Harps and the New Song

Harps of God

Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sang a new song, saying, "You are worthy to take the book, and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made us kings and priests to our God, and we will reign on earth." (Revelation 5:8-10)

I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him a number, one hundred forty-four thousand, having his name, and the name of his Father, written on their foreheads. I heard a sound from heaven, like the sound of many waters, and like the sound of a great thunder. The sound which I heard was like that of harpists playing on their harps. They sing a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the one hundred forty-four thousand, those who had been redeemed out of the earth. (Revelation 14:1-3)

I saw another great and marvelous sign in the sky: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them God's wrath is finished. I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who overcame the beast, his image, and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God, the Almighty! Righteous and true are your ways, you King of the nations. Who wouldn't fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your righteous acts have been revealed." (Revelation 15:1-4)

In Revelation, harps are associated with either the new song or the two consecutive songs, one of Moses and the other of the Lamb. Harps are first mentioned as being in the possession of representatives of humanity arrayed around the throne of God in heaven. But soon the harps are heard being used by so many that the music becomes like many waters and great thunder it is so pervasive.

The last mention of harps is highly significant. They are in the possession of those who, from all the evidence involved, are people who have learned how to sing and play their harps just like Jesus. This involves prayers and praises that become so well tuned and effective that it becomes the means of toppling the entire empire of evil. These people are accomplices who have have been mentored by the Lamb and tutored by Him until they can effectively accompany Him, His personal orchestra that overcomes and defeats the cacophony of dissonance put out by the dragon and his agents.

Harps apparently represent sweet music that accompanies and reinforces the prayers and praises of the saints represented by the incense in the sanctuary. Thus we find a link to anywhere a censer is mentioned or the Altar of Incense is referenced.

Harps are a significant instrument in Revelation and run as a thread throughout Scripture. See Harps document for a complete list of passages relating to harps.

A New Song

What is important about the nature of the song referred to in Revelation that is connected with harps?

Those singing this new song are the same ones whose prayers are viewed as incense. The focus of the song when it is first mentioned is on the Lamb and how His death in some way won their trust in Him. It refers to Jesus coming to where we live and risking His life to get our attention through making God vulnerable to hateful, resentful human beings. As a result of this huge risk that cost Him His life at our hands, we are made kings and priests to our God. What kind of amazing song is this? And what kind of God is this song talking about?

There are potent insights that need to be mined from the passages relating to this new song. There is a boldness lurking behind the stunning humility of the Lamb that if ever caught sight of is so inspiring that it would compel us to follow such an amazing leader. Yet because He chooses to be portrayed as a lamb instead of a violent conquerer, it is all too easy to miss seeing the raw courage and boldness that it took to maintain such humility and vulnerability in the face of betrayal and overwhelming violence.

The next mention of the new song is in reference to the 144,000 where we learn that no one else can sing it. Again it is directly linked with the idea of redemption. But the original word actually means their trust was won by the Lamb when He came to the town square and risked everything to live among them and show them true love. This is a repeat of the same message as the previous reference so far as the content of the song is concerned. But more clues are now added to the song in this instance.

These are those who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed by Jesus from among men, the first fruits to God and to the Lamb. In their mouth was found no lie, for they are blameless. (Revelation 14:4-5)

Here we start to see compelling reasons why no one else can learn this song. Yet as always we must be careful to not jump to premature conclusions when reading this. Our prejudices too often blind us to the real meaning hidden beneath the surface, for when we run with our own ideas and interpretations we miss the real point of what Scripture is trying to get across to us.

Because Revelation is all symbolic, we can be confident this is not talking about physical defilement from literal women nor physical virginity. So what does this mean? It must be very important if it is part of the content of this song. Whatever these things imply, they are quite likely truths we are unfamiliar with or else the song would not be new to us.

Currently there is debate over the story of the fall and who did what or said what concerning Eve being deceived and Adam choosing to disobey God thus bringing death into the world. I am not seeking to assert a hard position on whether or not Eve used words to convince Adam to join her in eating the forbidden fruit. What is clear is that God told Adam that the curse that would come on the ground was because he listened to the voice of his wife.

To Adam he said, "Because you have listened to your wife's voice, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life." (Genesis 3:17)

Many presume that this implies that Adam obeyed words of his wife over obeying God. That is possible, however there is no record of her saying anything to Adam. So what else might explain this?

The words that are recorded are those of Eve's conversation with the serpent as he deceived her into eating the fruit. Did Adam overhear that conversation? We don't know for sure and must be cautious not to take a hard position. But if Adam did hear even a part of that conversation and yet failed to intervene, knowing what he knew about how God had warned them, he would be far more guilty than Eve. This is why Paul later declares that it was Adam's sin that brought death into the world.

Whether Adam was complicit in allowing Eve to be deceived by not asserting himself into her conversation with the enemy, or whether he allowed her to persuade him to value her above love for his Creator we cannot be sure. Either way, Adam became defiled because of how he improperly related to the voice of his wife and as a result the sin and death gained access to our world.

