Revelation

Dispossession

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Lesson: 19-30

Genre: Talk

Track: 187

Dictation Name: RR129K19

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Revelation 14, Dispossession.

“14 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

5 And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

14 And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

16 And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

17 And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

20 And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”

When God created the earth, He created it wholly good. And God created the earth as His kingdom, and set man in paradise to govern, to subdue, and to develop the earth under Him. But man sinned, and he was cast out of the garden, and the earth was cursed for his sake. And ever since then it has been the goal of sinful man to claim for himself the kingdom of God, to dispossess God, and to create a paradise on earth. Thus, when Christ came His purpose was to reestablish the kingdom by His own blood, to open up the kingdom by His atonement, and to dispossess the enemy from the earth. To destroy their works. For they, claiming to be heirs of the kingdom had seized the land, the vineyard, and claimed that they were the people of God, the true heirs of God.

In the fourteenth chapter of Revelation, Saint John tells us of this dispossession. In the previous chapters we have seen the dimensions of the satanic attack on the kingdom of God, on the people of God, and the nature of the spiritual issues which are at stake. We have seen also the blasphemous extent of the power of evil and the suffering of the saints.

And so perhaps it has occurred to us: “Is this the only destiny of the people of God, to suffer?” Unfortunately too often the church has so taught. It has declared that it is the work of the people of God simply to suffer and to wait in this world. And their conception of the role of the church and of the people of God has been basically passive. As though the church were simply the victim. As though the world belonged to the devil, and the devil were destined to triumph in history.

But the people of God and the church of God are not called simply to suffer, but to be the army of Christ in the world. An army that is destined to triumph.

It is a very wrong conception of the role of Christ’s people to see them merely as suffering saints, whose only destiny is to suffer and then to be with the Lord.

Similarly, others have seen the church as a kind of grand neutral on the human scene. As though it is the role of the church to take no sides in what goes on round about us, as though the church were simply the great red cross of the world, which helps all sides in the battle and never takes sides.

We do have men who claim to be Bible believing Christians who advocate this attitude. And from all churches we have men who claim to represent the cause of Orthodoxy who will tell you, that in the struggle for example between Communism and the Western World, the church must take no side because the church is above all these affairs. And similarly in other struggles the church is to be above anything partisan.

But there is no neutrality in this world. Men are either for Christ or they are against Him. And there is no neutrality in any area, whether it is politics or economics, or whether it is agriculture or whether it is business, or whether it be science, or art, or architecture, in every area there is a right and wrong. In every area the word of God must speak. And so the idea of a church that is passive, and a believer who simply suffers and waits. Or the church as simply the red cross that ministers to everybody and ministers to both sides is not only wrong, but it is wicked. The word of God speaks concerning every area of life. The word of God has something to say to every man in every calling and in every situation.

It is not, certainly, the business of the church to engage in politics, it is its business to speak to the political realm concerning Gods word; what God has to say to the man in politics, in science, in economics, in every sphere. To expound the word of God. And the word of God speaks to every area.

Our faith is either relevant to all of life, or it is relevant to none of it. Because God is either totally God or He is not God at all. He either speaks to the whole world, or He speaks to none of it. And so we cannot restrict the word of God simply to spiritual matters. It speaks concerning things spiritual and material. It declares the council of God unto salvation, and it declares also the whole counsel of God concerning every sphere of life.

Consider what it did for our country when one man of God, John Witherspoon, over and over again in the continental congress, spoke to them concerning inflation, and said: “Thou shalt not steal, and inflation is theft.” All we have of this witness is one address and a little essay, and the constitution. He left his mark on it with his witness.

He did not believe that it was his ministry simply to be spiritual. He spoke concerning salvation, and he spoke concerning the will of God in every area. Now no one can read the fourteenth chapter of Revelation without recognizing that the church is called to speak to the whole of life. In the first five verses we are given a picture of the true church under the authority of the lamb. The lamb of course, is Jesus Christ. The true church is ever triumphant, it is spoken of as theologians as the church militant on earth, and the church triumphant in heaven. But the church militant is the church triumphant in process. And as a result its song is always a victory chant.

