Bible Commentaries
Revelation 20

XVII

THE TRIUMPHANT HOLY WAR, INTRODUCING THE MILLENNIUM

Revelation 19:11-20:10

This is the last synchronous view in this book. The first one was from chapter Revelation 6:1-8:1, the gospel as preached to the end of time; the second one was from Revelation 8:2-11:19, the gospel as prayed to the end of time; the third one was from Revelation 12:1-19: 10, the conflict between the true church and the counterfeit church. Now, we have the fourth and last synchronous view; that is to say, the triumphant holy war that introduces the millennium. I am going to put this study in the form of a catechism.

1. Who is the hero of this war?

ANSWER. – Our Lord himself, as the chief captain of our salvation. Your lesson says: "And I saw the heavens open, and behold! a white horse; and he that sat thereon called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war." The other references to him we will note later.

2. What are his titles?

ANSWER. – With reference to his covenant-keeping with his people he is called Faithful and True. Whatever he says to his people is true, and to whatever promise he makes he is faithful: Faithful and True is his name, that refers to his people. With reference to the Father, his name is "Logos," or the word of God (see Revelation 19:13 of your lesson). With reference to the nations he is "King of kings and Lord of lords" (see Revelation 19:16 of your lesson). With reference to the angels he is Michael, the Prince. (See Revelation 12:7.) Now these are his titles in four directions: with reference to his people; with reference to the Father; with reference to the nations; with reference to the angels.

3. In the exercise of what office is he here represented?

ANSWER. – In his kingly office as a royal conqueror, judging and making war, on his head many crowns.

4. What is the distinction between his appearance on the white horse here, and his appearance on the white horse in chapter Revelation 6:2; both times there comes forth a white horse and rider?

ANSWER. – There, on the white horse (Revelation 6), his weapon was a bow, shooting arrows of conviction into individual hearts, as the gospel was preached, and that record says that a crown was given him. But here, on his head are many crowns, and his weapon is a sword of judgment, smiting nations and governments, not individuals. There the bow was used for the salvation of the hearer of the gospel. Here the sword is to make all nations bow to his supremacy as Lord.

5. Who constitute his armies, and how are they described?

ANSWER. – His armies are the saints, and they are described as clothed in fine linen, pure and white. I will ask you to recall that great war song, Psalm 110:

The Lord saith unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool; the law shall go forth from Zion, and in the day that thou leadest forth thine armies, thy young men shall be volunteers, going forth in the beauties of holiness and as multitudinous as the drops of the dew at the dawn of morning. – PSALM 110.

How aptly that applies here. I do not mean to say that Christ, in his body, is present on earth in this war; he is conducting the campaign from heaven, and his armies are to wage war here on this earth. I call your attention again to another pertinent Psalm: "The kings of the earth set themselves and take counsel together against the Lord and his anointed! Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion" (Psalms 2:2; Psalms 2:6), and Just exactly what he does here is ascribed to him in Psalm

2. The fine linen, pure and white, as I have explained to you in the lecture on the promises, expresses the righteousnesses of the saints, which they receive in justification, regeneration, and sanctification.

Now, here comes an important question: His people had a very active part in the overthrow of the counterfeit church, but

6. What part has his people in this war of judgment that we are now reading about?

ANSWER. – They have no executive part. We notice they carry no weapons; they have no part except declarative, and to be witnesses of his might.

7. How does this appear?

ANSWER. – From the Old Testament analogues and prototypes; for example: Israel bore no active part in the plagues of judgment sent upon Egypt; no part in the overthrow of Pharaoh’s host at the Red Sea. They were witnesses and the Lord fought the battle. They had no part in the overthrow of Sennacherib as set forth in 2 Kings 19:35. Now, in order that you may understand this war, and what part God’s people have in it, I will read you a description by George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron: The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when the Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset was seen: Like leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there roli’d not the breath of his pride: And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord I

– BYRON, "The Destruction of Sennacherib"

We are now studying one of the most important lessons in the book, a day in which God himself intervenes by extraordinary judgment. It appears also from the description of this very battle given in Isaiah 63; listen at this:

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from. Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness. Mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no man with me; yea, I trod them in mine anger, and trampled them in my wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment. For the days of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help. And I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my wrath it upheld me. And I trod down the peoples in mine anger, and made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood upon the earth. – Isaiah 63:1-6.

Now, this is an exact prophetic description of the hero in this war as set forth in this chapter; the references are to precisely the same event. We notice that he is just as much alone in the sending of the judgment in this terrible war as he was alone when he sent the angel of death to pass over the hosts of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria.

8. What, then, the supreme lesson of our passage?

ANSWER. – God’s government of the nations and judgments on them to enforce their acknowledgment of his supremacy.

9. How did he once enforce this lesson on Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar?

ANSWER. – 1 think I had better quote that for you; it is an old lesson that he is giving. I will quote from Daniel 5 (Daniel is interpreting to Belshazzar the handwriting on the wall) :

O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar, thy father, the kingdom and greatness and glory and majesty; and because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples, nations and languages trembled and feared before him; whom he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; whom he would he raised up, and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him; and he wag driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beast, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; he was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; until he knew that the most high God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that he setteth up over it whomsoever he will, and thou, Belshazzar, hast seen that lesson and hast not regarded it, and thou hast despised the God of heaven and of law. This handwriting comes out over thy wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. It means that thy kingdom is divided; it is measured to the Medes and Persians; thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting. – Daniel 5:18-27.

Now, what he did in that case to Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar he is about to assert in this great battle of the nations.

10. Under whose leadership have human governments denied the supremacy of God?

ANSWER. – Under the leadership of the devil, who usurped the kingdom of this world, and who shapes the policies of worldly governments and municipalities.

11. Since the preceding chapter disposes of the counterfeit church forever, why do the beast and the false prophet appear in this lesson? This is a very important question.

ANSWER. – The beast is that upon which the counterfeit church rode, and it was the false prophet that made the people worship the image of the beast. Now, as the counterfeit church is disposed of before this event here, how is it that the beast and the false prophet appear here, and are taken and are cast into the lake of fire?

My answer is that, as was explained to you repeatedly, the beast is a politico-religious government, a union of church and state, and as such was not confined to Romanism; many Protestant kingdoms are just that way. Germany is that way now, Austria is that way now, England is that way now. There is a union of church and state, and that is the beast here. The woman in purple and scarlet is not riding him, but some other ecclesiasticism is riding him. Now, the one thing that goes down in this war, that never re-appears again in human history, is the union of church and state, and the consequent persecution of the saints. That kind of government God does not favor, unless it is his own theocracy, with him as the king, and the sole judge of what is religion.

It is impossible for me to make you understand, in so brief a space, what a tremendous impediment to the progress of the kingdom of Jesus Christ has been the union of church and state. We had it even here in this country in Colonial times. Within a few miles of where the battle of Lexington was fought, and near the time of that battle, the sheriff came and sold the choice acres out of the garden, or the fields of the Baptists in that community, put it up at auction at forced sale, in order to obtain funds to build a church for another denomination, that had few members in the community. And even John Adams said to Isaac Backus, the great Baptist historian, when he went to him and asked him to urge Massachusetts to allow freedom of conscience: "You might as well expect to see the sun rise in the west and set in the east, as to expect Massachusetts to tolerate anything but state religion."

We had it in Virginia: Some of the most distinguished Baptists were imprisoned, their property confiscated, and Patrick Henry, when defending one of them, read the indictment: "Indicted for preaching the glorious gospel of the blessed God." The way he said that shook the union of church and state in Virginia.

Now, in this war, the war that we are now studying, that beast of the union of church and state is taken and cast into hell forever never to reappear. In the same way the false prophet is taken, and false prophets are not limited to Papacy. The Archbishop of Canterbury may be a false prophet just as well as the Pope. When he was over here some months ago, visiting the United States, a number of distinguished ladies and gentlemen called upon him and asked him when he got back home to let the people alone to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences; he gave slight heed to their petitions. The Greek church, in Russia and the Balkan States, is also a national religion. They fill the world with protest against the Turk for oppressing their religion, but show no toleration to people more evangelical than themselves. Now, that is why the beast and the false prophet appear here.

12. What is the occasion of this gathering of the nations to battle with the Lamb, and distinguish between this conflict and the war of Har-Magedon, which we have recently diseased?

ANSWER. – In the war of Har-Magedon the Romanist church, as an institution, was destroyed, many kings and governments assisting in her destruction; but the prelude of this war is the return of the Jews into the Holy Land from every nation where they have been dispersed, and the nations are just as jealous of their restoration to and possession of that land, as they were jealous of the Romanist supremacy, and they gather their armies together for the destruction of the Jews and the retaking of the Holy Land.

That man is blind who cannot see the march of modern events: the railroad that Germany is building into the Holy Land; the eye of England and every other nation is fixed upon that most strategic position in all the East, to wit: The eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Those thundering Bulgarian guns that are today shaking the foundations of Constantinople are but a step toward Jerusalem, and the time will come when God’s many ancient prophecies will be fulfilled: He will gather his people out of all the nations whither they have been dispersed; he will assemble them in their own land; and when assembled there, with their unprecedented wealth, holding the strategical position of the East, the nations will remember their enmity to the Jews. This is the only country in the world that has not persecuted the Jew, this United States. And there will be a gathering of the powers to destroy the Jew and recapture that land. The Jews are unable to withstand the armies of the nations, then comes the rider on the white horse. Then comes Jehovah where these nations are assembled in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and by divine interposition two things happen: The Jews are converted in one day, the whole nation is born in a day, and the judgment of God, just as it fell upon the hosts of Sennacherib, falls upon the gathered armies of the nations, and destroys them.

