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A Review of the Book of the Revelation
RV178-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1993)
We are beginning a new section in Revelation 14:1-5. Our subject is "The Victorious Lamb," segment number one.
The Seven Seals
Let's have just a little review where we have come in the progression of this book. As you know, the judgments of God are presented under a series
of seven seals.
The Seven Trumpets
And when the seventh seal is broken, seven trumpets are introduced, and each trumpet, when it is blown, brings another judgment of
God upon the tribulation world. We have come to the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11:15.
The Seven Bowls
When the angel blew his trumpet, the seventh trumpet, a
new series of judgments were set in motion in the form of seven bowls which were to be poured out upon tribulation humanity. They were the bowls
of God's wrath. In terms of the chronology (in terms of the location within the seven-year period), these bowls are down near the end. We have
passed the midpoint in our study of the tribulation era, and these seven bowls will come like violent hammer blows upon humanity, one rapidly
after another, in the final months of the tribulation.
Before the consequences of these bowl judgments, however, are described by John, God the Holy Spirit inserts what we call a set of large
parentheses into the text. This parenthesis begins at Revelation 11:15, and we have been in it now for some time, and it will go on until
Revelation 15:8. After that point, the chronological progression will again be resumed, and the bowls of judgment will begin to be poured out.
The Second Coming
This set of parentheses interrupts the chronological progression of the tribulation events for the purpose of giving us additional background
information preparatory for these final judgments of God in the seven bowls. Revelation 11:15-19 gave a summary preview of the large set of
parentheses, and of the final result of the bowl judgments. In this section, in Revelation 11:15-19, we saw the return of the Lord Jesus Christ
to earth from heaven at his Second Coming, and we saw Jesus Christ establishing His authority and His political rule over all the nations on earth.
Satan
In Revelation 12, we were introduced to some important personalities who are present in that seven-year tribulation period, and some of their
activities. There, we were introduced to Satan, in his attack against the Jewish nation, and his desire to destroy the nation as such. There we saw
the war between the demon angels of Satan and the loyal angels of God, led by Michael the archangel. This is the war in heaven, which is in the
future, and in which Satan is roundly and firmly defeated. At that point in time, he will never again be able to enter heaven as he can now to
accuse believers. As with Job, Satan still has access into the presence of God to report and to assail the believers. He will then be restricted,
after this war, we found, to the earth itself, and he will know that he's got three-and-a-half years left of freedom, and then the roof is going to
cave in on him. Therefore, he moves into high gear to make his last effort to frustrate the plans of God.
The Persecution of the Jews
We also saw in Revelation 12 the enormous worldwide persecution of the Jews, and the marvelous preservation of them for three-and-a-half years, the
last three-and-a-half years of the tribulation, in some isolated refuge in the wilderness, mountainous area. The only places that is to be found in
Palestine is in what is now the southern part of the country of Jordan, in which the restricted city of Petra is found, which is a super refuge,
and near impossible to attack and will, of course, have a special protection of God upon it.
The Antichrist and his False Prophet
Then in Revelation 13, in the large set of parentheses, we were introduced to the antichrist and his false prophet. These are associates in world
government and in a universal religion. This team seems to unbeatable as we come to the end of Revelation 13, and what we are viewing is the fact
that God is giving Satan his day, and then Satan will go down in flames, or rather more appropriately, he will go down into the flames of the lake
of fire, which has been created specifically for him and his demons.
The Ultimate Triumph of Jesus Christ
Now, when we pick up the set of parentheses in Revelation 14, we're going to be dealing with the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ and of God's
destruction of all tribulation unbelievers. I must remind you once more that these are not fables that we are dealing with. We are dealing with
prehistory. We are dealing with something which one day will happen in time and space. It will happen with human beings. It is going to happen in
exactly the way it is described in this book. Churches reject this book. Christians, since the Reformation days, have given this book short concern
because the things that it says are so staggering to the human imagination, that it is unbelievable that mankind could bring himself into such total
chaos as this book describes. That is exactly what is happening, and it is happening before our very eyes at an increasing rate. You must remember
that prophecy is designed by God to give believers a perspective on history.
