. The absence of the definite article emphasises the quality of the noun and the adjective. This is not the uniform of glory awarded to the royal family who hold the order of the morning star, also called white robes, but it is a different white robe and refers to the interim body of these people. If they have an interim body, as they do, and as it Revelation 7:9, 13 these same Tribulation martyrs are described once again as wearing this white robe or interim body, it indicates great happiness, for the interim body is reserved for great happiness and blessing in heaven while waiting for the resurrection body of eternity.

The pertinent resurrection for these Tribulational saints will be the at second advent of Christ, so they do not have long to wait. There is, however, a split in the born-again people of the Tribulation. Some of the believers in the Tribulation are going to stay alive until the second advent. Some, like the ones we are studying are going to be martyred. They are going to die physically and they will have an interim body and great happiness. So those who die during the Tribulation will receive their resurrection bodies with the Old Testament saints at the second advent. But those who survive the Tribulation become the nucleus for the Millennial population after the baptism of fire and, therefore, will not receive their resurrection bodies until the end of the Millennium.

“Also a white robe [the interim body] was given,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb didomi which means to give. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the presentation of the interim body or the white robe to each Tribulational martyr in its entirety but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, namely the great blessing and happiness of living in heaven in an interim body. This is to establish the fact that the imprecatory prayers are not uttered from subjectivity. All imprecatory prayers must be objective and the greatest possible objectivity exists in heaven in an interim body or, later on, in a resurrection body. The passive voice: the interim body receives the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the interim body of the believer who dies during the Tribulation.

Next we have a dative singular indirect object from the adjective e(kastoj, used as a substantive and translated “each one.” “Also a white robe was given to each one.” The dative of indirect object indicates the ones in whose interest the interim body is given. It is given to Tribulational martyrs so that they can all have maximum blessing whether they failed or succeeded in life.

We also have a dative plural of advantage, a)utoj the intensive pronoun used as a personal pronoun, third person, translated “of them” — “each one of them.” Then the aorist passive indicative of the verb femi, sometimes a synonym with legw, only it means to tell, to narrate, “each one of them were told.” Literally, it says “it was told to them,” meaning they were informed. The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety. The passive voice: Tribulational martyrs in their interim body receive the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a simple statement of fact.

Verse 11 — “they were informed.” Our next word is “that,” i(na. This is the use of i(na introducing a final clause to denote a purpose, aim, goal, objective. And then we have the verb, the aorist middle subjunctive of a)napauw which means to rest or refresh. The aorist is a constative aorist for a fact or action extended over the rest of the Tribulation from the time of their death. In other words, in their interim bodies they are going to have a period of great refreshment, a period of great happiness. A)napaw is actually a synonym for happiness. The middle voice describes the subject as participating in the results of the action of the verb. This is what is called a direct middle reflexive. The subjunctive mood goes with i(na to express the purpose clause. The translation: “that they should refresh themselves.”

Refreshment is one of the great subjects of the Word of God. It is a subject that deals with both time and eternity. It has the connotation of great happiness. It is the happiness of the soul, it places emphasis on tremendous inner happiness.

Proverbs 25:13, Refreshment is described as “Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest.” The time of harvest here was in the heat of the summer. The cold of snow was the only way they could get ice and they would go up on Mount Hermon and have runners haul down buckets of snow. By the time they were down it would melt but the water would be cool. The idea is refreshment, “is a faithful messenger to those who send for him.” The faithful messenger is the one carrying the water and providing the refreshment, “for he refreshes the soul of the harvesters.”

Refreshment in the Bible always refers to the soul. Hence this is an analogy between the water boy carrying cold water to those who are very hot from working in the harvest, and it refers to the communicator of doctrine providing spiritual refreshment to the soul through Bible teaching. The cold water is analogous to Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine is the refreshment of the soul. Refreshment comes not from interaction with people but perception of Bible doctrine. That is the key.

The response to the Word of God is always consistently called refreshment. Roans 15:32 — “So that I may come to you in happiness by the will of God, even that I may enjoy refreshment with you.” A responding congregation is a refreshment to the pastor.

This same concept is found in the ministry of Titus to the Corinthians. Their response to his teaching of doctrine was refreshing to Titus. 2 Corinthians 7:13, “For this reason we have been comforted. And beside our comfort, we rejoiced even much more with the happiness of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by all of you.”

Mature believers have some form of ministry of refreshment. E.g. certain Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians 16:17,18, “And I rejoice over the coming of Stephanos and Fortunatus and Achaicus; because they have supplied what was lacking on your part. They have refreshed my spirit and yours [says Paul]. Therefore acknowledge such men.”

Philemon 7, “For I have come to have much happiness and encouragement by your love, because the deep and tender affections of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.”

Philemon 20, “Very well, brother, let me have benefit from you because of the Lord; refresh my deep affections in Christ.”

2 Timothy 1:16, ‘The Lord give mercy to the family of Onesiphorus because many times he has refreshed me, and he was not ashamed of my imprisonment.”

So we have it in our passage in Revelation 6:11, “that they should refresh themselves.” And then we have in the next three words an idiom of time, time which has not yet come: the adverb e)ti, the accusative of the extent of time, xronoj, and the adjective mikroj. When you put these three words together, e)ti means “yet”; xronoj means time; mikroj means little; literally it means “still a little time.” But the idiom should be translated “for a little while longer.” They weren’t to worry about how long their blood was avenged, they were to be concerned about just having a good time for a little while longer, until the end of the Tribulation.

Next we have the main verb first in the Greek. We start out with the temporal conjunction e(wj, translated correctly “until.” It denotes the end of an era, the end of a period of time. E(wj is often remembered as the end of a wonderful era in the famous Scottish song, Auld Lang Syne. That is the concept here, there is the end of an era coming up. So enjoy yourselves until it is over. In this case it is the Tribulation, the end of a very bad era.

We have next the third person plural aorist passive subjunctive of the verb plhrow. It does occur after e(oj in the order of the Greek sentence, “until the … should be completed” is the way we translate it. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the completion of the complement of believers martyred in the Tribulation. In other words, a full brigade is going to be formed. It isn’t all formed yet. Until it is enjoy yourselves, is what our Lord is saying. The passive voice: the Tribulational martyrs receive the action of the verb by the forming of a large corps of personnel. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive implying a future reference qualified by the element of contingency. The explicative use of the conjunction kai is translated “that is,” “until Tribulation martyrs shall be completed.”

Next comes the dual subject. The first subject describes the function of Tribulational martyrs while they on the earth: the nominative plural of the definite article o(i. It is the generic use of it to set aside the future generation of Tribulational martyrs as a special category. Then we have the nominative plural subject sundouloj. Sun means “with”; douloj means “slaves.” It is translated here “fellow servants.” Also we have the possessive genitive of the intensive pronoun a)utoj used as a third person plural pronoun and translated “their,” “that is, until their fellow servants.” That is their function on earth: service to the Lord before they die. Then we have the conjunction kai, translated “even,” and the second subject describes their relationship in heaven. Again the nominative plural definite article, the generic use of it, to set aside future Tribulational martyrs as a special category, the nominative plural subject a)delfoj, “even their brethren.”