13. Why, in a previous chapter, were certain Old Testament and New Testament prophecies grouped with the HarMagedon war, and here applied differently?

ANSWER. – I thought some of you understood me by this time; frequently I put in a catch question. I designedly mixed up the grouping of those passages to provoke independent investigation. You have only to turn back to Revelation 14 for that mixed grouping of Har-Magedon. I wanted you to see for yourselves the difference on the issues between the conflict of the counterfeit church with the true church at Har-Magedon, and this great battle for the salvation of the Jews.

14. What passages, then, in both Testaments, are now grouped as belonging to the holy war of this lesson?

ANSWER. – There is no catch in the question this time. I will give you the passages that bear upon your lesson: Isaiah 63:1-6: "Who is this that cometh out of Edom with dyed garments?" etc. I will quote the other passage from Isaiah, a continuation of the same subject all through the rest of the book of Isaiah. I quote from Isaiah 66, following that war (I preached on this at the Convention in Houston): "Whoever heard of such a thing; who hath ever seen such a thing: shall a land be born in one day? shall a nation be brought forth at once? for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children." That connects with this battle, in which the hero has the dyed garments sprinkled with blood.

Then, in Ezekiel 36:22-25; Ezekiel 36:37, I will quote, substantially, the pertinent part:

Not for your sakes will I do this, but for my own name sake will I do it, which name you have profaned among nations where you have been dispersed; I will gather you out of all the nations where you have profaned my name, into your own land, and then I will sprinkle the water of purification upon you, and you shall be clean, from all your idols and all your filthiness will I cleanse you; and I will take away your stony heart and give you a heart of flesh, I will put my spirit within you, and then you will keep my commandments and do them.

Ezekiel 37 shows a great valley full of dry bones, representing all the dispersed fragments of Israel, and the question is propounded: "Can these dry bones live?" And the prophet says: "Thou knowest"; and God says: "Prophecy over these dry bones." "What shall I prophesy?" "Prophesy this: Come, Oh Spirit, from the four ends of the earth, and breathe upon these slain," and the Spirit came, and they lived and stood up, a mighty army. And this, says the prophet, is the restoration of the whole house of Israel.

All of Joel 3 refers to this war. He says:

I will gather all the nations together against you, when I have assembled you in my own land, I will gather them in the valley of Jehoshaphat; multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. And I will say: Put in the sickle and reap the vintage; and fill up the winevat, and I will tread out the winevat until all my garments are stained with blood.

Then in Zechariah 12 it is said:

I will gather my people in the last day out of all the nations, and in that day I will pour out upon them the spirit of grace and supplication, and they shall look upon him whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his firstborn son; it shall be a great mourning, every family apart. And in that day a fountain shall be opened for sin, and for uncleanness, in Jerusalem.

And then in chapter 14 he goes on to describe the battle of the nations gathered against the Jews restored and converted, and all at once the lights go out. "Never was there such a day," says the prophet. "The sun is darkened, the moon is darkened, but at even time there shall be light, and there shall be an earthquake such as the earth never felt before, and Mount Olivet shall split wide open, and half shall go to the west and half to the east," and then he goes on to describe the millennium that follows.

And then (Rom. 11) Paul says that the Jews did not stumble that they might fall forever. You Gentiles were saved by their fall. Their coming back will be as the life from the dead, and so all Israel shall be saved when they look to their Saviour.

15. Now comes this question: Why are the vintage of Revelation 14:19, and the war of Revelation 19 classed with the prophecies promising the restoration of the Jews to their land, the war of the nations on them and the conversion of the Jews in one day?

ANSWER. – Because the prophet Joel predicts in express words that very vintage that we described in Revelation 14 of this book. And the prophet Isaiah draws the very picture of this hero conquering with his garments stained with blood, and commences it with the battle against the nations and tells of the salvation of the Jews; and because Peter says, speaking to the Jews: "Repent ye, so that your sins may be blotted out, and so that refreshings may come from his presence, and so that he may send Jesus whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restitution of all things." That shows that Peter makes the repentance and conversion of the Jews a condition precedent to the final advent of our Lord and his restoration of all things. I told you that there never could be a millennium until the Romanist church had passed away; and I now tell you that there never can be a millennium until the Jews are converted, and it will be the quickest, widest entrance into the gate of salvation that this world has ever seen, a whole nation in a day. Three thousand on the day of Pentecost were converted; that was only the offering of the first sheaf, the firstfruits, and if three thousand be one sheaf, what will the harvest be? Therefore, I say that the Christian ought not to long for Pentecostal times; keep your back turned on Pentecost, and look to the harvest ten thousand times bigger than Pentecost that is ahead of you.

16. What is meant by the binding of Satan?

ANSWER. – God’s power is exercised over this usurper that has held the earth six thousand years, or nearly all of that time, and he is determined that the earth shall have a sabbath, a thousand-year sabbath. As Satan has held it six thousand years, there shall be a thousand years of peace and salvation; the devil shall not cast a shadow over any man’s soul, nor press his cloven foot on any breaking heart, nor come with terrors to any dying man or woman, and shall not weave his spells of enchantment, and shall not beguile the nations, but he shall be chained and cast into the pit, and a rock placed over the mouth and sealed up for a thousand years. I will be glad when it comes. I want to tell you about the millennium; I want you to understand; you will be able to understand a great many strange scriptures when you comprehend the millennium.

What, then, is this war? It is a war of Jesus Christ against human governments, based on Satan’s power. Governments coming to thwart the promises of God by the destruction of the Jewish nation, in which the beast government goes down forever, and the false prophet forever, and Satan is bound for a thousand years, and all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ. And it is not so very far off. The world was four thousand years old when Christ came, and it is nearly two thousand years since he came. The devil’s time is nearly out; events are moving rapidly, ocean and air are navigated, telegraph wires long rusted with commercial and political lies shall shine with the transmission of messages of mercy and salvation.

The questions on this chapter are embodied in the text, as it was prepared in the form of a catechism.

Verses 4-6

XVIII

THE MILLENNIUM

Revelation 20:4-6

This particular study contains just three verses, Revelation 20:4-6. The theme is the millennium, but before defining it let us consider its precursors, the things that precede it and bring it about.

The first one we have found to be the downfall of the Romanist counterfeit church, symbolized first by the woman in purple and scarlet and second by the mystic Babylon. We found that, instrumentally, the downfall of this Romanist church was brought about by two agencies: First, the governments of the earth "shall hate the harlot and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire" (Revelation 17:16). The second agency: The saints, by preaching, teaching, and publishing the pure gospel, shall expose all of her heresies and idolatries (Revelation 12:11), and by their prayers they shall bring on her the judgment of God (Revelation 6:10; Revelation 8:3-5). That is the first precursor – the forerunner – of the millennium.

The second precursor: "The days of the Gentiles being fulfilled" (see Luke 22 and Luke 24), the Jews shall be gathered together out of all the nations where they have been dispersed, into their own land, and the nations shall gather together to make war on them, and then shall come the Jewish harvest of which Pentecost is only the firstfruits; the whole nation to be converted in one day. This conversion of the Jews occurs in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, of the gospel, and is accomplished through their conviction, repentance, faith, and regeneration, just exactly as our conversion was brought about, and if you have any doubt about it read carefully Ezekiel 36:22-27; Ezekiel 37:1-14, and you will see that the Jews are to be regenerated; that is, their souls cleansed by the application of the blood of Christ, and their spirits renewed within them just as yours are. And by reading Zechariah 12:9-13:1, you will see that the Spirit was poured out on them – the spirit of grace and supplication. They have mourning, or godly sorrow, they have their repentance, their faith in the one they pierced, and the fountain of cleansing is opened to them for sin and uncleanness, just as in your case. And then, if you will read Romans 11:15-31, you will see that the conversion of the Jews is brought about just like your own conversion. Let it be clear in your minds that when the Jews look upon him whom they have pierced, they see him not by sight in his final advent, but by faith on the cross as lifted up in preaching (see John 3:14-15; John 12:32; John 19:37). And being saved, they become the greatest of all missionaries.

What the Gentiles are doing for the spread of the gospel is nothing to what the Jews will do when they turn to the Lord. As Paul says, if their falling caused the Gentiles to be saved, their salvation will be as life from death. In Romans 11 he goes into ecstasy – sublime ecstasy – over the result of the conversion of the Jews.

Now, in the conversion of the Jews, we see no coming of the Messiah. On the contrary, Peter, in preaching to the Jews (Acts 3), says to them: "Repent and turn away [first] so that your sins may be blotted out; [second] so that refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; [third] so that he may send Jesus, whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restoration of all things." In other words, the salvation of the Jews must take place before Christ can come – that is one of the antecedent things – and as the salvation of the Jews was the last thing he discussed, bringing us up to the millennium, I am sure that we had not come to any final advent of our Lord.

