Revelation

The Two Banquets

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Lesson: 24-30

Genre: Talk

Track: 192

Dictation Name: RR129M24

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Revelation 19, The Two Banquets. Revelation 19, The Two Banquets.

“19 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:

2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.

3 And again they said, Alleluia And her smoke rose up for ever and ever.

4 And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia.

5 And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great.

6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.

8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords.

17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;

18 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.”

We saw in Revelation 18 that the dream of Babylon, the dream of this one world order, of paradise on earth without God, collapses finally under the burden of its own economics. Revelation portrays for us a world wide economic collapse, and chaos. And it presents the merchants of the earth weeping and wailing, because all is gone; all is gone down the drain. And the whole world is brought into chaos and anarchy by the collapse of the dream of Babylon.

In Revelation 19, the situation of two earlier chapters is recalled, in order to reveal to us now the fullness of their meaning.

Revelation 4:1, and Revelation 6:2 are now brought into their focus. We see again heaven opened, that is creation and all its events, the whole of history and factuality viewed from the perspective of the triune God and His purpose. Again we are shown Jesus Christ riding on a white horse, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Jesus Christ is presented again to us as the kinsman redeemer, the next of kin to man, to believing man. To all who believe He becomes next of kin, and undertakes to restore to them the forfeited inheritance of man.

And so to dispossess the enemy as we have seen, the Lord sent forth His seven fold judgement to humble the nations and to shatter the dream of Babylon. These judgments not only judge the world, but they separate the believe from the world in that he is shaken out of his security in the things that are, from his inclination to make a common cause with the world; so that the believer by these judgments is also set apart, brought out from the world.

Whenever in history we see the rise and fall of nations and economic disasters, we see the judgement of the Lord upon Babylon, and His war upon Babylon’s false claims and its pretensions. The purpose of God at the beginning of creation was to establish man in paradise, and there to have man live in terms of the kingdom or city of God. And the whole of history shows us two cities in conflict, and Revelation terms these: “The Jerusalem which is from above” And the other Babylon, or “The Jerusalem which is below” or Rome, or Egypt, or Sodom. Any of these names fit, and you can add to these names Moscow, and London, and Paris, and Washington, and every order that tries to create a great society, a paradise on earth without God.

The use of the concept of city is of significance. Because in order to understand what is meant when Revelation contrasts these two cities, and speaks of them also as Empires; “Babylon the Great” which includes all the kings and nations of the world. It is important to understand what ‘City’ means.

The very first city in history was the Garden of Eden. Now, at first glance this seems to be a strange statement, much because the Garden of Eden was made up of Adam and Eve. But the concept of a city is the concept of communion and community. It was a city because Adam and Eve were in communion with one another, and together with God; and this made it a city. In every ancient City, citizenship depended upon communion. Upon a faith. For example, in the city of Rome you were not a citizen, you were not in community with the city, unless annually you took part of the rites at the temple. And if you failed to go through the lustrations and the communion services of the pagan temple there, you lost your citizenship in Rome. The only exemption made was for soldiers who were out on campaign, and their names were read; but no one else was exempted.

In other words, a city represented a communion, a communion in terms of a common faith. Now, the common faith of Babylon the great, this great world city, this dream of a one world order, is total humanism. It is submission to the concept of Satan: “Ye shall be as God, every man his own God, knowing, that is, determining, good and evil for yourself. Every man his own God.” This is the religious basis of Babylon, and as Babylon makes inroads in a state it works to establish the state on this premise. And so it is today, humanism is the established religion of the United States. It is taught in the public schools, it is made a required part of the curriculum, and textbooks like Land of the Free teach this humanistic faith.

But the purpose of the city of God is to establish man under God in terms of the sovereignty of God, in terms of the saving power of Jesus Christ. And so these two cities grow side by side, until finally by the judgement of God as the city of man builds up its pretensions it is destroyed. Because it is a house built upon sand, and there is this tremendous collapse, this world wide economic collapse and chaos; and Babylon is destroyed.

From the beginning, fallen man was cut off from the Garden of Eden; and the flaming sword keeps the way to the tree of life to prevent man in his sin from finding peace and security apart from God. And when man’s pretensions reach their uttermost in the dream of Babylon, then the flaming sword goes to work; and this is the destruction of Babylon, its Armageddon.

In Chapter 19 in verses 1-10, the saints of God sing the great hallelujah chorus, rejoicing in the Lords victory. This is the rejoicing that was required of them in 18:20-24, and this echoes the great Hebrew Hallel, which was Psalms 113-118, which began with: “Praise the Lord” or, in Hebrew, Praise the Lord is: “Allelujah”. Which proclaimed Gods salvation to his people. A beatitude is proclaimed in verse 9 for those who are bidden to the great marriage supper of the lamb.