And it sings always a new song. And the term ‘A new song’ is from the Psalms, and it means a song of thanksgiving. They sung as it were, a new song before the throne. The new song according to the Psalms is a song of thanksgiving because of victory. And so the church is called upon even in the midst of trial and of suffering, to sing always a new song. This is the essence of the song of the church, victory. Because for the church according to Romans 8:28, for the people of God, all things work together for good that love God, for them who are the called according to His purpose. Therefore whatever comes our way adds up ultimately to victory; but the reverse is true for the ungodly. All things work together for evil to them who do not love God, for them who are not the called according to His purpose.

The fourth and fifth verses, the members of the body of Christ are described as virgins, who are not defiled in the sense of Second Corinthians 11:2, where Paul declared: “I have espoused you to one husband, that I present you,” that is the church and the members thereof “as a chaste virgin to Christ.” The word virgin in Greek is masculine in form, even when used with reference to both sexes. The phrase here has reference to the entire church, to the hundred and forty four thousand, that is, to the fullness of the saints of the Old and New Testament, twelve times twelve. And it has reference also to the huge multitude which no man was able to count, out of every race.

Now their virginity is clearly described as consisting of four things; as purity, implicit obedience, separation unto Christ, and utter truthfulness or no guile. Therefore they are without fault before the throne of God. They are blameless, without fault or with blemish. Any of these phrases is a valid translation. They are spoken of having not defiled themselves with women. Now, the expression women there is in some texts sometimes in the singular, woman. The reference in either case is clear cut. If it is woman, singular, it has reference to the whore of Babylon, that is the one world empire. Women, to the nations whom we shall find reference to subsequently, who have defiled themselves by becoming part of Babylon. As a result the virginity of the true church and of the people of God consists in faithfulness to a God-centered faith, as against the seductions of man-centered theology and a man centered world empire which tries to create a one world paradise without God.

In the first five verses therefore the true church is described. Then through the media of seven angels, the full task of the church is announced. Seven angels signifying fullness. In verses 6-20 we have this announcement. The first angel in verses 6 and 7 proclaims the everlasting gospel. This is the first and foremost task of the church, to declare the grace of God unto salvation through Jesus Christ. This is the responsibility of the church in every age, and throughout history from the beginning to the end, the church has the responsibility to make known to every creature the gospel of salvation.

The second angel in verse 8 proclaims the fall of Babylon. “Babylon is fallen, is fallen. That great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” This then is the second great task of the church and of the ministry, to proclaim the doom, the fall of the world empire, of every attempt by man to create a paradise apart from Him. Babylon is central to all Biblical typology. It represents every attempt by man since the tower of Babel to erect a one world paradise apart from God, to establish human unity on the principal of revolt against God by men who try to be as God. It culminates in a one world empire and a one world organization, which attempts to give to man everything that God plans to give redeemed man. To deny in this process the sovereignty of God, and claim sovereignty for man.

Babylon the great is man’s attempt to say: “I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.” The program of Babylon is everything that the kingdom of God offers. A good life, peace, unity, the fulfillment of all of man’s potentialities- but all these things apart from God, and in defiance of His law. So that it is to come by breaking the law of God, and by declaring man to be God.

But it is the mission of the church in every age to say: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” That: “God in ever age will confound and scatter, and plunge into confusion every attempt by man to create a church out of the state, to create a one world order or any kind of order which can stand apart from God. It is either this nation and every nation under God, or it is their scattering, their confounding, their destruction by God.”

And so the true church in every age has a mission to the state, to declare that God declares their destruction, promises it; if they do not build on Him and His word. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

So, the first mission of the church is to proclaim the gospel of salvation. The second to proclaim the judgement of God upon every apostate state, and to proclaim the word of God concerning the Godly state.

The third mission of the church is proclaimed in verses 9-12 by the third angel, namely, to warn men in every age that they must not fall victims to the lure of Babylon, to the dream of a paradise state, created by man; to the lure of humanism. To receive the mark of the beast means that men have placed their hopes in this world, and in the power of the state to give them their security. It means that they look to the state for cradle to grave security, rather than to God as their refuge and strength, their security, their very present help in time of need. And so the church must warn men in every age that they are responsible to God and will be judged by Him if they depart from His word. Those who bear the mark of the beast have no rest day or night; and the church must proclaim this: “There is no rest saith my God, to the wicked.” Theirs is the cup of His indignation. They who drink of the wine of the wrath of God shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb.

