THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Revelation: God's Revelation To His Servants Today On Events About To Occur

Part IV: "The Things Which Shall Be Hereafter": Events After The Rapture Of The Church

C. The Great Tribulation Period, Revelation 6:1-19:21

4. God's Interlude On Resisting Pressures To Compromise With Group Idolatry

(Revelation 10:1-11)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

The pressure for us to compromise with apostate groups is great today. Brannon Howse, Religious Trojan Horse, 2012, p. 436, told how the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, a UN group, "must 'support and respect the principles of the Charter of the United Nations,'" including its "quest for world government," so, while writing his book, Howse was considering resigning his membership in a Southern Baptist Church! (Ibid.)

I often get invitations to inter-church gatherings where pastors "connect, support and build into one another" as one flyer put it, citing Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10: "Two are better than one . . . But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" Yet, I know many such gatherings fuel apostasy, what Howse also notes, so I dare not attend them!

Need: We thus ask, "What instruction does God offer on pressures we face to compromise with errant groups?!"

I. Before the 7th trumpet judgment presents the severe 7 bowl judgments on group idolatry, Rev. 10:1-11 explains why God must severely judge group idolatry, and how believers today are to adjust to this issue.

II. Rev. 10:1-3a thus explains how a potent evil arose around the time of God's giving of His Noahic and His Abrahamic covenants, an evil entity that has greatly oppressed the godly and greatly angered the Lord:

A. The Rev. 10:1-3a angel presents both the Noahic and the Abrahamic Covenants in an abbreviated timeline:

1. The "cloud" and "rainbow" that clothe the angel's body and head typify the Gen. 9:8-17 Noahic Covenant.

2. His right foot lands on the sea and his left on the land, typifying the Gen. 12:1-3 Abrahamic Covenant re: Israel and the Gentiles, Rev. 10:1c: The sea pictures the Gentiles (Dan. 7:3) and the land has the left foot, but the usual term for "left" aristeros, used by pagans to curse, is replaced by the euphemism, euonumon, "well-named," to heed Num. 22:9-12 where Israel is not to be cursed, so the "left" lands on Israel. (Abbott-Smith, A Man. Grk. Lex. of the N. T., 1968, p. 191. The right foot is culturally favored, so judgment starts with the "left," with Israel, and spreads to the "right," the Gentiles, for judgment starts in Jerusalem and spreads to the world (Jer. 25:29), God's judgment being seen in the angel's feet of fiery pillars, Rev. 10:1c.

3. With the angel's head typifying the Genesis 9:8-17 Noahic Covenant and his feet the later Genesis 12:1-3 Abrahamic Covenant, he presents a TIMELINE from one to the other that INCLUDES BOTH of them.

4. The angel descends to roar like a lion as in Isaiah 31:4 where God descends like a fearless lion to rescue His oppressed people, Rev. 10:3a, so events in this timeline anger God since they oppress His people.

5. The descent of this strong angel (Rev. 10:1a) ALSO points to ANOTHER strong angel's descent in Rev. 18:1-3 where that angel announces the fall of "Babylon the Great," the final form of this oppressive evil!

B. We then view the Genesis 9:18-11:32 timeline and discover it reveals the start of oppressive group apostasy:

1. At the Noahic Covenant, God hung up His warrior bow ["warrior bow," qeshet is used for "rainbow" in Gen. 9:13-17 (B. K. C., O. T., p. 40)] of judgment in a cloud, offering man peace, pledging never again to destroy the earth by a flood even if it gets infected again with wicked oppressive despots, cf. Gen. 6:1-13.

2. However, after God gave the Noahic Covenant, in Gen. 9:18-22, Ham saw his father Noah uncovered in drunkenness, so he told his brothers Shem and Japheth in a cultural effort to demean his father in order to gain oppressive, evil headship over the family, and thus over all humans then on the earth, a return to the oppressive rule of pre-Flood despots, Genesis 9:20-22 with Genesis 6:1-13; Ibid., p. 41.

3. Shem and Japheth covered Noah, and Noah countered Ham's effort, not blessing him while blessing Shem and Japheth and also subjecting Ham's son, Canaan to Shem's and Japheth's descendants, Genesis 9:23-27.

4. Yet, Ham's grandson, Nimrod, like the despots God had judged at the Flood (Gen. 6:1-5, 13), hunted down men to murder them to gain oppressive rule over all men in a world apostasy [at Babylon] to keep men from heeding God's call to replenish the earth, Gen. 10:6-12; 11:1-4; 9:1; H. C. Leupold, Exp. of Genesis, 1974, v. I, p. 365-367. God thus split up the world's peoples by multiplying their languages, Gen. 11:5-9.

5. However, Nimrod's wife, Semiramis started a false mother-child cult that has infected many groups and even much of Christendom today (Bryce Self, "Semiramis, Queen of Heaven," www.ldolphin.org), what becomes the oppressive world religio-commercio conglomerate of "Babylon the Great" in Rev. 17-18.

6. Rev. 10:2a shows the angel holds a "little" open book, the belittled Scriptures that apostates oppressively mock as they also do those who herald it (Isa. 28:9-10 where apostates said Isaiah taught childish things).