This sheds far more light on why this might be a key issue at the end of this world's history, for the original problem must be rectified. Yet this will never come about by blaming women for all our problems which has too often been the case. This is what Adam after ingesting the spiritual poison of rebellion against his Creator and becoming infected with the deadly virus of selfishness. When offered an opportunity by God to confess what he had done and to change his attitude only a short time later, instead of answering honestly the questions put to him by God about how all this started, instead of acknowledging the uncomfortable truth he began to blame his wife as well as God for his choice to disobey. This is the core problem and is what must be dealt with effectively in order to break the powerful curse that hangs over this world. Continuing to Blame women only exacerbates our fallen condition and is itself a symptom of the defilement involving women referred to in this verse.

Notice that not only are these people not defiled with women – in other words, they choose to remain trustful in the Lamb more than anyone else, including their wife or any other attraction – but they also are not caught up in blaming like Adam did. Too often we assume that blameless means someone has no faults or weaknesses. But being blameless is really about breaking free and being delivered from the roots that cause us to blame others instead of accepting full responsibility for our own choices and actions. These who sing a new song are no longer blaming anyone for anything but are focused entirely on the Lamb and no one else. This is why it is impossible for anyone else to learn this song, for it requires total honesty and transparency which is something very few are willing to embrace.

Further we are told there is no lie or deception in their mouth – their communications. When Adam shifted the attention away from himself to Eve by blaming her for his own choice to sin, he was really engaging in lies in order to escape punishment. Yet his very presumption that God had come to punish them for disobedience was itself a lie that had already defiled their psyche as soon as they embraced the the serpent's devious insinuations about God. All humanity has been trapped in a miasma of lies ever since, which is why it has taken such a long time to restore the human race from the tragedy of sin. The underlying problem is how we perceive God that produces every other difficulty in our lives, for every person on earth had been infected with satanic lies about God which is why Jesus came to this world – to challenge and defeat the lies of the devil who became the prince of this world when Adam defaulted.

There is another example of someone listening to their wife instead of trusting God. Abram found himself under pressure from his wife because she had difficulty resting in God's promise to give them a son after so many years of waiting. So she decided that maybe what God expected of them was to help Him out instead of simply waiting around doing nothing. That sounds familiar doesn't it?

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no children. She had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, "See now, Yahweh has restrained me from bearing. Please go in to my handmaid. It may be that I will obtain children by her." Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife. He went in to Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. (Genesis 16:1-4)

How did this defile Abram when we correlate this to what we read in Revelation? How did Adam become defiled by listening to the voice of his wife? It does not solve the dilemma by blaming women as Adam did. Rather the core issue is whether each individual is willing to trust God more than anyone else. This is not about gender but about heart trust when it comes to someone offering us something that appears more attractive than adhering to what God has already communicated to us.

The defilement itself does not come from women, either literally or figuratively. The defilement that ruins spiritual virginity that needs to be restored is really the defilement of double-mindedness that James warns about in the first chapter of his letter. This double-minded condition means that we are holding onto contradictory beliefs about God at the same time which renders our faith useless and disables us from being able to receive anything God gives to us. This is the defilement caused by sin, for sin is choosing to distrust God trust anything or anyone else above Him. Distrust is what Jesus came to destroy, not people but lies that defile and destroy our capacity to rest in the love of God's passionate fire. The Lamb alone is the one who can lead us back to trust in God. And only those willing to follow the Lamb ANYWHERE He goes can learn this new song, for the Lamb's song is so radical that religion does not even come close to seeing the real truth the Lamb exposes about God.

Let me introduce another passage to our investigation of this new song. It brings insight into the nature of why it is so radically new in contrast to the old familiar song we have heard all our lives.

For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk you in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. But they didn't listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. (Jeremiah 7:22-24)

This resonates strongly with the central theme throughout Hebrews 10 where it is clear that God has never been interested in the idea of sacrifices and offerings and all the appeasement notions those things conjure up in us. This truth is found in both the Old and New Testaments and is not something new really. Yet because we have refused to listen to God throughout history, learning this song has been impossible, not because we didn't necessarily know the truth but because we resisted the truth in favor of lies we preferred to embrace coming from the enemy of love.

A careful study of Micah 6 is also highly beneficial along with a careful look at the story of Balaam referenced in that chapter. God has been trying to get through to us for centuries what He really wants, yet we have been so fixated on insisting He wants sacrifice that we never learn the new song.

For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage. I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of Yahweh."

How shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:4-8)

Can we start to see the sharp contrast between the old song and the new one yet?

But in those sacrifices there is yearly reminder of sins. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, "Sacrifice and offering you didn't desire, but you prepared a body for me; You had no pleasure in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Then I said, 'Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.'" (Hebrews 10:3-7)

Here we find refrains of the old song and the new song in sharp contrast to each other. This transitions us nicely into the next passage where the song is described somewhat differently. This time there are two songs mentioned, or is it one song with two verses? This time it is being sung on a sea of glass and is named the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. This provides key insights as to the nature of this song and how its contents were developed, especially in light of the passages we have previously noted.

I saw another great and marvelous sign in the sky: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them God's wrath is finished. I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who overcame the beast, his image, and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God, the Almighty! Righteous and true are your ways, you King of the nations. Who wouldn't fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your righteous acts have been revealed." (Revelation 15:1-4)

Is the song of Moses different than the song of the Lamb? I strongly believe it is, and it is very significantly different. Yet those who sing the song of the Lamb likely start out singing the song of Moses the servant before learning the new song the Lamb introduces. Thus those who follow the Lamb anywhere and everywhere He goes are moved beyond the stanzas about Moses and sacrifices and excitement about defeating their enemies to embracing a new truth as revealed by Jesus who taught we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us that we may be like our Father in heaven. This is definitely a new song from what most people have been taught to sing throughout history.

