At the panorama we stood as though on a high central point in the city of Sebastopol, with the view spreading out in all directions. To the north lay the harbour with the Russian ships securely bottled in by the attacking fleets. To the west a body of French soldiers were retreating, hotly pursued by Russian troops, while in the distance British troops are hurrying to the relief of the French.
Then we looked east, where the fighting was going on at close range, the wounded being carried away and the reserves hastening up to take their places. And again we turned to the south, where the battle raged fiercest. The face of the commanding officer stood out so vividly. And we almost shrank from the fierceness of the fire. And the smell of powder almost seemed stifling.
And as I stood brooding afresh on the horrors of inhuman war, I was tremendously impressed that only by such successive views could I get such a grasp of that memorable siege. I had a more intelligent and vivid understanding of it than ever before.
And so it is that we may get a simple, clear, and real grasp of the tremendous tribulation time that is coming, that it is presented to us in this fashion, first one distinct view, then another, and another, till some understanding of the whole begins to get hold of us.
We have seen the Lord Jesus, in the vision in chapters four and five, as He comes forward to take an advance step. We have seen the tremendous outburst of praise in heaven as He steps forward. This step and scene are in heaven. The earth is wholly unaware of it _at that moment_.
Now all that follows is connected directly with that advance step. This is the significant thing to get clearly fixed in mind. At the present time our Lord Jesus is still walking among the candlestick Churches watching and waiting. We are still in that waiting time. The Holy Spirit still dwells in the Church on earth.
At some time in the future, no one knows, nor can know, just when, the Lord Jesus will rise up in readiness for an advance move. He will withdraw the Holy Spirit from the Church up into His presence again "before the throne." _Then in connection with this advance step_ there will occur on the earth the things spoken of in these pages following.
This is the tremendous fact to keep clear, the immediate connection between these happenings on earth and His new move in heaven.
We come now to these happenings on earth. There are seven distinct views given here in this section, chapters six to the end of the book. There is a great detail in description which it would be both instructive and interesting to study out. But we want to get at the essential things.
And so we will give our time and thought to these essentials.
Our Lord Jesus is represented as about to take possession of His realm.
The first step is a dispossessing of the claimants in possession. This furnishes the key to what follows. The descriptions are of the process of cleaning out the evil forces. At the close of this we find Him taking possession (in chapter twenty) and reigning over the earth.
These descriptions make it clear at once that this is the tribulation so much spoken of in these preceding pages. What follows fits so into what has been spoken of that the identification seems complete. The thing our Lord Jesus is revealing here tallies with what He had told John before on Olivet.
There comes first a general description of the whole period (chapters vi.-vii.). Then follows a description of _how_ these happenings will come. It will be through the withdrawal of restraint and so the loosening out of evil (chapters viii.-ix.). During this whole period there will be a special faithful witnessing on earth, in the midst of the riot of evil, to G.o.d and His truth (chapter xi.).
A detailed outline of the run of events follows, giving much additional information, picturing the rise and characteristics of the leader of the tribulation time, and the manner of its close (chapters xii.-xiv.).
There follows this a description of the judgments and the supreme contest with which the period closes (chapters xv.-xvi.). There is a description of the organized system of evil, and then of the fall of the capital of the system (chapters xvii.-xviii.) And then follows the actual coming of our Lord Jesus, the setting up of the kingdom, and subsequent events (chapters xix.-xxii.).
A General Look at the Storm and Its Close.
We turn now to _the first_ of these.[137] It begins with a crowned One seated on a white horse going forth conquering and to conquer. This description agrees with the much fuller description of the Lord Jesus near the end of the book, as he goes to the earth for the decisive close of the tribulation.[138]
This gives fresh emphasis to the fact that what follows is the direct result of His advance step. At once there follows on earth a time of war, famine, death, and of persecution to the death of G.o.d"s people.
There is no hint as to how long this goes on. It is brought to a close with an earthquake and an equally terrific disturbance of the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars, something unknown before.
