Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Study of the Book of Revelation

I have been working through a study of the Book of Revelation with my Wednesday night Middle School bible study group.  After spending a couple of weeks going over the letters to the churches in chapter 1-3 I covered Chapters 4-5 last week which set the stage for John's apocalyptic visions of the end of time.  Beginning with chapter 6 I plan on using the following timeline from this site.  All about Popular Issues has produced a pretty good timeline with citations that I'm going to use as a guideline for reading and teaching.  For tonight I'm going to cover:


  • The First Seal (Revelation 6:1-2), likely the coming of the antichrist.

  • The Beasts and Mark of the Beast (Revelation chapter 13), the antichrist enforces loyalty.

  • The 144,000 (Revelation chapter 7:1-8), evangelists sent out into the world.



  • The First Seal is opened, "1 Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, "Come!"2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer." (Revelation 6:1-2)  The "Lamb" is Christ, as we learned in chapters 4-5.  At the opening of the Seal the command, "Come" is given and a rider on a white horse comes forward with a bow.  It is commonly thought that this is the antichrist who will conquer the world and reign over it.  This also most likely lines up with the last week of Daniel's 70 weeks and with the "Prince who is to come." (Daniel 9:27)


    The Beasts and the Mark of the Beast are introduced in chapter 13.  There are dozens, if not hundreds of possible interpretations for this chapter, so I will just give the most basic interpretations.  The first Beast that rises from the sea with 10 horns and 7 heads is commonly held to be the anticrist and the dragon who gives him authority is Satan.  The second Beast rises from the land and has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon.  This is generally thought to be the false prophet.  This false prophet will perform miracles and lead worship of the first Beast.  The mark of the Beast is given to us as 666, a human number, repeated three times, perhaps representing humanism/secular philosophy.


    In chapter 7 we have the 144,000 sealed with a mark on their foreheads.  This also can be interpreted many ways both literally and figuratively.  From my reading this group is generally considered to be the remainder of the Church on earth.  This seal is the antithesis of the mark of the Beast.

    That's a quick overview and a very surface level look at this section of the Book of Revelation.  I look forward to teaching this tonight.

    5 comments:

    1. That sounds great! I love teaching the Book of Revelation! We're getting closer. Love your blog, check mine out if you have a second:
      Jer2911-truth.blogspot.com. God Bless!!

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    2. Thanks for the comment, I'll check it out.

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    3. A great reflection of the Book of Revelation. I'm curious to read more of your thoughts on the interpretations and significance.

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    4. The Sovereign Lord God, Psalms 2:4-5, is operating to bring forth a New Europe, where the Sovereign, Revelation 13:5-10, and his banking partner, the Seignior, Revelation 13:11-18, will rule over a federal Europe, with fiscal rule and fiscal sovereignty coming through a fiscal union, and the ECB or the Bundesbank, empowered a federal bank.

      The ten toes of regional global governance presented in Daniel 2:31-33, being mired in the iron of diktat and clay of democracy, will eventually crumble, and the Sovereign and the Seignior will eventually rise to rule the world, and install a one world government, Daniel 7:7, a one world currency, and provide global seigniorage, Revelation 13:17-18.

      The Sovereign’s rise to power will come via the first horseman of the apocalypse, the rider on the white horse, carrying a bow, with no arrow fitted to it, Revelation 6:1-2, to effect a bloodless economic and political coup d etat, transferring sovereignty from nation states to regional authorities, where fiscal sovereignty in Europe resides in the EU ECB IMF Troika. Other horsemen will follow in his steps to assure that regional global governance rules over all of mankind, red symbolizing violence and war, black symbolizing starvation and misery, and pale symbolizing devolution and death. The first horseman has a single crown (Gk. stephanos) of victory, whereas in Revelation 19, Jesus has many crowns (Gk. diademata), signifying His sovereignty.

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    5. It takes very rich spirituality and cultural heritage in order to be able to interprete a book of this rank. I really like the prospective you treat this matter from and I beleive there will be people, who tower above the average level of intelligence that will appreciate your writing. Best Regards!

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