Prophecy
Prophecy is a perspective on where history is going. Bible prophecy in
the past has always been fulfilled in detail. When the Bible was completed, 25% of it was prophetic. A large part of that has now been fulfilled.
Therefore, we have a frame of reference of how God deals with prophecy when He makes these declarations. It has always been precisely on target,
and in detail. Prophecy describes the future movements of God in human events, and He carries out what He tells us He's going to do. This is not the
kind of nonsense that you can read in your paper today about your horoscope, which tells you these great generalities. You should have an upbeat
outlook on life, and be nice to the people close to you. "Well, who can't use that? That's a prophetic insight?"
Don't listen to this nonsense when the
charismatic preachers stand up and they speak in Elizabethan English, and they roll off a great deal of Scripture verses that they connect together,
and they say, "I've just given you a great word of knowledge from God." As always, they've just given us an entertaining performance. All of the
TV evangelists are in the entertainment business. They're not in the Bible teaching business. Therefore, you should not get so upset with their
antics, and what they do, and what they say, because they're not in God's business. They're in the entertainment business. That's showbiz.
Prophecy helps believers to put their lives in order so that their life priorities are arranged in terms of eternity. In 2 Peter 3, Peter, in
closing his epistle, uses this whole to do that very thing. In this chapter, he talks about the Second Coming of Christ, and he points out the fact
that, in the last days, people are going to scoff at the idea that Jesus Christ is going to come back to this earth. They're going to scoff at
prophetic things, and they're going to say, "Things have always been like they are now. They've always gone on like they are now. Nothing has
changed. For centuries, we've been hearing about the coming of Christ." That's exactly what Peter says they're going to say. Verse 4: "Where is
the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."
The Noahic Flood
The truth of the matter is that things do not continue as from the beginning of creation. Scientifically, we call this uniformitarianism. This is
the concept that everything we see operating in nature today, and everything we see existing in nature today, has been the result of past operation
of natural laws that have never been interrupted. That is false. The natural scientist makes that horrendous mistake, because he doesn't take into
account that the Bible tells us that God interrupted natural laws, in a very dramatic way, with the Noahic flood, and that changed everything. He
took the canopy of water from over the top of us that filtered out the ultraviolet rays so that instead of living for hundreds of years, we got
trimmed down to 70 years, and maybe a little more. The mountainous surfaces of the earth were completely redone, and crinkled up. The bottom of the
oceans were scarred out with enormous canyons. And on the surface the canyons like the Grand Canyon were carved out by the rushing flooding waters
from the receding floodwaters of the earth.
Things have not continued as they were from creation. Things have been dramatically change on the very face of the earth.
Peter goes on and points out to us that, at the end of the millennium, God is going to take this whole creation; He's going to melt every element;
He's going to shred the whole earth and the heavens above us (the atmospheric heavens), and in its place, He's going to reproduce a new heaven and
a new earth. It's going to be back in its pristine beauty and perfection, as it was originally before it was fouled up by Adam's sin. So, Peter goes
on in this book and says, in 2 Peter 3:14, "Therefore, beloved, in view of all this, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found in
Him in peace, and to be spotless and blameless. You know what's going to happen in the future. That's why God has given you a prophetic insight
–o that you would know how to live appropriately. You're not going to go on forever, and neither is the world around you.
The New Testament is Scripture
Verse 15 says, "Regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote
to you." Then he refers to some of the letters of Paul, which he calls "Scripture," incidentally. Isn't that interesting? New Testament writings
of Paul are clearly called Scripture, putting them on an equal level with the Old Testament. He points out that the apostle Paul is a writer of the
deep things of the Spirit of God, and sometimes it's tough to understand some of the things that Paul is telling us.
Grow in Grace
In any case, in verse 17, he says, "You understand the basic principles of doctrine. You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand (knowing
where history is going; knowing what God is planning to do; and, seeing it coming to pass before your very eyes), be on your guard, lest being
carried away by the error of unprincipled men (evolutionists and humanists), you fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and
knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." The only way you grow in the grace
of God is when you grow in the knowledge of God through the knowledge of doctrine.