God is then revealed as proclaiming two great banquets: one for His own people, and marriage is a symbol of communion, a perfect marriage means perfect communion, and so the epitome of the symbolism of communion is here the marriage of Christ to His church, that is, the establishment of the true community of Christ.

The other banquet is the banquet of wrath for the workers of iniquity. The church or the bride is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and the banquet is the symbol of restored fellowship between God and man. A banquet means a common feast.

Now, in ancient times to eat with a man, and the expression to eat salt with a man is the ancient term, to sit at a table with him was a symbol of brotherhood and communion. A century ago this still prevailed in most of the world; so that when men went into various parts of the world as explorers or travelers and were strangers, one of the first things they attempted to do was to be invited to eat with the leading man of the area. Because once they ate his bread they were then under his protection, communion had been established. Once they ate with the strong man of the area, if anyone touched them they were at war with that strong man. But until they ate with the leading man of the area their life was worthless in the area. And so it was they went with gifts to the chief, to the Amir, to the Rajah, or whoever might be in the area to establish some relationship with him immediately, so that there might be communion.

When there is communion there is peace, and God walked with man in paradise and had communion with him. This communion was broken by man’s sin, and is now restored by Gods grace through the blood of Jesus Christ; and the sign of this restoration of communion is the sacrament of the Lords table, eating and drinking. The symbol of fellowship, to indicate that all those who partake worthily, who partake by faith, are now in communion with the strong man, with God almighty, through the blood of Jesus Christ. And are therefore under His protection and in His grace. All believers enter into this communion by regeneration, partake of it in increasing measure as they participate in true Christian fellowship, and they grow in it as they establish a Christian society, and they enter into the fullness of this communion at the general resurrection and in the new creation.

But the banquet, the table of Babylon, and of the sons of Babylon, is the feast of vultures on the field of battle. And it typifies the utter ruin of human society and fellowship, its devastation by death and war and chaos, anarchy. The consequences of man’s rebellion against God, and his attempt to create his own paradise apart from God, end up, Revelation tells us, in the feast of vultures. The scene is depicted in words which echo Ezekiel 39:4,17-20. This banquet of vultures is an old story in history, and it is the culminating story. Man’s wars to make the world safe for democracy, to win the four freedoms for man, to end poverty and disease and sickness and death, end up always in the feast of vultures, in the most flagrant of social evils, in providing more carnage for vulture beasts. And as a result the dream of Babylon is finally destroyed by the very attempts to realize it.

But not only is the dream of Babylon destroyed, and the Whore of Babylon eliminated, but the beast and the false prophet are also destroyed. The beast is every anti-Christian civil order, every government that attempts to create a paradise apart from God; and the false prophet is every anti Christian church and every anti Christian religion. The messianic pretensions of these states perish, they are destroyed; and the faiths which give them support are destroyed with them. This destruction is depicted in terms which clearly recall the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even as God wiped from the face of the earth the cities of the plain, so that they disappeared and were no more except as a by-word of infamy and destruction, so Babylon the great and everything it represents is destined to perish from the face of the earth. All mans dreams of a socialist paradise, of an anti Christian order, of humanistic religions, will perish like Sodom and Gomorrah. The old Adam is confounded in all his pretensions and in all his hope, and in his every attempt to give form to his nature through a social order and through a religious order is persistently eliminated by God, and is finally smashed and destroyed.

This involves a tremendous convulsion in history; this involves in the process of these convulsions tremendous sufferings and disorientation and heartbreak to the people of God, in the face of their own sufferings in this process. But the saints have a duty to rejoice, their song must be the great hallelujah chorus. And the benediction which Revelation pronounces in its closing verses, Revelation 22:18 following, is for those who accept the totality of Gods purpose, adding and detracting nothing. Who say as they see the judgement of God upon the ungodly coming, and all the dislocation and distress it means for everyone including themselves: “Just and righteous are Thy works oh Lord. Therefore shall we praise Thee.” And who with the saints sing out: “Allejuah, salvation and glory, and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are His judgments.” Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast made ready for us the banquet of the lamb; and we thank Thee that Thou hast called us out of the banquet of the vultures, of the feast of the vultures, and by Thy grace made us citizens of Thy city, Thy kingdom. Give us grace therefore to walk in this confidence, knowing that we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, that this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith; and make us strong in the face of adversity, knowing our God, that it is Thy judgement, and we shall prevail. Our God we thank Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson? Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Because the essence of all anti-Christian faith is imitation. Now, just as with respect to money, the idea is to pass a counterfeit that looks like the real thing, so in religion imitation prevails. So the basic concepts of our faith are taken and misapplied. And so, community is a key word with all these modernists, in fact I would say the greatest single book, very moving, very powerful, except you know its foundations are false; is precisely on this subject. It is by (Dietrich Von Hofer?) and it is on community. It is a beautiful book, except Christ is lacking as the foundation of this community. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] They were going to perform marvelous things, and seemed to have the power of God with them, and that the false churches would seem to have all the blessing and the power, so that it would seem as though God’s blessing was upon them, this is the sense in which miracle is here used in verse 20. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] England was originally a Christian nation. About the middle of the last century it very definitely altered its Christian basis. The Victorian era was the beginning of the departure from a Christian foundation.