Note that this song of Moses has to do with a servant mindset. Jesus said that a servant doesn't know what the master is doing. In other words, they don't care about motives but simply focus on obedience.

This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn't know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You didn't choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. I command these things to you, that you may love one another. (John 15:12-17)

These words are directly from the Lamb. This is the new song, very different and far more mature than the old song of Moses where most of the focus was on obedience to rules and winning over enemies. Even in Hebrews 11 containing a list of heroes of faith, there is a noticeable line of demarcation where it transitions from those using faith to win over their enemies to those who choosing to relate differently. This is where we see a distinct shift from the old song to a new one.

There is a potent example in Revelation of the contrast between the song of Moses, or the old song, and the song of the Lamb too difficult for most people to learn. It is in chapter 19 where we find both songs being sung by the same group of beings. A voice from the throne of God challenges the content of the first round of music, likely because it was going off to sound too much like the song of Moses celebrating victory over the drowned Egyptian army after the Red Sea crossing. After being reminded that this is no longer the song heaven prefers, it is started all over again, and this time it is sung right and celebrates the love of the Lamb and His lovely bride.

After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, "Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory belong to our God: for true and righteous are his judgments. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand." A second said, "Hallelujah! Her smoke goes up forever and ever." The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne, saying, "Amen! Hallelujah!"

A voice came forth from the throne, saying, "Give praise to our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, the small and the great!"

I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns! Let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and let us give the glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready." It was given to her that she would array herself in bright, pure, fine linen: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. (Revelation 19:1-8)

How has the wife of the Lamb made herself ready?

She has finally learned to focus all her attention and affections on the Lamb alone that results in a life of righteous acts. These are not acts produced by working hard to keep the rules meticulously but rather spontaneous acts reflective of the character of the One she adores. She no longer has eyes for anyone else, and she has become so transfixed by the beauty and glory of her husband that she can no longer be distracted by any others, including prostitutes, dragons or beasts of any kind or color. She has come to know in her heart that the Lamb is not at all like anyone else and does not gloat over the downfall of anyone. She has learned the new song and she sings it sweetly and passionately. She is madly in love.

In short, the new song that is so potent it has the power to defeat the entire empire of evil is summed up in the very first words of the song when it is first introduced. They sang a new song, saying, "You are worthy..." (Revelation 5:9) Worthy is about trust, and that is what the Lamb came to restore – trust in our heavenly Father's heart. When trust is restored everything else comes together easily. And trust is restored when we see how the Lamb proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is love.

This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies, (Song of Solomon 6:3)

Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh. Many waters can't quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned. (Song of Solomon 8:6-7)

Hang Onto the Keys

Last time we discussed the fact that we all bring our preconceived bias to whatever we hear or read or learn. So in preparing to launch on an epic adventure exploring the vast mysteries of possibly the most important document in the world, the book of Revelation, it is vital that we first be willing to challenge our personal paradigms and presumptions to allow the true Author of this book to correct our thinking so we can find better understanding. There is no end to speculations about why this book was written, who is was intended for or what it might mean. I have my own speculations and beliefs, and like many I tend to think mine are a bit closer to being right than most others. So why should we seek to explore something that from a distance seems impenetrable if it merely involves another round of speculation, especially from an untrained expert with little formal education? Good question.

In reading this book we will discover that nearly everywhere we look there appears to be locks or coded messages inhibiting our ability to understand clearly. Last time I mentioned the fact that when we begin to read this book we are offered at the very beginning at least two keys that have potential to give us a huge advantage over those who ignore these keys. I want to examine the first of these keys and I invite you to join me on possibly the greatest adventure possible. We may discover that this is far more than merely a fascinating thriller novel and in fact may be the most radical discovery of reality that just might jolt us into seeing things around us in new ways never before possible.

During this study it is urgent that we pray earnestly and often for the same Jesus introduced in the first chapter of this book, to apply the eye salve He says we need in order to begin to see our own condition mentioned in the last message in chapter 3. What He says about the condition of the last group of people living on earth is all too true. For just as He says, we imagine we are smarter than anyone else who came before us, better off, more highly educated, wealthy in knowledge and wisdom and think we pretty much have all the truth compiled from all the history that we have behind us.

But Jesus sees us differently, insisting that from heaven's perspective we are a pitiful mess, that in reality we are wretched and can't see past our own nose. He even insists that we are naked and poor, something so shocking we tend to glaze over when we hear it. We acknowledge we hear the words, yet our heart disbelieves it is actually true about ourselves. So long as we fail to believe His words over our perceptions, we will remain in the very condition He describes which could best be described as double-minded. James writes that so long as we are in this condition, holding opposite opinions about God in our mind and heart at the same time, it is impossible to receive anything from God. That is a very desperate situation that I don't want to remain in longer, and I have been praying for some time to be fully cured of double-mindedness, and God has been faithfully at work healing me of this. I am very grateful for that, yet at the same time I realize there is much more to heal before I can be confident that I no longer have double vision from the intoxication produced by pride, arrogance or false confidence that I have all the truth and simply need to compel others to agree with me.