Following their conversion, we saw that Jehovah smote the nations that had gathered to destroy them, and in his judgment on the nations the beast and the false prophet perished, and all governments contrary to God perished – swept away from the face of the earth. I do not very well see how the millennium could come with human governments constituted and run as they now are, I mean municipal governments like Fort Worth, New York City, New Orleans, San Antonio, Galveston, Houston, state governments, national governments, I do not see how it could come under such governments. Then there is a persecuting union of church and state in nearly all the governments of the world at the present time. Now, all these opposing elements to the kingdom of God must be broken down before the millennium can come; so that the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of God (Revelation 11:15), and as Daniel puts it: "The stone that Nebuchadnezzar saw come out of the mountain without hands" (and that was the fifth great world-empire) "and that stone [says Daniel] became a great mountain and filled the whole earth." Now, in this great war, in the conquest of the world from Satan, you are not to understand that our Lord on the white horse, the hero of the war, has come in his final advent, personally, visibly, palpably, tangibly, audibly. You may just as well say that when he first appeared on the white horse in Revelation 6 that that was his final advent. He is reigning in heaven, but his armies are fighting on the earth, as Psalm 110 explains to you.

We saw, as the last precursor of the millennium, the chaining and shutting up of Satan. You understand that this is a book of symbols. What is the symbolic meaning of the chaining of Satan? I do not suppose that a literal angel will put a literal chain on Satan, who is a spirit. But he is chained when all of his agencies are swept away. The church, and the faithful ministers in the preaching of this book, are to illuminate the world, and when the churches are faithful and multiply and fill the earth, and when the ministers preach only the true gospel, until, as Isaiah says, "the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord," the very prevalence of light dispels the darkness. So we have something to do in the chaining of Satan. As Paul says in Romans 16:20, "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly," according to the first promise in Genesis 3:15, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. His people must triumph over Satan; "they must [says Paul] put on the whole armour of God, that they may resist and overcome the devil" – the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the girdle of truth, their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God – and thus they bruise Satan under their feet. Or, as Peter puts it in his letter (1 Peter 5:8) : "Be sober, be vigilant, your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith." I repeat that Christ’s victory over Satan is empty unless we share it. The earth was made for man, the dominion was given to man (Genesis 1:26-28), but Satan, through man’s sin, usurped the sovereignty of the world and made it his kingdom, and now it must be rescued from him. "The saints [says Daniel] must possess the kingdom." The fulness of the Gentiles and the conversion of the Jews accomplish this object.

Keeping in mind these precursors to the millennium, we will now consider the millennium itself.

What, then, is the millennium? It is a Latin word which means a period of a thousand years, employed first to delimit the period of time that Satan is chained and sealed up so that he cannot come out to deceive the nations. That is, the saints shall possess the earth just as long as Satan is bound and shut up. It is a victory of the Spirit dispensation through the churches, the ministers and the gospel. It means that Satan has usurped the kingdom of the world for six millenniums, and that the earth shall have in time, and through the gospel, her sabbath millennium – that is, the seventh one – her thousand years of peace and rest and joy and gospel triumph, with no devil to tempt, seduce, beguile. He has been the author of every evil human government, whether municipal, state, or national. He is the author of every evil religion, all idolatries, all lying, all prostitution, all necromancy and witchcraft, all evil philosophies, all evil theories of life, all immoralities of conduct and life. From him have come strifes, wars, famines, pestilences, slavery of bodies and souls, disease, and death. From him all the monopolies and grinding of the poor for selfish greed. Now, imagine, if you can, what will be the increased population of the world in a thousand years under such conditions – no wars to kill off the people and eat up their substance; no pestilences like cholera, smallpox, the bubonic plague, no grinding poverty, and the churches all shining, and the preachers all shining, not a false note in their preaching; the whole earth subdued, the obstacles of nature overcome, every part of the earth brought under the dominion of man until one may live as comfortably at the North Pole as in the temperate zone or the tropics, with the air subdued so one may navigate it as safely as the seas below it – of course I mean by human inventions.

Under such conditions, with every latent force of nature developed and paying tribute, Texas alone could support a population of 250 millions easily. All the earth swept with revival power from continent to continent, many fold more people would be converted in that thousand years than ever lived on the earth, in the preceding six thousand years. Indeed, so great will be the majority of the saved over the lost, when you come to make up the totals, that the relative proportion of the lost will be about as those now in the jails and penitentiaries when compared to the outside population. Do not ever deceive yourself with the fear that the devil will get the majority of the human race. And all of this world illumination will be through the Holy Spirit, through the churches, the ministers, and the gospels, while Jesus reigns in heaven, and before his final advent. If you ever supposed that the Holy Spirit, Christ’s vicar on earth, would fail, then give up that supposition. If you ever entertained the notion that the gates of hell would prevail against the church which Jesus Christ established, give that up. If you ever supposed that a true ministry would altogether perish, and a pure gospel cease in the land, then give that up. This book of Revelation was given to teach one great truth – as shown in the first revelation in the book – that the whole world is to be lighted by the candlesticks and the stars, and Christ in walking among the candlesticks does not walk among them in person, but every time he speaks he says: "Hear ye what the Spirit says unto the churches." It is a ministration of the Spirit that accomplishes all these things. There will be a final, personal, glorious advent of our Lord – only let us wait until we get to it. We will come to it very soon now, but we must not look for it in connection with the millennium. There are just three verses on the millennium in the whole Bible, and not one of those three verses says a solitary word about the advent of Christ or about the resurrection of the body – not a syllable. If you think so, let us test you on it as we take it up.

Revelation 20:4, first clause. We want to find out about the living Christians, and that first clause gives it to us: "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them." Who sat upon thrones? What is the antecedent of that pronoun "they"? If you will look back to chapter 19, you will find who it is. It is that crowd of saints, in fine linen pure and white, who followed the Lord in his great campaign. What is the meaning of "they sat on these thrones"? It means that the good people are on top in every kind of government during the millennium – they are the mayors, the police, the sheriffs, the judges: they are the presidents, and if there are any kings, they are the kings. The rule has passed into the hands of the saints. The testimony of the prophets on that subject is express. I do not know anything more sublime, or more beautiful, than the testimony of the prophets to the sway in public matters of the saints in that time. I quote just two or three of these in order to show you what conditions prevail. Isaiah II has one of the finest passages in the Bible on the millennium. The whole chapter is devoted to our Lord:

And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; and the leopard shall lie down with the goat; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the oxen. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in my holy mountain, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea. – Isaiah 11:6-9.

Following the conversion of the Jews in one day in Isaiah 65 this language is used:

But ye be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people, and there shall be heard in her no more the voice of weeping and the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruits of them, not build for somebody else to inhabit, or plant for somebody else to eat, for as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my chosen, shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth to calamity, for they are the seed of the blessed of Jehovah. – Isaiah 65:18-23.

Then notice Isaiah 65:24: "And it shall come to pass that before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear." And he closes the book with: "And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before me, saith Jehovah, and they shall go forth and look upon the dead bodies of the men that have transgressed against me" – they shall contemplate the passing away of the destroying things.

Now you see that in this earth condition – an earth condition under a very favorable environment – life is prolonged. He takes away the diseases that come from the devil and that result through evil government, and the infant shall live to be a hundred years old, when no man shall cease to fill out his days; the sanitary conditions during the millennium will be such as this world has never before witnessed. They marry, they give in marriage; they do die – through that thousand years, the people are not immortal – but the conditions of life are very widely different. And the main thing is that the saints are on top – they are filling the offices; the earth is under their jurisdiction.

Now read the other half of that verse, and see the condition of the dead during the millennium. That is the next thing we want to find out. "And I saw the souls" – mark you, not the bodies, as some people would have it – "of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God [that is, the martyrs], and such as worshiped not the beast, neither the image of the beast, and received not the mark upon their foreheads nor upon their hands" – that is, I saw the souls of the righteous dead, and "they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." Where is Christ? He is in heaven reigning, and these souls of the righteous dead live with him and reign with him. That has been promised all through the book.

We find out about the wicked dead directly, but just now we are on the righteous dead. What is their condition during the millennium days? Their state is called the first resurrection: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection."

Why is that changed condition of the righteous dead called a resurrection? Let me make one thing very plain to you: the word "resurrection" is not limited to the body. In Ezekiel 37, the conversion of the Jews, their regeneration, is set forth in the imagery of a physical resurrection, and yet it is a conversion that is discussed. But the symbolism is as if the bones of the dead were coming together, but the meaning of it is, as expressly given, the salvation of the Jews, as we have just discussed.

Now (in Revelation 2:1) Paul uses the same symbolism. He says that their very conversation is brought about by the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead: "you hath he quickened," – to quicken means to make alive, and yet that making alive does not refer to the body; it refers to our conversion. In John 5:25-29, our Lord speaks of two resurrections: one spiritual, meaning regeneration; and one physical, referring to the body. Spurgeon has a great sermon on the spiritual resurrection. Indeed, so common was the idea of counting regeneration a resurrection that certain heretics at Corinth and Ephesus maintained that it was the only resurrection, denying altogether the resurrection of the body (see 1 Corinthians 15:12; 2 Timothy 2:18).

