Revelation 15:1 - I saw in heaven another great and marvellous sign

15:1

We are now back to judgements with the seven last plagues. The verse makes explicit that these will be the last plagues “because with them God’s wrath is completed”. So there is something different about them. We should note that here in the last book of the Bible we have the wrath of God. We should also note that Jesus was quite happy to speak about the wrath of God, as is the whole of the Bible. Many today don’t like to speak about the wrath of God. If you are one of those, then you should be aware that your attitude is completely unbiblical (hint - you need to change your mind). People waste their time arguing against the wrath of God. This is a futile exercise, and a not very helpful one. Should we want people to suffer the wrath of God? No, and neither does God Himself! (Ezek 18:23). Instead of arguing against the wrath of God it is far better for us to spend our time praying that the people will repent, for God delights when people repent and live.

Daniel 8:26,27 - It concerns the distant future

8:26,27

Daniel is told two things. First he is told that the vision is true, Then he is also told to seal up the vision, to prevent it from being misused. Why? It concerns the distant future. This has relevance to the authorship debate. The direct historical events would happen hundreds of years in the future if, as is the case, the book was written in the sixth century BC. If it was written in the second century BC it doesn’t make a great deal of sense. The vision had a severe effect on Daniel, meaning he was exhausted for several days. He got on with his work, but he was appalled at what he had seen in the vision.

Revelation 14:15-20 - The earth was harvested

14:15,16

The “son of man” has a sickle and a crown and is told that it is time to reap for the harvest is ready. Jesus told His disciples that the harvest was ripe, and to ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out many workers (Luke 10:2). So the message of this vision is that although times are difficult, the harvest is ready, and it is part of the duty of the church to bring in the harvest. We can always find excuses not to bring the harvest in, and we find it difficult to believe that there even is a harvest to bring in. But there is a harvest, and we will bring it in.

14:17-20

In the previous three verses we have had the “good” harvest, the harvest of people for salvation. Now we have the “bad” harvest, the wrath of God being poured out on the earth. It should be noted that there are a variety of views on exactly how these all hang together here. The “sickle” of salvation, if I can put it like that, is effective, but so is the sickle of judgement. It should be noted that we, the church, are involved in the harvest of salvation. We are not involved in the harvest of judgement, vengeance belongs to the Lord! (Jer 46:10; Rom 12:19). However, we need to take the wrath of God seriously, for the Bible certainly does! This can also be seen in part as an answer to the cry in Rev 7:3-5. We need to realise that salvation and judgement are going on at the same time. 

Daniel 8:23-25 - He will cause deceit to prosper

8:23,24

Jesus said “there will be wars and rumours of wars”. Intrigue, conspiracies, rebellions and power struggles are all a perpetual part of the human condition. Here we read of there being rebels, and the rebels becoming increasingly wicked. Antiochus IV began his infamous rule in 175 BC and first entered the temple in 169 BC. “A master of intrigue will arise”, Antiochus was an example of this, but there have been many more throughout history. Behind him will be a power that is not his own. There are rulers who are just plain evil, but there are others who are “extra evil”. Mussoline was an evil ruler in Italy, but he was just common or garden evil. Hitler was different, there was something demonic about him and his reign. For a time this ruler will succeed in all he does, and will destroy the “holy people”. Hitler, of course, is a prime example of this.

8:25

“He will cause deceit to prosper”. A symptom of evil rule is that truth dies. It happened in Nazi Germany, it happened in Communist Russia (the Soviet Union) and happens in Communist China. It happens in the woke West. “He will consider himself superior”, this is true of all dictators. “He will destroy many”. Evil dictators never last, but they do immense damage in the time that they do rule. “Take his stand against the Prince of princes”. Pride will so get hold of him that he will not be content with attacking God’s people, he will set himself up against God Himself. “Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power”. These dictators never last. He became strong “not by his own power”, and he will be destroyed not by human power, but by God. As it says in 2 Thess 2:8 “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming.”.

Revelation 14:13,14 - Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord

14:13

We now get a promise, and it comes from a voice from heaven. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on”. So it is not a “nice” promise. Revelation, along with the rest of the New Testament, does nothing to minimise the nature nor intensity of the battle. Some would die for the Lord. Some would die because they refused to worship the beast. But those who die for the faith are blessed. They are living in God’s favour. This is consistent with Jesus’ words on the beatitudes that we are blessed when we are persecuted. “They will rest from their labour”. Revelation calls on us to have a very different attitude than the world encourages us to have. We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. In fact what we have here is Romans 12:1,2 in action. We offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, we do not conform to the ways of the world.

14:14

We now see someone seated on a white cloud who was like a “son of man”. Now there are issues here on how we interpret “son of man”. “Son of Man” was the term that Jesus often used to refer to Himself, with some reference to the figure in Daniel 7. However, “son of man” can be used in the sense of referring to the humanity of someone, as was the case in Ezekiel where he is frequently addressed as “son of man”. Then the “son of man” here is given a command by an angel, which doesn’t seem to quite fit with the “son of man” being Jesus. So we will go with the “son of man” here being a term addressed to the church, though being aware that we cannot be absolutely certain about this.

Daniel 8:18-22 - I am going to tell you what will happen

8:18,19

Daniel was in a deep sleep while he was seeing this vision. The messenger touched him and raised him to his feet. It doesn’t say if he actually woke him up, but this would seem to be the implication of him being “raised to his feet”. He was going to explain the message to Daniel and Daniel needed to be alert. “I am going to what will happen later in the time of wrath”. We live in the time of wrath. Romans 1:18 says that the God of wrath is being revealed... We tend not to like the idea of God’s wrath, and our response is often to try and argue God’s wrath away, or to ignore it. Neither of these approaches are sensible, God’s wrath is real whether we like it or not. We are far better to try and understand it, otherwise we will never understand God nor be able to make sense of the world.

8:20-22

Here we have a key difference between Daniel and Revelation. In Daniel in some of the visions specific kingdoms are named, in Revelation that is not the case.  So he is told that the two horned ram represents the kings of Media and Persia. The shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn is the first king. This is Alexander the Great. After he died four kingdoms arose. None of them had the same power as the original kingdom.

Revelation 14:11,12 - The smoke of torment will rise for ever and ever

14:11

This verse continues with a description of the consequences for those who “worship the beast and its image, or receive the mark of its name”. “The smoke of the torment will rise for ever and ever”. Let’s just suppose for a moment that annihilationism is true, what are you going to do in the light of that knowledge? It can only mean that you would be more likely to sin, less likely to be concerned about the eternal destiny of others. These are not attitudes that the Bible encourages! So you don’t like the idea of hell? We are not meant to like the idea of hell!

14:12

This is the second time we have had “this calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God” (Rev 13:10). So what is the context of this call? It is the world demanding that its people worship the beast. This call will not simply go away, there is a battle to be fought, and one which will involve enduring suffering. And who are God’s people? It is those who keep His commands and remain faithful to Jesus.  There is a consistent emphasis on obeying God, see Matt 7:21. Obedience matters.