“It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power” (Acts 1:7). Such was the Lord's reply when asked whether He would then restore the kingdom to Israel. No measure is given, therefore, for calculating the time from Christ's death to Israel's restoration.
Yet Daniel is prophetically told- “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city (the Jews and Jerusalem), to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy” (Dan. 9:24). That is, after seventy weeks, or periods of seven years, Jerusalem, having “received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins,” was to be restored, and to become henceforth “the city of righteousness.” Here, therefore, Scripture does fix the period of Israel's restoration.
The prophecy just quoted will explain this apparent contradiction. After seventy cycles of seven years Israel's restoration was to take place. It is clear, therefore, that the seventieth week has not yet closed. The prophecy, however, continues- “From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven;.... weeks and threescore and two weeks; and after the threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, and shall have nothing” (Dan. 9:25,26, see margin). Sixty-nine weeks had elapsed, therefore, before Christ's death. But if sixty-nine weeks had closed then, and the seventieth week has not closed yet, what conclusion can we draw? Simply this, that as these weeks relate only to the Jews, the time during which God's dealings with the Jews are suspended, is not counted. Now owing to their rejection of Christ, the Jews are at present set entirely aside, and God is engaged in bringing in “the fullness of the Gentiles.” The clock of prophetic time has, therefore, stopped with the cutting off of Messiah, and will not beat out its last week until, the fullness of the Gentiles having come in, God resumes His dealings with Israel. The Church period, our time, lies outside prophetic history. Dates may be fixed before and after; but now “the times and the seasons” are in God's hands, the Church being bidden to look, not for the epoch of earthly blessing, but for the return of the Lord to take up His saints.
It would be beside my purpose to enter into details respecting this week. The great principle is that no part of it runs during the existence of the Church on earth. This period is a prophetic blank, the “many (lays” during which the children of Israel abide “without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without a teraphim” (Hos. 3:4). But while entering into no details, it may be well to glance at God's dealings with the Jews from their rejection to their restoration. After foretelling the cutting off of Messiah, Daniel adds — “And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolator” (Dan. 9:26,27). Thus Messiah is cut off, and does not receive the kingdom. Then the Roman people destroy the city, and desolation reigns until the end of this great national controversy. This is the only reference made to the interval between the destruction of Jerusalem and the last week.
Our Lord makes a like omission. “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars” (Luke 21:24, 25). The whole space between the siege of Jerusalem and the troubles preceding the coming of the Son of man is passed over in silence.
But to return to Daniel. For the last seven years before Israel's restoration, there is a person who confirms a covenant with “the many,” or mass, of the Jewish people, for a week. This person must be “the prince that shall come” named in the previous verse. But that prince is the prince of the people that destroyed Jerusalem; he is, therefore, the head of the Roman empire, which thus appears once more upon the scene in these closing days of the times of the Gentiles. A covenant for seven years is concluded between him and the mass of the Jews, who have then returned to Jerusalem and revived their old sacrifices. In the middle of that time he makes the sacrifice to cease, and an abomination or idol is set up, causing desolation to the end of the epoch, when some predetermined fate overtakes the desolator. This last half week, when wickedness and misery culminate, is three and a half years, or “a time, time and half a time,” or forty and two months, or one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
But besides this monarch in league with the bulk of the Jews, other scriptures tell us of a deadly foe ranged against them during the same period of wretchedness. “Behold the day of Jehovah cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall Jehovah go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east” (Zech. 14:1-4). There are, then, two powers, or great confederacies, the one besieging the city, with partial success, the other, headed by “the prince,” in league with the mass of its inhabitants, but both helping to intensify its misery, and to aggravate its judgment. This is the “time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time,” at which the Jews “shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Dan. 12:1). It is the period, too, spoken of by Jeremiah, when “all faces are turned into paleness. Alas I for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him; but they shall serve Jehovah their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them” (Jer. 30:6-9). It is the time of “distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth,” when the faithful are told to “lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:26-28).