Now, during the previous eras there were many periods of tremendous apostasy and immorality, but the legal foundations of the state remained Christian. But about the time of Victoria in her early reign the foundations of the state began to leave Christianity for humanism, and this has now been completed.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, renewal is their substitute word for regeneration or rebirth, and they mean by it social renewal. While we are on the subject of your questions I would like to read to you a couple of passages which are supposed translations or paraphrases of the Pauline epistles, this is newly published, the so-called translator is Clarence Jordan, and it is a new version of Paul’s epistles. And this is being sold in tremendous numbers although it has just come off the press. I would like to read to you first Ephesians 2:11-13. “Wherefore remember” (This is in the King James) “That ye being in time past gentiles in the flesh which are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands; but at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

Now, the point of the passage is that man being a sinner, is out of communion with God, and is now reconciled to God by Jesus Christ. But listen to this from Jordan’s version: “So then, always remember that previously you Negro’s, who sometimes are even called ‘niggers’ by thoughtless white church members, were at one time outside the Christian fellowship denied your rights as fellow believers, and treated as though the gospel didn’t apply to you, hopeless and Godforsaken in the eyes of the world. Now however, because of Christ’s supreme sacrifice, you who one were so segregated are warmly welcomed into the Christian fellowship.”

Not only are the words very different, but the idea is of human reconciliation, but even more in Philippians 3:5-6, Paul speaks of himself: “Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.”

Now here Paul is describing himself before he was converted. Now, this is the way Jordan translates it, or at least it is called a translation. “If anybody else thinks he has status, I have even more. A baptized church member, a white man from an old southern family, a one hundred percent Anglo-Saxon as to religion a Protestant, as to dedication giving all outside agitators hell, as the church rules and regulations spotless.”

Now this is called translation, and this is what if you should be so unfortunate to attend to them you will hear increasingly in the churches. In other words, it claims to be the Bible but it doesn’t have really any connection with it. Now… it is a total counterfeit. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Circumcision was an act whereby the foreskin of the male organ was cut off, to indicate that through generation, there is no salvation for man, through natural birth. But only in a sense, dying unto himself, through regeneration is there hope. And it is replaced in the New Testament by Baptism, as the initial sacrament of the church.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, that is precisely it, all these contemporary translators do have an ax to grind, and the ax is becoming more and more obvious, in fact the ax in this translation has taken the place of the text. There is no text left, it is all ax. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the King James version was old-fashioned, out of date language when it was translated, so that it was in some respects perhaps a little more out of date at the time of its translation than it is now. The reason why the translators deliberately chose and old-fashioned, out of date form was because they felt: “We have got to get down to basic, old fashioned, simple English.” And so they avoided the terminology of the day, words that were not as clear cut and sharp in meaning, and they translated it into an old fashioned language that still stands the test of time.

If you go for example to some of the translations of 75-100 years ago, you would be embarrassed reading them because they are so out of date, so peculiar linguistically. But the King James has this basic English which has a reverence, which has a simplicity, a dignity, which they felt was most compatible to the Bible.

Our time is almost up, but there are a couple of things I would like to share with you that are I think of contemporary importance, this from the open tribune, Wednesday, January the 31st 1968, confirming something that I stated quite a few months ago, the Red Chinese are one of the biggest buyers of Gold on the London, Geneva, and Paris markets. They are buying our gold at 35 dollars an ounce, and flying it, they have got a plane shuttling back and forth from there to Hong Kong, and selling it at 80-85 dollars, they can more than double their money in just a few minutes after they land, because at that price it is underpriced. Since mid December Peking’s bank of China has purchased an estimated 200 million dollars worth of gold for shipment to Communist China via Hong Kong, that is, they sell the gold, they use the dollars in order to buy our goods, and they double their money in the process.

Another item that I think is of importance, last week I read to you portions of Don Bells reports on this book: “Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace”. As you will recall, this is a secret report made by 15 brain-trusters for an unidentified agency of the federal administration, plans for the future world. And it has been anonymously published at the request of one of them, and is an extremely important document. But this sentence from the report I think is interesting, I quote: “It is entirely possible that the development of a sophisticated form of slavery may be an absolute prerequisite for social control in a world at peace. As a practical matter, conversion of the code of military discipline to a euphemized form of enslavement would entail surprisingly little revision. A logical first step would be the adoption of some form of universal military service.”