The fourth angel proclaims the comfort of faith, and this is another of the great missions of the church. They who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, unto them the word comes: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.”

And so the fourth task of the church is to proclaim the blessedness and the glory of our reward in Christ, our heavenly destiny. It is a sin on the part of the church to neglect to preach concerning the things of this world, concerning material things, but it is also a sin on the part of the church to neglect to proclaim the glories of heaven. This is our destiny in Christ. For when we die here our souls go to be with the Lord, to have the glorious rest a peace of heaven, and at the end of the world at the new creation, to put on the resurrection body and enjoy everlasting life with Him.

Heaven is our destiny. We are to live, both body and soul, and to live in perfection, in a world where there is no death nor dying, neither sorrow; where God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes, and we shall enter into the joy of the Lord. This then according to the fourth angel is a part of the mission of the church, to proclaim the joy and the glory of heaven.

In verses 14-16, the fifth angel proclaims the judgement is to be preached by the church, not merely reserved to the end time but an ever-present fact in every age. That Christ is constantly reaping a harvest and separating the tares and the wheat; that judgement comes to men and nations in history as well as at the end of history, that Assyria falls, and Babylon falls, and Greece falls, and Rome falls, and Communism shall fall, and every state and ever Civil Government that attempts to build without Christ shall fall.

Therefore the fact of judgement must be constantly proclaimed. Men either meet Christ as their savior or as their judge. Judgement therefore is a ministry and a mission of the church, and to soft peddle this fact and preach peace, sweetness and light, and to dispense simply sweet music is the mark of a sinning or apostate church. Therefore the church must not only preach heaven, it must declare the fact of hell. It is a part of the whole counsel of God.

In verses 17-20, the sixth angel declares another mission of the church, to declare the fact of the vengeance of our God. The treading of the winepress was the symbol of the vengeance of God, and it is spoken of as the great winepress of the wrath of God. Winepresses usually stood outside the city, near the vineyard. And even so, those who refused to find sanctuary in the city of God are cast into the winepress of the vengeance of God. When our Lord was executed He was taken outside the gate of earthly Jerusalem, because the taking of a condemned man outside of the gates meant that he was not only being executed, he was being cut off from any relationship forever with the people. His name was being blotted out, and he was regarded as being accursed, forever separated from anything that had meaning in the city.

And so Jesus was cast out by the earthly Jerusalem, by the city of man. Now the condemned nation must go outside the gates of the true Jerusalem, the city of God, to be executed; to be trodden underfoot by God in His great winepress. For the earth is the Lords, and the ungodly will be cast out.

Over and over and over again, as the law is given in the Old Testament there is this refrain which we find again in the Psalms: “The earth is the Lords, and the fullness thereof.” And when the ungodly lay claim to the earth they are challenging God, and God takes vengeance on them, and he casts them outside his kingdom, outside his Jerusalem, and they are trodden in the winepress of the wrath of God.

Thus the church must declare that God is a God of vengeance; that every sin is directly an affront to God, a denial of Him, and an attempt to supplant Him. That man himself cannot take unto himself the prerogatives of God. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay.” And the vengeance of God is upon all who are un-atoned for, who are un-forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ.

And so, even as we proclaim atonement, the forgiveness, the remission of sins through the blood of Jesus Christ, we must at the same time proclaim that the vengeance of God is upon all who are not under the blood of Christ; that even as those who in Egypt did not have the blood of the lamb to protect their household suffered from the plague of God; so in this world continually, the judgement of God is upon those who are not under the blood of the lamb. This judgement is in history, and it culminates finally in the last judgement at the end of history. And notice, the term that is used: “The last judgement.” It means that it is the last of many judgments, of a continuous judgement. The last judgement therefore is not the only judgement, it is a continual judgement down through the ages.

