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Grace & Peace: Revelation 67

Douglas Wilson on August 8, 2017

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt” (Rev. 9:16–19).

As mentioned earlier, the invading army consisted of “myriads of myriads,” symbolizing a staggering number. As happened earlier with the 144,000, John first heard the number and then he turned and saw. This is not simply a marching army of incredible size, but is a cavalry of mounted warriors. If taken literally, the number would be 200 million.

The cavalrymen were decked out colorfully—breastplates of fiery red, sapphire blue, and sulfur yellow. The horses were like nothing on earth, horses with lion heads. They breathed out fire, and smoke, and sulfur, a breath that had the power to kill a third part of all the men. The destructive breath of the horses appears to match the colors of their riders—fire red, blue smoke, and sulfur yellow. The horses had lion heads that breathed calamity, and their tails were headed serpents, with a venomous bite.

This is all connected to the sixth trumpet, the middle of the last three trumpets. We are not yet at the horrifying end of the Battle of Jerusalem. We are still in the build up to that climax.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation 66

Douglas Wilson on August 1, 2017

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men” (Rev. 9:13–15).

When the sixth angel sounded his trumpet, the Roman legions were released, described here under the figure of four angels of destruction. A voice came from the four horns of the gold altar, which means that the command for this to happen now was all within the divine order and plan. Remember that the martyred saints had prayed from this same altar, and now their prayer is being answered (8:3). God’s answer was already prepared. That is what we see in v. 15 also—the angels of destruction that were loosed had been prepared down to the minute. They were released then, at that moment in history, and not before. This was a scheduled event, a timed event (Dan. 9:24-26). They were prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year. This was no accident, no happenstance.

They were released to come across the Euphrates, which was the northeast border of the Promised Land. The 10^th Legion, part of the destroying force, had been located on the Euphrates. Josephus records the Roman presence there (Wars 7.1.3). This had long been a troublesome border for the Jews—the Assyrians had come across it, as had the Babylonians, and the Persians. Now the Romans. The number of the invading army is translated literally as 200 million (v. 16), but the Greek is myriads of myriads. As Larry Ball points out, this is like our number gazillion. An innumerable host swarmed in to surround Jerusalem.

And all this fits with what Jesus had predicted would happen, and all within one generation. “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matt. 24:34). Not only so, but Jesus had also taught us that the destruction of Jerusalem was one of the central themes of all Old Testament prophecy—meaning that the apocalyptic imagery that John uses for it in Revelation is hardly overdone. “For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled” (Luke 21:22).

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A Brief Explanation of the Bible Reading Challenge

Christ Church on August 1, 2017

Welcome! We hope you are here to join us on our new group project – reading the Bible together.

It really couldn’t be simpler -the whole Bible, from September to May. It may sound intimidating but it really isn’t – give me a second to explain why. Six chapters a day of reading (no reading on Sundays and a few catch up days here and there), and you will have read the whole Bible in 9 months. The reading should average between 10-20 minutes a day.

This is a guilt free challenge – we want you to join us in reading our Bibles and establishing good Bible reading habits that will bless you for years to come. If your Bible reading history is hiding somewhere in a cupboard of guilt in your life – this program is for you! If you are a well established Bible reader but would enjoy accountability, and fellowship around your Bible reading, this program is for you!

The program is very easy to follow – we have come up with many ways to help keep you on track.We have done our best to make this program one that will be a great blessing to you, and we so hope that you will join us!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

Grace & Peace: Revelation 65

Douglas Wilson on July 11, 2017

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter” (Rev. 9:7–12).

So these demonic locust-like creatures were released from the Abyss, but they are not like actual locusts in certain key respects. I take them for demons, released to wreak havoc in the streets of Jerusalem during the last five months of the siege. They are like locusts, but here are some differences. First, the grass, the trees, and every green thing is protected from them. Actual locusts devour the greenery. Second, their macabre appearance indicates intelligence (men’s faces), effeminate transvestitism (women’s hair), apparent invulnerability (iron breastplates), real ferocity (lions’ teeth), and venomous malice (scorpion-like sting in the tail). And third, these had a king (v. 11), and locusts have no king—“The locusts have no king, Yet go they forth all of them by bands” (Prov. 30:27).

The demons imparted their characteristics to the men they came to possess, the demon-possessed tribe of Jerusalem’s defenders. Just as a deaf and dumb spirit results in a deaf and dumb man, and an unclean spirit results in an unclean man, dwelling among the tombs, so also this bizarre demon army created a vile army within the holy city. The demons descended, not upon the green things, and not upon the servants of God who had His mark, but on the men without such a mark.

Here is part of Josephus’ description of what happened then.

“With their insatiable hunger for loot, they ransacked the houses of the wealthy, murdered men and violated women for sport; they drank their spoils with blood, and from mere satiety and shamelessness gave themselves up to effeminate practices, plaiting their hair and putting on women’s clothes, drenched themselves with perfumes and painting their eyelids to make themselves attractive. They copied not merely the dress, but also the passions of women, devising in their excess of licentiousness unlawful pleasures in which they wallowed as in a brothel. Thus they entirely polluted the city with their foul practices. Yet though they wore women’s faces, their hands were murderous. They would approach with mincing steps, then suddenly become fighting men, and, whipping out their swords from under their dyed cloaks, they would run through every passerby” (Wars 4.9.10).

Their authority could be flexed, and was, but it was a spurious authority. They wore crowns, but the crowns were not genuine gold, but were rather were something that just looked like gold. This passage is the only one in Revelation where the word stephanos, the word for crown, is used for the ungodly.

All of this is beyond horrific, and it still just the first woe.