So you see, how more and more obviously their plans for 1984 are becoming apparent. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, (Galbreith?) reviewed it anonymously, yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, this is…

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, because they are excellent at gaging the temper of the people. This will scarcely make more than a ripple. A limited number of people will be outraged, and then the controversy will subside and we will proceed on the road to slavery. We have had similar revelations in the past. I talked at some length this summer with a man who turned up such statements as this over and over again, while working for Senate committee through the fifties, and he said it hit the headlines for a number of weeks, and then the matter subsided, and he said that it is very difficult now to find anyone who remembers it. And he quoted to me statements that were almost identical with this. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Very well-put. George Bernard Shaw in his exposition of Fabian Socialism said this sort of thing many years ago.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] One more thing I would like to pass on to you, one of the things that breaks down a country and breaks down community is a breakdown of character, and this I think from the National Review for February the 13th 1968, All in a Day’s Work by Robert Peter, portions of it are very interesting describing what is happening in South America. “True story from a South American lawyers office, the client had had an automobile collision. “What shall we do?” he asked in despair. “The other fellow got the name of witnesses on the spot, but I was so shaken up that it slipped my mind.” The lawyer smiles and calls his assistant. “Rodriguez, we need two witnesses right away.” Comes the answer: “Yes sir, indeed. And what is it they should have seen?” In a certain city the visitor can look with wonder on whole crowds of Indio’s and half breeds squatting on the steps of the courthouse staring at nothing. One inquires why it is that these simple folk have so many legal problems? “Not at all, they are witnesses.” Now and then a lawyer approaches 2-3 of them, tells them what they are to swear under oath, names his price, and trots them before the judge to swear accordingly. Almost everywhere the legal system rests on the ancient principles of the code Napoleon, there are no oral proceedings in which the court is free to evaluate the evidence, no such modern advances; it is all on paper. Three witnesses constitute proof, and two witnesses are only two thirds persuasive. If contradictory evidence is evenly supported by contradictory witnesses, then other factors must decide. Thus many a judge who began his career in modest circumstances now lives as a man of means, not every judge, but many.”

Then this statement on the mails: “In certain South American countries when you receive a letter you experience a feeling of happy wonder, of humble thanks that everything has come out all right. It contrasts with a feeling of anxious concern when mailing a letter. In Brazil some years ago the authorities issued a new rule, if you mail a letter you can demand that it be franked by a metered machine and not with stamps. The experienced South American will immediately understand the basis for this reasonable measure. When you stick stamps on an envelope they are easily stolen, either by the postal clerk who sold you the stamps and accepted the letter or by one of his colleagues. If the stamps have been cancelled, then they will be stolen by the letter carrier who is in cahoots with a stamp dealer. But there is no profit to be made from a machine mark, so the chance of a machine stamped letter arriving at its destination rises almost to certainty. If you live in South America long enough you will encounter other postal piquancy’s.

In Uruguay once 11 postal official were arrested. It had come to light that these fine functionaries were business partners of a scrap paper dealer, who paid them a good price per ton. The production lines started with a daily post, especially printed matter, newspapers and the like. Air mail was spared because it was too light in weight.

In Buenos Aires a policeman observed a letter carrier who when he thought no one was looking, emptied his entire mailbag onto a dump heap. The alert policeman stepped in, collected the scattered letters and arrested the sinner, and marched him off to the police station. His excuse was touching, he suffered from asthma. One could not expect him to run around so much that it would harm him!

In Montevideo by contrast, the police found fifty thousand letters and other pieces of mail in the home of one letter carrier. The man was arrested, his defense: he had a second job and therefore didn’t have the time to deliver all these letters. Of course he did admit that he had somehow found time to open a goodly number of them, and search for checks or cash. Perhaps he did it in evenings as a hobby?

Once upon a time a lady saw at her friend’s house a copy of a handsome fashion magazine, and asked where she had bought it. Her friend named a book dealer, but the lady smiled. “You must pay a horrible price there,” she cried. “But I get the best magazines at a song, my cleaning woman is engaged to a postal clerk who brings her the finest journals and fashion magazines from Europe and the United States, and she sells them to me cheaper than I could get them at any store.”

A letter from Europe is delivered in Buenos Aires or Montevideo in 3-4 days over a distance of 17 flying hours. A letter from Montevideo to Buenos Aires takes one minute, air time is 40 minutes. As a result, it takes one week, air time is forty minutes. As a result, several private enterprises now handle mail from one bank of the (?) to the other. It costs more, but you get 24 hour service. Once it appears, even in South America the postal service can function well, if you don’t use the post office.”

There are signs that we are facing the same kind of break down. Well, our time is up and we stand adjourned.