With the healing eye salve of heaven comes clarity, both about my own wretched condition but more so about how God sees me and values me as precious, beautiful (I guess the correct term is handsome for a man), and extremely cherished in His heart. I confess that when it comes to seeing myself the way God sees me, I am just beginning to have capacity to even believe the words. Yet this is why my condition is so wretched and why my life feels so naked and full of shame. There is a huge difference between the truth about my identity and the truth about my condition. I had no clue about this until a few years ago when God made me aware of this. Condition and identity are entirely separate and yet related things, for what I choose to believe about my identity in turn affects how my character forms.

What does this have to do with Revelation? Well, the very word Revelation itself means to expose what is hidden. Curiously this ties into the express definition of the word Judgment given by Jesus in his dialog with Nicodemus in John 3. There Jesus says that His definition of Judgment is simply what happens when the Light of truth shows up. We either choose to resist it, deny it, try to suppress it because it threatens everything we have invested in to prop up our sense of worth and identity, or we choose to face it directly and move toward it no matter how uncomfortable or exposing it is for us. Jesus says that those who come toward the light in spite of how it makes them feel initially, are those who do the truth. I find that compelling and highly relevant when examining a book named Revelation that is full of light and truth about Jesus Christ who says He is the light of the world.

That brings me to the first key that is crucial to keep constantly on us in order to navigate the labyrinth of Revelation and not get hopelessly lost in a maze of confusion, fear and wild speculation. The very first words of this book alert us that Jesus as the sole standard of what is true about God and we must not allow anyone's ideas or speculations interfere with that reality. For me this means that any notion, speculation, assertion, interpretation, doctrine or whatever we might imagine while reading anything in the rest of this book, cannot contradict the clear light of truth as portrayed in the 4 gospels that show us what Jesus thought, taught, shared and how He related to others.

In other words, if anyone tries to convince me that something in Revelation is a truth about God that does not correspond to what I learn about Him from the Jesus found in the gospels, I need to instantly step back and question it seriously. If this book is what it claims to be, a revelation of Jesus Christ, then it must only and always square perfectly to the revelation Jesus brought that challenges the paradigms of what people have imagined God to be like throughout all history.

He who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)

God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power... (Hebrews 1:1-3)

The first and most important key to use constantly in our exploration of this map is that the only safe truth to embrace at any time is truth that corresponds to the truth as is found in Jesus alone.

There is salvation in none other, for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, by which we must be saved! (Acts 4:12)

In Scripture the term name strongly infers character. It is not like we tend to do today, randomly picking a name for a baby based on whatever appeals to our fancy at the moment. Words have become so cheapened in our day that it is hard to know what anyone really means because everyone is so adept at manipulating words to suck us into believing things to manipulate us for their advantage. God is not that way, and when He uses words He always means something and is never deceptive. The problem now is that we are so accustomed to reading into what people say what we think their motives might be to manipulate or exploit us, that it has become difficult to communicate at all. More on this next time.

When the gospel insists there is no other name but Jesus by which we are saved, we must not distort that by shallow religious logic. Name is not referring to literal syllables of some language comprising a label some language uses to identity the Son of God who lived among us on earth 2,000 years ago. No, this is talking about how we choose to perceive God and what we will believe about how He feels about and relates to us. That is the primary reason Jesus came to this earth. The core problem caused by sin is that complete trust in God on the part of most of the created beings in the universe was seriously affected by super subtle insinuations of the most brilliantly smart being every created.

Lucifer claimed that he had advance and secret knowledge about God that no one else could know because no one was as smart as he and didn't have access to what he had direct access to – the hidden secrets of God. It was true that God had created Lucifer for the purpose of taking the hidden things of God that were far beyond what others could discern and translate them in order that others might have deeper appreciation and affection for God. Yet this very honor and privilege that involved God's trust in Lucifer became the very thing Lucifer exploited to promote his own agenda to discredit Christ as a competing revelation of God. This created tension in heaven as contradictory views of God began to cause division, confusion and at last open rebellion. This is the same war we now all find ourselves born into and is summarized in chapter 12 of Revelation. Chapters 12 and 13 are located as the center hub of this book around which everything else revolves and derives its meaning.

It is with this as the back story that we begin to see why the first words of the book are the very first thing God wants us to know. Just as the first chapter of Hebrews emphasizes the conflict between two competing entities claiming to represent God, one by an angel and the other from Jesus the Son, so too the book of Revelation exposes the competing versions of what we are urged to believe about God.

Revelation is all about the supernatural war we are unavoidably caught up in.

Revelation presents the two contenders vying for our allegiance and trust and our very soul.

Revelation is all about motives and methods and which ones we will believe and rely on to overcome.

Revelation is about the stark contrast between the methods God uses and the methods of His enemies.

Revelation exposes the subtle lies of the enemy that infects all of our thinking and paradigms.

The first key we must pick up and hold tenaciously if we wish to unlock the mysteries in this amazing drama is that whatever we think, feel or choose to believe from this book must align harmoniously with the life, teachings and example of Jesus of Nazareth. The Jesus introduced at the very beginning of Revelation is the very same Jesus that John knew personally as a disciple. It is this Jesus that radically affected John's heart so deeply that he was transformed from being known as a son of thunder to the most humble, caring, compassionate and loyal friend and became known as John the Beloved.

