Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study.

Tonight, we present Ronald L. Dart with a study on the Epistle of Jude from the CEM Vault.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and he shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

Now, his great city is not like anything you and I might imagine. No artist has ever come close to capturing the image of this city. And, of course, anyone who has visited the old city of Jerusalem as it now is can dismiss that out of hand. One wonders how anyone can refer to Jerusalem as beautiful or golden when one visits the city on the ground. What’s there now is not what was and certainly not what will be. Not even John who saw this vision could really do it justice.

The vision is found in Revelation chapter 21 and we’re beginning along about verse nine. This is part of the final vision of John in the Book of Revelation. We have to remember that this is a vision. It was very vivid and very real to John. Also remember that no man had ever seen anything like this. All John could do is tell us what he saw in terms of what he had previously seen in his lifetime. After all, he had his language, he had his vocabulary, he had his imagery. That’s all he had to work with, and what he was seeing, well, he must have felt totally inadequate to the task. But he continued:

And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, On the east three gates; on the north three Gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Now, it strikes me (and perhaps it strikes you the same way) a little odd, how often the 12 tribes of Israel come into play in a prophecy dealing with the very end of time. You would have thought that some of these in the Old Testament would have long since faded from the scene and would no longer be relevant, but here they are. You have 12 gates, and every gate has the name of one of the 12 tribes. You have 12 foundations, and the names of the 12 apostles are on those foundations, and Jesus said that the 12 apostles would sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel in his kingdom. Well, I guess what we have to conclude is that when all is said and done, God is not yet finished with the 12 tribes.

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him in the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.

This important piece of news is given to us by John in the twentieth chapter of Revelation right in the beginning. And having told us this, that Satan would be bound for a thousand years, we wouldn’t have to deal with him any more, he opens our minds to understand a couple of new things here that, it’s funny, he tells it to us almost as though he thought we already knew.

He tells us that there is not merely one resurrection at the time of the end, but there are two resurrections a thousand years apart. Now, that’s an interesting problem, and that’s something to work out. Now, we do understand that the thousand years could be symbolic like other numbers in Revelation, but there’s no hint of that here. In fact, rather the way everything is worded, it seems to me that, give or take a hundred years, that we’re talking about a thousand years period of time in which Jesus Christ rules the earth, and his saints rule with him, and during that period of time Satan is utterly without any influence in this word.

Now, there are two chapters in the Bible that deal with the resurrection of the dead. Both of them deal with the first resurrection. They are 1 Corinthians chapter fifteen, and 1 Thessalonians chapter four. I won’t take the time to read them to you here, but they make it plain that all the dead in Christ are raised at his return. Now, let me explain: What this means is that everyone who is really a Christian, everyone in whom is the Holy Spirit, everyone who has met whatever requirements there are for salvation will be either changed to a spiritual being or resurrected from the dead at the return of Christ. What this means is, that everyone who is written in the book of life is raised in the first resurrection. What John continues to say, in verse seven, is a little more difficult.

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

Earlier in the Book of Revelation we’ve been introduced to the Lamb of God—a Lamb that was slain, a Lamb that takes away the sin of the world—the Passover Lamb, if you will. Now we are introduced to a very different Christ, and the world is going to have to come up against him, face the Christ who is not merely a Lamb, not a meek and mild Lamb, but a warrior, a warrior mounted upon a white horse with a sword, and crowns upon his head. His eyes, we are told, are like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he is clothed in a vesture dipped in blood. That’s the only record we have as to his sacrifice in this different environment. His name is called the Word of God. This is the return of Christ.

Of all the things that puzzles me, and will always puzzle me, I think, but if you’ll go around to Christian people who say they believe in Jesus, they believe in what he said, they believe what he said was true, they believe the Bible is true, they’re Christian people. Many of them might even be graduates of seminaries or religious schools, Bible schools, if you were to ask these people, “Do you believe in a literal return of Jesus Christ,” a surprising number of them will tell you, “No, I don’t.” Now, what’s odd about this is that back in John the fourteenth chapter, when Jesus was preparing his disciples for his departure, he said this:

Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me.

Why would their heart be troubled? Well, because he was about to go away from them, and they had it in their mind that Jesus as the Messiah and he would establish the kingdom of God now that he would go straight on into the kingdom of God with them. But he was going to die, and he said, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, now believe in me.”

In my father’s house are many mansions rooms, or places: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. We all understand “I Go, don’t we? Then he said, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also.

Now, what’s odd about this is that in the face of so many of the assumptions we make about Christianity, one wonders, Why is he coming back? Why is there any need for Jesus to come again?