Next come the nominative plural definite article, again o(i, used as a personal pronoun, translated “those,” followed by two verbs: the present active participle of the verb mellw, which means to be about to be, “those who are destined,” or “those who are about to be killed.” The customary present tense of mellw is for what may be reasonably expected to occur during the Tribulation. The inevitable printout of the divine decrees for that period calls for an unusual number of martyrs in that short seven years. The active voice: it refers, of course, to the Tribulational believers who have not yet been martyred bit will be before the Tribulation is over. When this announcement is made in heaven they are still on earth. The participle is circumstantial.

Then we have the present passive infinitive of the Attic verb a)pokteinw, and it means to kill or slaughter. The present tense is a futuristic present, it denotes an event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is regarded as already occurring. The passive voice” Tribulational believers receive the action of the verb. This is the infinitive of actual result, “even their brethren, those who are destined to be killed.” And then the rest is very simple: “even as they.”

Translation of verse 11: “Also a white robe [reference to the interim body of the martyrs] was given to each one of them; and they were informed that they should refresh themselves for a little while longer, until they [the brigade of Tribulational martyrs], that is, until their fellow servants, even their brethren, those who are destined to be killed, even as they have been killed, should be completed.”

Until the full number of Tribulational martyrs is completed those already in heaven are given a command: “Refresh yourselves, enjoy yourselves in your interim body.” This implies the greatest possible happiness and fellowship while they are waiting for the end of the Tribulation and for their resurrection bodies.

Verse 12, the sixth seal. We have a connective kai translated “and,” then the aorist active indicative of o(raw again. This is repetition: o(raw means “I looked.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The apostle John now has a new vision: the sixth seal. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the vision of this historical trend. There will be a tremendous number of volcanoes and earthquakes, which means also tidal waves in the Tribulation. We have so far: “Then I looked.” The word behold in the King James version is not found in the original. Then we have the connective kai, “and,” and the aorist active indicative of ginomai which means to become, “And there occurred.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety; the active voice: a great earthquake is the subject and it will produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of natural disasters, one of the great historical disasters of the Tribulation.

Now for the subject. We have the adjective megaj, which means great, plus the noun seismoj from which we get the word “seismic” in the English. Seismoj here means not only a shaking of the earth but the volcanic eruptions as well.

Many of these descriptions include what happens next. So far this verse only mentions a tremendous earthquake. Now the rest of the verse describes the earthquake in terms of volcanic action. Earthquakes and volcanoes always go together. Volcanic ash in the air produces what we see in the rest of this. The sun is blotted out and the moon turns red at night, that is what volcanic ash does. So we conclude from this that we have a Krakatoa type earthquake related to the volcanic action, rather than what could be termed a San Francisco type earthquake in which there was fire and some road disturbance but no volcanic action.

We start out with the conjunction kai which introduces a result from what precedes. We translate it “And then.” We actually have a result of both the earthquake and the volcanic action. The subject is the nominative singular of e(lioj which is the Greek word for “sun,” “and then the sun.” Then the aorist active indicative of the verb ginomai which means to become. What we actually have here is an idiom and would be better translated “with the result that the sun became.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it covers the action extended over a period of time without specifying the actual duration. In other words, with volcanic ash in the air this is the phenomenon that will be noted in the Tribulation. The active voice: the sun produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. And then the predicate nominative is melaj, the adjective used as a noun, “the sun became black.”

An analogy follows from the conjunction w(j, “as sackcloth made of goat’s hair.” The blackout of the sun is caused in the daytime by the volcanic eruption linked with the earthquake.

Next we have “and the moon.” This would be what happens at night. The word for moon is a feminine word, selhnh. The moon is said to have become like blood. In other words, the volcanic ash did this.

The corrected translation: “Then I looked when he [our Lord Jesus Christ who controls history] opened the sixth seal, and a tremendous earthquake [plus a volcano] occurred with the result that the sun became black like sackcloth made of goat’s hair, and the entire moon became red like blood.”

Verse 13, the connective conjunction kai is followed by the nominative plural subject a)sthr, and it means “star.” A meteor is a part of a star or a transient celestial body that enters the earth’s atmosphere with great velocity. The incandescence with the heat generated by the resistance of the air produces a very luminous and beautiful phenomena. In view of the context the best translation should be as follows: “And the meteors from the sky,” the ablative of source from o)uranoj which means heaven as well as sky. With this we have the aorist active indicative of the verb piptw which means to fall. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: meteors produce the action of the verb. The declarative indicative for a simple statement of fact, one of the natural phenomenon of the Tribulation. The prepositional phrase “to the earth,” e)ij plus gh.

Corrected translation: “And meteors from the sky fell on earth.”

Then we have an analogy, and from the analogy we have some spiritual concepts. We have the comparative particle o(j, which introduces the sentence of analogy, translated “like.” Then we have the nominative subject sukh, “like a fig tree” and the present active indicative of ballw, “like a fig tree drops its unripe figs when it is being shaken.”

Corrected translation: “And the meteors from the sky fell on earth like a fig tree drops it unripe figs when being shaken by a great wind.”

The first principle taught by the analogy is the fact that bad decisions destroy opportunities for mankind to live a full life. That is the first principle from the figs dropping from the tree. Life is often cut very short because of so many bad decisions under the historical trend that man is the product of his own decisions. Decisions create environment, not environment decisions. Bad decisions create bad environment which cuts short one’s life on this earth. That is exactly what is going to happen in the Tribulation. The great wind is the analogy to the historical disaster brought on by the accumulated bad decisions resulting from the rejection of the Word of God, Bible doctrine. The great wind of historical disaster causes the unripe figs to fall to the ground, an analogy to death. The unripe figs are both believers and unbelievers who have rejected pertinent categories of truth: for the unbeliever the rejection of the laws of divine establishment and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; for the believer, the whole realm of Bible doctrine.

Principle

1. While the divine dynasphere is only pertinent to the Church Age the cosmic system has been operational since Satan became the ruler of this world, i.e. since the fall of man and his expulsion from the garden.

2. Therefore all bad decisions in all dispensations related to believers or unbelievers becoming involved in the cosmic system means historical downtrend. People are the products of their own decisions. Decisions related to the cosmic system inevitably produce historical downtrend.

3. Unbelievers are protected from the cosmic system by category one truth, the laws of divine establishment. This means that unbelievers can have happiness, they can have great relationships and friendships, they can have great happiness in category two love, they can have great blessings in life, because of establishment truth and because of the enforced and genuine humility it produces. On the other hand born again believers can be miserable by cosmic involvement, as can the unbeliever also.

4. The believer in every dispensation is protected from the cosmic system, then, by category two truth — Bible doctrine revealed in that historical era.

5. The unripe figs who fall to the ground under the strong wind of historical disaster in the Tribulation have the complete canon of scripture available plus some very good preachers — Moses, Elijah, 144,000 Jewish evangelists, certain angels in the college of heralds, and so on.

6. Furthermore, in Isaiah 34:3-5 and in Jeremiah 8:13 the falling of the figs from the fig tree is used as an analogy for any nation which has become evil being judged with the fifth cycle of discipline.

Isaiah 34:2-4, “The Lord’s judgment is against all [evil] nations, and his wrath is against all their armies; he will utterly destroy them, he has delivered them to the slaughter. So their dead will be thrown out [no burial, just lined up in rows], and their corpses unburied will give off their stench. Consequently their mountains will be drenched with blood.” This is a statement of historical trend. “All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved [meteorites], and the sky rolled up like a scroll; all their armies will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shrivelled figs falling from the fig tree.”

