Revelation 10

Revelation 10:1-11

X THE OF THE Revelation 10-11 We have seen under the first trumpet the decline of the pagan Roman Empire, brought about by the barbaric nations from the German forests and the lower Danube. We have seen under the second trumpet the complete overthrow of pagan Rome as a volcano is erupted, turned over into the sea. We have seen under the third trumpet the apostasy of the Roman church, resulting in papal Rome poisoning all the sources of life. We have seen under the fourth trumpet the dark ages resulting from this apostasy, dimming the light of the luminaries appointed to lighten the world. This was the first group of trumpets, four in number.

In the succeeding group of three an emphasis is added – each trumpet is followed by a woe, the second woe worse than the first, and the third to be more direful than the second. The fifth trumpet, we have found, introduces the first woe, which is directly attributed to Satan. Resulting from the apostasy and its corruption comes a revolt against all sacred things, taking the direction of infidelity, rationalism, and atheism. Satan’s hell smoke increases the darkness by thickening the atmosphere through which light would shine, breeding restlessness of spirit and torment of soul in all who are thus without God and without hope in the world. The torments are compared to locusts with scorpion stings.

Under the sixth trumpet, sounding the second woe, we have seen the rise and conquest of Mohammedan power, sweeping with fire and sword from the Euphrates to Vienna in one direction, and in another direction from northern Africa into Spain and France. For its idolatries and corruptions we have seen the Greek Catholic apostasy lose all its territory to the Saracen, including the Holy Land, Syria, Asia Minor, and Constantinople; and the Roman Catholic apostasy smitten in the Mediterranean and in southwestern Europe, and all its crusades buried back as waves repulsed by a mountain coast. The seven thunders are merely announced, what they mean is sealed up for the present (Revelation 10:4), but to be given in a later revelation from a different angle of vision, to wit: the seven plagues inflicted on the apostate church under the symbol of the harlot woman in purple and scarlet (Revelation 15-16). It is also announced that when the seventh trumpet does sound then will be finished the mystery of the kingdom of God (Revelation 10:7), but before this conclusion is reached the Revelator will answer certain questions, to wit: in all this record of apostasies, and the consequent dark ages and persecutions and judgments on the apostasies, what becomes of the true church and the pure gospel? Does the Spirit dispensation fail? Are all the candlesticks removed? Do all preachers abandon the gospel and become priests of heresy?

Revelation 10-11 answer these questions, and bring us to the glorious triumph of the seventh trumpet, omitting only for the time being the last woe, to be given in Revelation 18, from another synchronous view. We take up, therefore, the interpretation of these glorious chapters.

“And I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, arrayed with a cloud; and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as the sun, and his feet were as pillars of fire.” This evidently, from the description, is the angel of the Covenant) our glorified Lord himself. “And he had in his hand a little open book.” This little book is not the sealed book of Rev 5:1. That was the book of future events concerning the kingdom. This little book, named again in Revelation 5:8-10, signifies the restored gospel, which had been shut up by the apostasy.

“And he set his right foot upon the sea and his left upon the earth; and he cried with a great voice, as a lion roareth, and when he cried the seven thunders uttered their voices, and when the seven thunders uttered their voices I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. And the angel that I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his right hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created the heavens and the things that are therein, and the earth and the things that are therein, and the sea and the things that are therein, that there shall be delay no longer.”

We note first the posture of the angel – one foot on the land and one on the sea, to signify that all the earth, land’ and sea, is under his authority. We note second the mere announcement now of the seven thunders, not recorded now, but to be given as the seven vials of wrath in a subsequent vision (Revelation 15-16). We note third the oath of the angel (Revelation 10:6) “that there shall be delay no longer” – the King James Version obscures the meaning of this glorious promise.

The promise directly responds to the martyr cry of the fifth seal: “How long, O Master, the Holy and True, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10). The answer given them was: “Rest yet for a little time, until thy fellow-servants also, and thy brethren, who shall be killed even as ye were, shall have fulfilled their course”, but now the answer is: “There shall be delay no longer.”

Revelation 10:7 further assures, what will be stated more particularly at the end of chapter Revelation 11, that the mystery of the kingdom of God will be finished when the seventh trumpet sounds. We find all that in Revelation 11:15-19.