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth as lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

This is the Book of Revelation, chapter 18. In this series of broadcasts we have been painting in some of the historical background of the book of this prophecy because it is only in re-understanding that that you are going to understand the book itself and what the book is all about. Chapter seventeen and chapter 18 deal with Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots. She is presented as a woman, as a prostitute riding upon a great scarlet beast.

Babylon was an ancient city-state. One of the first really great empires. And because Babylon had absorbed the gods of every city and state she conquered, she was the mother of many religions. Every kind of idol could be found in Babylon, Babylon’s own city god was the great god, and had subordinated all these other gods, but she was in that sense because you have to understand in the biblical sense, other religions are pictured like women, and the idols are like women, and idolatry and participation in other religions are portrayed as adultery and fornication in the Bible. And so, this great city-state with its gods and its pantheon was also seen as the mother of harlots, as the madam of the house of prostitution. The imagery is very strong, very powerful.

The world hates the Jews. The world has always and will continue to do so. So says David Mamet in his book, The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews. I have had my reasons why I think this is true, and I have advanced them on this program before. At its roots, the hatred of the Jews is really the hatred of God. Various reviewers of the book focused on the perceived self-hatred of the Jews, but I wonder. Why on earth would self-hatred lead an American Jew to attack the very existence of Israel? After all, Israel is over there; an American Jew is over here. Why would Jewish self-hatred here have anything to do with that.

I think I understand what is going on there. But it is not self-hatred. It is simply because the very existence of the State of Israel is hard evidence of the existence of God of Israel—a God who has made Israel a chosen people and who promised he would take them back there again. They don’t want to go there. And they don’t want to answer to that God. Frankly, the world’s obsession with the Jews and with Israel is fascinating and demands an explanation. What about the Jews in these latter days? What does God think about them? There is a very old prophecy that might help us understand. Here is how it begins:

Thus speaketh the Lord God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth as lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

This begins the eighteenth chapter of the great Book of Revelation, a book which was designed and delivered to reveal things to man, but which has generated a variety of interpretations that would absolutely boggle the mind. You say, How can you say it has revealed anything if everybody who reads it comes up with a different interpretation of it? Well, the reason for the difficulty is that the entire prophecy is the account of a vision, a nightmare dream, in some cases, and it is delivered in cymbals and figures of speech. It should, like many prophecies be read aloud like poetry. Sometime if you have a get together of your friends, assuming that these friends like to read the Bible, take turn reading aloud from these chapters and interpreting them with vocal inflections and pauses and vocal colorations. Try to let the scriptures speak through the human voice as the human voice interprets it as you go. You’ll be surprised as some things begin to fall into place in these prophecies as they are read aloud and interpreted, more in terms of meaningful poetry rather than trying to read them simply as prose, and attacking them intellectually. Because attacking these prophecies intellectually is probably going to lead you astray and leave you out in the cold—not understanding at all.

And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great. Thus closes the sixteenth chapter of Revelation. It’s the final culmination of the wrath of God, and that wrath is focused on, poured out on what John calls Great Babylon.

But Babylon has been in ruins for thousands of years, and had been for a long, long time when John wrote that. How could Babylon be a player at the very time of the end?

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first went, and poured out his bowl upon the earth; and there fell foul and evil sores upon the men who had the mark of the beast, and upon them who worshiped his image. And the second angel poured out his bowl upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living thing died in the sea.

Well, the Bible tells us that God is slow to anger; it does not tell us he will never get angry, it would seem there are limits. This is the sixteenth chapter of Revelation. It comes after a long history of human abuse, of man’s cruelty to man, of man’s destruction of the earth, of his own environment, of the foulest evils of man, and finally, finally, at long last God moves.

What could justify God’s anger? What could be done that would warrant this terrible punishment? Isn’t God a kind God? Isn’t he patient? Isn’t he loving? How is this consistent with a merciful and loving God, that he would have his wrath and that he would pour out this wrath upon people, and upon mankind? People want to know. This is one of the most common questions I get asked. How could a kind and loving God allow this to take place?

And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is completed the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb[.…]

This is the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation. We’ve made our way through chapter twelve, thirteen, and fourteen in which we got the background, and it was all laid out for us of the persecution of the saints, that is of the people of God, by the devil, by the old dragon himself, and then by the agency called the beast and the beast power in Revelation thirteen, and how the whole thing is designed to destroy God’s people, to destroy his work, to destroy everything God has had to do with. And in that fourteenth chapter where we had it shown to us that God is going to set aside the whole number of his people that he intends to set aside and protect, that when the seventh trumpet is blown, the resurrection takes place and the saints are caught up to meet God in the air. And then they come back to this earth where they see the seven last plagues poured out upon those people who have opposed God.

At this moment in time, before the wrath of God is poured out, two songs are sung: the first is the song of the Lamb.