Jeremiah 8:13, “So decrees the Lord: I will take away their harvest [economic depression], there will be no grapes on the vine, there will be no figs on the fig tree, and their leaves will wither; furthermore, what I have given them in prosperity will also pass away.”

No figs on the fig tree means no pivot of mature believers to carry the nation. The dropping of the figs means cosmic involvement or unripe figs. Furthermore no figs on the tree means leaves only, and the fig leaves are associated with the first act of cosmic morality, the function of human adjustment without doctrine.

When our parents originally sinned and discovered that they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves; a representation of works and self-righteousness, the principle being that if I can adjust to my fellow man in sin then I can adjust to God — a nice piece of arrogance. The only legitimate morality is found in relationship to the Word of God, Bible doctrine. In the Church Age it has to do with residence and function in the divine dynasphere.

God permits disaster in this world in order to cleanse the population of a national entity.

In Matthew 21:19 the failure of Israel to produce a pivot of mature believers guaranteed that they would be destroyed in AD 70, just as the fig tree withered: “When he [our Lord Jesus Christ] saw a lone fig tree by the road [analogous to client nation Israel as it existed at that time], he came to it, and found nothing on it except leaves only [arrogance, self-righteousness, legalism, human works]; and he said to it [to the fig tree], ‘No longer shall there ever be any production from you’.” That was the end of Israel as a client nation to God. Maybe right now God is saying the same thing to our nation as a client nation, “Then at once the fig tree withered,” analogous to the fifth cycle of discipline.

In the prophecy of our Lord’s second advent given in Matthew 24:30,31, He illustrates by teaching the parable of the fig tree in verse 32, “Now learn the parable of the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender, and its leaves come out [the evangelism of the 144,000 Jews coming up in Revelation chapter seven], you know that summer [the second advent and the Millennium] is near; even so you too, when you see all of these judgements, you know that he [our Lord Jesus Christ is near] is close to the door [second advent].”

It is obvious then that in Revelation 6:13 unripe figs refer to historical judgment of those who make bad decisions and who live in the cosmic system.

In the parable of the two baskets of figs in Jeremiah chapter 24 the basket of the good figs represents believers who have attained maturity through maximum doctrine resident in the soul, while the basket of evil figs represents believers who live in the cosmic system and therefore contribute either to the temporary or permanent destruction of the client nation.

Part of the sixth seal is the nuclear activity of the Tribulation. We have already noted by way of application that even though there is going to be a tremendous amount of sophisticated weaponry developed in this dispensation that weaponry is not capable of destroying all the people of the earth. Part of the sixth seal is the nuclear activity of Revelation 6:14-16.

Verse 14, this is the prophecy of thermonuclear reaction in the Tribulation. We begin with the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai, translated “also.” The nominative singular subject o)uranoj is next, “the heaven,” the atmosphere. The Bible speaks of three different heavens. The first heaven is the atmosphere which is a band around the earth. The second heaven is the realm of angelic activity. It is found in Acts 7:42 and is called the stellar universe. The third heaven is the one we have studied in Revelation four and five; it is the throne room of God beyond stellar space, mentioned in 2 Corinthians 12:2.

Our subject here deals with the first heaven, the band of atmosphere around planet earth. It is said in the aorist passive indicative of the verb a)poxwrizw, to separate, to part asunder, “Also the atmosphere was split apart.” The constative aorist refers to a momentary action when chain reaction from some thermonuclear explosion occurs. The passive voice: the atmosphere around planet earth receives the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of nuclear activity during the Tribulation. The analogy is given next, and in the analogy we see the fact that no matter how great the nuclear activity people will survive by the millions.

The comparison here is very simple: “like a scroll when it is being rolled up.” Because of this analogy we have fusion instead of fission. Affected by nuclear activity would be the band of the atmosphere around the earth approximately 14-16 miles high, characterised by a high ozone content. Ozone is a blue gas until it reaches 112 degrees centigrade at which point it condenses into deep blue magnetic liquids that occur in minute amounts in the air near the surface of the earth, and in large amounts in the atmosphere about seven miles up.

There are going to be changes in the Tribulation, so much so that people without Bible doctrine are going to seek to destroy themselves. They are going to be totally miserable as is always the case in adverse circumstances of life. Believers without doctrine are always miserable. There is no way that you can compensate for the historical disasters which occur apart from Bible doctrine. This is a reminder to us of the importance of the Word of God, the importance of the integrity of God, how important it is to realise His faithfulness to us.

We have now come in our study to the reaction of people in the Tribulation to the earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves. Before we can begin a detailed study of verses 15 and 16 where we are going to see six categories of human society who are going to react, we need to study the principle of one of the great trends in life, the principle of inequality. Once we understand this we will understand that people in every category of society can have great happiness or great misery and which ever they have depend upon the decisions they make. We have studied in great detail the principle that we are all the products of our own decisions, not our environment. The six categories mentioned in verse 15 represent different environments but they are not the products of their environment, they are the products of their decisions.

The first thing that we note about the categories in this particular situation is that they are unequal. The “kings of the earth” are, of course, the highest class. Then we have the nobility, followed by the highest military ranks, then the rich, then those with ability plus every slave and free person, the working classes. Obviously they represent different categories.

Principle

1. In every historical era, in every dispensation of human history, society exists in a state of inequality. That means immediately that inequality has nothing to do with happiness or misery, except as people make something out of it. Lower classes can be just as happy as upper classes and vice versa, and there is honour and integrity in every category of society and there is great evil in every category. So being in a certain category of privilege doesn’t mean happiness just as being in a category of non-privilege doesn’t mean misery. Inequality is no deterrent to happiness or blessing in life.

2. There are two reasons for inequality among human beings. The first is that the devil is the ruler of this world and as such he gives preferential treatment to those believers and unbelievers who live in the cosmic system. The devil gives preferential treatment especially to believers who live in the cosmic system. Therefore there is a system of pseudo prosperity provided by Satan, a system of pseudo prosperity that ends up with people fleeing to the mountains and screaming for the rocks to fall on them with the intense desire for suicide. Secondly, the sovereignty of God has made man’s free will or volition of the soul the issue in the angelic conflict, which means the impossibility of equality in the human race. Because man has volition and because he can make decisions good or bad inequality will exist in the human race.

3. For volition to be the issue there must be the environment of human freedom, and the greater the freedom the greater the inequalities of society.

4. Therefore there are two sources of inequality in the human race: the evil of Satan’s cosmic system and the principle of establishment freedom as a divine policy stated in category one truth: the laws of divine establishment.

5. The third reason is related to the doctrine of imputation. Inequality exists at the point of human birth and the imputation of human life. We are born unequal physically. We all start over when we are born again and each one has opportunities but the inequality that exists at birth cannot in any way be blamed on the individual. The inequalities that exist at the second birth are directly related to your own decisions in life.

6. Inequality also exists because of degree or failure or success in the use of freedom. People do not succeed or fail to the same degree, therefore degrees of failure or degrees of success guarantee inequalities in life.