I am simply proving to you from these examples that there may be a resurrection that is spiritual, and not physical. But what is here called the "first resurrection" is not regeneration. While spiritual, it is another kind. Now, it is my business and duty to show you the meaning of the first resurrection in this passage – whatever it means, it has no reference to the body – and I know exactly how to do it. The correct interpretation of the two passages in this book will clarify the whole matter. Both refer to the souls of the saints; the second presents such a happy change from the condition of the first it may well be called a resurrection. The first passage is:

And when he opened the fifth seal I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and the testimony which they held, and they cried with a great voice, saying: How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given them to each one a white robe; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little time, and their fellow-servants also and their brethren, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled their course.– Revelation 6:9-11.

My contention is that in this state of the righteous dead they are, in a figurative sense, not living. That is, (1) their martyrdom seems to be a failure. Their lives go out in darkness, and the enemy triumphs over the tragedy. (2) Their works do not follow them. It is not apparent and demonstrable that they have won a victory, because they are not avenged. God’s justice seems to be sleeping. The victorious malice of their enemies seems to be accepted by the world as the will of God. They pass into history as convicted and executed felons.

Now consider the next passage (Revelation 14:8-13). Here the mystic Babylon, the Romanist counterfeit church, which put them to death, is judged. She drinks the cup of God’s undiluted wrath; the martyrs are avenged and vindicated. The reproach is lifted from the tragic ending of their lives. They become the heroes instead of the felons of history. Hence Revelation 14:13: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow with them." That is, when God has avenged them and their enemies are fallen, there is a great change in public opinion, in the historic judgment, as to their place in the house of fame. To die in the Lord now is not to pass under a cloud – it is a triumphant ascension into glory and light. The change is so great it is called a resurrection. "They live and reign with Christ a thousand years." The principles for which they died are now triumphant. Judgment upon those who put them to death is to them as life from the dead; it is represented as a resurrection, and this is the only place in the Bible where the term "first resurrection" is used, and it is expressly declared to be a resurrection of souls and not of the body. The principles that they advocated are triumphant – they have swept over the world.

"The rest of the dead" – the rest of the dead means the wicked dead. They do not so live in that time. They are under no such favorable conditions; their works do not follow them in the millennium. Their day is now. The wicked man is yet on top; it looks like he has accomplished his purposes, the righteous are trampled under foot; the methods of the wicked seem to be wise now because they prevail. But not so in the millennium. The millennium time must pass away before the rest of the dead shall be alive. If, then, "the first resurrection" is this triumphant vindication of God, what is "the second resurrection"? It must be in kind like the first. It comes at the end of the millennium, when the thousand years are finished and Satan is loosed. The wicked dead now live and reign with Satan. During his "little season" of triumph, they appear to come from under the cloud of adverse judgment. It is a common figure of speech. We speak of the dark ages of ignorance, and the subsequent revival of letters, arts) and the sciences. This revival is called "Renaissance" or new birth, or revival of anything which has long been in decay or desuetude. So in millennium times the souls of the righteous have their Renaissance, but when Satan is loosed again the wicked dead have their Renaissance.

Evidently, then, the second resurrection is when the rest of the dead live – referring to their souls and not their bodies, and it is distinctly stated that they will live just as soon as this thousand years ends, and they do live just as soon as Satan is loosed and goes forth to deceive the nations again. Now, you see there are two resurrections – both of them souls – one a resurrection of the souls of the righteous dead, and the other of the souls of the wicked.

Alford, in his commentary, refers to the passage "This is the first resurrection," and classifies it with the resurrection of bodies in Revelation 20:12-13, and adds in a triumphant way, that we cannot by any sound rules of interpretation make the first spiritual and the second physical. His error is in classification. The resurrection in Revelation 20:12-13, is not the correspondent to the "first resurrection" in Revelation 20:6. The correspondent to the first resurrection must come immediately after the thousand years are finished, when Satan is loosed. That, like the first, will be a spiritual resurrection. The resurrection of bodies in Revelation 20:12-13, comes not when Satan is loosed, but after his last war campaign is ended. His logic would be good if he did not make a mix-up in his premises. I am willing to risk whatever reputation I have on the soundness of my interpretation of this difficult passage. I say to Mr. Alford that neither the first nor the second resurrection is of the body – they are both of souls. There is not a word in these three verses about the millennium that tells about the coming of Christ, or about the bodily resurrection of anybody.

Commencing at least in the latter part of the second century, and particularly in the third century, there were a number of people called Chiliasts – that means the same in Greek that millennium means in Latin – thousand-year people. These Chiliasts taught that the first resurrection here was a physical resurrection, and that Christ came to bring about the millennium in his final advent, and that the millennium was to be Christ’s kingdom on earth, with Christ personally and visibly reigning over the Jews in Jerusalem, and through the Jews ruling the entire Gentile world. Christ rejected that view in his lifetime. The Jews would have made him king at that time joyfully, and so triumphed over the Romans and the rest of the world. He refused that view: "My kingdom is not of this world."

It would be a tremendous anticlimax, if the view of the kingdom that Christ rejected in his lifetime as unworthy, be accepted as the culmination, renewing all the old temple worship and the old types of ceremonies that were nailed to the cross of Christ and taken out of the way. On account of this teaching of the Chiliasts in the latter part of the second century and in the third century, a great many people began to reject the book of Revelation. And even now, if you accept that view, people will reject the book. Some of the best men living in the third and fourth centuries rejected the book because of the view the Chiliasts had put upon the millennium.

And what was their view? Their view was that Christ had no kingdom at all on the earth until the millennium came, and then he would come and set up his kingdom here upon this earth. They virtually taught that the Spirit dispensation would fail – the churches would fail – the gospel would fail – and the world would get worse and worse, until there would be just a handful living when Christ came, and that he would by his coming in the millennium convert the most of the people that are to be converted in this world, and by a different instrumentality.

Now, you may rest assured that whenever he does come the vicarship of the Holy Spirit ceases; you may rest assured that when he does come the administration of the churches ceases; you may rest assured that when he does leave heaven, intercession ceases. Whenever the High Priest comes out of the holy of holies, never to return again, there can be no more intercession for man. In other words, not a man, woman, or child can be converted after Christ’s return. The only people ever saved will be converted during the dispensation of the Spirit, the administration of the churches and the preaching of the glorious gospel – and these instrumentalities of salvation will never be changed. The plan of salvation is one plan and not two or three plans – not a few people saved through the churches and the Holy Spirit, and then a great body of people saved through some other instrumentality after Christ comes. When we come to the final advent, I will submit to your judgment the scriptures that support my view as to why he comes, when he comes, what he is to do when he comes – but we have not come to that yet. We know that he has not come yet because the man of sin, that Paul speaks about, is to be destroyed by his advent. We have not come to that man of sin yet, but we will get to him in the next chapter.

QUESTIONS

1. What the precursors to the millennium?

2. What the meaning of the word?

3. How much space does the Bible give to the millennium?

4. Is this small account in literal or symbolic language?

5. In interpreting these three verses of symbolism, should they dominate the general trend of a plain literal teaching concerning our Lord’s advent, or should the trend of literal teaching interpret them?

6. What the meaning of the first clause of Revelation 20:4, particularly the "they"?

7. Cite three passages from Isaiah bearing on this time.

8. Is this result brought about ill the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, while our Lord is yet in heaven, and through the churches, ministry, and gospel?

9. Will the saints in millennial times be marrying and producing children?

10. Will these children be subject to inherited depravity, and needing regeneration?

11. What the advantages to children born in millennial times?

12. What distinction is drawn between righteous dead and the wicked dead during the millennial period?

13. Is there any reference in these three verses to Christ’s final advent, or to a resurrection of bodies?

14. If "the first resurrection" denotes a change in the status of the souls of the righteous dead, show from this book what the change is.

15. Illustrate from history how this change may be called a revival or resurrection.

16. When, according to these three verses, comes the "second resurrection," or the revival of the souls of the wicked, and what does that mean?

17. What capital mistake does Alford make in interpreting this passage?

18. According to this book of Revelation, does the ministry of the Holy Spirit fail, the churches fail, the gospel fail, and the world get worse and worse till Christ’s final advent?

19. How, probably, will the millennium affect the world population and the relative number of the saved and lost?

Verses 7-10

XIX

THE LOOSING OF SATAN FOR A LITTLE SEASON

AND HIS FINAL DESTRUCTION

Revelation 20:7-10

The text we are to study is as follows:

And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war: the number of whom is as the sands of the sea. And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city, and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night forever.

1. What is the loosing of Satan? We have seen the part in the binding of Satan borne by the saints, which suggests something of the meaning of the loosing of Satan. We are not denying the overruling divine power in the binding or loosing, but God works through agencies. If the churches and the ministers by their evangelical preaching be the agencies to restrict and shut up Satan, it is certain that carelessness, deterioration in piety, abating of revival power, will tend to loose him again. Toward the end of the thousand years the Christians may become slack in their exercise of power, may take things for granted, the workers and the evangelists grow cold, which gives Satan his long sought opportunity to renew the war.

2. After the thousand years of supremacy, the earth full of knowledge of the Lord, how does Satan find material on which to work?