In John's 3 letters we find this same man unleashing such concentrated truth about God's love for us that most people can hardly begin to ingest it effectively. John obsesses over the reality that God is love and that all who allow God to align them with Himself will reflect that love unavoidably. Keeping those letters as our context for reading Revelation is a very wise choice for any of us serious about wanting to see the glory hidden in this book. Let us pick up this key and use it consistently and we will be able to rejoice with those who rejoice throughout this treasure stash of prophecy.

This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

Threads and Themes in Revelation - Rumor notes 2

 

This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known [signified] by his angel to his servant, John, who testified to God's word, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is at hand. (Revelation 1:1-3)

After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. (Revelation 15:5)

Threads/themes – revelation/judgment, must, testimony, receive and keep/practice.

3M's: Message, Motives and Methods

We have the message in the words used by John to convey things of extreme importance to us. But if we come to the message with misperceptions about the context or the motives involved, the message will fail to be delivered as intended and may prove to do more harm than good. So it is not enough to simply know the facts or the words of Scripture or prophecy. We must go deeper to know the truth found in both the testimony of God's word and of Jesus and even more importantly, the motives.

Discerning the motives behind the message is vital to understanding the message. We discover the motives of God by coming to understand Him through the lens of the only accurate revelation of God and His heart that is only and always good – Jesus Christ. This is the point of Hebrews 1:1-3 and in fact the entire book of Hebrews. Coming to see that God's motives are always good and never for evil is key to transforming our thinking about what the messages mean. Then we can begin to properly learn how to determine what methods are relied on to overcome the enemy and what methods are disallowed.

Distinguishing between the methods of the enemy and the methods used by God is vital if we want to cooperate with the hero of Revelation. This book is all about motives and methods, both of God and those with Him, as well as of the enemy that masquerades as representing God. This is why a war is going on, because there are challenges and accusations over who is right and how things should be managed and how order should be maintained. (See more below.)

Testimony

Every person has a testimony. It don't know if it is even impossible to be alive as a person and not have a testimony. God repeatedly calls on us as His witnesses. That is because His reputation as ruler over all the universe has been called into question and based on His methods and motives He refuses to simply impose His will to override the will of those He has created for His pleasure. To force one's will on others is to destroy the very meaning of freedom, joy and the pleasure we are designed to experience. God will not mar His beautiful creation designed to function in complete freedom and motivated by love alone for the sake of law and order. But neither will He settle for disorder, rebellion and death resulting from disobedience to the law of love. The core issue however is key to understand. How is God resolving the sin problem? That is the point of contention addressed in this book of revelations about both sides. We might say, the underlying issue is how to best maintain order while granting complete freedom so that love may prevail without reliance on fear.

This book is a revelation of the strategy of God and how He will win over evil without resorting to force like we imagine He must do to overcome evil. This book reveals the back story and God's strategies possibly more than any writings anywhere. Yet because we have been so conditioned to imagine that God must use the methods of the enemy to overcome the enemy, we have failed to connect the testimony of Jesus about His Father to what we find in this book that seems to contradict it. (See more on testimony at the end.)

The Must Factor

The word 'must' that shows up in the second verse is key to coming to a better appreciation of how God intends to win over evil and still maintain complete freedom for everyone. Satan insists that freedom is too risky, that law and order have higher priority over freedom, and that love is too weak to accomplish what it claims it can do. Thus the battle is over whether or not fear should be a primary motivation for obedience or whether love alone can maintain order and regulate the universe effectively. What God insists is that it is necessary that evil be given opportunity to mature sufficiently so that it will eventually be fully seen that it is not a viable option for governing the universe.

At first this may seem like something that should be obvious by now. But the subtle suggestions and insinuations of the enemy run far deeper than any of us can imagine. If even the most brilliant created beings in the universe, the angels of God who live in God's presence and see things far more clearly than we can presently, could be deceived by the suggestions of Lucifer, we cannot imagine that we can know how God should end the war. Even angels who maintained allegiance to God during the initial rebellion in heaven remained affected by some of the ideas of Lucifer and questioned God's motives and methods all the way up to the death of Christ. This should tell us something about the intensity of the power of the mystery of iniquity and its capacity to confuse and mislead.

It is for this reason that we find this thread we might call 'the must factor' that is found both at the beginning and near the end of this book. It is a must because without this key factor in place it will be impossible to defeat evil. Yet this must factor is one of the most contested and denigrated ideas in religion because it doesn't fit how we imagine God to be. So God alerts us from the very beginning of the book that these things must be allowed to play out in order that God's true good (not the good found in the Tree of Good and Evil, but an entirely different kind of goodness that defines God alone) may at last be the only thing left in the universe. And that will be achieved without any compromise with evil.

The Blessing

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. (John 13:17)

Blessed are those who read, who hear and who keep.

Happiness. The Greek emphasizes perceiving, being aware of, knowing, understanding more than simply reading. The blessing/happiness is inherent within the writing and released into those who choose to embrace the revelation of the true message in this book.

This is the first of 7 blessings throughout Revelation. This also harkens back to the blessings revealed in the sermon on the mount that Jesus gave relating to how things work in His kingdom.

Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:21-25)

This ties directly back into Jesus' definition of judgment.

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God. (John 3:21)

Testimony Supplement

After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. (Revelation 15:5)

Chapters 15 and 16 unveil a testimony so potent that it has been overlooked by most scholars because it is so scandalous. Yet what this reveals is that there will be a people on earth who so closely align their hearts with Jesus that their lives will reflect the heart of God just like Jesus reflected it where living here on earth. Their testimony will be so potent that it will work to break the very foundation upon which Satan has built his entire evil empire and will bring about the collapse of all the institutions that compose that empire.