So, prophecy is an enormously important part of the life of the believer. And it is so sad to think that most Christians go to church Sunday after
Sunday, and they're completely oblivious to the prophetic Scriptures. I have made a point of observing the churches that provide Bibles in pews
– that cleanest pages of the Bibles are always the book of the Revelation. They're always stuck together. You have to pry them apart, because
the preacher never has anything to say about the great future that God has revealed. It becomes a mystery.
So, Revelation 14 is another great prophetic insight, and it is giving us a picture at the end of the tribulation. All of a sudden, God jumps to the
end of the story, and you're going to know the rest of the story now immediately. And the end of the story (the rest of the story) is total victory
for the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Revelation 14:1, John says, "And I looked, and behold." This expression "looked and behold" is used several times by John, and it is always
used to introduce some spectacular event. It is a way of John saying, "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it." Suddenly, the scene
shifts from the antichrist and the false prophet on the earth, and John is again propelled in his focus toward heaven. And he sees something that
bowls him over. The scene of his vision is suddenly changed, and something dramatic is being revealed to him. What he sees is "The Lamb." This is
a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen the Lamb several times in this book. We see Him (Jesus Christ) standing on His feet "on Mount
Zion." Mount Zion refers to the hill in Jerusalem on which the temple once stood. Here, we're at the end of the tribulation. Here, we're on the
threshold of the Millennial Kingdom being established upon this earth. The future earthly seat of that Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the
capital of the world, is going to be Mt. Zion.
Mount Zion
Isaiah made a reference to this in Isaiah 2:2-4 as he looked down the corridors of time, and received prophetic insights from God: "Now it will come
about in the last days. (That's where we are now.) The mountain of the house of the Lord." The mountain is Mount Zion. The mountain of the House of
the Lord (the mountain of the temple of God): "Will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills, and all the
nations will stream to it." All nations will look to the world capital of Jerusalem: "And many peoples will come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths, for the law will
go forth from Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
Christians will Reign with Christ
We Christians, who will be in charge of the world with Jesus Christ, will be running an
enormous Bible Institute – an instruction center from the city of Jerusalem. All the people of the world will be looking to us for instruction,
and the nations will be streaming to Jerusalem to come under the instruction of the Word of God. Everybody is going to be eager to learn doctrine.
They're not going to know it. All these people who come out of the tribulation are going to be people who been saved by the skin of their teeth.
They went into the tribulation as unbelievers. They got saved there. Those who come out alive, as well as those who are taken up to heaven who were
killed during that period, will know very little about the Bible. They barely got in with the knowledge of the doctrine of salvation. They need
enormous instruction. Children who will be born during the millennium are going to need all the instruction. Whole nations and their administrators
(their leaders) are going to need to be oriented to the principles of government, and to the principles of establishment as set forth in the Word
of God. So, there's going to be an enormous teaching ministry that goes on, and Isaiah is referring to exactly that at the beginning here of the
Millennial Kingdom.
Jesus Christ will Rule
Verse 4 says, "And He (the Lamb – Jesus Christ) will judge between the nations (the gentiles), and will render decisions for many peoples."
He's going to be the final voice. Jesus Christ is going to be the Supreme Court. Everything is going to be settled by Him. That's why there are not
going to be any more wars; there are not going to be any more conflicts; there are not going to be any more wasted resources; and, there are not
going to be any more abuses of the environment or human beings. Everything is going to be put in a proper order because everything is now going to
be run by biblical principles. If men would do this today, as (in large measure) we're used to this nation, this nation would know peace and
prosperity, and a sense of well-being, and a sense of security. We'd have all the things that we had a few generations ago. We've lost all those
for the same reason that the nations of the world have lost them – because they have abandoned God's principles for the role of government,
and for the guidelines for relationships between human beings.