7. This means inequality in itself is not a bad thing, only the various categories of arrogance which resent inequality — envy, jealousy, bitterness, implacability, vindictiveness, self-pity, self-righteousness, and so on. In other words, arrogance fails to adjust to life, therefore arrogance fails to adjust to the inequalities of life. This is how arrogance becomes the source of communism, socialism, the welfare state, the redistribution of wealth.

We note from the six categories of humanity we are about to study in Revelation 6:15 that inequality exists in both a time of historical adversity and in a time of historical prosperity as well. So prosperity or adversity makes no difference, there are inequalities both ways and the various circumstances of history do not change this.

All of this adds up to a principle: environment is not the solution to man’s life. Given a better environment some believers would be no better off than they are now. Given a better environment and giving you everything you want isn’t going t make you happy. In the Tribulation, as in the Church Age, inequality exists in a time of historical adversity; in the Millennium inequality exists in a time of perfect environment on the earth.

The thing we need to understand is the good and bad state of inequality. There is a good state and there is a bad state of inequality. Good inequality is exists in the environment of freedom; bad inequality exists in the environment of tyranny. So while historical environment may change from freedom to tyranny inequality doesn’t change. You have inequality under conditions of tyranny, you have inequality under conditions of freedom. So whether historical prosperity or adversity, freedom or tyranny, inequality is an inescapable and unsolvable fact of history. This is not to imply that inequalities in society means unhappiness. Poor people can be happy or unhappy; rich people can be happy or unhappy. Your status in life with regard to inequality is not the issue; your status in life with regard to our Lord and Bible doctrine is the issue. So whether historical prosperity or adversity exists, whether freedom or tyranny exists, inequality is an inescapable fact of history.

Happiness or unhappiness depends on the believer’s attitude toward Bible doctrine. Again, Lamentations chapter three gives us help here, beginning in verse 20: “My soul [historical disaster of the fifth cycle of discipline is the background] still has this in remembrance and is humbled within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion’, says my soul,” so that the issue is not the inequalities of life but the fact that the Lord is his portion, “Therefore I have confidence in him.” The issue is not the inequalities of life but the confidence one has in the Lord. And then he adds in verse 25: “The Lord is good to them who wait for him [the full use of the faith-rest drill], to the soul that seeks him.” In other words, equality or inequality isn’t the issue here, it says “to the soul who seeks him.”

This was written by Jeremiah under the tremendous stress of the fifth cycle of discipline in BC 586 when even fervent prayers of believers in fellowship were not heard regarding the client nation. In that same context Lamentations 3:44 tells us that there is a certain prayer that cannot be answered: “Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud so that our prayers should not pass through.” When the fifth cycle of discipline is being administered no prayer for the preservation of the nation breaks through even from the greatest prayer warrior. And even though there were believers in every walk of life praying for the Lord to deliver the nation the Lord did not do so.

We are going to meet six categories of inequality. These six categories exist now and they will exist in the Tribulation. We will note that all six categories of inequality in this case are miserable. We will note that rank and achievement does not mean happiness, success does not mean happiness. For the believer the pursuit of happiness means Hebrews 13:5, “Be content with such things as you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’.” So regardless of inequalities in life contentment and happiness from doctrine belongs to all believers in the royal family of God. So it is necessary in the structure of the inequality of society to find great contentment and happiness in every walk of life. In this way there is the demonstration of the importance of Bible doctrine, the importance of our relationship to God through the Word of God. So regardless of inequalities in life contentment or happiness from Bible doctrine belongs to the believer of the royal family of God regardless of his status. Philippians 4:11, “I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.”

The six categories are going to include rulers of nations, those with maximum power, military leaders, the wealthy, those who have ability, the working man; and we are going to see that all of these people have their own special brands of misery. So that whatever your status in society it is not the secret to your happiness. The secret to your happiness is Bible doctrine.

We are now ready for the prophecy of the human reaction to all of the things that have preceded. The subject is composed of six categories of human society in the Tribulation. The first thing we note about the six-category subjects is the fact that in the Tribulation, as now in the Church Age and as before in previous dispensations, there is a state of inequality. In every dispensation society exists in a state of inequality. There are two reasons for this: the devil is the ruler of this world and as such he gives preferential treatment to those believers and unbelievers who live in the cosmic system. Secondly, the sovereignty of God has made man’s volition in the soul the issue in the angelic conflict, which means that all of us make decisions every day which guarantee inequality. We make good decisions or bad decisions. We are unequal in ability but that is not really the issue, the issue is the fact that we make decisions with our unequal ability. Volition is the issue and therefore there must be an environment in which volition can function, and the environment is human freedom. Human freedom guarantees inequality. The fact that we are free to succeed or free to fail is the issue, not the fact that some of us have abilities and others have abilities and there are great inequalities among abilities.

Inequality in itself is not even a bad thing. Inequality in history has been the basis of challenging people to become great when they otherwise would not have become great. All of the ruling families in Europe at the turn of this century came from former peasant stock and had there not been inequalities their ancestors would not have been motivated to succeed. If we were all equal there would be no decisions to make and no improvement. The real problem with inequality is not inequality itself, it is arrogance and its manifestations. Arrogance has among its manifestations self-pity, people feel sorry for themselves in a lower status of inequality. There is the matter of guilt complex which belongs to the higher status of inequality in life. Of people whose parents in the past, or whose grandparents have succeeded, who have a guilt complex. But there are people who start out low and reach great heights. Why? They are challenged by inequality. Inequality is the greatest challenge in life. It simply boils down to this: arrogance fails to adjust to life and therefore arrogance fails to adjust to equality. Inequality is no problem in life at all, it doesn’t even demand legislation. It should demand personal motivation. The jealousy of those who have succeeded where you haven’t, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, self-centredness, preoccupation with self, obviously are attitudes which allow you to be defeated by inequality. Inequality is a fact of life, it is inevitable when there is freedom and it is inevitable when there is tyranny. All we ever had in history was either one or the other. Only arrogance makes an issue of inequality.

Verse 15, we start with the first category and we have the nominative plural subject, basileuj, correctly translated “kings.” With it we have the descriptive genitive singular from the noun gh which means planet earth. “And the kings of the earth,” our first category. Rulers and national leaders are not protected from historical disasters by their exalted rank, from the administration of divine judgment through historical trends. It is also a great leveller, it ferrets out people who have the highest rank and shouldn’t have it. In time of historical disaster neither God nor man is a respecter of persons. Holding the highest rank or achieving the highest authority does not provide happiness. By the way, many of these kings in the Tribulation are dictators, they are not kings in the sense of the ancient world they are people who are ruling a country. There is no happiness in being a king or a ruler or a dictator apart from capacity for happiness which comes through Bible doctrine. Achievement and success in itself does not provide happiness. Incidentally, there is no security in being top rank in any country.

Next to the kings of the earth we have the nominative plural of megistan, i.e. megistanej, and this category refers to those who have maximum political power apart from being a top ruler. We would translate this in the old days, “the princes or nobility,” those who have maximum influence and political power. The possession of political power and influence does not guarantee happiness or security. Furthermore, there is no protection against historical disaster because one possesses great power and influence.

Number three category are called xiliarxoj, which means the commander of a thousand or in some cases the commander of thousands. It would probably be better for us to recognise the category of military leaders and translate it “general officers.” Being a high-ranking officer in the army does not provide either happiness or security. Generals are not excluded from divine justice or disaster.

Next we have wealth, the rich man. The nominative plural from plousioj. Being rich does not mean happiness or security.