This group of people are glimpsed over and over throughout this book. I like to call them the accomplices of the Lamb. They are given certain identifiers in various places in the book so that we may track them and watch their development so we may see more clearly the real issues involved.

The issue of testimony is central throughout Revelation because it is key to how God overcomes the power of evil without using force. When we come to see that the real issue in this war is God's reputation and authority to govern the universe with love alone, it starts to become more clear why testimony is so vital and why all throughout Scripture God calls on His people to be His witnesses. God is on trial, and the hour of His judgment has come. Rather than live in terror that He is going to judge us based on our way of doing justice, we need to see that He is calling on us to testify on His behalf because He is the one being judged and our testimony has impact in how others choose to view Him.

God's star witness is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became the Son of Man for many reasons. Because the war began over whose testimony in heaven could be trusted, that war has now shifted to play out here on this planet until its final resolution on the final day of full revelation of all things, all motives, all truth and the exposure of all lies. God must be vindicated, but only in ways consistent with kingdom principles, not by relying on intimidation or fear, for to rely on fear to gain security for eternity is a false hope. The presence of fear means that love has not yet won, and God will never settle for anything less that love alone. That is why Jesus came to live and die, not to pay off an imaginary debt created by sin, but to expose the real truth about God's design for creation and to win the respect and restore as many as are willing to their original place in His family.

Methods

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)

Jesus settles for no less than intimacy. He respectfully stands alone outside and refuses to force His way on us. He waits patiently, never using His superior power to force us, for to force one's will is a violation – violence. Intimacy and violence are in total opposition to each other. Violence or even the threat of violence makes it impossible to trust, love or experience intimacy. Yet when we refuse to respond to His patient appeals to our heart, it remains impossible for us to enter the experience for which we were created – exquisite pleasure that can only be experienced through intimacy with God.

The entire book of Revelation highlights the contrast between the methods of God's kingdom and the kingdoms of this world, all modeled after Satan's design. Earthly powers rely on artificial rules, artificial enforcements, systems of rewards and threatened punishments to manipulate and control the masses. Economic measures saturate everything are are exploited to direct social affairs according to the desires of those in power. Fear, violence, shame, deception and threats are all standard fare for the kingdoms of this world to maintain control over the masses. But all of this is foreign to God's kingdom and He invites us to disconnect spiritually from all these counterfeits.

Revelation is a reality check for those willing to listen and realize that things are not as they appear. Revelation lets us know that power is not what we imagine it to be, and our use of power does not accomplish what God needs done to win over evil. Revelation is a radical call to radical discipleship, following a hero who chooses the symbol of an innocent, defenseless Lamb to convey the key attributes of how God overcomes. Clearly this is foolishness to most people, which is why for most it is nearly impossible to relate to this book in any coherent fashion.

But for those with ears to hear and a heart to listen, it is like the coded radio messages sent to sympathetic underground agents behind enemy lines, alerting them to what is about to come down against the enemy. And all who are humble enough to trust a Lamb to lead them to victory will be an undecipherable enigma to all who prefer the versions of God promoted by mainstream religion.

Backdrop for Study of Revelation - Rumor notes 1

 

Revelation – the exposing of something that used to be obvious but has been largely obscured.

The very need for this book of Revelations is to bring back into the open what has been obscured by the smoke and mirrors of the enemy of truth who thrives on darkening, distorting and twisting. This is called sin and iniquity. Jesus Christ was sent to counter all that and re-reveal the truth about God by becoming a human for a number of very key reasons.

There are a number of key themes that run like colorful threads through the fabric of this book that we need to pay attention to and learn from as much as possible. These concept constitute the vital issues that have been distorted and perverted and confused by Satan's sophistries, things like glory, salvation and especially the methods and motives of God.

Salvation – the means whereby both God's reputation along with humanity's original design may be restored and reconciliation may be accomplished between the two.

Humans were originally created to mirror God's glory like a mirror array amplifies the intensity of collectively reflected light. We are designed to thrive in joy, bonded community of diversity whereby the mystery of God's heart may be exposed into the visible realm for all the universe to enjoy and savor.

Through the continued choices of free will, humans have the power to shape their own characters until they become settled and solidified into the same likeness as what they have chosen to reflect. So long as they focused their attention and attentions on God's passionate love for them, their lives would be transformed into thinking, feeling and acting only in love and the beauty of God's core could become visible to influence and transform everyone everywhere. This is the essence of worship, one of the main issues in Revelation.

As soon as our first parents allowed lies about their Creator to infect their relationship of implicit, child-like trust in the source of all love, life and provision, sin and selfishness rabidly took over our psyche and plunged us into a condition of terror and desperation. Losing confidence in the Source of everything we needed for life, we instantly began operating with the motives and methods of the enemy to which we had given over our kingship and dominion. We became slaves internally to the counterfeit kingdom of darkness and lost all power to resist feeling and acting out Satan's principles of selfishness, for once we lose our sense of value and secure identity as reflectors of the very center of love, we instinctively begin floundering about grasping at anything that appears to have potential to fill the gaping void we feel inside. This is the condition of sin – living in distrust and fearful of God.

