In the last
post the Lamb has taken His bride in marriage and it is time to celebrate the
marriage supper.
Revelation 19:9–10 “And he saith
unto me, Write, Blessed are
they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto
me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him.
And he said unto me, See thou do it
not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of
Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
“He” saith
unto me seems to take us back to the angel that showed John the destruction of
Babylon because when John fell down to worship Him “he” identified himself as a
fellowservant and a fellow prophet. In
the first verse of chapter 17 this angel is identified as one of the angels
that had poured out one of the vial judgments.
We learned early on in our study that angels are defined in the Greek as
“messengers” of God, those who do His bidding.
This implies to me that some of the angels serving God during the
tribulation period include His prophets of old.
Maybe this is one of their rewards for faithful commitment to proclaim
what they did not always understand.
1 Peter 1:10–11 “Of which salvation
the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching
what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did
signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory
that should follow.”
Daniel 12:8–9 “And I heard, but I
understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”
I
remember being surprised to discover during my study of Hebrews that the Old
Testament saints were part of the resurrection of the dead that takes place at
the rapture. I had always been taught
that they would be resurrected at the end of the tribulation period.
Hebrews 11:39–40 “And these all,
having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God
having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”
The Complete Jewish Bible
makes it even clearer: “Nevertheless, they did not receive what had
been promised, because God had planned something better that would involve us, so
that only with us would they be
brought to the goal..”
In context, the writer of
the Hebrews has been extolling great people of faith, most of which are
identified from the Old Testament scriptures.
I believe that we become perfect at the resurrection; therefore, all
people of faith—Old Testament saints and church age saints—will be resurrected
together. I believe the Old Testament
saints and any tribulation saints in heaven at this time are the guests at the
marriage supper of the Lamb while saints that are part of the church are His Bride
(as noted in the previous post).
Note that the servant
talking to John makes a point of declaring the truth of all that is being told
to John. It’s also significant to note
that this servant refuses to accept worship from John. I refuse to get off on a tangent regarding
professing Christian leaders today who promote such worship of themselves. The only One worthy of man’s worship is
God.
I liked the insight from Chuck Smith’s commentary:
“You see it is a apart of man to need and want to
worship something, and man seems to find it easier to worship an object that he
can see rather than an object that he cannot see. And so this is the hang-up of
man as Paul said in Romans one, "They worshipped and served the creature
more than the creator." Man gets hung up and he stops short. He sees the
glorious creation of God and he worships the creation, rather than the creator.
And so John is making the same mistake and the angel
corrects him and says don't do that. I am a servant of God just like you are.
You worship God. And if you are wise and involved in any kind of ministry at
all when attention and adulation and these kinds of things come your way, you
will be wise as the angel and say, ‘Don't worship me. Worship God.’ God doesn't want you taking credit for the
work that He does, receiving glory for His work.”
John Walvoord
expressed it well as he commented on the last part of verse 10: “This means that prophecy at its very heart is designed to unfold
the beauty and loveliness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
(to be continued…)
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