Difficult Interpretations
By Bill Weather – Main Page – Prophecy Base
Here we need to discuss what I believe no other book discusses, those difficult to interpret passages in Revelation, that chronologically, appear to be out of order, but are not.
An understanding must be reached that in Revelation, an event may take place in line with the chronological order, but the status of the people of that event may be foretold, taking place in the future, such as awaiting their resurrection in the end or a later judgment coming.
Another separate difficulty are some passages being interpreted for the end times, but are already fulfilled. An example is in Rev 6:17 “For the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand.” This is not the end time judgment day, but was the time of the Pagan Roman Empire to be judged. For them, it was the great day of his wrath, not the end time judgment day. That doesn’t come until Revelation 19:11. This makes sense chronologically because that judgment was early in Revelation, aligning with the events of the early church era, while the end time judgment day isn’t until all the way in Rev 19.
Rev 7:14 is another example. It says “these are they which came out of the great tribulation…” That’s not the end time tribulation yet to come, but was the tribulation of the early church. Their tribulation was far longer than ours will ever be. If our tribulation only lasts 3.5 or 7 years as some say, but the early church’s tribulation lasted from 90AD to 313AD when Constantine mostly ended the persecution of Christians in the Pagan Roman Empire era, that's an era of 223 years long! Compared to that, how could we say a measly little 7 year long end time tribulation is a great tribulation?
Rev 10:2,8 talks about the “little book.” This was the era of the reformation, when the printing press was first developed. The little book is the Bible. Formerly, God’s word was on huge scrolls or huge heavy books and there were no compact Bibles that saints were carrying around before the printing press. Then in Rev 10:11 it says to the saints, “you must prophesy again before many peoples, nations, tongues and kings." This is about the little book, the Bible, being much more accessible and easy to carry. Before this, it wasn't even possible for the saints to carry the word to many peoples, nations, tongues and kings, especially in light of the lame duck priests who were forbidding the Bible in the common people's language. They held it bound up in Latin for centuries, forbidding the people to have it in their own tongue. Now it was able to go to many tongues.
Rev 11:12 Where is tells of the two witnesses to “come up hither”, is not a resurrection. Remember, as we covered previously, and proven from allowing scripture to interpret scripture, the two witnesses are the 2 churches of the 1260 year beast era. They went not to Heaven, but metaphorically up “in a cloud.” Numerous times in scripture, whenever a cloud is mentioned, it precedes a judgment coming and this was the start of the fall or the judgment of the Holy Roman Empire. Then the rest of Rev 11 tells of that judgment on the Holy Roman Empire… the nations were angry and thy wrath has come and the time of the dead that they should be judged. If this was the time of the end at the resurrection, how could nations be angry, when at the end, Christ is utterly going to overthrow them all. They won't even exist in anger. The wrath and judgment here is on those in the Holy Roman Empire who were killing in the name of the Latin religion. “Nations were angry” shows it was not yet the time of the millenial reign of Christ.
Rev 7/14:4 tells us the 144,000 are “the first fruits unto God and the lamb.” This is clearly not the end time harvest, but is called the first fruits. First fruits was a term used to describe the earlier harvest of the year, in late May. First fruits would be early in the church's history, not later. Throughout scripture God metaphorically describes his people as a harvest. First fruits have nothing to do with the end time, final great harvest. All those cults in these last days touting they are the 144,000 have been empowered by the Futurist’s interpretation, claiming this scripture is for the end times. We Historicists rebuke those cults with the true interpretation, that this was an earlier church era and not for the end times. However, the rest of Rev 14 then tells of salvation and judgment upon those of that previous dark age era of Rev 11-13. It was just summing up resurrection and judgment status of that era, not its exact time from Rev 14. That time doesn’t come until Rev 19.
Rev 16:16 tells of nations gathered to Armageddon. Notice it says here he would gather them, not the actual war itself. That comes later.
I felt the need to cover some of these passages because saints are misinterpreting these scriptures to mistake some of them for a resurrection or an end time judgment happening at that exact time in the chronology, in that chapter, in Revelation, which is a mistake. If it were so, we would have several resurrections through history, which would come before the true resurrection and the correct time in Revelation of it, in Revelation 19:7/20:5; but the rest of the dead lived not again until the 1000 years were finished. This is the first Resurrection.
This is where the Resurrection and its location in Revelation 19/20 correctly align chronologically, after the many events prophesied in the previous chapters, not before it.
Revelation has a chronological order of events. It is not out of order and has foretold of the 7 churches down through the ages in Rev 2&3, then has gone back in time to describe the tribulations of the early church/Roman Empire era in the Rev 6 seals, then the fall of the Pagan Roman Empire western third with trumpets 1-4, and then eastern third in trumpets 5 & 6, in Rev 8 & 9. Afterwards, it foretells the rise of the Holy Roman Empire system, the reformation and persecutions in it from Rev 11-14, then it’s judgment in the early part of Rev 16 with the French Revolution vials. We are now in the later part of Rev 16, awaiting Rev 17 and 18, the fall of this western empire called Babylon in WW3 and the 6000th year is almost upon us.
One thing every believer in Christ can take note of, that the 2000 year mark from the time of Christ is almost here and is a significant marker in prophecy. This chronological order of Revelation aligns with that significant 2000 year mark for his coming at or near that time, something the Futurists have never taught you, in their chaotic rambling of events with no real timeline provided, accept shoving everything into the last 7 years, like into a junk drawer, without paying attention to the finer details. We don’t think God was that careless with his report on history through Revelation.
Many more Historicist insights at prophecybase.com