In verse 20 it speaks of sixteen hundred furlongs being covered with the blood of vengeance. This is a symbol for the fullness of judgement, that is, it is worldwide in its extent at all times in history. The distance is four by four, that is the four corners of the world multiplied by themselves, plus one hundred; a hundred being ten compounded by itself. Ten the number of fullness. Thus the whole world is covered by the vengeance of God wherever it is uncovered by the atoning blood of Christ.

This chapter therefore speaks about the dispossession of the enemies of God. Now the things which are, Saint Paul declared, are being shaken, beginning with the fall of Jerusalem which is soon to come, he declared. “So that the things which are unshakable may alone remain.”

And so in this age as every age the world sees a great shaking by God; so that the things which are alone unshakable may remain.

This chapter therefore speaks of dispossession, and it speaks of the mission of the church in all its fullness. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give Thee thanks for this Thy word; and for the glory and the certainty of thy government. Make us ever mindful our Father in every trial, in every time of difficulty, that Thou Lord art on the throne; and Thou art shaking the nations and casting them into the great winepress of Thy vengeance and wrath; and it is Thy purpose to establish us in Thee and in Thy kingdom. Our God how great Thou art, and we praise Thee. Make us strong in faith, resolute in Thy service, and ever faithful unto Thy word. In Jesus name, amen.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, very definitely. Throughout most of Western history, virtually all your nations had a Christian basis; so that throughout what is called the Dark Ages but was not, and throughout the Medieval Period and the Early Modern period until the French Revolution, every state had more or less a Christian basis.

Now, in the 18th century most of the countries had abandoned it, and that is why Peter Drucker, an Austrian has spoken of the American War of Independence as a Conservative Counter-Revolution. The French Revolution was the first state formally to abandon Christianity and establish a humanistic basis, but it was recognized previously that the state had an obligation to be Christian.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The church must preach the word of God, that is its first task, to minister the sacraments, and discipline. Now, if the church faithfully preaches the word of God, it will speak to every area of life. Then it is the duty of Christians to carry out the meaning of the word of God, to apply these things in every sphere. So that the church doesn’t go into politics, it speaks to politics. The church doesn’t go into farming, it speaks to farming. It doesn’t go into science, it speaks to science. It declares the word of God for every area.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, you put your finger on it. You see, the social gospel is saying in effect the true church is the state, man’s true savior is the state, and it is abdicating the work of the church. And that is why the social gospel ultimately says: “Let us do away with the church.”

Now, you are beginning to hear this. We should unite churches in various communities, then we should drop local churches, then we should have one regional plant for all the various churches to use, some meeting to worship on Monday night, others Tuesday, and so on. Little by little to destroy the church, because their true church is the state. So it is the mission of the state, they are proclaiming, in the church. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, in Red China this whole thing was worked out that you are beginning to hear piecemeal here. The churches were all put under a state agency with some of these top leftist churchmen controlling the agency. Then churches were closed down, and they were told: “We have decided that, instead of having ten churches in this area there will be one church building. So on Sunday we will let the Baptists use it, on Monday the Catholics, on Tuesday the Presbyterians.” And so on. And finally to limit the amount of time they have for services to discourage it, in other words; so that the idea is ultimately to reduce the church to a welfare center, during the daytime it is to be used for educating children, to have a nursery for them in terms of Socialist or Marxist dogma.

Now, this kind of thing is actually being proposed here in this country, it has been applied in Red China. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, already you find the counsels of churches working with planning commissions to limit the churches in any new area, and the idea is three only, a Synagogue, a Catholic church, and one approved Protestant church. And of course, ultimately those are to be combined, in the thinking of some of these planners.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, Yes the Jehovah’s Witnesses began by saying that only a 144,000 go to heaven. Now they have more members by far than a 144,000, so they limit any publication any longer of their number of members, because that would create consternation in their ranks.