No More Wars
So, Christ will render the decisions. He'll settle the arguments, and therefore: "They will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears
into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war." I don't know what they're going to do with
that splendid pentagonal building, the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C. I've thought that those corridors would make a terrific circular skating rink,
or maybe a place for those little skateboards. That would be great fun. But they're not going to need it for war. All of the facilities are going
to have to be reconverted into some other use. They're not only not going to have war, but nobody is even going to know the faintest (the basic
elements of) tactics, and of armaments, and of discipline, and of structuring a table of organization. All that's just going to be something that
you may read about in history. As the 1,000 years moves along, the memory of that will get dimmer and dimmer, except in pictures, as they look back,
and then they'll be horrified to see what people used to do to each other when war was an accepted element of national policy.
So, we have Isaiah referring to this very same picture – Jesus Christ in triumph over Satan and his antichrist and the false prophet at the
end of the tribulation, and the nations of the world bowing in subjection before Jesus Christ. That's the thing they refused to do no. They want
peace without the Prince of Peace?
It is important to realize that here is where Psalm 2 comes into the picture. What Revelation 14:1 is describing with Christ standing on Mount Zion
in total victory, with the nations of the world bowed down beneath His feet, they're there in resentment. And He's about to destroy them with the
Word of His mouth. He's going to destroy as He will destroy all unbelievers – so that when the millennium begins, there are only born again
Jews and born again gentiles in that population, in their natural human bodies.
However, what Isaiah referred to is also referred to in Psalm 2: "Why are the nations in an uproar, and the people devising a vain thing?" They're
getting ready for the Armageddon campaigns: "The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and
against His anointed. Let us tear their feathers apart, and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs." God has an enormous
sense of humor, and this really strikes Him as extremely humorous – that these kings are going to tear away the fetters of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the King of Kings, who will be in charge of the world.
The Book of the Revelation is Understandable
"The Lord scoffs at them. Then he will speak to them in His anger, and terrify them in His fury. But as for Me," God the Father says, "I have
installed My King upon Zion, My Holy Mountain." This is why we tell you that the book of Revelation is understandable as long as you know something
else about the Bible. The symbols used in the book of the Revelation are used elsewhere in the Bible, and they're explain. Sometimes the very
symbols are explained right there in the text of Revelation. It is not a closed book. It is a closed book because people begin with a false
theological frame of reference. ... They begin with the concept that we're still living under a Judaistic system, and it undermines the grace
freedom system that God has provided for believers of the church age.
God is going to install His King Jesus upon Mount Zion. Psalm 2:7 says, "I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to Me, 'You are My
son. Today I have begotten You." The Son is speaking to the Father in His subjection to the Fathers authority, God the Father says to the Son:
"Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession. You shall break them with
a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware." When Jesus Christ returns at the end of the tribulation, He is going to walk through the
earth like a man with a steel bar in his hand, in a crockery shop (in a China shop), and He's going to smash it just as easily as one could smash
plates and cups with an iron rod: "So, the nations of the world will crumble before Christ."
Verse 10 then gives them advice: "Now, therefore, O kings, show discernment (get smart). Take warning, O judges of the earth." You who are in
positions of making judicial decisions – get your head screwed on straight with doctrine so that you make the decisions that God would make:
"Worship the Lord with reverence, and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way. For His wrath
may soon be kindled. How blessed are you who take refuge in Him?" How blessed are all who take refuge in Him?
Someday when you stand in heaven, you're going to know how blessed you were – to have taken refuge in Christ and to have taken refuge in
His grace salvation. You will know that even more as you observe those in the agony of the lake of fire; those who knew better; and, those who
rebelled and turned their backs against the grace of God. How blessed to have taken refuge in Christ.
So, the empire of the antichrist has now deteriorated. The first three-and-a-half years of the tribulation gradually shows us a world that has
been brought to ruins. Mankind is rejecting the laws of God as stated in Scripture. Man is claiming to be divine himself. Human gods are therefore
acting as final authorities on matters of personal and societal conduct. They're making their own rules to live by it. During the tribulation, God
is permitting Satan to have his maximum influence over mankind. People at that point will completely throw off the moral laws of Scripture, and
they'll indulge all the lust patterns that are innate in the sin nature of man.