Daniel (ch. 7.) traces the course of Gentile monarchy, symbolizing the four great powers under the figure of four beasts. The first, or Babylonian, “was like a lion, and had eagles' wings.” The second, the Persian, was “like to a bear.” The third, the Macedonian, was “like a leopard,” and had four wings and four heads. The last was “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly,” “and it had ten horns.” But it undergoes a great transformation, a little horn rising up, with “eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.” This little horn exercises the power of the beast, and provokes its judgment. The beast is the Roman empire, whose latter history is thus sketched. “The ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of a time” (ver. 24, 25). But he is cut off, and his kingdom “given to the people of the saints of the Most High.”
Let us now look at two other prophecies. “From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days '' (Dan. 12:11,12). These days are often taken for years, but without ground. As sixty-nine weeks passed before Messiah was cut off, only one week has yet to run, and in the midst of that week, the daily sacrifice ceases, so that from that time only three and a half years, or one thousand two hundred and sixty days, remain until “that determined shall be poured upon the desolator.” But after this there are other judgments to be executed and foes to be overthrown. The periods named in this prophecy exceed the three and a half years by thirty and seventy-five days respectively, seeming to show that between the judgment of the “prince” and the full establishment of Israel's blessing, an interval of seventy-five days will elapse, some signal event, perhaps the destruction of the besieging host, happening after thirty days.
The other prophecy is in Matt. 24:15-31. “When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea, flee into the mountains.... Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Then, if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall spew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.... Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the land mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall se-1 His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Now all these prophecies refer to the same set of events. In three, either the abomination of desolation, or the cessation of the daily sacrifice, with the ensuing tribulation, is expressly mentioned. In the other, the vision of the little horn, the identification is not difficult. He is the sovereign reigning over the last phase of the Roman empire, and “the prince that shall come” is the ruler of the Roman people. Each endures till Messiah's kingdom, and is then cut off. The little horn “thinks to change times and laws”; the prince makes the daily sacrifice to cease, and sets up the abomination of desolation. The prince by this act causes all the faithful to flee from Jerusalem; the little horn “wears out the saints of the Most High.” The prince's great power for evil lasts half a week; the little horn carries out his blasphemous purposes for a “time, and times, and the dividing of a time.” In nation, character, object, fate, duration of power, and epoch in history, the prince that shall come and the little horn are identical.
We can now form some faint picture of this dark era. At the beginning of the last “week,” the prince who governs the final phase of the revived Roman empire, makes a treaty with the mass of the Jews, who have then returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt their temple, and re-instituted their sacrifices. A minority, however, the saints or the elect, refuse to join in this treaty, and are subjected, therefore, to severe persecutions. After three and a half years the prince stops the sacrifice, speaks blasphemies against God, and changes times and laws. False Christs also arise, working great wonders, and deceiving all but the elect. The crowning act of the prince's wickedness is the setting up of some abomination, or idol, which brings down desolating judgment. Then the saints flee, without a moment's delay, from the city. The hour of untold tribulation follows, a time which, if prolonged, must end in the total destruction of the race. But for the elect's sake it is shortened. After a fearful shaking of the nations, the Son of man appears, and the pre-appointed judgment overtakes the prince, “the desolator.” Then follow the other judgments on the Gentiles and the apostate Jews, the gathering of the elect Israelites yet scattered over the earth, and the final establishment of the Messianic kingdom, together with those elect, or saints of the Most High, whom the prince had recently persecuted.
A passage in Paul's epistles helps to throw still further light on this subject. We saw that the day of the Lord was occasionally used in the Old Testament of periods of great distress and judgment, which were sorts of shadows of the tribulation and vengeance attending the real day. The Thessalonians, passing through a period of severe trial, had been persuaded by a forged letter “that the day of the Lord was come” (2 Thess. 2:2). I give what is admitted to be the true rendering of the passage, though widely differing from the authorized version. The apostle assures them that “that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only He who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming; even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish: because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (ver. 3-12).