ANSWER. – This question would not need to be answered if everybody understood just what the millennium is. It is not a period of absolute sinlessness, there is no cessation of the power of inherited depravity in the millennium period; all people are not converted, but the Christian spirit is dominant, they are on the throne. Moreover, generation is not regeneration, nor is piety hereditary. If every adult in the world were converted at one time, their children would not thereby be regenerated, and so in twenty years, half the population of the world would not be converted. Yet again, while the saints had the power and influence, evil would not dare to lift its head, yet it might hold itself in readiness for revolt. It is the outside rows of corn, next to the woods, that are squirrel-eaten. Our lesson tells that it is in four distant corners of the world that Satan begins his work after he is loosed. The advantage of the millennium consists largely in freedom from external solicitation to evil, temptation from Satan. In the last chapter I called your attention to what he had done from the outside to seduce unto evil, that is removed. The unrenewed nature of the unconverted is there, every child born during the millennium is born in sin. A man being a Christian does not make his children children of grace, but the environment will increase the probabilities of conversion. Suppose, for instance, every civil officer in Fort Worth a Christian, and every officer’s duties performed with a view to the glory of God, and there were no saloons, no gambling houses, no houses of ill-fame, it certainly would be a much more favor-able condition in which to lead souls to Christ than it is now.

3. What the historical meaning of Gog and Magog?

ANSWER. – We find in Genesis 10 that Magog was a descendant of Japhet, and from Ezekiel that Gog of the land of Magog settled in Central Asia, and his people lived around the Caspian Sea. They became known to history as Scythians, Tartars, or Parthians, the most turbulent of all the nations. In Ezekiel 38-39 it is predicted at length that, after the conversion of the Jews described in Ezekiel 31-37, Gog, from the land of Magog, will lead a countless host against Jerusalem, the Christian camp. Two whole chapters are devoted to it, and that he shall be overthrown by the power of God. It is this Ezekiel prophecy which furnishes the symbolism of our lesson.

In their inaccessible territory, the people of the land of Magog would be the last to come under the influence of the millennial power, and they would be tlie first to revolt against that power. Europe and America would most feel the millennial power; certain interior Oriental nations, most remote from travel, traffic, and from the power of civilization and the centers of Christian influence, if we adhere to the strict terms here, will furnish Satan with the material for his last revolt. There has always been hanging over Europe and its civilization a yellow peril. Tamerlane once came very near destroying European civilization. He captured the Sultan of Turkey, who sought to withstand him, and asked him: "What would you have done with me if you had captured me?" The Sultan said: "I would have put you in a cage and exhibited you alive." "Then that is what I will do with you," said Tamerlane. But as Ezekiel and Revelation prophetically refer to the same event, using symbolic language, it may well be that both use the terms "Gog and Magog" to image the character of the last human opponents to the kingdom of God without intent to fix geographical boundaries. The real Babylon of ancient history was on the Euphrates) but the mystic Babylon was on the Tiber. So historically "Gog and Magog" were in Central Asia, but the mystical Gog and Magog may come from some other locality.

4. What takes place among the dead at the loosening of Satan?

ANSWER. – As when the Christian was supreme, and all persecutions were avenged, the righteous dead were, in a figure, said to be made alive, and to live and reign with Christ during that thousand years, and as this revival is called a resurrection, so when Satan returns to power the rest of the dead, that is, the wicked dead, in the same figurative sense, shall live and reign with Satan until his final overthrow, and this is the second spiritual resurrection of the lesson, and this will follow immediately after the close of the thousand years; the rest of the dead shall not live until the thousand years are over.

5. What, probably, the last device of Satan for the conquest of the world?

ANSWER. – He has tried heathen persecution by a counterfeit church; he has tried to destroy national Israel ever since to them were given the covenants and promises, but God has preserved them throughout history, and he has now converted them and merged them into a spiritual Israel. Satan has tried to palm off on the people, the Jewish people, false Christs in the place of the true Christ who was born at Bethlehem. Our Saviour, in his great prophecy recorded in Matthew 24-25, tells about these false Christs. Now, there remains only one more possible impostor. He will admit that Jesus was the historical Messiah and that he ascended into heaven, but he will find a person, incarnate himself in that person, and claim that this person is the long-expected Messiah, who ascended unto heaven and promised to return, and for whose final advent the whole world is looking. He will accredit this impostor with many lying signs and wonders, and in the name of the returning Messiah he will make his last effort to destroy the people of the Messiah. Our Lord himself foretold that many false Christs would appear to divert attention from his first coming in the flesh, but it is Paul who clearly foretold this last impostor claiming to be the returning Messiah in his last advent. Read what Paul says:

Now, we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled either by spirit or by word, or by epistle as from us [purporting to come from us] as that the day of the Lord is just at hand; let no man beguile you in any wise; for it will not be except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work; only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the Jawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to naught by the manifestation of his coming [this man of sin will be alive and on the field when Jesus comes], even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all powers of signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit and unrighteousness for them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, – 2 THESSALONIAUS Revelation 2:1-12.

It is impossible to locate that man of sin in any period that does not touch the last coming of Christ; nobody else in history fills that picture. There may have been many antichrists, but this man of sin is the last; he will be on the field with false miracles and delusions when our Lord himself returns and destroys him. You are to understand that in the millennial atmosphere no other impostor could have a following; he could not go among those Oriental nations and try to revive Confucianism or Mohamme-danism, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord. He could not put on them any imposition that does not seem to be what they are looking for. He comes in the church "and sitteth in the temple of God," which is the church; he claims to be God, and seeks to be worshiped as God himself. That is an incarnation of the devil, claiming to be God, not only God the incarnate, as Christ was at his first advent, but God in glory in his second advent. It is only among professing Christians, professing, but not possessing, that he can do this work. The whole world at this time professes Christianity; the whole world is waiting and praying and expecting the return of the Lord, and it is upon that expectation that he relies for the acceptance of his imposture. The readiness of the Oriental mind to accept such imposture is immortalized in Tom Moore’sVeiled Prophet of the Korassan and illustrated in the various Mahdis which appear as the one defeated by Kitchener at Kartourn when he went to avenge the death of Gordon.

Satan’s defeat is final; his impostor is slain even while he is working his false miracles, every kind of lying sign and wonder; suddenly a great cry is heard: "Behold the bridegroom! Go ye out to meet him," and the real returning Lord appears on the scene, and that impostor shrivels up like a piece of parchment exposed to a seven times heated furnace.

One more humiliation awaits Satan, however, which will be considered in the next chapter. I will close this chapter with the promised discussion on the historical antichrists.

In John 2:22, he says: "Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? that is the antichrist, even he that denieth the father and the Son." In Revelation 4:2-3 he adds: "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh, and now it is in the world already." Those two passages from John show you the general meaning of the word "antichrist." An "antilocaloptionist" is one who opposes local option, and in this book we have found that seven great world empires have had the antichrist spirit. Moses accepted the reproach of Christ, but Jannes and Jambres, the magicians of Pharaoh, withstood him. Egypt was the first world power to oppose teaching concerning the coming Messiah, who was to bruise the serpent’s head. Following Egypt came Assyria, through whose kings the ten tribes were led into bondage and much harm done to Judah. The next was Babylon, whose king destroyed Jerusalem and led her people into captivity. Next to Babylon came Persia, and it was while Xerxes the Great, the husband of Esther, was ruling, that an effort was made under the leadership of Haman to entirely destroy the Jewish people, but it was defeated by the providence of God and the instrumentality of Mordecai and Esther herself. After the Persians came the Greek power. And while Alexander himself was very kind in his dealings with the Jews, after his death came the division of his empire into four separate states. Two of these separate governments, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids in Antioch, continually fought over the Holy Land lying between them, and one of them particularly, Antiochus Epiphanes, sought to blot out the religion of the Jews. Then came the Pagan Roman Empire, the Caesars were its antichrist heads, and some of the Caesars throughout Christian history are particularly called antichrists : Nero was one of them. He is the man who, after he had burned Rome, charged the arson upon the Christians, and had a long avenue fitted up on each side with stakes, and to each stake a Christian was tied and inflammable material poured over him and then set on fire. And Nero, in his chariot, drove down that path of fire, lighted by burning Christians. Hence all the early fathers referred to Nero as the antichrist. But Domitian, a younger brother of Titus, the son of Vespasian, was a worse persecutor than Nero; that is, his persecution was more widely spread, and a later emperor, Decius, led the conflict which drove the church into the wilderness. His persecution was the worst of all.

Now, it was the custom among the Christians where the antichrist spirit embodied itself in a person to refer to him as the antichrist. So when the Roman power passed away, and out of the disintegrated elements of that heathen empire was constructed what is called the Holy Roman Empire, that Holy Roman Empire had a head which in this book is called the earth beast) which looked like a lamb, but had the mouth of a dragon, and we have identified him as the papacy, and so the papacy, like the Caesars, becomes an antichrist worse than all others. As some Caesars were worse than others, so some popes were worse than others, but the papacy as a succession of popes became the embodiment of antichrist to Christian people, whom they persecuted. Ask the dying Waldenses, or Albigenses, or ask Huss while he was burning, or Jerome of Prague, who is the antichrist, and they say: "The Pope of Rome is the antichrist." Daniel foretells three antichrists: (1) The "little horn" (Daniel 8:9), which all interpreters of note recognize as Antiochus Epiphanes. (2) The Pagan Roman Empire (Daniel 7:7), passing into the Holy Roman Empire. (3) The "little horn" which is the papacy (Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:19-27).