It's hard to imagine how this will be. You think it's terrible now. It is, but it's nothing like it's going to be when people are no longer
restrained. This is what the apostle Paul pointed out – that the restraint of God the Holy Spirit upon the world, he told the Thessalonians
Christians, is keeping the world from being what it would really be. Once that restraint is removed, the world is rapidly going to go back to the
condition that it was before the Noahic flood, where every though, will be a thought of evil; every act will be an indulgence of evil; and,
violence will predominate. There will be more perverted, filthy, immoral, self-centered, and sensual people than have ever been in the history of
the world before. The more degraded humanity becomes, the more intelligent and sophisticated they think they are. We already see that today. The
people who are the most intense upon violating moral rules hold themselves up as quality, sophisticated, intelligent people, when they have
degenerated into animal levels.
How can your mind make that inversion? That's what happens in reversionism. Everything comes out looking backwards, like looking into a camera
lens, and seeing everything upside down, so that your perspective is completely gone.
The Antichrist
By mid-tribulation, because of this attitude on the part of people, the world is in chaos, and death is rampant. Three billion will be dead
– half of the world's population gone. By that time, people are going to be eager for a strongman like the antichrist to lead them out of
the mess. They will be ready for a powerful world government which can make decisions to meet the crises. They will be impressed by the satanic
powers that the antichrist possesses, and the world will unite beneath his banner, and they will proceed to worship him as their god.
A Worldwide Religion
A universal religion will be instituted based on new age doctrines, at the heart of which is the godhood of man. This new religion will be brutally
imposed on mankind, and it will be focused upon the image of the antichrist as the object of worship. At this point, Satan, at mid-tribulation, will
have reached the high watermark of his desire to be like God, because the great tribulation, which is to follow (the last three-and-a-half years)
will be a reign of terror upon all believers, and upon those who resist the fact that Satan is now being worshiped through the worship of the
antichrist. This is what he wanted when he rebelled against God – to be like God, and to be worshiped. He has reached the high watermark at
mid-tribulation.
Armageddon
At this point, God proceeds to pour out the bowl judgments against tribulation humanity. Then society breaks down into total anarchy. Suffering
and death is worldwide. The nations of the world, under the control of the antichrist, become restless, and pretty soon power blocs are again
forming, and eventually they move against the antichrist himself. The antichrist gets the word. He rallies his forces, and they meet on the plane
of Megiddo in Israel, and the nations of the world face themselves off to make the one final great battle. A series of battles take place called
the campaigns of Armageddon. And as they slide to the final destruction, which indeed God says, "If it's permitted to take place, the weapons they
have to wipe will all humanity on the face of the earth.
The Second Coming
Jesus Christ suddenly appears on the horizon, and the nations of the world form an alliance immediately. They stop their squabbling, and they join
an alliance to uniformly attack Jesus Christ and the army of heaven (we, who come with Him). Satan, by this time, at the end of the tribulation, is
on the slide toward his millennial imprisonment in the abyss, and his two henchmen are madly careening toward the lake of fire.
That is the picture at the feet of Jesus Christ here in Revelation 14:1, as He stands in total triumph on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, about to finish
off His enemies, and now finally establish the long-awaited Davidic kingdom on this earth.
The 144,000
We're also told that standing with Him are the 144,000. This is a special group of believers. They are the same group that we were introduced to
in Revelation 7:4. This group, there, was preparing to become witnesses in the tribulation to the gospel of the grace of God. Revelation 7:4 says,
"And I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel." It is clear to us that, when God picked
these bond servants, and put His mark upon their forehead, indicating that they belong to Him, these were Jewish males. God knows their tribal
origin, and he picks 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes to make the 144,000. They are a special group that are going to be a special witness to the
tribulation world. They all came into the tribulation as unbelievers. After the rapture took place and the tribulation began, they turned to Jesus
Christ. They accepted Jesus the Messiah, whom they had rejected up to this time. They are now born again. Because of the seal of God upon them,
that not only marks them this believers, but it is a seal of immortality. They cannot be killed.