Number five is kai o(i i)sxouroi, and the nominative plural of i)sxouroj is the issue here. It does not means strong although it can be translated that way, it means ability. Those who have ability takes us into the academic realm, those with a high IQ, those who have talent. They are not protected from historical disaster, they are not provided with happiness and security because they have genius in the academic realm. The thinking of human genius or the muscle of human strength and violence will not prevent the historical trends of the Tribulation.

Number six is kai paj douloj, the first one in the singular, the nominative singular of douloj. It can be translated either one of two ways, either a slave or a servant, “furthermore every slave.” In the time of the Roman empire this noun referred to slaves. Today it has the connotation of labour, those who are working under the category of labour. No matter how powerful the labour unions they cannot protect the work force from historical disaster. Like all other categories in this list they are the products of their own decisions. There is no security in being in the work force. There is no security in being involved in conspiracy, violence, revolution. The continuation of this category is called e)leuqeroj, also in the singular, and that means “free,” “plus every slave and free person.” The two together make the working classes of the labour category of the Tribulation. Both categories will seek security, happiness and better conditions in the Tribulation through some vehicle of political power, which means unions will be stronger in the Tribulation than they are in the Church Age. But no matter how strong the labour unions are, no matter how much solidarity that exists, not matter how much power they accumulate politically, they will not protect the working force from the consequences of historical trends in the Tribulation. Only Bible doctrine resident in the soul can protect the work force and accomplish deliverance, security and happiness in time of historical disaster, whether it is the Church Age or the Tribulation.

Every category of society in the Tribulation has some means of protection or security but none of these systems will provide the necessary deliverance in historical disaster. All deliverance comes through salvation and positive volition toward Bible doctrine. All classes of society in time of historical disaster seek the high places, the mountainous areas for their last stand of security and safety. But these people as unbelievers in the Tribulation are seeking the wrong high ground. The only high ground that will protect them is the high ground of salvation and Bible doctrine, and they have rejected that high ground. Therefore we are going to see them running to the high ground. We are going to see all six categories as refugees, each one having the same opportunity to accept Christ and be free from this terrible situation. We are going to learn that it makes no difference what your race, what your status, how high you have gone, how low you have sunk, the only answer to life is not in success and achievement but in the Word of God, Bible doctrine.

Verse 15, “Both the kings of the earth and their nobility [those with maximum political power], both the highest military ranks and the rich, also those who have ability, plus every slave and free person … ” And that is as far as we have gone.

Next comes the aorist active indicative of the verb kruptw, which means to hide, with the accusative plural direct object from the reflexive pronoun h( a)uton. The reflexive pronoun is very simple to define when the action expressed by the verb is referred back to its own subject it is reflexive, and we will translate it simply, “hid themselves.” Every category from the highest to the lowest, all they could do is hide. No system of security held up for them, no happiness was there, there was no doctrine to sustain them. These are all unbelievers in the Tribulation in time of historical catastrophe and there was nothing that could help them. Apart from Bible doctrine there is no security, protection, or blessing, or even true happiness in this life.

So they hid themselves. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: six categories of society in a state of inequality, some higher, some lower, produce the action of the verb. It is assumed from verses 16 and 17 that the subjects were all unbelievers. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality.

Then a prepositional phrase. Where did they go to hide? Not the high ground of Bible doctrine but the high ground literally. They went first of all into caves. That would mean mountains, high ground, e)ij plus the accusative plural of sphlaion, and it is translated, “in the caves.” No system devised for their happiness, their security or their blessing worked. That is the point. And what do they have left in time of historical disaster? Altogether they had one thing in common: nothing in their system worked. Therefore they hid themselves. But they are not through hiding, it is just the first manifestation of the first phobia, arrogance and psychosis.

Note: all six categories here are arrogant. They are unbelievers, they have rejected doctrine, they have adopted a system in which arrogance plays a major part. They depend for happiness on arrogance, being recognised; they depend for security by preoccupation with their own group. The working man is preoccupied with the working man, the political man is preoccupied with the political man, the rich man is preoccupied with the rich man. All of these six categories indicate total preoccupation within the sphere of the category. There is great inequality here and in great inequality people often seek a system of security.

Then we have the second preposition, e)ij plus the accusative plural of petra. Petra can also be a big rock like a mountain so it still has a connotation of high ground. Then we do have with the word “rocks” to make sure we understand these are big rocks, the descriptive genitive plural of o)roj, which means mountains, “hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.”

This is what they did; we go on to see what they are thinking. Remember that we have rulers thinking this, we have people with political influence thinking this in the next verse. We have rich men, we have working men, we have high-ranking officers in the military, and they have one thing in common: they have the total attitude of arrogance, therefore total insecurity and unhappiness.

Principle

1. All classes of society in time of great historical disaster seek the literal high place for security, but they have the opportunity of seeking the spiritual high place, the only real security. You are safe any place in the world if you have found the high ground of Bible doctrine and the advance to maturity. That is true safety and security.

2. These people that are being described here are unbelievers and they are seeking the wrong high ground.

3. The only high ground for historical disaster is regeneration plus Bible doctrine resident in the soul of that believer.

4. Bible doctrine is no help to the unbeliever any more than the cave or the rocks of the mountains is going to be help or security. They will even admit this by taking their own lives.

5. For the unbeliever, regardless of his success or his system of security within the framework of his status, regardless of wealth, influence, authority, or some exalted status in life, or some humble status in life, there is no security, there is no happiness, there is no blessing in the historical pressure of the Tribulation.

6. All of these unbelievers seeking refuge on the high ground of planet earth are the recipients of a principle which never changes: grace precedes judgment. They had a chance to be saved, they had a chance to learn doctrine, they had a chance to accept God’s security package, and these people have all turned it down with the tragic result that we will notice in the next verse. In the next chapter, Revelation chapter 7, we have the lucid account of evangelism in the Tribulation. That is grace before judgment.

7. All of these six categories of refugees had every opportunity to believe in Christ, to learn enough doctrine to be delivered from historical disaster — deliverance with happiness, with blessing, with contentment, with everything that is important as a by-product of perception of doctrine.

8. Analogy: Just as there were 120 years of evangelism before the flood, and just as Jonah evangelised the Assyrians before their judgment, so all the people of the Tribulation will hear the gospel many times, and just as many times they will reject it. They are the products of their own decisions.

Verse 16, We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, the present active indicative of legw, “and they said.” The pictorial present tense of legw brings to mind the picture of these future events from the process of their occurrence, hence a dramatic offshoot of the futuristic present. The active voice: the six categories of society, unbelievers in the Tribulation, produce the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a statement of future historical fact for our edification, for our understanding, for our application; because we live in the Church Age and just as there will be great historical disasters in the Tribulation so there are great historical disasters in the Church Age, a little more spread out but the same principle. Man is the product of his own decisions.