We must connect with the reply to the martyr cry in Revelation 6:10, and the different reply here: “There shall be delay no longer,” the great lesson in 2 Peter 3:3-13. The “little time” of waiting for vengeance is little in God’s sight, not ours: “But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

Thus in Revelation 6:3-7, having anticipated for assurance’ sake later things, the Revelator resumes the story of the little open book in Revelation 6:8-11. Let us read them: “And the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard it again speaking with me and saying: Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel that standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel, saying unto him that he should give me the little book. And be saith unto me: take it, and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, and when I had eaten it my belly was made bitter. And they say unto me: Thou must prophesy again over many peoples and tongues and nations and kings.”

We repeat that this book differs in important particulars from the book of Rev 5:1. That was sealed – this is open; that was written on both sides – not this one. This one is expressly called the little book, Greek bibliridion. That book remained in the Revelator’s hands – this one is given to John and eaten by him. Being eaten it was sweet; after eaten it was bitter. After eating it he should prophesy again over many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.

Just here I commend again the very able and judicious comments of Dr. Justin A. Smith on this passage, but I give you briefly my own interpretation:

1. The result of the great apostasy was to pervert and shut up the true gospel, until the Reformation of the sixteenth century. It was a typical event when Luther found a chained Bible. An ecclesiasticism combining defunct Old Testament elements with many pagan superstitions offered as a gospel that which was another gospel, and contrary to the true gospel.

2. The little open book, therefore, represents the restored gospel of the Reformation. When Victor Emmanuel entered Rome, breaking down the civil power of the Pope, he carried at the head of his army an open Bible, that Rome had not known for centuries.

3. When that restored gospel is eaten, appropriated, and assimilated by faith, a new era of missions to many new nations would dawn. An open Bible in the hands of the people scatters the superstitious rubbish of the false ecclesiasticism and propagation of the recovered gospel extends to earth’s remotest bounds. The idea of Rev 10:11, is thus repeated in a subsequent vision (Revelation 14:6): “And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having eternal good tidings to proclaim to them that dwell on the earth; and unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people.” It is a noticeable fact that missionary operations commenced with the rescue of the Bible; it was translated into the tongues of the people, and preachers began to carry it to the ends of the earth, and ever since that day missions to all nations have taken colossal strides.

Having thus in Revelation 10 seen the restored gospel, we consider in Revelation 11 the questions: What about the true church in the dark ages of the apostasy? Measured by man, the church in the West, that is, in Europe, is the Roman Catholic apostasy; and the church in the East is the Greek Catholic apostasy, and man will tell you that within that time there were no other churches. Your average church historian will tell you that. But we will let God answer that question (Revelation 11:1) : “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and one said, Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that worship therein. And the court which is without the temple leave without and measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations) and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.” Under this unique measurement only the true temple with its altar of sacrifice and its few worshippers are counted. The outer court and all the holy city are left out.

These are trodden under foot by the nations forty-two months, which equals one thousand two hundred and sixty days of the next verse. And in this book a prophetic day represents a year; as in its Old Testament analogue, Ezekiel. The forty-two months and their equivalent, 1,260 days, symbolizing 1,260 years, date the dark ages of the apostasy – beginning in the third century and extending to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The true church in this period is an inner circle determined by divine spiritual measurement. When in Zechariah a young man attempts to measure the poor little Jerusalem of the restoration, a voice from heaven says: “Stop that young man,” and announces that Jerusalem shall become immeasurable, overflowing into the villages and country round about, a forecast of the Jerusalem in Revelation 21:22.

Now let us read again: “And I will give unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks, standing before the Lord of the earth.” Note that during all this dark period of 1,260 years, two witnesses never cease to testify, though in sackcloth. Their testimony is costly to them – it is testimony as at a funeral, mourning for the apostasy of Zion, and for the slain of the true people of God.

Here the important question arises: Who are these witnesses? The Old Testament analogue, in the third and fourth chapters of Zechariah, suggests the clue to the right answer. In the dark ages when Israel was restored after exile in Babylon, there were two anointed witnesses accused of the devil, despised of men, namely, Joshua, the high priest, and Zerubbabel, the civil ruler. In themselves was no power. Considering the mountain of difficulty which obstructed their work they were contemptible agencies of success. But considering the divine help, it was said: “Who art thou, O great mountain?

Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shouting: Grace, Grace unto it.” Truly in that case it was “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” So in this case, as in that case, are two witnesses, but the question recurs: Who are they in this case? My answer is that the key passage of this book, Revelation 1:12-16, tells us plainly: “The candlestick and the star are the light-bearers” – i.e., the church and the preacher; they are the lower lights to illumine the world. The gates of hell shall not prevail against Christ’s church: the testimony of true ministers shall never cease. It has always been a surprise to me that commentators should be in doubt about these two witnesses. The true church and the true minister should testify in sackcloth for 1,260 years. They should be in mourning for the apostasy, for the slain of its persecution.

In the next synchronous vision the true church symbolized as a glorious woman of Rev 12:1, shall be driven into the wilderness, hidden but not lost, for this precise period – ,260 years (Revelation 12:6). The power ascribed to these two witnesses is set forth under the imagery of Rev 12:5 and Revelation 12:6 : “And if any man desire to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies; and if any man desire to hurt them in this manner must he be killed. These have the power to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire.” This imagery applies to their use of the conquering word of God in denouncing judgment on their enemies, or else in the power of their prayers, as in the case of Elijah shutting up the heavens that it rain not.

Again counting a day for a year, we will see in what I soon quote that for three and a half days (or three and a half years), both of these witnesses seemed to be dead: “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh out of the abyss [beast always signifies government, and the abyss signifies that it is a hell government, and we will find all about it in Revelation 17] shall make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. And from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations do men look upon their dead bodies three days and a half, and suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb [not that]. And they that dwell on the earth rejoice over them and make merry; and they shall send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth.”

That faithful churches – and faithful preachers – would point out their sins, cry out against their backsliding, was a torment to the apostasy through all the 1,260 years. “And after the three days and a half the breath of life from God entered into them and they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that beheld them.”

We may well ask just here what event of history corresponds to this prophecy. Here I cannot do better than to cite a remarkable passage from Dr. Justin A. Smith’s commentary.:

No purpose of God, as regards the gospel of man’s salvation, fails. He permits to his gospel a fiery ordeal, extending through many centuries. But at the fit time he appears again in its behalf, and through chosen instruments causes it to be once more declared, as here represented in the little book, in primeval simplicity, and in a ministry that bears it “to all the world.” By what appears in the eleventh chapter, we are given to understand that while the outer court of the symbolical temple, and the city itself, are trodden under foot by the enemies of God and truth and righteousness, the inner sanctuary is kept safe; in other words, there survives, in the very worst of times, a faithful remnant by whom an undesecrated altar is preserved, a true worship offered, and that truth which embodies the substance of ancient types maintained. These are the witnesses. The voice of a true testimony in God’s behalf does not die out of the world, even when persecution rages most hotly; nor is it holy ground even when the world’s loud tumult is at its worst. These witnesses do, indeed, testify – “prophesy” – “in sackcloth” – the garment of distress and mourning.

Such of the Lord’s true people as survive in such times are a hunted flock. The truth itself is under reproach, the deriding voices rave against it.

The true church and its ordinances are, in the world’s esteem, placed in humiliating contrast with the shows and splendours of that apostasy which for the time is supreme, while everything beautiful and sacred and beneficent in Christianity is as if clad in sackcloth of humiliation, and lamenting, in the language of the ancient prophet, that there are none to stand upon the Lord’s side. And there comes a time when the triumph of evil seems complete. It is the deeper gloom that precedes the dawn. All the powers of darkness triumph. The murderers of the witnesses rejoice over them and make merry, and send gifts one to another. But the triumph is brief. Just at this crisis God appears for His truth and His people. The slain witnesses stand upon their feet.

They rise into vigour of life like the glory that shone in the person and face of the risen Lord. Their enemies behold them with consternation, and the triumph which now comes to them in turn is like the Lord’s own ascension to heaven in a cloud, receiving all power in heaven and in earth. Effects follow which show how truly divine is that intervention. The hostile power shakes, as when earthquakes rock the globe, while the great and wicked city, in whose streets the slain witnesses have lain, feels the shock.