This is going to be an enormous thorn in the side of the antichrist. This group has gone through the tribulation, and now we see them – still
144,000. Not a single one of them has been kill, and not one of them has been lost. They are standing in triumph with Jesus Christ on the mount,
ready to inaugurate the Millennial Kingdom.
The New World Order
At the beginning of the tribulation, this group is sealed so that they're immune from death at the hand of the antichrist. Daily, they will have
been facing the rage of the antichrist; the ridicule of society; and, the resentment of the false prophet. For seven years, they will be surrounded
by horrors, and by demons snarling at them and reaching out at them, trying to set their claws into them. But they can't be touched. At the end of
the seven years, they are all still there, standing with Christ, ready to introduce the real new world order.
President Bush should understand that his term is very accurate, but he's got his focus in the wrong place. The new world order is the Millennial
Kingdom of Jesus Christ. The book of Daniel makes very clear that the next world empire, which follows the fractured Roman Empire, is going to be
the empire of Jesus Christ over this world.
This whole picture is the threat to these men; the reign of terror in which they live; the horrors that they face; and, the devotion to duty that
was demanded of them – the capacity to put the mission first to which they've been called. And these men have no doubt about what their
mission is. And they put it first. But this is reminiscent of the experience in Daniel 3, where Nebuchadnezzar sets up an image of himself, and he
places this enormous image and says, "This is our God. And when you hear the music begin to play, all of you at those stated times are to come and
bow down before this image, and worship it."
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
Well, Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to do this. They knew that that was not a god. They knew that that image was
false, but they also knew the price that they would have to pay if they refused. Now they had to make their decision. Don't you like to put
yourself back in to a place like that and say, "What would I do?" Could you say, by the grace of God, "I would be a Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?"
Or would you say, "I'd wimp out?"
This is exactly what the believers of the tribulation are going to face when the antichrist says, "Worship my image, or you die, and you die
painfully. In the case of Nebuchadnezzar, he set up a furnace when it was called to his attention that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had
refused to bow down before the image. The Bible tells us that the king was enraged, and he asked them if that is true. They said, "It is." And
he stressed upon them whether they would realize what would happen if they did not comply. They said to him, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need
to give you an answer concerning this matter." Now, that's no way to talk to the king. They said, "We're not even going to discuss this with you.
This is absolutely nonsense. That's a dumb, stupid piece of metal that you've put there, and we're standing here talking about that being some
kind of a god. We Jews know the true God, and we're not even going to dignify your suggestion with an answer."
In Daniel 3:17, they said, "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will deliver us out
of your hand, O king." Now that is manly courage. That is the conviction of faith: "If you put us in that furnace (we're not eager to go), but if
you do it, our God is going to carry us through. Either He's going to let us die in the flames, and we're going to go to heaven, or He's going to
keep us from dying in the flames. We don't know which, but it makes little difference to us. The one thing that does make a difference to us is
that we're not going to bow down to that image, and honor it as God. We will not violate the principles doctrine.
Verse 18 says, "But even if He does not save us, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your God or worship the golden image
that you have set up." Well, as you know, this so enraged the king that he ordered the furnace fired up, and he said, "I want it fired up seven
times hotter than it's ever been before." Then he directed that these three noble, godly, moral, and thus very manly young men should be thrown
into it. And they did. And the people who threw them in, because of the intense heat, were killed in the very process of throwing them into the
furnace. Then the king gets a spooky experience.
Verse 24: "Nebuchadnezzar, the king, was astounded, and stood up in haste from his throne." He runs to the furnace, and he looks in, and he
responded: "And said to the high official, 'Was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire?' They answered and said to the king,
'Certainly, O king.' And he answered and said, 'Look, I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of fire without harm. And the
appearance of the fourth is like a Son of the Gods.'"
Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, how right you were! The reincarnate Jesus Christ, as the angel of the Lord, comes into the furnace, and unties the men. They
stand up. The place is blazing, and they're cool cucumbers as they stand there conversing with the Son of God. Nebuchadnezzar, right away, knows
that something is wrong. And he orders that the men be brought out: "And he said to them, 'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, come out, you servants
of the Most High God. Come here. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the midst of the fire. Everybody gathered around them, and they said,
"You know, there's something funny about these men. There's nothing burned on them, and they don't even smell smoky. With all that smoke, there
should be the odor of smoke on them.
Untouchables
That's what it means to be an untouchable, folks. These were God's true untouchables. They knew their doctrine. These young men weren't just
winging it. They knew doctrine. Therefore, they knew how to act. They knew how to conduct themselves. They knew how to face the crises of any
particular moment.
The result was that Nebuchadnezzar recognized the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Verse 28: "Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, 'Blessed
be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who has sent His angel (the pre-incarnate Christ) and delivered his servants who put their trust in
Him, violating the King's command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God.'" The result was that
the God of Israel was honored by Nebuchadnezzar.
I have a very strong inclination to believe that you are going to find Nebuchadnezzar in heaven. He goes through one more horrible experience
where he thinks he's bigger than God. When he gets through with that one, which took him seven years to go through, he finally gets it all together.
He, I suspect, ended up as a born-again gentile.
144,000 Jewish soldiers will have gone through this kind of an experience. They have stood firm. They have been unrelenting. They have been
uncompromising, and they have not bowed down to the antichrist. These men, as I said, will know the Word of God.
Immortality
I'd like to conclude this session by directing your attention to Psalm 91, which I suspect was going through their mind. This is one of the
all-time great Psalms of Scripture. Anybody who has ever in the military, and who has ever had to go into mortal combat, needs to read this
Psalm before you go into combat. This is the Psalm to alert you to how immortal a Christian is until you have completed your mission, and how
untouchable you are by the forces of Satan until you have completed your mission. As long as you put the mission first, you are immortal. Your
life is in God's hands. It won't always be smooth sailing, but He will carry you through. I have no doubt that these young men thought of this
Psalm, and maybe even sat down and discussed it, before they prayed, as they faced that ordeal:
Psalm 91
"He dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty." What a place to be – in the shadow of God: "I will
say to the Lord. 'My refuge and my fortress." Most people say that to their money; to their banker; to their broker; or, to all the security that
they have in life. They consider that their refuge and their fortress, but not the man of God who knows his way in the ways of God: "I will
say to the Lord, 'My refuge and my fortress: my God in whom I trust. For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper, and from the
deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge." "Under his wings" – that is where the song
title came from:
"And His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark. You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence
that stalks in darkness (disease), or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. 1,000 may fall at your side in combat, and 10,000 at your right
hand, but it shall not approach you. You will only look on with your eyes. You will see the recompense of the wicked. For you have made the Lord
my refuge; even the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil show befall for you, nor will any plague come near your tent. For He will give His
angels charge concerning you (our guardian angel), to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands lest you strike your foot
against a stone."
This is the Scripture which Satan tried to use to convince Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple into the valley below, using Scripture to
prove a falsehood. He was using Scripture (distorting Scripture) to prove what is not true.
"You tread upon the lion and the cobra. The young lion and the serpent you will trample down. Because he has loved Me, therefore, I will deliver
him. I will send him securely on time because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I
will rescue him, and honor him with a long life. I will satisfy him, and let him behold My salvation?"
That Psalm carries through the good soldier of Jesus Christ in the spiritual warfare and the angelic conflict that we face on a daily basis. It
is one that you should keep in the forefront of your thinking as you move through Satan's world. We will not face the horrors (the reign of
terror) that the people of the tribulation will, but in more subtle ways, Satan approaches us with the same destructive objectives. You don't
have to be a wimp, and you don't have to be a sitting patsy. You don't have to be a slave of the devil. You don't have to succumb to the
allurements of this world. You can stand tall and free as a true man or as a true woman of God.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1993
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