But our lesson in this chapter gives the last antichrist, Paul’s man of sin, the most stupendous impostor that Satan ever sought to palm off on the gullible nations. He is a person; Satan takes possession of him just as demons took possession of people in the days of Christ; Satan speaks through him; Satan gives him the power to work lying signs and wonders. In effect he says: “O thou Christian world, looking for your Messiah to return, I am the Messiah returning." Now, in Daniel 8, in describing the conflict between the Grecian and Persian power, he sees a ram with two horns (that is Medo-Persia), and he sees a goat with one horn come up (that is the Grecian Empire, Alexander the Great), that one horn breaking off and the four horns coming up, the division of his power into four governments. And he says there came up a little horn on that goat, and a great part of the book of Daniel is devoted to the discussion of that little horn on the goat. That was Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the vilest men that ever lived. He enacted it as a decree that no offering should be presented to the God of the Jews. He himself had a hog, which the Jews despise, brought in and sacrificed on the brazen altar. He demanded that all the Old Testament Scriptures be surrendered and burnt publicly; he put anybody to death that circumcised a child; he established heathen altars in the very center of Jerusalem. If you ask the Jew who was the antichrist, he will say: "Antiochus Epiphanes." And if you want to read the most thrilling account of him that I know anything about, read the book of Maccabees on Antiochus Epiphanes. You will find an account in Josephus, but it is more thrilling in the book of Maccabees.

Daniel 7, after describing the four world empires, Rome, the last which divided into the ten kingdoms, and was reconstructed into an empire with one religion but ten political heads, from the reconstruction came a "little horn," the papacy, which absorbed three of the other horns, and it spoke great swelling words of blasphemy, and made war against the saints. We have identified in this discussion that antichrist, with the papacy, that is the little horn that overthrew three of the kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was divided, papal states, of which he was the political head, as well as the ecclesiastical head, and held the power over them until the days of Victor Emmanuel; we have seen him as the antichrist. I give you this general discussion of antichrists in order that you may see that the term expresses either the principle of opposition to the Messiah, or its embodiment in a person or succession of persons, as the Caesars or the popes.

"Who is the liar," says John – the "boss liar" – "but he that denieth that God was manifest in the flesh?" – he is the antichrist, and he says there are many antichrists. I repeat, then, that antichrist may represent a principle, and it may be embodied in a person as it was embodied in Antiochus Epiphanes and in Nero and in Domitian and Decius, in the papacy, and last and most important is this man of sin. I want to say to the reader that I was thirty years in disposing of Paul’s man of sin. All the Protestant commentaries say that the pope is the man of sin but I have already shown you that the Romanist counterfeit church passes away before the coming of Christ, and that the beast – the politico-religious government, the union of church and state – passes away, and that the false prophet passes away. But Paul’s man of sin is the most blasphemous of all the incarnations of evil that ever took place on the earth. And the part that bothered me is that he is living and holding the fort following the millennium. He is coming, with lying wonders and signs, and with unabashed front sits in the temple (that is, in the churches), claiming to be God, up to the very time that the cry is heard: "Behold, the bridegroom cometh." You cannot put him anywhere else but after the millennium period, nor can you conceive of any other kind of impostor, filled by Satan, that would fit into the period. I once said that the devil had very few original ideas, but he has many suits of clothes for each side. He is a past master on reproducing an idea in a different costume and fooling you with a change of clothes. Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad tells of an American traveler in Europe going into an inn and calling for a special brand of very rare wine, of which only a few thousand bottles are made each crop. When they brought the wine, the traveler protested that is was not the kind ordered, as evident from the label and taste. The head waiter looked at it and said, "I see, it has the wrong label." And he reached into a drawer and got another label which he put on it and then handed it to him as the right kind. It was merely a change of label. There had been no change in the wine. So the devil is a past master in labels and costumes, but scant in original ideas. The idea is the same, the principle the same, whether Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Pagan Rome, or papal Rome; whether the Pharaohs, the Seleucids, or the popes are the leaders.

Now, so far as the wars coming from the devil are concerned, we are done with them in this book. We have his man of sin on the scene, in the arena, telling his lies, working his miracles, who is to be stricken down by the second coming of Christ.

The questions on this chapter are embodied in the text itself, as it was prepared in the form of a catechism.

Verses 11-15

XXI

OUR LORD’S FINAL ADVENT CONTINUED;

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD; THE GENERAL JUDGMENT

Revelation 20:11-15

We present this study in the form of a catechism:

1. Cite two distinct promises of the second advent.

ANSWER. – In Matthew 16:27, our Saviour says: "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then shall he render to every man according to his deeds." You see that is not only the promise, but it expresses the purpose. The second promise is in Acts 1:11: "As they were looking steadfastly into heaven as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? This Jesus who was received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven."

2. Cite three general passages on the resurrection.

ANSWER. – Daniel 12:2: "Many of them that slept in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to eternal life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel puts the resurrection of both classes together. Next, John 5:28-29, which I quote: "Marvel not at this, for the hour cometh which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." And you see John puts them together. The third passage is in Acts 24:15: "Having hope toward God, which these also themselves look for, that there shall be a resurrection both of the-just and the unjust." The third passage also puts them together.

3. Now comes an exceedingly important question: Cite three striking passages apart from our present lesson to show that the resurrection and the judgment of both the righteous and the wicked are simultaneous, and not a thousand years apart.

ANSWER. – (1) Matthew 12:41-42:

The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

The men of Nineveh repented and were saved. It is distinctly declared that they shall rise up, there’s their resurrection, at the judgment, showing that the resurrection and the judgment come together; they shall rise up at the judgment with this generation, the wicked people, the impenitent people, whom Christ was addressing, are to stand, there’s their resurrection from the dead, in the judgment with those ancient people of Nineveh and the queen of the south; there you have the two clashes, the penitent and the impenitent, the resurrection, the judgment, the general judgment.

(2) Matthew 25:31-46, and as you read I want you to ask yourselves these questions: Are these crowds together? Are their resurrection and judgment simultaneous, or is there a great interval of time between them?

But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all the nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separated the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then, shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. . . . Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these shall go away into eternal life.

I once asked a premillennialist what he did with that passage, and he said, "That is simply the judgment of the nations." No, sir I think that is an individual judgment, and nations, as nations, are not sent into eternal fire, only individuals are.

(3) The other general passage, which is more conclusive than these others, is 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10:

If so be that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of his might.

When are these wicked punished with everlasting destruction? The next verse tells us: "When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believe [because our testimony among you was believed] in that day."

I sat on the train once with a premillennialist and read that passage to him, and asked him if he would hold the book and answer questions according to the testimony. He said he would. I said: "According to that passage, when does Jesus recompense affliction to those who have afflicted his people?" He had to read: "At the time he recompenses his rest to those who were afflicted." I then asked him when the wicked would be punished with everlasting destruction; and he had to read: "When he comes to be glorified in his saints." Now, these are literal passages. I could cite a great many more, but these are absolutely conclusive that the resurrection and the judgment of both the good and the bad will be simultaneous.

4. Cite three parables from our Lord to the same effect.

ANSWER. – (1) The parable of the tares, found in Matthew 13:24-30, and expounded by our Lord in Matthew 13:36-42. Let us read it and see:

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. But when the blade sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. And the servants of the household came and said unto him: Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it tares? And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. And the servants say unto him: Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said: Nay, lest haply while ye gather up the tares ye root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, gather up first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

The disciples wanted that expounded to them, and here is the exposition:

Explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father.

Now, that expresses the fact that the good and the evil people are to grow up together in this world until the end of the world, and then when the end of the world comes, the angels will separate the good from the bad.

(2) The parable of the dragnet, Matthew 13:47-50:

Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to the shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So it shall be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

(3) The parable of the talents, Matthew 25:14-30:

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man traveling in a far country, who called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability, and straightway took his journey. . . . After a long time the lord of these servants cometh, and reckoneth with them . . . [and then he goes on with the reckoning until he gets to the one with only one talent] . . . His lord said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knowest I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strewed: thou oughtest, therefore, have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming J would have received mine own with usury. Take, therefore, the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, there are the three great parables. I could mention others, but these three are sufficient to put beside the three passages which show the simultaneousness of the resurrection of the dead and the separation of the righteous from the wicked, and the final judgment.

5. Cite and expound two great passages on the resurrection of the righteous dead, and the glorification of the righteous living.

ANSWER. – In 1 Corinthians 15:42-55, is described the meaning of the resurrection of the righteous dead: "It was sown in weakness, it is raised in strength; it was sown in dishonour, it is raised in honour; it was sown a mortal body and raised an immortal body; it was sown a mortal body and raised a spiritual body." Then in the same connections he tells of the change that takes place in the righteous who are living at the time when Christ comes: "I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep." That is, we shall not all die; some men will be living when Christ comes, and then in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they shall be changed without ever dying, and glorification takes place. That is the meaning of all those words I quoted you a while ago about honor, dishonor, etc.

Now, the second passage is in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, the closing paragraph:

Brethren, I would not have you ignorant concerning them who are asleep, that ye sorrow now, even as the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that have fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. . . . And the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up into the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

6. What erroneous views were held concerning the resurrection of the body, and the objections thereto?

First, the Sadducees, who were materialists, and denied all future life, whether of the soul or the body, and of course denied the resurrection of the body. In Matthew 22; Mark 12; Luke 20, we have an account of the Sadducees coming to the Lord with the question: Where a man married and died, and according to the Mosaic law his brother took his widow; and he died, and the second brother took her, and so on until seven brothers had her. Now who will be the husband of this woman in the resurrection, for they all had her? They thought they had sprung an insuperable difficulty in the way of the resurrection of the dead. He replied to them: "In the state of the resurrection of the dead there is no marrying, nor giving in marriage, but all are as the angels of heaven," that is, the multiplying and replenishing of the earth which so dominated men here on the earth, does not apply in heaven.