The person here described bears a great resemblance to the little horn. He is like him in wickedness and blasphemy, he lives at the same epoch, before the coming of the day of the Lord, and is cut off at the same time. He sits in the temple of God, which, as already seen, is at this period rebuilt in Jerusalem, and if not “the prince,” must, therefore, be in confederacy with him. But he has powers never attributed to “the prince,” especially the power of working miracles. He seems, therefore, rather to be one, the chief, of those false Christs named by Matthew, whose miracles should deceive all but the very elect. This deceiver is accepted by the mass of the Jews, and is joined in that league with the prince, of which we have already traced the history. During Paul's time, though the seeds of this wickedness and blasphemy were already sown, their growth was checked by some person, who would continue to exercise the same restraining power until “taken out of the way.” This person can only be the Holy Ghost, acting here on earth for Christ. When the Church is taken to heaven, this restraining action of the Spirit will cease. He will “be taken out of the way, and then shall that wicked [one] be revealed” in the full energy of his Satanic power and craft to draw away not only the mass of the Jews, but apostate Christendom likewise, who, having refused the true Christ, are now given over to “strong delusion that they should believe a lie.”
It is in the Revelation, however, that the events of these gloomy days are most fully detailed, especially with reference to the outbreak of blasphemous rebellion against God on the part of the prince and the Man of Sin. This book, to the study of which a special blessing is attached, is divided into three parts. “Write the things which thou past seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be after these” (Rev. 1:19). The things which John had seen, were those recorded in the vision of the first chapter; “the things which are” refer to the Church, and are found in the seven epistles composing the second and third chapters; “the things which shall be after these” (that is, after the end of “the things which are “), are the visions and prophecies of the rest of the book. It may be that these have had a partial fulfillment, but the question is, whether their true and perfect accomplishment is past or future.
The epistles in the second and third chapters, though describing seven Asiatic Churches, are meant for warning and instruction in all ages, and the last four to point to phases of the Church just preceding the Lord's coming. To dead Sardis, the Lord says — “I will come on thee as a thief” (Rev. 3:3); to faithful Philadelphia — “Behold, I come quickly (ver. 11.); to lukewarm Laodicea — “I will spue thee out of My mouth” (ver. 16); to the false professors in Thyatira, He threatens “great tribulation”; to the true, who remain steadfast “till I come,” He promises that they shall rule with Him (2:22, 25-27). These frequent allusions to the effect of the Lord's coming on the professing Church, show that the Spirit here contemplates, not only the assemblies in Asia, but the state of Christendom to the very end, in fact that “the things which are” embrace the whole range of ecclesiastical history. If so, “the things which shall be after these” must be the events which happen after the Church is removed.
But there is further evidence. We shall find that from this time the Church is in heaven, that during the troubles afterward recorded it is never seen on earth, and that these troubles closely correspond with the woes of the last week before Israel's restoration and the Messiah's reign. Chapters iv. and v. open heaven, and show there four and twenty elders seated on thrones, “clothed in white raiment,” and “on their heads crowns of gold” (4:4). Now these are not characteristic of angels, but of saints. To the apostles it was said that they should sit on thrones (Matt. 19:28). The faithful in Sardis are told that “they shall walk with Me in white,” and that they “shall be clothed in white raiment” (Rev. 3:4, 5). Crowns, too, are promised to saints, and a golden crown specially befits those who are to rule with Christ. These elders, moreover, are distinguished from angels by the song which they alone sing, in which redemption is the loudest note. They represent, then, the redeemed in heavenly glory. Nor are they merely souls in paradise with Jesus. The souls of saints afterward slain for the Word of God are presently seen, but their state is wholly different from these crowned and enthroned elders. The Church, therefore, would seem to be in heaven before the earthly judgments detailed in the following chapters.