This is, in general, the picture sketched for us in the striking symbolism of this chapter. If we have read this symbolism right, there can be, it would seem, only one answer to the question where the historical counterpart shall be sought. There is one point of crisis in modern times which fulfils in a remarkable degree the conditions of an adequate historical parallel to the Apocalyptic picture here sketched. Not as fulfilments of the prophecy in exact detail, but as indicating some general aspects of the period as having this significance, we note the following:

In A.D. 1512-17, a council was held in Rome, called from the place of its assembly – the Church of St. John Lateran – the Fifth Lateran Council. At the eighth session of this council, held in December, 1513, a papal bull was issued, in which was a summons to all dissidents from the papal authority to appear before the council at its next session, in the following May, and to show cause for their continued refusal to acknowledge the Pope’s supremacy. When the Council came together in that session, May 5, 1514, no answer appeared to this summons. Not that there were no longer those in Christendom who refused allegiance to the usurped authority of Rome, nor because any one could have imagined that opportunity for a free protest before the Council would have been allowed; not because, joined with the impossibility of a response under such conditions, it was a fact that just at that time there actually was no one ready, like the Wyckliffe and the Huss of a former age, or the Luther who was soon to appear, to give a voice to the spirit of revolt against Rome, which, though widely prevalent, was for the most part nursed in secret. “Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom,” says Elliott – and his words are true in the sense just explained – “ Christ’ s witnessing servants were silenced" – they appeared as dead. The orator of the session ascended the pulpit, and, amidst the applause of the assembled Council, uttered that memorable exclamation of triumph – an exclamation which, notwithstanding the long multiplied anti-heretical decrees of popes and councils, notwithstanding the more multiplied anti-heretical crusade and inquisitorial fires, was never, I believe, pronounced before, and certainly never since: “Jam nemoreclamat, nullus obsistit!” – “There is an end of resistance to the papal rule and religion; opposers exist no morel” And again, “The whole body of Christendom is now seen to be subjected to its head, that is, to thee.” Three years and a half later, October 31, 1517, Luther nailed his theses to the Wittenberg church door!

It is undoubtedly true that for some time previous to the meeting of this Fifth Lateran Council, as described, the murderers of God’s people had been especially active, with results of intimidation and the apparent silencing of dissent and protest highly gratifying to the hierarchy. The crusaders against the Albigenses and Waldenses had well-nigh extirpated those troublesome heretics. The measures of the Inquisition in various parts of Europe had succeeded to the utmost wish of those by whom they were carried on. A threatening schism in the papal body itself was healed during the session of this Council. So fully, in view of all, did the members of the Council sympathize in the exultant confidence of their orator that upon the final adjournment they celebrated the triumph which Popery seemed to have achieved in a feast, whose splendour had never in Rome been equalled. It was like the rejoicing, the merrymaking and the sending of gifts of which our prophecy speaks.

It is also matter of history that in that same Council there was an emphatic reaffirmation, of the long-standing papal law that the bodies of heretics should be denied all rights of Christian burial; so that here, also, we find almost literal fulfilment of the words: “Do not suffer their bodies to be put in graves.” These conspicuous examples of the application of this law in the exhuming and burning of the bones of Wickliffe, at an earlier date, by command of the Council of Constance, and the direction given by the same Council that the ashes of Huss should be cast into the Lake of Constance, are familiar facts. It may be added that in like manner the ashes of Savonarola were thrown into the Arno, and that it was common for the papal bulls to ordain that the heretics against whom they were fulminated should not only be put to death, but should be denied Christian burial.

Just three and a half years from that time all Europe was ablaze with the Reformation, and the Romanist power has never recovered from the shock it received.

Three things are said in our lesson of the effect of the revival of the witnesses:

1. “Great fear fell on all those who saw the revival” – which means that all the Romanist hierarchy trembled when the Reformation fires began to break out in so many places and among so many peoples of Europe.

2. The Romanist hierarchy heard the voice calling the witnesses up to heaven (Revelation 11:12). Heaven here is not the final abode of the blest, but the apocalyptic heaven, the scene of the vision, and means simply that their enemies witnessed honor and open exaltation conferred of God on these long despised witnesses.

3. Revelation 11:13, means the convulsions which followed the Reformation in which Rome lost and Protestantism won most of France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, and Scotland.