Now, the 144,000 as I indicate is a symbolic figure. It indicates 12 times 12 multiplied by myriads, or thousands. Myriad in the Greek which we have also in the English, the word myriad is a Greek word which we have taken over, means a thousand and also a vast multitude. So 12 by 12 Myriad means the twelve of the Old Testament, the twelve of the New, in other words the fullness of the saints of both in myriads.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, there are various forms of it, but in many of these retirement communities that are planned by planners this kind of thing prevails. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, that is very good. Since we are on the subject of architecture, a couple of weeks ago the question was raised about modern architecture and its attempt to appear weightless and to have no connection with the laws of gravity. I didn’t want to speak more definitely then on another aspect of that until I had checked it out, but I was quite sure I would so find it; but this became an ideal in the late medieval era. In the early Middle Ages the church was always a parish church, it was built for a small congregation. So that, in the early Medieval period churches were built to seat 2 or 3 hundred, no more; and it was an entirely different thing that came with the empire building and competing when monarchs and wealthy Bishops began to build huge Cathedrals; in some cases they were built in towns where the seating capacity of the cathedral exceeded the population of the town by a couple thousand, it would be so vast.

Now, Marcel Aubert in the Art of the High Gothic Era writes on page 43: “With every new cathedral the aim was to build higher and higher, and to dispense with the impression of weight altogether. At (bobay?) things had been carried too far. In 1284 the nave collapsed.” And then it goes on to speak of the problems they encountered.

But this is not an unusual example, the collapse of the cathedral of (bobay?) this happened repeatedly in the late Medieval period. They tried so desperately to convey the impression of weightlessness that they built cathedrals that were so fragile that they repeatedly collapsed.

Now the rationale behind this was not Christian. They were so carried away by Neo Platonism, the kind of thinking of course that made the Renaissance Humanism possible, that they denied that man was bound to the earth, and they tried to show that in their architecture; and the result was tremendous problems. We don’t realize how commonplace it was in the late Medieval period for churches to collapse on the people within, simply because of this attempt at weightlessness.

We have this again now, the attempt to create architecturally the idea that a building is not bound to the earth, that it is floating as it were; that it isn’t subject to the laws of gravity, and the reason for it of course is that man is playing God. He doesn’t want to say that he has to be anchored firmly to the ground.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The book of Revelation was written like all of the New Testament in Greek. However, the Hebraic phrasing is very predominant in Revelation as nowhere else in the New Testament. In other words, it echoes phraseology that is not native to Greek, that is native to Hebrew.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t quite hear you?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, he is reassuring the church, which was beginning at this time to suffer from the persecutions of Rome, that those who die in the Lord are blessed indeed. Those who have died and those who shall die, because they die in the faith, they die as witnesses, they die a glorious death, witnessing for Christ. The church was on the verge then, you see, of the great persecutions which lasted for a couple of centuries, and in which countless numbers of Christians lost their lives. And so this word was spoken, of course it’s true for all time, but especially for these suffering saints who were going to undergo such fearful trials.

The Lord was saying: “You especially have this comfort, to know that your death is glorious in the sight of God, and your reward shall be great for the testimony you make.” And so it was in this confidence that so many of the saints who died, died such triumphant deaths. And really it is amazing when you go to the accounts of the martyrs under the Roman persecution, to see how they died. Some of them so caught up in prayer that they were not entirely aware of the fact that they were being mauled by the animals. Because when they went out into the arena they knelt in prayer, in fervent prayer, and more than once they were not even aware that they had been mauled and were on the verge of death. This we know from eye-witness accounts, people who spoke to them in their last moments. And of course I think most touching and moving and amusing in some ways is the death of Saint Laurence.

Saint Laurence was treasurer of the church, and the authorities sent officers to seize the church funds, having had word that some funds had accumulated. And so Saint Laurence immediately called in the poor and the needy, the widows and the orphans in the church and gave them the money, and got rid of the entire treasury. So of course when they seized him and demanded to know where the treasury of the church was, he pointed to the poor and said: “These are the churches treasury.” When he was executed and he offended the guards and the officers, the judge, by his faith; they sentenced him to a particularly painful death, to break his spirit. He was to be burned to death on a grate. And when they put him on the grate and started the fire, his last words were, and it enraged the Roman officials because he gained a victory, he said as he was burning and near death, he said: “Turn me over, I am done on this side now.”

It took a great faith, to talk like that. But nothing could have enraged them more, he had made his witness previously.

Well, our time is up, and we stand dismissed.