III. God will judge this oppressive group evil, but His judgment's severity is too great for us to bear were we to know its details, so He sealed up the thunders' words, hiding them from us, Rev. 10:3b-4; John 16:12. [God will have antichrist execute the thunders (Rev. 17:16-18) to judge Babylon the Great at the 7th bowl, Rev. 16:17-19, and bowls 1-6 are leveled at all group idolatry, Babylon the Great and antichrist, 16:1-16.]

IV. The Lord thus pledges to fulfill His prophetic Word as the 7th trumpet sounds [yielding its 7 bowls], and He explains why He hid the thunder judgments, adding a big lesson on compromise in Rev. 10:5-10:

A. After sealing the 7 thunders, the angel still permanently stands (hestota, perf. ptc., U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 860; The An. Grk. Lex. (Zon.), 1972, p. 169) on the sea and land, signaling God's sure plan still to fulfill His Abrahamic Covenant (dispensationalism!), he lifts his hand to heaven and swears by the Creator God that at the 7th trumpet, the Lord will finish fulfilling His Abrahamic Covenant in His belittled Word, Rev. 10:5-7!

B. The angel's Rev. 10:5-6 act recalls another Bible act signifying God's awareness of the pressures we face today to compromise with group idolatry, and He thus reveals why He hid the thunder judgments from us:

1. The angel's act recalls one other act in Scripture, Abraham's raising his hand to swear to the Creator God not to compromise in keeping any of the king of Sodom's goods he had won in war, Gen. 14:22-24.

2. Had he kept them, Abraham would have been subject to Sodom's king versus Noah's prophecy to subject Canaan to Shem, for Abraham had descended from Shem and Sodom's king from Canaan, Gen. 11:10-26; 10:6-20; Ibid., B. K. C., O. T., p. 54. Abraham thus uncompromisingly relied on God via His Biblical Abrahamic Covenant promise for his livelihood provisions, not on Sodom's wicked king, Ibid.

3. Yet, Abraham's nephew Lot chose to live under Sodom's king for his livelihood, Gen. 13:1-13; 18:16-33.

4. When God destroyed Sodom for its sin, Abraham pleaded with God to rescue Lot's kin, and God heard him (Gen. 18:16-19:23), but Lot's wife faithlessly looked back, so God turned her into a pillar of salt while Lot's married daughters and sons-in-law faithlessly remained in Sodom and so perished, Gen. 19:8, 14-26.

5. Abraham was left to grieve over the demise of Lot's kin and his incest with his Sodom-impacted virgin daughters who got him drunk to control him, which event recalls Ham's sin, Genesis 19:8, 27-38; 9:20-22.

6. In application to us, God knows the pressures we like Abraham face to compromise with group apostasy, and He knows our tension between accepting His fitting judgment on such evil while dreading its fall on our associates. He has thus sensitively spared us, not giving us that judgment's dreadful details!

C. However, God has a KEY LESSON for US on COMPROMISE in the Rev. 10:8-10 LITTLE BOOK ritual:

1. John was told to eat the angel's little book, finding it sweet to his taste but bitter to digest, Rev. 10:8-10.

2. This ritual recalls Ezekiel 2:8-3:3 where God told Ezekiel to eat God's book on judgment to find it sweet to his taste, but it was a book that foretold judgment on people Ezekiel knew who opposed God's Word.

3. Thus, we Christians today will find God's severe judgment on oppressive group idolatry sweet in view of its justice, but bitter as it may well also fall on some associates as it did on Lot's kin in Abraham's case!

4. Nevertheless, John still had to eat the book, he still had to apply it, so we like John, Ezekiel and Abraham must UNCOMPROMISINGLY HEED SCRIPTURE even if some of our ASSOCIATES do NOT!

V. Since GOD has thus revealed that group apostasy GREATLY affects US, for OUR PRACTICAL GOOD, He had the angel tell John he had to prophesy a SECOND time through the Great Tribulation (Rev. 11-19) "about" oppressive group evil, Rev. 10:11! (The KJV "before" is better as "about," R. S. B., KJV, 1978, ftn. to Rev. 10:11). [We will thus organize the sermons for Revelation 11-19 to highlight this focus.]

Lesson: In the Great Tribulation, God will destroy the oppressive group idolatry that so affects us, an entity that, since Noah's day, has had evil men try to gain oppressive control of the godly. God calls us uncompromisingly to live by faith in Him as did Abraham, to heed His Word to avoid group idolatry even if some associates do not! [In Revelation 11-19, God will provide us more insight on this group evil that will be of great practical benefit for us!]

Application: May we (1) trust in Christ to be saved, John 3:16. (2) May we uncompromisingly live by faith in God's Word, thus gaining victory over group idolatry to enjoy God's blessing even if some associates do otherwise!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . .)

Brannon Howse (Ibid., p. 430) claims that "(n)umerous studies . . . reveal that the lifestyles, values, and resulting world view of most of those who attend 'evangelical churches' are no different from the world," that "(o)ur churches are filled with false converts." We like Abraham must heed Scripture regardless what associates do!