Because we cannot help but reflect what we imagine God to be like, humanity became defined by the first Adam by the reflection of the author of fear and death as the reflection inherited from Adam and passed on genetically to the rest of us caused everyone to distrust God and look for other means of finding satisfaction and fulfillment. With Satan insisting that he was now the god of this world that we reflected, he seized the right to represent us in the assembly of the sons of God in heaven.

This gives a little backdrop of why the book of Revelation is key to unraveling the mess caused both by Satan's rebellion in heaven along with the hijacking of God's created mirrors here on earth intended to restore God's reputation in the first round. Instead of saving God's reputation by demonstrating how humility, kindness, graciousness and love thriving in the atmosphere of vulnerability could defeat all the lies of the enemy that had infected the minds of living intelligences throughout the universe, the fall of humans only exacerbated the problem and amplified the slander and false allegations of Satan against God and His government. Thus in round two, a plan had to be implemented to not only salvage God's reputation but to salvage as many of His heart mirrors as possible along with it.

Salvation belongs to our God is a central and repeated theme in Revelation and Scripture.

Giving glory to God alone and focusing on His goodness and pure loveliness is also a major issue.

Jesus Christ is the hero of Revelation, for it is made clear throughout this amazing piece of literature that the attributes of God as revealed alone through the reflection seen in His Son become human is the only way God's reputation and government can be rescued from the coup d'etat launched by the first rebel who likewise had been created to reveal the truth about God to the universe.

Round 1 involved the betrayal of God by the chief representative created to convey truth and light to the rest of the universe in concert with Michael who was so humble that for a long time no one realized He was also part of the godhead. When Lucifer betrayed the sacred trust given him and launched a rebellion to displace Michael and exalt his own power and prestige to steal the affections and allegiance of created beings already populating heaven, the war was commenced. Michael had to counter the insidious lies of Lucifer who was leveraging his position as chief instructor of all the angels to undermine trust in God's methods and motives. And part of the strategy for defeating Lucifer's rebellion was to create an unbiased jury of sorts who could reveal what was hidden deep inside God that was being misrepresented by Lucifer's charges that carried so much logical weight.

Lucifer insisted at first that he was only wanting to make some small improvements to better secure God's government from any potential rebellion. He felt that the design of complete freedom and vulnerability that marked God's creation was a bit risky and that disaster might be avoided is God would institute a few safety precautions. This same mentality is still very compelling for many Christians today, because they agree with Satan's allegations that love cannot be trusted to be strong enough to prevent or counter what might happen should someone choose to turn away from love and live independently apart from God's authority and ways. Satan insisted that what was needed was a system of artificial rules with associated rewards as enticements for remaining faithful and loyal along with threats of imposed punishments for any who might dare to step out of line. He felt that with this added layer of security, the universe could be secured against any potential chaos that would surely result from someone choosing to live outside the parameters of God's design for social interaction.

When his suggestions to security improvements were denied and his ideas were not valued and embraced by Michael, feelings of resentment were allowed to grow inside Lucifer's heart until eventually they drove him to launch the very rebellion he had predicted might happen should his ideas not be employed. He decided to set up his own system of government based on rewards and punishments and prove that it would be superior to God wimpy ways that could be proven too weak.

By the time we get all the way down to when Revelation was written, a lot of water has gone under the bridge and the universe has witnessed the battle between light and darkness about God unfold in dramatic ways that no one expected. God's response to Lucifer's initial capture of the allegiance of one third of the work force of heaven seemed itself to at first be overwhelmingly successful as He demonstrated how His use of power would never resort to the use of threats or retaliation or punishment of His enemies. In the creation of this earth, power was only used for positive good, to bring beauty, order and glorious life out of chaos, a very chaos possibly resulting from Satan and his angels mucking around here attempting to create life through evolutionary means unsuccessfully.

When Satan's rebellion was not crushed by God forcefully after gaining the appreciation of the rest of the universe, it appeared that God's methods really were proven superior to Satan's. But when Satan then seduced our first parents to remove their trust from God and to trust in themselves and his lies about God, the glorious victory thought to have gone to God's side suddenly reversed and the horror flick began in earnest. Satan set up his throne on our planet and enforces his system of law and order in every culture and people group that populates this earth in an attempt to vindicate his claims. Yet all throughout history his methods of maintaining order through control, intimidation and violence has had mixed results at best. Yet in the midst of all this mess, God continued to work with a small contingent of people willing to cooperate with His methods and motives as far as they could. Yet with Satan as humanity's representative whose chief activity was to accuse us before God day an night relentlessly, it was impossible to salvage humans back to reflecting effectively the true image of God lost in Eden. Something far more dramatic had to take place or else Satan's experiment would continue to undermine God's credibility even threaten to spread in spite of all God's efforts to neutralize it.

The dramatic story revealed here in Revelation exposes that God's strategic move in sending His Son to become a human was the most potent mean to unmask the extremely subtle and convincing insinuations of the enemy that retained such a tenacious grip even among many loyal angels. Ideas that Satan had promoted in heaven seemed so logical and sensible that many who chose to remain loyal to God were still affected by Satan's insistence that unless punishment was imposed through a hierarchal system of control, it would be impossible to contain the spread of chaos and mayhem caused by law breaking. These notions were so tenacious that amazingly loyal angels could see no other possibility to halt Satan's rebellion than to forcefully exterminate him and all those loyal to him using his methods.