The expression that follows dramatises the point of doctrine: the unbeliever at the point of maximum pressure does not lose consciousness. We are going to see these unbelievers die, we are going to see some of them survive. Those who survive are going to be judged at the baptism of fire and removed from the earth, and as they are moved into eternity there is a principle: no loss of consciousness. You have to live with yourself in eternity, that is for the unbeliever. The unbeliever not only experiences the maximum pain of the lake of fire but he experiences a soul pain, a sharp eternal pain of the missed opportunities, the failure to use his volition to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is going to be a part of the judgment. These six categories who are now conscious of their insecurity and begging the caves and the rocks to fall on them would like to be buried in oblivion rather than be conscious and face God’s judgment. So when they ask for the rocks to fall on them, when they ask for caves to collapse and bury them they are asking for oblivion. And notice: they demand oblivion by praying to rock, not to God. But there is no such thing as oblivion. This means the torture of being an unbeliever and the soul of the unbeliever is as great as the physical pain he will suffer in the lake of fire.

“and they said to the mountains and to the rocks,” the aorist active imperative. They are praying to rocks. These are kings praying to rocks, these are people with political influence praying to rocks, these are rich people praying to rocks, these are people with ability, people with high IQ, praying to rocks. And why do they pray to the rocks? Because they see in the rocks a chance to be crushed, to have their life crushed and, hopefully, with the crushing out of their life, oblivion. No such luck! That is not the way it is going to go.

We have the culminative aorist tense of the verb piptw, “fall on us.” The culminative aorist views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the desire for oblivion. The pressure is so great that they want to lose consciousness, they want the rocks to fall on them and deliver them from a pressure they cannot stand, a pressure they are not equipped to stand; even though they are rulers of nations, even though they have political influence, great ability, great wealth, even though they hold the highest rank in military organisations, etc., they all want this same thing in common. They are all unequal in social structure but they have one thing in common: they have a mad passionate desire for oblivion. Those who face divine judgment desire and demand oblivion. For the unbeliever of the Tribulation nothing is more desirable than the non-existence of consciousness. However, even if the mountains do fall on them they would have crushed their bodies but the soul would be absent from the body of the unbeliever and continue to possess life after death and a very painful life in the status of consciousness and judgment. Death does not mean oblivion for anyone, believer or unbeliever.

The active voice: the rocks and the mountains are commanded to dissolve them into a nonentity. They recognise at this point that having been the ruler of a nation, having great political power, being a great general, having great wealth does not give them any great happiness. They desire to lose that status, they want to be a nonentity in oblivion, they want to be without consciousness, hence a command given to mountainous terrain to destroy them. They have forgotten of course, Hebrews 9:27, not that they ever knew it: “It is appointed to a man once to die, but after this the judgment.” The judgment is given in a total state of consciousness.

Next we have some prepositional phrases, “fall on us,” e)pi plus the accusative plural of e)gw. They are aware of who and what they are, and they all desire the removal of who and what they are. They want oblivion, “fall on us.” Then the connective kai, and then once again the aorist active imperative of kruptw, “and hide.” The constative aorist for an urgent momentary action, “hide us now.” The active voice: the rocks and mountains are requested to produce the action of the verb, the imperative of entreaty for urgency and request. And again we have the accusative plural, this time as a direct object from e)gw, “they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us’.” The urgent demand for oblivion will be denied. In their desire for oblivion they know from what they must run away. They want to escape from the Lamb [Jesus Christ] and they want to escape from the one who sits on the throne. So we have two desires for oblivion expressed in terms of their understanding, their gnwsij understanding, of doctrine. First their oblivion from God the Father, “from the presence of him [God the Father] who sits on the throne.” And then the desire for oblivion from God the Son, “and from the wrath of the Lamb.” So they understand salvation, “the wrath of the Lamb”; they understand truth, “him that sitteth on the throne,” and they want oblivion from the very thing that could have delivered them and they are acutely aware of the fact that they have rejected it. They have rejected the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, they have rejected the plan of God the Father, they have rejected the doctrine related to these things. They are running away from what they previously could have accepted, and their desire for oblivion, to be smashed by the rocks and to be blotted out of existence is because they are acutely aware of the presence of God in divine disasters. But it is an awareness of God which is absolutely useless because it drives them to distraction. It drives them to the point of insanity, the desire for oblivion.

Historical disaster is a challenge to apply doctrine for us. Historical disaster is the end of the road and the desire for oblivion. They want to be crushed out of existence, they want to be buried under rocks and forgotten. Those unbelievers in the Tribulation who actually survive all of this will be judged by the baptism of fire, while those who die during the Tribulation will die horribly and then go to Hades and the fire of Hades. Either way they are the recipients of the wrath of the Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ, while they have rejected the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

We now come to the anticipation of the second advent. The seventh seal of the Doomsday book is opened in chapter eight verse one and when it is we are going to see many developments and historical trends in the Tribulation. In the meantime we have one verse which anticipates the second advent of Christ and the judgment of the baptism of fire. By way of introduction to this verse which is a chapter in itself we should notice a principle or two.

1. Up until now in this chapter we have observed the first six seals, the general historical trends and judgements of the Tribulation presented, of course, prophetically. All historical trends are presented prophetically except the Church Age.

2. With the exception, then, of the Church Age all historical trends are presented through the vehicle of eschatology [prophecy].

3. Now we are going to observe the unbelievers of the Tribulation in terms of anticipating the baptism of fire, the great judgment which terminates the Tribulation.

4. In this context it will be called the great day of their wrath.

5. This part of the famous day of the Lord is also prophesied in other Old Testament passages. Two of them are pertinent to our study: Joel 2:11,31, “And the Lord utters his voice before his army; indeed his bivouac is very great, for powerful is he who carries out his word. The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome, therefore who can endure it?

[“Who can endure it?” refers not only to the Armageddon campaign but to the baptism of fire which follows]

Verse 31, “The sun will be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.”

This is the first of several passages which anticipate our verse. The second one is found in Zephaniah 1:14-18, “Near is the great day of the Lord, near and coming very quickly; Listen carefully, you can hear it! The cry of the day of the Lord will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior will be there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, a day of the trumpet, the battle cry against fortified cities and against castled towns. Furthermore I will bring distress on all the people, and they will walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood will be poured out in the dust, and their entrails will be like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord’s wrath; in the fire [reference to the baptism of fire] of his zeal the entire world will be consumed with it, for he will make a sudden end of all unbelievers who live on the earth.”

Also in Malachi 3:2, “Who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand up when he appears [reference to the second advent]?

These passages deal with historical trends at the very end of the Tribulation at the point of the second advent, and they emphasise the one judgment which is first mentioned in our passage, verse 17. It emphasises the baptism of fire judgment which is administered to all unbelievers who are alive at the second advent. These unbelievers will stand before the judgment throne of God. There are many Old Testament passages that deal with this subject and they all anticipate our passage, Revelation 6:17. This anticipates one of the greatest judgements of all time.

We might do well for the moment to review the major judgements that begin with the cross. When our Lord Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross this was the first of seven major judgements. Our Lord was being judged for our sins, therefore they were imputed to Him and all judged on the cross. The sins of the entire world were judged when our Lord was hanging between heaven and earth. And when it says that Christ died for our sins it isn’t referring to His physical death, it is referring to His spiritual death, for after He had finished bearing the sins of the world, after the saving work of Christ was completed, He uttered one word in the Greek: tetelestai, “it is finished,” it has been finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever, a dramatic perfect tense. Now he was still speaking when He said “finished.” If He was dead physically He couldn’t speak. Our Lord died twice on the cross. First of all, and most important, all of the sins of the world were imputed to Him and judged. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and that was the judgment. He died physically because His work was finished. He said it was finished and He died physically because of that fact. So the first great judgment in history was the judgment of Christ on the cross for our sins. He became our substitute.