We come now to the last of the chapter:

THE SEVENTH ANGEL SOUNDS Having thus disposed of the question: What about the true gospel and what about the true church during the dark ages, the last angel will sound, and will omit only the last woe, we will get to that in Revelation 18, and we will see that woe as it strikes the Papacy.

“And the seventh angel sounded: and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said: The kingdom of the world is be-come the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders re-presenting the eternal priesthood of Christ’s people], who sat before God on their throne, fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying: We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, who art and who wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign. And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give thy rewards to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth. And there was opened the temple of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in this temple the ark of the covenant, and there followed lightnings and voices and thunders, and earthquake, and a great hail.”

I showed you that the seals gave one panoramic view of the gospel as preached to the end of time, and that the trumpets gave you another panoramic view parallel with it, of the gospel as prayed to the end of time, and so this passage here: “The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ,” shows that the recovered gospel in the Reformation times will never be silenced any more – Rome will never be able to shut again that open book! she will never be able to chain that Bible again; she will never be able to stop the onward march of missions that is today reaching the utmost parts of the world, and I would very solemnly impress upon you that it is the Spirit dispensation, and the dispensation of a true church, and the dispensation of a true ministry that will bring about this glorious consummation, which will be more fully discussed when we come to the Millennium in Revelation 20 of this book. I want to make this very impressive, because when you talk missions you must talk in faith of their triumph. It is the open restored gospel, and under its power you must preach confidently to any nation, to any king, to any people, and your heart must be assured that by this gospel preached, will every man be saved that is ever to be saved in this world. I will tell you that that is one of the key passages in Revelation: “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.” The candlesticks were lighted to illumine the world, and though when in Revelation 2-3 we showed the pitiful imperfections of the churches, we wondered if such instrumentalities could ever enlighten the world, and when we saw the deficiencies of the preachers, we wondered if by men like these the kingdom of this world should ever become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ; yet when we saw the heavens opened and what powers were employed there to help the churches and preachers, we no longer wondered. As they preached they conquered; as they prayed they conquered; stricken down as if dead, they revived again and the fire broke out into a greater blaze, and was more widely spread than before. That is the crowd I belong to.

1. Give briefly a review of the seals & trumpets, and then tell what questions Revelation 10 answers, and what other questions Revelation 11 answers.

2. Who is the radiant angel of Rev 10:1?

3. The meaning of his posture – one foot on the sea and the other on the land?

4. Why the temporary sealing up of the voices of the seven thunders? When and how do they reappear and find record? Where and for similar reasons have we found a temporary silence in a preceding section?

5. State the oath of the angel as wrongly rendered in the common version, and then as better rendered in the Standard Version.

6. (a) To what previous question is the oath a final answer, and (b) compare it with the answer then given, and (c) with what parable is it in agreement, and (d) give Peter’s reason for the delay, and (e) why does this delay seem long to us and only “a little while” to God?

7. Discriminate between the book of Rev 5:1, and the book of Rev 10:2, and then (a) tell what this book means, (b) the meaning of eating it, and (c) explain its application to Revelation 10:11.

8. What is measured in Revelation 11:1-2, and what does it mean?

9. (a) In the Old Testament are two measurements somewhat similar to the one in Revelation 11:1-2 – where are they, and (b) where in this book is another one? (c) Explain their relation to each other, and (d) what is the meaning of this one?

10. (a) How long will this small measure last, and (b) explain the symbolic numbers, forty-two months (Revelation 11:2), 1,260 days (11:3), and by comparison of Rev 11:2-3, with Revelation 12:6, prove that “temple” in Revelation 11:1, and the woman in Revelation 12:1, mean the same thing.

11. (a) What is the Old Testament analogue of Rev 11:3-4, and (b) the two witnesses there, and (c) who are the two witnesses here?

12. Meaning of “prophesying in sackcloth”?

13. Give the historic fulfilment of the death and revival of the witnesses and all the attendant circumstances of Rev 11:7-11.

14. What is the meaning of Rev 11:12?

15. What historical correspondence to Revelation 11:13, showing the effect of the revival of the witnesses?

16. Where will we find the third woe named but not given in Revelation 11:14?

17. What glorious consummation follows the seventh trumpet, and what parallel in the last synchronous view?