The utmost consternation is created on earth. All conditions of men, crowned kings, merchant princes, men of autocratic power financially and politically and socially, join with the humblest in hiding themselves in the great holes made by the earthquake. They feel that the time of judgment has come, and they are not ready for it.
The description of their terror tallies remarkably with the prophetic language used by Isaiah,[139] even as the whole description fits into our Lord"s Olivet talk. This is seen to be a general, rapid vision of the whole tribulation period.
Then there follows what clearly seems to be a parenthesis fitting in just before the great earthquake. The earth and sea have been terribly torn up by the earthquake. This parenthesis begins with a command that the earth and sea be not hurt until certain things have taken place.
This fits the two events of the parenthesis in just before the ruinous earthquake takes place. The two events are of a radically different sort from what has just been told. They are thus put by themselves, and the run of evil and of judgment upon it, put by itself, so keeping these two quite clear, following the general plan of the book.
There are two events in this parenthesis. There is what is called the "sealing" of a certain number of the Hebrew tribes _on the earth_.
Twelve thousand of each tribe are sealed, making a total of one hundred and forty-four thousand. The word "seal" is used in two senses in the Bible, as a means of fastening up a writing or roll, and, in the New Testament, commonly for the presence of the Holy Spirit in a human life.
The seal in this second sense was a mark of ownership. Paul tells us that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit,[140] so indicating that we belong to the Lord Jesus, who gives us this evidence of His ownership.
If this simple, natural meaning be taken here, it would mean that at this time the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon the Jew. The spiritual regeneration spoken of so frequently in the prophetic pages takes place at this time.
The significance of the numbers should be noticed. Twelve is the number commonly used in the Bible, for corporate completeness, to indicate that a group is complete. Twelve times twelve would simply represent a fully completed corporate number. That is to say, upon the entire body of Jews then living on the earth the Holy Spirit is poured out, thus marking them once again as G.o.d"s peculiar people, restored fully to favour after the long national rejection.
The second event is of equally intense interest, indeed to us of non-Jewish birth it has yet greater interest. John is up in heaven. It is from that point of view that he sees. Now he is suddenly startled.
All at once there appears before his eyes a group he had not seen before. He describes it as a great mult.i.tude, actually countless, out of all the peoples of the whole earth, a great polyglot polyracial world company.
They are clothed in white, holding the conqueror"s palm in their hands, and singing, making wondrous music. John is getting another taste of the music of heaven. And their singing is a signal for a fresh outburst of praise by the angels, the elders, and the living creatures. All this seems to occur suddenly, this appearance of this new company before the throne.
John gazes spellbound, wondering who these are, and where they come from, and what this means. And he is told that these are they that come out of the tribulation, the great one, down on the earth. Then in a few exquisitely tender, heart-touching words their happiness is described.
These two events occur just before the terrible earthquake and the shake-up of the earth"s heavenly bodies. Just before the judgment that closes the tribulation this double event takes place, the conversion of the Jews, and the catching away out of the tribulation distress on earth, up into the presence of the throne, of the followers of our Lord Jesus.
We remember that that great Jew, Paul, was converted by the appearance of Jesus in the heavens above him. We remember that in the Olivet talk Jesus says that His followers will so be gathered up to Himself at the time of His second coming. These two events, taking place here, tell us what has happened down on the earth. In his vision John, being in heaven, sees these things as they appear from above.
This is the first view of the tribulation. It begins with the moment when our Lord Jesus up in heaven begins action, describes the characteristics of the tribulation on earth, and closes with the national regeneration of Israel, and the catching up from earth of Christ"s true followers.
Evil Let Loose.
The _second view_ runs through chapters eight and nine. Chapters ten and eleven to the close of verse thirteen make a distinct parenthesis. And then this view is picked up again at eleven, fourteen, and runs to the close of that chapter. But this final bit in chapter eleven is merely a connecting link with what comes later. Practically the whole of this view is in chapters eight and nine.
It closes with an earthquake, so connecting it with the final event in the first view. It begins with a period of prolonged silence, which would seem to answer to the hush in the great volume of praise in the first view, when the Lamb takes the sealed roll. So it carries us back to the same starting-point as there.