Before Christ's first advent, the sin of refusing to conform to God's law had become widespread. Apparently Satan's power was growing; his warfare against heaven was becoming more and more determined. A crisis had been reached. With an intense interest God's movements were watched by the heavenly angels. Would He come forth from His place to punish the inhabitants of the world for their iniquity? Would He send fire or flood to destroy them? All heaven waited the bidding of their Commander to pour out the vials of wrath upon a rebellious world. One word from Him, one sign, and the world would have been destroyed. The worlds unfallen would have said, "Amen. Thou art righteous, O God, because Thou hast exterminated rebellion."

But "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God might have sent His Son to condemn, but He sent Him to save. Christ came as a Redeemer. No words can describe the effect of this movement on the heavenly angels. With wonder and admiration they could only exclaim, "Herein is love!" {RC 58}

The first verse in Revelation explains how and why this vision is so needed. God's motives and methods must be made clear, exposed, revealed. And the only one capable of doing this was His only begotten Son. That title distinguishes Him from the other angel who claims to represent the truth about God who has slandered and undermined God's reputation so effectively for so long. (see Hebrews 1-2)

Yet Jesus as God's effective human reflector includes His friend John to participate in bringing this revelation to the world of what is really transpiring and how it will all turn out in the end.

A mirror turned away from the sun cannot reflect its rays. And a human being turned away from God’s Son cannot reflect His love to others.As Christians, our responsibility is to share with others what God has shown to us. (from the introduction to Reflecting Christ)

This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known [signified] by his angel to his servant, John, (Revelation 1:1)

What is the revelation of Jesus Christ? Jesus became a human mirror in order that the original reflection of God's heart that humans are designed to expose could finally happen.

He who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)

God gave Jesus the original light from His own heart that Jesus perfectly reflects. In growing up human Jesus fulfilled the original design for humans by perfecting a human character/likeness through continually mirroring God's heart and never anything else.

God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion...."

(Genesis 1:26)

The next verse details that only the image of God was created, not the likeness. That's because likeness equals character, and character is impossible to create in another. Character can only come about by personally making choices using a free will that over time develops habits and attitudes that in turn become so settled into the psyche they become forever permanent. Once character is set permanently, a person can always be trusted to act or react in any situation according to the nature of the character they have chosen to develop using their will.

By coming as a human to go through this process personally, and then taking upon Himself full responsibility and accountability for the lives of every human being who ever existed, Jesus was able to dislodge Satan's claim to represent humans in the assembly of the sons of God in heaven. After that everything took a dramatic turn in history. Yet the war was far from over, for salvation is more than simply proving that God is right and Satan is wrong; the universe can only be forever secured from a recurrence of this problem by giving evil sufficient time to perfect itself until its ugliness results in its own self-destruction. Allowing sin to destroy itself instead of God resorting to using Satan's methods is key to ending the war. This is a major main theme throughout the book of Revelation. Without this perspective one cannot grasp the main purpose for this symbolic book to achieve its intended effect.

In chapter 4 is revealed God's original design. God on His throne with everyone joyfully worshiping Him because He is good, not from any fear of punishment or hope of reward. This gives us a point of reference for the rest of the book, for until one knows what the original design looked like, it is impossible to measure anything else to see how it relates to the original.

In chapter 5 we are introduced to the hero of the book who figures prominently and is key to perceiving the issues under contention all through history. The war described in Revelation is not a war like we are familiar with, where force is pitted against force. Rather this war is between what methods and motives are effective for overcoming the opposition. This is vital to keep in mind while attempting to unpack the symbols in this book. Without this perspective we are extremely liable to arrive at faulty conclusions because of the extreme subtlety of the enemy's counterfeits.

Understanding and appreciation of the reasons behind how a violently slaughtered Lamb could be the hero cannot be overemphasized. This Lamb is the very embodiment of how God intends to win this war. Yet this Lamb's methods and motives are so foreign to how religion portrays God to be that we must concentrate consciously on the truth about God brought to light in this Lamb at all times if we are to keep proper perspective about everything else transpiring in this story.

From this point on through the bulk of this book, we encounter wave after wave of light assaulting the powers of darkness until on the third round the light becomes so intense and clear that it crashes the enemy's operating system and trips it into self-destruction mode. Yet how all this transpires involves another group who are key to helping all this come to light. These are what I call the Lamb's accomplices who we watch throughout the book learning how to reflect the same reflection of God's heart, motives and methods as does the Lamb. They are introduced in chapter 7 but keep showing up at various times all the way to the end.

Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

This practice is crucial to grasp and apply as we soak in the light pouring out of this book. In Revelation the Lamb's accomplices learn to increasingly focus their full attention on the ultimate human mirror who alone reflects perfectly the true glory of what constitutes the mystery hidden in God's heart. The Son of God became the Son of Man so He could mirror the glory of God fully.

God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself made purification for our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:1-3)

If we want to be on the winning side in all that is transpiring around us and is described in Revelation, we too must learn how to sing the new song that the Lamb's accomplices learn to sing and to reflect in our own lives the same glory that emanates from the glorious mirror reflection of God seen in the Lamb who became God in the flesh. That Lamb willingly became vulnerable and ever refused to indulge in the slightest hint of desire for revenge, punishment or take offense. This is what Revelation is all about.