In Corinth some church members denied the resurrection of the body, and based their objections on scientific deductions. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-35, he says: "How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead, and you ask: With what bodies shall they rise?" – presenting that as an insuperable difficulty, and all of that chapter is devoted to a discussion of the certainty of the resurrection of the body. There were certain heretics at Ephesus who held that regeneration was the resurrection, and hence it was past already. Paul mentions the names of two of these heretics, Hymeneus and Philetus, in 2 Timothy 2:17-18. They held that the resurrection took place when a man was converted; that it was past already. Paul counts them heretics, and says that their teaching is exceedingly hurtful to many.

Then there are people (though I do not find this in the Bible, but in history) who hold that the resurrection is simply the escape of the soul from the limitations of the body at death, and they compare it with the emergence of the butterfly from the chrysalis state, never having any more use for that empty shell, and living in another element, or air instead of upon the ground. A great many people believe that; it is different from the Sadducees. The Sadducees did not believe in any future life, nor in angels, nor in spirits of any kind, as you learn from Acts 23:8; they were utter materialists; they believed that this life is all; that when a man dies, all of him dies, that he has no dual life now, and that there is no such thing as a spiritual existence, good or bad.

7. If the righteous who are living when Christ comes are changed without death, what becomes of the living wicked?

ANSWER. – My answer is that they perish, or die, in the great worldwide fire that accompanies the coming of the Lord. Malachi gives a glowing description of it in Malachi 4:1-3:

For behold, the day cometh, it burneth like a furnace, and all the proud and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healings in its wings; and ye shall go forth and gambol as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, saith Jehovah of hosts.

Now read a passage from Peter:

And in the last days men will say: Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God, by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word, have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men’. . . . But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in the which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with a fervent heat, and the earth and the works therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are all thus to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with a fervent heat?

No wicked man can escape physical death; there never has been one that escaped. Elijah and Enoch did; they were good men. And all the saints living at the coming of Christ will, but the wicked living when Christ comes will burn up in the fire, just as now when one living in a house which catches on fire is burned up before he can escape. That world fire will be as quick as a lightning flash; there is no element of time in it; in one moment the atmosphere shall become an ocean of fire, and the ocean itself, by one elemental change, shall become an ocean of fire, and the fire will sweep from mountain to mountain, and from continent to continent, until the whole world is afire. And in that fire every living wicked person dies, and it happens in a moment, and their resurrection immediately follows. They are so close together that one may call them simultaneous.

8. What the ground of their resurrection? Why should the wicked be raised at all?

ANSWER. – The normal man, as God created him, was a dual being – soul and body. The death of the body, or rather the separation of the soul from the body, is the result of sin. The soul in a disembodied state is unclothed, and hence Hades, as a state, gains a victory so long as it holds a disembodied spirit. But when God raises the bodies of the dead, good and bad, then shall be brought to pass the saying: O death, where is thy sting; O Hades, where is thy victory? You had a victory so long as you could hold one soul in a disembodied state. Hence this book (Revelation 6:8) says that Hades followed after death. Death came, and the soul went into a disembodied state. Moreover, the only deeds of which the final judgment takes cognizance are the deeds done in the body. A man who died when Christ died, in eternity ever since, will never be judged for anything that he does in eternity; the judgment takes cognizance of only the deeds done in the body. Therefore, the whole man, soul and body, must be present at the judgment, and if condemned must be punished in both body and soul.

It is not enough that the rich man, at his death, should be tormented as to his soul. "He lifted up his eyes in hell [or Hades], being in torment." That is not enough. But, as our Lord says, "Be ye not afraid of them which kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell [Gehenna]."

9. In what capacity, or office, did our Lord appear in his first advent, and contrast it with his office in his second advent?

ANSWER. – Paul says in the letter to the Hebrews: "Inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment; so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from a sin offering, to them that wait for him, unto salvation" (Hebrews 9:27-28). Which means that his second advent is not to offer a sacrifice – that is all ended – but as judge, to bring his people into the fruition of salvation, and the salvation of fruition, which, as Peter says, is ready to be revealed at the last time (1 Peter 1:4-5).

Now we will take up the study word by word:

10. "And I saw a great white throne" (Revelation 20:11). What is the distinction between this throne and the one in Revelation 4:2-7?

ANSWER. – That was the throne of grace, the mediatorial throne, Christ reigning as king and interceding as priest. This is the white throne of final judgment. That throne at Revelation 4:2, might be approached by prayer, as we learned in Hebrews 4:16: "Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace to help us in time of need." And as we learned in Revelation 8 of this book: the prayers of the saints, mingled with incense, came up to that throne. But no prayers are offered at this white throne; praying days are over forever. This our Lord himself describes in his great prophecy, which I quote: (Matthew 24:29-31):

The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heavens, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. – Matthew 24:29-31.

Our Lord said at the conclusion of that prophecy: "But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory" (Matthew 25:31). Or, as this book expresses it, when he came to the sixth seal:

And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the whole moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs, and the heaven was removed as a scroll when rolled up, and every mountain and island removed out of their place, and the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich and strong, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains; and they say to the mountains and to the rocks: Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath is come, and who is able to stand? – Revelation 6:12-17.

11. Who is the judge, and what is his suitableness?

ANSWER. – In John 5:22-27, it is said: "The Father hath given all judgment unto the Son . . ." and he goes on to say that he is given this judgment because he is also the Son of man. He is suitable, for he is God, and knows all the holiness of God’s law; he is suitable because he is man, and as man was tempted as we are, and with an infinite knowledge of our infirmities, and our failings, and our environment. Even for the devil, he is the best judge.

12. We read on in Revelation: "And I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them." What does it mean by the disappearance of the heaven and the earth?

ANSWER. – Annihilation is not meant; the flood that swept the earth did not annihilate it; neither does this fire, but it purges it. Peter describes it (2 Peter 3:7; 2 Peter 3:10-12). That fire will come, and in that fire heaven and earth scenes will disappear, but he says that we will have a new heaven and a new earth.

13. We read again in the study: "And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. . . . And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them." What is meant by the sea and death giving up the dead in them?

ANSWER. – It means the resurrection of the bodies of all the dead, whether buried on land or in the sea, just as our Lord said: "The hour cometh when all that are in the tomb shall hear his voice and shall come forth," or as Daniel put it: "They that sleep in the dust of the earth, some to eternal life and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

14. What is meant by Hades giving up the dead that are in it?

ANSWER. – It means the coming forth of all the disembodied souls, reunited to their raised bodies. "Hades" means the spirit world. David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said: "Moreover, my flesh shall rest in hope, for thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades." The flesh is raised when the time is come for Hades to give up its dead, and the soul and body shall be reunited.

15. While Hades, as a state of being disembodied, applies equally to all souls, is there not some distinction of place and condition?

ANSWER. – Yes, the souls of both the rich man and Lazarus went into Hades, but between the places in Hades where they were is a great gulf fixed, so that one may not cross to the other. Lazarus, starved on earth, is feasting at the banquet of God with Abraham, while the rich man, faring sumptuously on earth, is starving and parching with the thirst in the flames. The Greeks held that in Hades there were two widely separate compartments, one of joy and one of woe, the first called "paradise," and the second called "Tartarus," and New Testament writers accept this distinction. Jesus said to the dying robber on the cross: "Today thou shalt be with me in paradise." The man left his body behind, but his soul went with the soul of Jesus into paradise. Paul says: "I was caught up into the third heaven, into the paradise of God." Peter says: "God spared not the angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to a pit of darkness to be reserved unto the judgment" (2 Peter 2:4). In some respects the Greek word hades is like the Hebrew word sheol, the underworld or abode of disembodied spirits. The souls of both good and bad went into Sheol, but not the same place or condition of Sheol. Isaiah, in his own sublime imagery, compares the king of Babylon to Lucifer, cast down to Sheol, the torment part of the pit, and represents all Sheol, from underneath, as moved to meet him at his coming; it stirs up its dead for him. The soul of the king of Babylon is entering Sheol, the part where the wicked are, and here is what they say to him: "Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like us? . . . Is this the man that made the earth tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their homes?" (Isaiah 14:9-17). This is a sublime conception of the greeting to the lost soul on entering Tartarus. Just imagine that rich man in hell, who said: "Tell Lazarus to go and tell my brothers who live in yonder world not to come here where I am," but when he sees his brothers coming he will say: "Are you become as weak as I am?"