There is first a striking scene before the throne, where John sees a golden altar. On this there is being offered incense, which is said to be added to the prayers of all the saints. Incense and prayers rise together before G.o.d. Then an angel pours some of the fire of this prayer-altar into the earth, and a storm follows. So these two views, first and second, have another common starting-point, the beginning of a storm.
This is a very suggestive scene. The prayers of all the saints, both in earth and heaven, have a decided restraining influence over evil down on earth at the present time. At the close they will become a decisive influence in the cleaning-up process on earth, and the bringing in of the new order.
Then follows a fourfold description of distressing events on earth, which are caused by fiery influences coming out of the heavens. The language used seems to make clear that it is through a loosening out of the powers of evil that the tribulation comes.
In the picture language of the vision, "a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea," with injurious results to water, to life, and to shipping. A mountain is a common figure in the Bible for a great ruling power. So Israel is called by Isaiah.[141] The seventeenth chapter of Revelation speaks of seven kingdoms as seven mountains.[142]
In Jeremiah, Babylon, which is spoken of repeatedly and typically as being the embodiment of evil and of opposition to G.o.d, is called: "O destroying mountain ... which destroyest all the earth, (I) will make of thee a burnt mountain."[143] It speaks here also of "a great star,[144]
burning as a torch," that fell upon the rivers and makes them bitter as wormwood. These two things seem to suggest clearly that the great hurt done to sea and vegetation, to all life, and through the obscuring of the heavenly lights, is a result directly of the powers of evil having been loosened out.
The long restraint upon evil through the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church is now withdrawn in the withdrawal of the Spirit. His withdrawal is practically an answer to the tacit prayer both of world and Church. That prayer is being answered. The "One" who restraineth has been withdrawn. This it is that makes the tribulation on its negative side. The awful character of the demons from the pit is so utterly beyond human experience up to that time that there seem no adequate words to describe them.
The Gospels are full of the awful activity of demons on earth in possessing men. In our own land there is not wanting plenty of evidence of men horribly possessed by demons. In the older countries of Europe this experience is much more marked. But it is in heathen lands that it is most marked, where even the very air seems charged with evil forces, as though these unseen demons swarmed about.
Yet all this sort of thing is now under restraint. What it will mean to have that restraint withdrawn, and the horrid hordes here described free to do as they will, no imagination can depict. This is well called the first _woe_, and an awful woe it will be. Mercifully there is a time limit set on this demon activity.
Following this comes the loosing out of another horde of demons, as difficult of description, and yet more terrible. They seem countless, yet there is a limit to their numbers. The supreme Hand is never wholly withdrawn. These have power to kill as well as to torment. This is the second woe. It is most strikingly noticeable that neither of these things has influence to make men penitent.
The last item of this view is given in chapter xi. 14-19. The announcement is made that the sovereignty of the world is transferred to our Lord and His Christ. The temple of G.o.d is seen open, and some further action takes place, but the detail of it is reserved for another view. Such is the terrible sight in the second view of the tribulation time. Evil is loosened out, apparently unrestrained, and yet under restraint. This it is that makes the tribulation on its positive side.
The parenthesis in the description of this view has been spoken of. It runs through chapters ten and eleven to the close of verse thirteen, and contains two chief things. The first is a little group of three items.
There is a fresh description of our Lord Jesus as He is seen standing with one foot on the sea and the other upon the earth, and holding a little open book. Then seven thunders roar out. John is about to write, but is told not to. That terrific storm coming is far greater than can be told. Then comes the solemn declaration that there will be no further delay, but that at once shall be finished up this terrible time of judgment. Then follows a personal word to John. These three items make up chapter ten.
G.o.d"s Faithful Witnesses.
Then comes the second thing, in chapter eleven on to verse thirteen, which proves to be _the third view_ of the tribulation. It shows that during the whole of this tribulation time there will be a special faithful witness being borne to G.o.d and His truth. As the Holy Spirit is being withdrawn from the Church, these two men begin their special ministry of witnessing.