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Letter to the Board of Pullman Regional Hospital

Douglas Wilson on July 3, 2017

To the board of Pullman Regional,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the issue of trans-gender surgeries, and to the prospect that your hospital will soon begin offering them. While we are appalled that you are even considering this, we really do appreciate the fact that you are taking public comments beforehand, in contrast to the way Gritman Hospital decided to do it.

We believe that for you to begin offering such surgeries is misguided, unethical, and wrong, for the following reasons.

I want to begin by noting the complex tangles that will be ushered in if you do this thing, complexities that we are manifestly not prepared for. What such a surgery does is remove a perfectly healthy, functional organ, doing so in an irreversible way. This is being done on the basis of the expressed subjective desires of the patient, or perhaps the patient’s parents or guardians. Objective damage for the sake of a subjective desire. What happens when the later changes? Can the former change back?

Here are some questions we do not believe you are in a position to answer. If you have thought through these issues, we would appreciate seeing the policies you have drafted in anticipation of such issues arising.

At what age will a patient be eligible for this procedure at your hospital? If a 15-year-old comes to you, with the agreement of his parents and with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a medical professional, will you perform the procedure for him?
If parents from the Mideast, here for grad school at WSU, bring their daughter to you with a request for a clitectomy, will you perform this procedure? If you refuse because it is “genital mutilation,” how would you justify this refusal? How would that not be Pullman Regional passing judgment on one form of genital removal while endorsing another form of genital removal? Why is Pullman Regional in charge of other people’s subjective reasons? Why are you rejecting an elective surgery in one instance, and performing an elective surgery of a similar nature in another? Why is Pullman Regional endorsing the subjective reasoning of someone who is sexually confused while rejecting the subjective reasoning of a culture that is sexually repressed? If you are doing this for the sake of simple “pluralism,” then you will soon discover that pluralism around the globe—with regard to genital surgery— extends much farther than what you are currently considering.
Would you be willing to preserve boys’ voices for choral performances by this means? Would you be willing to supply the music department with castrati?

It is easy to retort with an indignant “of course not!” But why not? Over the years, different societies have valued different things over against the continued health of some people’s sexual organs. It seems bizarre to us that people are willing to maim women for their false ideal of feminine chastity. It seems bizarre to us that there was a time when choral music had such a high value that they were willing to sacrifice sex organs for the sake of purity of voice. And in just the same way, subsequent generations will stare at us in disbelief. So they made eunuchs because they wanted custodians for the harem. We want to cater a profound emotional, psychological, and spiritual confusion.

Will Pullman Regional perform other elective surgeries that remove other healthy organs or limbs on the basis of the subjective desire of the patient? If someone wants to “identify” as an amputee, will you accommodate them? If you are willing to remove healthy organs or limbs for some patients but not others, what standard are you using to discount one subjective preference while endorsing another? Like it or not, elective amputations are now a thing. Will you accommodate them when they arrive on the Palouse? If you will not, what will be your rationale for accommodating some and not others? What standard are you using?
Is Pullman Regional trained and staffed to deal with the possible medical complications that can arise from such surgeries?

Such procedures are now certainly legal, and so you can establish them in your hospital without fear of legal reprisal. But because nature has been defined and fixed by God, the science on this cannot be reversed, undone, or overturned by any of our courts. The Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being. So you are in the process of establishing a misguided surgical procedure as a result of pressure from a cultural fad. This is not happening because of any medical or scientific breakthroughs in which we discovered that XX and XY chromosomes don’t govern what we thought they did. And when the fad has passed, when the frenzy is over, what will you say to those who ask if you can “put it back?”

So what this move does is bring a heated partisan conflict into a place that should be dedicated to healing and rest—a hospital is not a place into which we needed to expand our culture wars. I have had to deal with the practical effects of this kind of thing before. The medical establishment has discredited itself whenever it has embraced certain partisan projects, setting the science aside in order to do so. For example, when the medical establishment went along with the inexcusable taking of human life through abortion, this had the effect of turning many decent people away from the medical profession as a whole. As a pastor, I have often lamented the risks that some of my parishioners have taken through home-births, or using unqualified midwives. But what was it that caused them—ordinary, decent people—to lose faith in the medical establishment? Why would they risk using an untrained midwife? Well, at least incompetent midwives don’t kill babies on purpose, the way certain certified medical doctors have decided to do.

This is a similar issue. You cannot start taking money in order to do irreparable damage to perfectly healthy organs and not have normal people conclude that you have no idea what it is that doctors ought to be doing. Here some troubled people are coming to you, and you are willing to take their money to perform an irreversible procedure that will not do what they are hoping it will do. Instead of helping them—which doctors are required by oath to do—you will be taking advantage of their confusions in order to make money off of them.

In addition, you are not just removing healthy organs. You are (in effect) removing healthy medical professionals who will want nothing to do with this sort of corruption and compromise. A hospital has to work as a unified team, with a clear mission set before that team. Once you start taking in mammon payments in order to harm clients (let us no longer call them patients), you will discover that a number of your doctors, nurses, and support staff still have a functioning conscience. And because discipline is an inescapable concept (it is not whether you discipline, but rather which group you discipline), you will find that what you have done is make your hospital an inhospitable place for compassionate and talented believers—men and women who are still dedicated to the arts of healing, not maiming. And when you lose them, the quality of care that your hospital can offer will go down.

It will surely be said at some point that we are offering this perspective because we are conservative Christians who believe the Bible, but that you are a secular hospital in a pluralistic town, and that you are not obligated to follow the Scriptures. But the Scriptures are simply God’s directions for living in the world that He made. The world was created by Him to run in particular ways, and Scripture says that He cannot be mocked—a man reaps what he sows. Groups of men—such as hospitals—do the same.

Cordially,

Douglas Wilson,
Minister, Christ Church
Moscow