These judgments are successively executed as a certain scroll is unsealed. The scroll is taken from God by Christ. But it is noticeable that while Christ appears in the presence of the elders as the Lamb that has been slain, when He takes the scroll it is as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David” (Rev. 5:5). To the redeemed He appears as the Redeemer; when administering earthly judgments, He is seen solely in His Jewish character. The present is the time of Christ's patience; the time here referred to is the day of His vengeance, when He has risen from the Father's throne, and when “the great day of His wrath is come.” The first six seals reveal six woes strikingly resembling the picture drawn by the Lord in Matthew's Gospel of “the beginning of sorrows,” which shall precede His coming and the end of the age. “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places” (Matt. 24:7,8).
And now comes a pause, till the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. Who are these servants of God? Surely, if the Church is on earth, it will be named now. But not a word about it; on the contrary, these servants are exclusively of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then, together with them, appear a multitude of all nations; but still Israel is the central figure, as in the millennial glory. Those who reach this glory are described as having come “out of THE great tribulation” (7:14). Now “the great tribulation” is that terrible time of trouble described by Daniel, and named by Christ as immediately preceding Israel's deliverance—that time which is shortened “for the elect's sake,” lest all flesh should be destroyed.
They are brought out into a state of wondrous blessing, when God “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” But when the “Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth” (Isa. 25:8).
The event described, therefore, is the bringing of Israel through her hour of unparalleled affliction into the glory and blessing of the Messianic kingdom.
The Spirit, having thus given us a bright glimpse of the blessing awaiting those who pass through this time of trial, returns to the yet unfulfilled judgments awaiting the earth. Into these we need not enter, but in chapter 11. another scene opens out. There Jerusalem is beheld with its temple restored, and owned once more by God as “the holy city.” But though thus named, it remains for a time in the hands of the Gentiles. And what is this time?
“ Forty and two months.” “Two witnesses” also arise, and “prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth” (ver. 1-3). Surely this is not a merely accidental coincidence with Daniel's half-week, when “the prince that shall come” is in league with the apostate Jews, and changes times and laws. The duration and character of the epochs are identical, both are after Jerusalem and its temple are rebuilt, and both are in that last week when God resumes His dealings with Israel before her restoration. The character of the two witnesses, also, resembles that of Moses and Elijah, but is totally opposed to that of Christian preachers.
In chapter 12 is seen “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” She brings forth “a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.” “A great red dragon “seeks to devour this child, who is, however, caught up to heaven. After this, the dragon, Satan, who had access to heaven as the accuser, is cast out, and comes to the earth full of rage because his time is short. His special object of hatred is the woman who flees from him, and is hidden under God's care, “a thousand two hundred and threescore days,” or in the later and more detailed account, “a time and times, and half a time.” Now it is clear that the man child who shall rule all nations with a rod of iron is Christ. The woman is obviously not His natural mother, but the nation out of which after the flesh He came. But “they are not all Israel who are of Israel,” and this woman typifies, not the apostate nation as a whole, but the inner circle, the real elect Israel of God. At first, Satan sought to destroy her seed, the special object of his malignity. But though at the cross the serpent bruised His heel, though He went into death, it was not possible that He should be holden of it, and He was taken up to heaven and declared both Lord and Christ. And now the whole Church interval is passed over. Israel is, as it were, out of God's thoughts during that period. Her next appearance is in the thousand two hundred and threescore days, when Satan, knowing his time to be short, uses all his power to destroy her, while God specially intervenes to protect her. It will be remembered that when the abomination of desolation is set up in the middle of the week, the faithful flee at once from the city. How exactly this corresponds in time and circumstances with the flight of the woman in this chapter.
But the agreement does not end here. Chapter 13 shows the earthly instruments used by Satan in this persecution. The first of these is “a beast,” which “rises up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads, as it were, wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed; and all the world wondered after the beast.... And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them” (ver. 1-7).