That set up the second great judgment, a judgment which occurs in the Church Age: the royal family are given a right and a prerogative to judge their own sins, and they do so by simply naming them. Since the sins were judged on the cross each believer is his own priest, therefore he has the privacy and the right to go directly to God and deal with God on the matter of sins. And while it is translated in 1 John 1:9 “if we confess our sins,” it means to name, to cite our sins, o(mologew is the Greek verb. We simply cite a sin which has already been judged, “and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is the means of recovering the filling of the Spirit, the means of recovering residence in the divine dynasphere. Rebound is the second great judgment.

The third great judgment occurs at the termination of the Church Age. It is the judgment seat of Christ which we have studied extensively in Revelation chapters 2 and 3.

Then, of course, comes the Tribulation and at the end of the Tribulation the terminating event is the second advent of Christ, and when our Lord returns one of the events is the judgment called the baptism of fire. It is divided into two parts. There are unbelievers on the earth and they are divided into two categories: Jews and Gentiles. The unbelieving Jews are removed, that is judgment number four. The unbelieving Gentiles are removed and they are put into fire [judgment number five], so that when the Millennium begins — the one thousand years of our Lord’s reign under perfect environment — it begins exactly the same way that man began on the earth: believers only. That is like Noah and his family after the great flood wiped our all unbelievers. So the fire removes all unbelievers and you start out with believers only.

Then at the end of the Millennium and the Gog revolution we have the judgment of all unbelievers in history, the second resurrection and then their judgment, and they are cast into the lake of fire. That is number six.

Number seven is the judgment of all fallen angels. They too are put into the lake of fire which was prepared for them before the foundation of the earth.

We are studying a very critical area of judgment in this particular passage. The verse itself is very short and appears almost to be innocuous, “For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand.” This is one of the many prophecies of the baptism of fire.

The causal conjunction o(ti is can be translated “because,” because it is, of course, a causal conjunction. That is one of many meanings. Here it is translated “For” as in the King James version. Then we have our subject. The nominative feminine singular subject includes two words: the adjective megaj and with that the noun h(mera, “the great day.” Then with this we have a descriptive genitive of the noun o)rgh, meaning wrath, “the great day of his wrath.” The possessive genitive from the intensive pronoun a)utoj is “wrath.” Actually it is translated, “the great day of their wrath” refers to the judgment of the baptism of fire. It “is coming,” aorist active indicative of the verb e)rxomai. It is translated “has come.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The entire administration of the baptism of fire. The active voice: the baptism of fire produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine, “for the great day of their wrath has come.”

Then there is a question. The question will be answered by the entire seventh chapter. The conjunction kai connects the two phrases. The nominative singular interrogative pronoun tij, “and who.” We should translate it “and so” because the conjunction kai introduces a result from what precedes, “and so who.” Then the present passive indicative of the verb dunamai which means to be able, “and so who is able.” The static present tense assumes the perpetually existing state of salvation and only those who have eternal salvation through faith in Christ are able to stand. The ability to stand in this judgment belongs to those who believe in Christ during the Tribulation. The passive voice: the Tribulational believers receive the action of the verb. This is an interrogative indicative which assumes that there is an actual fact which may be stated in answer to the question, and the actual fact is the presentation of salvation under the most concentrated system of evangelism the world has ever known. And with this the aorist passive infinitive of the verb i(stemi which means here to stand. The culminative aorist views the judgment of the baptism of fire in its entirety but emphasises it from the viewpoint of existing results. Believers will be able to stand, they will go into the Millennium. The passive voice: the Tribulational believers receive the action of the verb, and this is an infinitive of actual result.

Corrected translation: “For the great day of their [the Father and the Son] wrath has come [the judgment of the baptism of fire]; and so who is able to stand?”

The baptism of fire

1. The etymology of the word baptism. Prior to the Koine Greek the various words baptw, baptizw, baptizmoj, were used briefly in Homeric and then in Classical Greek. In Homer’s Odyssey, the ninth book, he makes a reference to Cyclops. They were trapped in a cave with Cyclops, the one-eyed giant. They finally found a way to heat up a rather large stick and shove it into his eye. When they did it made a hissing sound. The hissing of the burning eye of Cyclops is compared to the sound of water when a smith baptises or dips a piece of iron into it to temper it. Bapitizw and baptw are used in that context. The Spartans baptised their spears by putting them into a bowl of blood to make them a warrior’s spear. In other words, they were issued a spear but that was a soldier’s spear, not a warrior’s spear. They weren’t warriors until they had gone into combat, and in order to make sure that the weapon was ready for combat they identified it with blood. The identification of the spear with the pig’s blood which was offered in sacrifice made it a warrior’s spear. The concept being from the Classical Greek that baptise meant to identify one thing with another thing so that the characteristic of the original thing was changed into another characteristic by what was identified with it.

Euripides tells us the whole story when a ship sank and the ship was baptised by sinking and going under water. Therefore it was no longer a ship that sailed it was a ship that lurked around Davey Jones’ locker.

So the concept was always there before it came into the Koine Greek. In the Koine Greek we have several words. We have the word baptw which means to die or to dip. The other verb is baptizw which means to dip or to immerse. Then there is a noun baptismoj which means to clean, to wash, the washing of dishes in Mark 7:4. It is also used in a very significant way in Hebrews 6:2 where we find it in the plural. One thing that all new believers should understand is the doctrine of baptisms — plural. There is a similar noun, baptisma, used for the concept of identification. The basic concept of the word “baptism” is found in the Bible. Baptism doesn’t mean baptism because baptism is just a transliteration, and therefore has no meaning. Transliterations only have meanings if meanings are assigned to them. Baptisma means identification. It means ritual identification in Matthew 3:7; it means actual identification in Romans 6:4, used for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is also used as a figure for martyrdom in Mark 10:38 and Luke 12:50. Then there is baptisthj which refers to one who performs the ritual of baptism, Matthew 3:1; 11:11; 6:25. That is where we get John the Baptist.

2. The categories of baptism. There are two. The first is real baptisms because they are actual identifications. For example, in 1 Corinthians 10:2 [verse 1 is telling about passing through the red sea], these are the Jews during the exodus and they all passed through the sea. You have to remember that not one Jew in passing through the Red Sea got wet. The only people who got wet and were subsequently immersed were the forces of Pharaoh, and they weren’t even said to be baptised. So one thing we know immediately: “and all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” Here is “baptise” and “sea” all in one sentence. The ones that were baptised into the sea were dry! Not a drop of water. So it should occur to someone along the way that the word “baptise” must refer to something besides getting wet. And it does. The key to interpretation of the word is identification. The Jews were identified with Moses in passing through the sea. It is because they were identified with Moses that they were able to get through in what the King James version calls “dry shod.” The Jews were identified with the founder of the Jewish nation, Moses.

There is a second dry baptism, the baptism of the cross, Matthew 20:22, “But Jesus answered and said, ‘You do not understand what you are asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’ ” We should be familiar with that cup, it contains all of the sins of the world and drinking the cup is our Lord’s receiving of the imputation of our sins and their judgment. And then He adds: “and to be baptised with the baptism with which I am baptised.” He is talking about the cross. The cup gives us the key. The sins of the world were identified with Christ on the cross and God the Father judged those sins on the cross — past, present and future. That is the baptism of the cross, it is a dry baptism.