The paradise part of Hades is just the same as heaven itself, as appears from Hebrews 12:22-24, where "the spirits of the just made perfect are with the Father, with Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, with the angels on the heavenly Mount Zion, in the heavenly Jerusalem." And it also appears from what Paul says to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 5:1-2; 2 Corinthians 12:2-3) : "For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved [this body], we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens," and goes on to say that as long as I am in this body I am absent from the Lord, and when I am out of this body I am present with the Lord.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:14, it is said: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him." Now, in the same way, Tartarus is equal to what we call hell, the place of eternal fire and torment, the only difference being the absence of the body until the resurrection. Tartarus is hell now, just the same hell it will be when a lake of fire, but the body is not in it yet. When the saint’s body is raised, the whole man, soul and body, goes back to paradise, where his soul has been since death (see Revelation 22:1-2; Revelation 22:14) ; they re-enter the paradise of God. When the wicked man’s body is raised, the whole man, soul and body, goes back into the same Tartarus where his soul had been. It is now called Gehenna, or in this lesson it is called a lake of fire.

16. If paradise be heaven) and Tartarus be hell, except for the absence of the body, why are the righteous, in their souls, already enjoying heaven, to which they went at death, and why are the wicked, already tormented in the flames of hell, to which their souls went at death, brought from those conditions to be judged, seeing that they are already enjoying or suffering the final verdict or sentence?

ANSWER. – (1) The day of judgment is not so much a day of actual trial, but as Paul describes it, it is a day of the revelation of the righteous judgments of God, judgments already rendered. The unbeliever is already condemned, says John; he does not wait to come to the judgment to be condemned; he is already condemned for not believing on Jesus Christ. The book of life, which determines the case of both classes, is not a docket for trial that day, but it is a register of judicial decisions already rendered. The object of the general judgment is to make all who have been previously condemned or acquitted, see, understand, and approve the past verdict which acquits or condemns. The acquitted up to that day never fully understood the grounds of their acquittal (see Matthew 25:37-40) : "Lord, when did we see thee naked and clothed thee, or sick and visited thee, or a stranger and entertained thee?" They do not understand, and the same chapter shows that the wicked do not understand. The rich man in hell did not understand, but when the revelation of the judgment which put him there comes in white light and illumines, he will then understand and confess the righteousness of the judgment of God that sent him to that place of torment. Now, when the records of past judgments are opened, both classes comprehend and recognize the righteousness of the past judgment which sent the soul of one to heaven and the soul of the other to hell. They now approve and acquiesce in God’s judgment, though it had gone against them. "Therefore," says Paul, "before Jesus, the Judge, every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess his name" – the lost as well as the saved.

(2) Not only does each man at the judgment see the justice of the verdict in his own case, but also in the cases of the others. He will be as much surprised and enlightened on this point as any other: some will be first that he counted last, and some will be last that he counted first.

17. Is it largely on this account that all angels, good and bad, and the human race, are all brought together in one great assembly?

ANSWER. – Yes; the contrast of the cases constitutes much of the light. The penitent men of Nineveh, saved by hearing only one sermon, and the vision-seeking queen of Sheba, at the judgment will throw their brilliant cross light on the wicked generation of Christ’s day, who had much more light and did not act on it. "Sodom and Gomorrah," says our Lord, "Tyre and Sidon, shall suffer a more tolerable judgment than the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida," and this cross light will furnish abundant lessons.

18. Why could not this light have been given sooner to the sinner?

ANSWER. – The revelation is put off until the last day because the influence of human thought, desire, and deeds does not cease until they strike the shores of eternity. The influence of Tom Paine’s Age of Reason and Ingersoll’s speeches will go on until the final harvest, and it will not be known how much evil each one has done until we come to the end of the influence. And so Abel, though dead, yet speaketh. All our lives will throw light or shadows on the pathway of others until the end of the world. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim will go marching on till Jesus comes; Keith’s great hymn, "How Firm a Foundation," and Cowper’s sweet hymn, "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood," have not yet reached their final harvest. Edgar Allan Poe brings out the thought in his flight with an angel, who shows him a volcanic island, barren and desolate, and said: "That is an idle, evil word, spoken once and then forgot; but it went on sounding until the end of time, and God crystallized it into the volcanic island." Again the angel showed him another island of springs and fountains, green with the verdure of grass and the foliage of fruit-bearing trees, in whose boughs a choir of singing birds were praising God. "This," said the angel, "is a good word you spoke once, and forgot, but it went on in power until it struck the shores of eternity, and God crystallized it into this blessed island."

19. What are the books out of which men are judged?

ANSWER. – We may not name them all, but these are some of them:

(1) The book of remembrance; you will find the account of it in Malachi 3:16-18. In a time of great spiritual tribulations some of the good people will get together and deplore the absence of a revival, and God will command the Recording Angel to put down in the book of remembrance what they said.

(2) The book of curses:

"Then again I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and behold a flying roll, and he said unto me. What seeth thou? and I answered: I see a flying roll, the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth ten cubits. Then he said unto me: This is the curse that goeth forth over the whole land, for every one that stealeth shall be cut off on the one side according to it and every one that sweareth shall be cut off on the other side according to it. I will cause it to go forth, saith Jehovah of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by name, and it shall abide in the midst of his house, and shall consume the timber thereof and the stones thereof. – Zechariah 5:1-2.

(3) Then there is a book of tears: "Put thou my tears into thy bottle; are they not in thy book?" (Psalms 61:8) I tell you that will be a marvelous book at the judgment; when on the judgment throne a book is opened, with nothing but splotches on it where tears fell: Who made the widow weep? who made the orphan cry? who brought sorrow into the house of the sick? I tell you that God keeps every tear that falls from a sufferer’s eye, and at the judgment that book will be opened. There will be the tears that Jesus wept over Jerusalem. It will be an awful book.

(4) Then there is the book of the covenant. You remember when the covenant was made with Moses, the book was put in the ark, to be held as an everlasting witness. At the day of judgment the Lord will say: "I need not judge you; Moses will judge you. Just bring out that covenant and read it to him. Did you abide by it?"

(5) Finally, there is the book of life: "Another book was opened, which is the book of life."

20. What is this book of life?

ANSWER. – It is a register of judicial decisions. Whenever a man is converted, justified, or acquitted, his name is written in that book. It holds the record of all the saved from the beginning to the end of time.

21. Which is the decisive book?

ANSWER. – That book of life, because this lesson shows that whosoever is not found written in that book shall be cast into the lake of fire. You remember that Baptist song: "When thou my righteous judge shall come to take thy ransomed people home, shall I among them stand; shall I, who sometimes am afraid to die, be found at thy right hand? O can I bear the piercing thought: what if my name should be left out?" Whosoever is not found written in that book – well, that is all you need.

I will suppose there is a man – Mr. A – , say – in Fort Worth, County of Tarrant, State of Texas, United States of America, living in such a period; open the book of life to that name. Do you see his name there? No. That is sufficient; pass him into the lake of fire. Do you see his name on the book of remembrance? No. Do you see his name in the book of curses? Yes.

22. What is the great principle of this judgment?

ANSWER. – Each man is judged according to his light, privileges, opportunities, and environment.

23. What is the only thing of which this judgment takes cognizance?

ANSWER. – One’s attitude toward Christ in his gospel, his cause and his people. The bad angels will have to say: We opposed; the good angels will say: We ministered unto the heirs of salvation. The wicked will say: Salvation came right to my door, the stream of life lapped against my doorsill, and I said no, no.

24. Apply this to good angels, and show what advantage it is to them.

ANSWER. – They did not sin before, and now they have stood for Christ’s cause and his people, and they will become confirmed, for after the judgment no angel can ever fall.

25. What proof have we that on that day the acquitted participate with Christ in judging the world and the angels?

ANSWER. – "Ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 14:28). "Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world is judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that the saints shall judge the angels?" It will be fine poetic justice when Job and Peter pass judgment on the devil, who tried them so much; it will be a great sight to see Agrippa, Festus, and Nero judged by Paul; they judged him on earth; he will judge them in eternity. It will be a fine thing to see those who are despised in this world, sit with Christ on his throne, passing judgment upon demons and the wicked lost.

26. On what score are the saints judged that day, and the proof, and the reasons?

ANSWER. – The saints are not put on trial for their lives that day; all that was ended when they were justified: they will not have to come into the judgment on that score; they have passed out of death into eternal life, and none can bring a charge against God’s elect, but they are judged on their fidelity, on their lives as Christians, and shall receive the last reward. The salvation of all the saved is the same, but the rewards of the saints are different. They all get into salvation alike, through one door, Christ; but their rank and position in heaven is determined by their Christian fidelty.

27. Are there also degrees in hell? Jesus said: "It shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida."

28. What do you understand by the lake of fire?

ANSWER. – First, it is a place; all finite things must be posited. Second, it is a prepared place, originally prepared for the devil and his demons, but there is room enough in it for those who follow the devil. It is a prison; Peter says: "The spirits in prison"; Jude says: "The demons cast down in chains and bondage." It is a place of torment, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. It is a place of companionship without friendship: you will have the company of liars, thieves, murderers, idolaters; you will have the company of the devil and his demons, but it will not be a happy crowd. It is a place of conscience, memory, and despair; the mind does not quit thinking, the conscience does not quit aching, but hope never comes. It is eternal: "These shall go away into everlasting fire" – that is the same word used when it says everlasting life – thus when you shorten hell you shorten heaven; the same word applies to both. Pollok, in the "Course of Time," vainly tried to describe hell. He says: "Wide was the place, and deep as wide, and ruinous as deep, while overhead and all around winds war with winds, and thunders roll, and lightnings, forked lightnings, flash." God pity the man who dares come into the pulpit and preach against his eternal judgment.

The questions are embodied in the text of this chapter, it being presented in the form of a catechism.