This “beast,” therefore, combines the characteristics of all the beasts of Daniel, but especially resembles the last, transformed, however, into a striking likeness of the great red dragon: that is, it embodies the principal features of Gentile power, but on the whole is of the Roman type, only so changed as to exhibit the most prominent lineaments of Satanic authority. It differs from the fourth beast of Daniel in detail, certain features appearing in Daniel which are wanting in the Revelation, and certain features appearing in the Revelation which are wanting in Daniel. But that it is the same power, though changed to display its Satanic character, is beyond question. It is presented again in chapter 17. as a “scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns,” and carrying a woman who is “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” This woman is explained to be “that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth” (ver. 18). The seven heads have a double signification—meaning, first, “seven mountains on which the woman sitteth,” and, secondly, seven kings, or forms of government, five of which were past, while the beast, as a whole, combines the character of the seven and forms the eighth (ver. 9-11). The city, then, is Rome, the seven-hilled city reigning over the kings of the earth.
The beast is the Roman power revived, a power which “was, and is not, and shall be present,” for this is the true reading of verse 8.
Turning to the description in chapter 13., we see how exactly it resembles in moral character the last form of Roman power described in Daniel. In both cases there are ten horns, which are explained to be ten kings, though in Revelation their combination under the headship of the beast is more fully noted. Both blaspheme God; both persecute the saints of the Most High. The one endures for a “time, and times, and the dividing of a time,” the other for “forty and two months,” that is, each of them lasts for three and a half years, or the oft-named half week of. Jewish tribulation and Gentile lawlessness. We now see by what instrument it is that Satan, who gives his power to the beast, persecutes the woman, driving her into the wilderness for a “time, and times, and half a time.”
But Satan has another instrument, “another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed; and he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, by the means of those miracles which he had power to do” (13:11-14). Can any one fail to recognize here the chief of the “false Christs,” who should appear in the last fearful tribulation, and by their miracles and wonders deceive all but the very elect? Or can any one fail to see the close resemblance between this false prophet, as he is afterward called, and “the man of sin,” whose coming “is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders?” We are not told in the Revelation that this false Christ is at Jerusalem, but it is where the false Christ might be expected, and the man of sin does seat himself in the temple of God. Moreover that the Roman beast at this time exercises authority in Jerusalem appears from the history of the two witnesses whom he puts to death in the city where “our Lord was crucified” (11:7, 8).
The false prophet makes an image of the first beast, which all are compelled to worship on pain of death. Where this image is set up does not appear, but as the man of sin sits in the temple of God, as he is a false Messiah, and therefore in connection with the Jews, as the presence of Christ in His temple at Jerusalem was what the Jews expected, and as the beginning of the beast's blasphemous and diabolical power is contemporaneous with the setting up of the abomination of desolation in the holy place, it seems more than probable that this miraculously speaking image is the abomination, or idol, foretold by the prophet, at the erection of which all the saints were to make their escape from the city.
The judgment of Babylon, the corrupt ecclesiastical system still left after all true believers have been taken to heaven, is outside our present subject. In chapter 16. we see the confederate kings gathered to the great battle against Christ. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against Jehovah, and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” Then it is that the Lord arises and gives the nations to Christ for His inheritance, to break them with a rod of iron. Christ with the armies of heaven, the Church, issues forth on a white horse, the symbol of victorious power. “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. 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” (Rev. 19:19,20.) Such is the fearful doom of this “son of perdition,” this wicked one “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming” (2 Thess. 2:8). Such, too, is the fate “determined” which is “poured upon the desolator.”
The Revelation does not enter into the judgment inflicted upon other enemies. These are shown variously in Zechariah, Daniel, Isaiah, Joel, and the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew. The object of this book is to add to what the prophets had already told concerning this last, and truly diabolical, phase of human lawlessness, and to bring to its issue the long rebellion of Satan against God. The destruction of the beast and the false prophet completes one part, the binding of Satan another. The Revelation also differs from the other prophecies in giving the heavenly side of Christ's rule. The Old Testament represents the Messiah as ruling with His saints; but these are the earthly saints. The Revelation adds the rule of the heavenly saints. Besides the saints raised or caught up at Christ's coming for believers, those who “were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God,” and those “which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image,” are raised in this last act of the first resurrection, and live and reign with Christ a thousand years.