Number three of the dry or real baptisms is the baptism of God the Holy Spirit, one of the 36 things that happens to us when we believe in Christ. God the Holy Spirit takes each one of us and enters us into union with Christ. We share His life, eternal life, we share His righteousness, we share His Sonship, His heirship, His election, His destiny, everything that He has. We are in union with Christ, that is the way the royal family is formed in the Church Age. So it is used for the formation of the royal family of God and at the moment of salvation, in the Church Age only, God the Holy Spirit takes each one of us and enters us in to union with Christ. We are identified with Christ in His death. In His death He bore our sins but He rejected human good and evil. So we are identified with Christ in His death, says Romans chapter six, therefore we too have rejected human good and evil. And the only way that we can reject them experientially is to stay out of the cosmic system, which means rebound when we sin to get back into the divine dynasphere. We are identified with Christ as He is seated at the right hand of the Father; we are royal family of God through this baptism. Each believer is identified with Christ in His death, hence he is identified with Him in His resurrection, and this is the meaning of the baptism of the Spirit. Furthermore, each believer is identified with Christ in His resurrection, the formation of current positional truth. This concept is found in Acts 1:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:26-28; Ephesians 4:5 where it says, “one baptism,” and the one baptism is Spirit baptism.

That brings us to our subject, the fourth real baptism, and that is the baptism of fire. It is mentioned first in Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16.

The second category are the ritual baptisms. In ritual baptism water represents something — three things:

First of all in the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 3:13-17 our Lord went under the water. The water represented the plan of God the Father for the first advent. By submitting to baptism our Lord was saying at the beginning of His earthly ministry: “I am willing to go to the cross; I am willing to execute the plan of God the Father.”

Then there was the baptism of John — Matthew 3:1-10; John 1:25-33. Water in this case represented the kingdom of God, and it was presented through the message of John. He was the herald: “The King is here, the kingdom of God is at hand”. Converts who believed in Christ gave ritual testimony to the first advent and the hypostatic union, their faith in the work of Christ on the cross before it actually occurred historically by being baptised. The water, again, represented the kingdom.

Then there was Christian baptism in the book of Acts — Acts 2:38; 8:36-38; 16:15; 16:33, all of these passages in which before the canon of scripture was completed, as a training aid to explain what happened at salvation. The candidate for baptism goes down into the water, the water represents identification with Christ in His death. It is a ritual. It isn’t the baptism of the Spirit, it teaches the baptism of the Spirit. And as the candidate comes up out of the water he is identified with the air, and that is analogous the principle of identification with Christ in His resurrection. And it means that he recognises that he is a member of the royal family.

All of this comes from Hebrews 6:2, the doctrine of baptisms.

3. The baptism of fire which occurs at the second advent of Christ. It is actual identification with fire in Hades, in the place we have studied recently, a place called torments — Matthew 3:11-12.

“As for me [John the Baptist speaking on baptism], I baptise you with water because you changed your mind [about Christ], but he [our Lord Jesus Christ] who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not even fit to unlace his sandals; he himself will baptise you with the Holy Spirit [anticipation of the Church Age. The baptism of the Spirit forms the royal family of God in the Church Age] and with fire.” The baptism of the Church is characteristic of the Church Age; fire takes place at the end of the Tribulation [second advent].

The baptism of fire is a little more obscure, so verse 12 explains it, “And his grain shovel [literally, his winnowing fork] is in his hand; furthermore, he will clean his threshing floor [the world being cleansed for the Millennium].” We anticipate here the dividing of believers and unbelievers in this judgment. When our Lord uses His grain shovel at the second advent unbelievers will be taken off the earth and they will go into torments in Hades. Believers will be left on the earth and the Millennium will begin with believers only. As “chaff” [verse 12] the unbelievers will be removed from the world. The baptism of fire is the antithesis of the Rapture. At the Rapture believers are taken off the earth and unbelievers are left behind; at the second advent unbelievers are taken off the earth and believers are left behind — Matthew 24 speaks of the baptism of fire, not the Rapture.

4. The time of the baptism of fire. This judgment occurs immediately after the second advent. It is so mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 — “and to give relief to you who are afflicted along with us [says Paul], when our Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven [second advent] with his mighty angels in a blazing fire, dealing out judgment to those who do not know God, even to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Furthermore, these [unbelievers who survive the Tribulation] will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power,” they are excluded from the Millennium. They are in fire in Hades until they are removed.

5. There are three parables which are very pertinent to this judgment. The parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13; the parable of the good and the bad fish in Matthew 13; the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-13.

6. The punishment area of the baptism of fire. We have studied this recently in the doctrine of Hades. The location is the compartment of Sheol or Hades known as torments, a place where all unbelievers wait in fire for the administration of the last judgment.

7. The analogy to the baptism of fire is found in Matthew chapter 24:36-41. There is an exact parallel between the days of Noah and the second advent of Christ. When Christ returns to the earth it will be exactly like the days of Noah. In the days of Noah unbelievers were removed from the earth, they were immersed in water; in the day of Christ unbelievers will be removed from the earth, they will be immersed in fire.

There are some very technical passages on the baptism of fire for Jewish unbelievers. They are found in Isaiah 1:25-27; Ezekiel 20:34-38; Malachi 3:1-16; 4:1,2.

There is also a technical passage on the baptism of fire for Gentile unbelievers found in Matthew 25:31-46.

The role of the baptism of fire in the motivation of Jews in the Church Age is found in Hebrews 12:27-29, “And this [referring to Haggai 2:6], ‘Yet once more,’ denotes the removal of those things which are shaken [unbelievers of the Tribulation are shaken by the judgment of the baptism of fire], like the removal of a discarded thing [they are discarded from the earth] in order that ones not being shaken [believers who survive the Tribulation] might remain [for the Millennium]. Therefore, because we have received to ourselves an unshakeable kingdom [royal family in the Church Age] let us hang on to grace [the logistical grace provision of the divine dynasphere], through which we might render acceptable service to God with reverence and respect,” only in the divine dynasphere, “for our God is a consuming fire [reference to the baptism of fire].”

The applications of the baptism of fire: the importance of believing in Christ, the vindication of the integrity of our Lord Jesus Christ as in revelation 19:11, “ … Faithful and True; furthermore, in justice he executes judgment and makes war,” the execution of judgment is the baptism of fire. The baptism of fire is necessary for the beginning of a new civilisation. A civilisation is the divine protection of the human race in its perpetuation during the human phase of the angelic conflict. Regarding termini the civilisation begins with the believers only and terminates with a saturation of unbelievers and great cataclysmic judgment. In the terminating historical judgment God destroys the entire human race except for the believers on the earth. Furthermore, each civilisation in human history has its own climate, its own environment and variations within the species but never transmutation of species. In each civilisation man has a different life span, and animals vary within their species. That is, a horse remains a horse and does not become a horse-cow or a horse with wings like Pegasis.

There are four civilisations in human history: the antediluvian, the post-diluvian, the Millennial and the eternal. The antediluvian began with Adam plus Eve, two believers; the post-diluvian civilisation began with believers only, Noah plus his family. In the Millennial civilisation begins with believers only. The eternal civilisation there are believers only.