Revelation, Stephen Picklesimer [summer reading list .txt] 📗

mankind into fighting Christ at His Second Coming (Rev. 16:9, 13-16; 17:13-14).
The seventh plague (vial) is commonly referred to as the Battle of Armageddon. This is a misnomer. Revelation 16:16 records that they gather at “a place called” Armageddon. At this time, the Beast and False Prophet are feverishly working their final miracles to delude the masses (16:13).
Verse 14 reveals that the proper name of this battle is “the battle of the great day of God Almighty”—not Armageddon! This is GOD’S battle. It is not like so many famous battles today that are named after a location—such as Gettysburg, Waterloo, Verdun or Stalingrad. The battle takes place 60 miles away, outside Jerusalem. The location is not important—but God’s purpose IS!
Two major forces (the Beast and the men of the East) will see Christ coming out of the clouds (Acts 1:11-12). Considering Him their greatest threat, they will unite, forming an alliance to fight what they perceive to be their common enemy. These men will be angry. They will not submit to God’s government. They will think the true Christ is actually the “Antichrist” and will “make war with the Lamb” (Rev. 17:14).
There is no battle prophesied to occur between human armies! This last decisive battle will be fought by armies outside Jerusalem (those who gathered at Armageddon) against Christ and His saints!
One Final Greatest Earthquake
There is one final earthquake that signals that God is going to battle! This earthquake will be the most powerful earthquake of all time. Revelation 16:17-18 states, “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was A GREAT EARTHQUAKE, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”
This earthquake changes the entire topography of the earth. Notice verse 20: “And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.” It appears to complete the process begun by the earthquake of Revelation 6:12-14, in which “every mountain and island were moved out of their places.” It is mentioned in Zechariah 14.
Verse 4 states, “And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” There, verse 9 states, “And the LORD shall be King over all the earth…”
At least three of the five earthquakes of Revelation are accompanied by voices, lightning, and thunder. These occur at the time of Revelation 8:5 (at the beginning of the Day of the Lord), Revelation 11:19 (after the Return of Christ), and the final earthquake of Revelation 16:18 (at the end of the seven last plagues). (Revelation 6:12 and 11:13 describe the other two earthquakes.)
For voices to be heard in the midst of an earthquake, especially when accompanied by lightning and thunder, they would have to be those of mighty angels. (Read our free booklet Earthquakes and Volcanoes in Prophecy to learn more.)

Chapter 17: The Woman of Babylon the Great

Chapters 17 and 18 are another inset describing the great Roman system that is destroyed at the end of chapter 16. These chapters give a somewhat more detailed picture of the large universal church. The picture includes her harlot “daughters” (17:5), which have helped to deceive all nations (17:1-2; 18:3).
Many end-time prophecies use terms like heads, horns, toes, kings, etc. Several whole chapters must be studied to make their meaning clear. They clarify the different revivals of the same Roman system.
Again, by comparing Daniel 7 with Revelation 13 and 17, it becomes clear that there are seven revivals of the Holy Roman Empire. Six have come and gone—and the last is now forming! This revival will last at least three and a half years, coinciding with the Tribulation (Matt. 24:21-22) and God’s Wrath.
Understand another important connection to these resurrections of the Roman system. Revelation 17 describes each as having “a woman sit[ting] upon [the] scarlet colored BEAST, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns” (vs. 3). The seven heads are seven separate revivals, with a ten-horn (composed of ten kings) final revival.
It is this woman who spreads the “mystery of iniquity” spoken of by Paul in II Thessalonians 2:7.
Of this woman, verses 5-6 state, “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” Verse 1 calls her a “great whore that sits upon many waters…”
Let’s pause and ask: What are the “many waters”?
This is a classic example of allowing the Bible to interpret itself. Fourteen verses later, the term is explained: “And he said unto me, The waters which you saw, where the whore sits, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (vs. 15). This shows that the whore’s influence encompasses the earth.
In this case, the term was not immediately explained, but simply continuing to read on revealed what it means. The Bible interpreted itself!
Verses 5-6 are a graphic description of a great Gentile church that is a modern-day descendant of Babylon. She is a “mother” of many “harlot” daughters, who came out of her in protest because they disagreed with a few of her abominations. This is not a small church, but rather a “great” church ruling many peoples. Verse 2 speaks of her “fornication” with the “kings of the earth.” And verse 18 speaks of the woman as “that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.” This is a huge church that has sought to influence nations and world events. Only one city fits this description.
A very different woman, as we saw described in Revelation 12 as God’s Church, has been persecuted by this great false church for almost 2,000 years (17:6). It is her ministers that have “crept into” God’s Church (Jude 3-4) as “wolves” speaking “perverse things” (Acts 20:29-30) and seeking to pull people back into the “mystery” of false Christianity.
Daniel 7:19-20 sheds more light on what happens when the saints return with Christ. Their first responsibility is to replace what Daniel calls the “fourth beast” (the final world-ruling empire), which rules with the assistance of a “little horn.” This little horn is a religious kingdom and is the same as the woman who rides the beast of Revelation 17. This religious kingdom has ruled over all of the previous resurrections, or revivals, of the Holy Roman Empire.
The saints will have endured tremendous persecution at the hands of this “little horn”—the woman. But eventually the faithful saints will be rewarded in an incredible way: “I beheld, and the same horn [the Babylonish system of Rev. 17:5-6] made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom” (vs. 21-22).
Chapters 17 and 18 reveal that God will destroy this whore and her harlot daughters, once and for all, by turning the beast she rides against her (Rev. 17:16). But first she must “ride” the final resurrection of the Babylonian Holy Roman Empire!
Little time remains before this last revival appears, with the wonderful kingdom of God to appear soon after (Rev. 19:11-16).

Chapter 18: Babylon’s Judgment

This chapter describes the final judgment and actual destruction of Babylon. Verse 17 shows that her collapse comes quickly. The merchants of the world are aghast at how this powerful economic system could so suddenly come to such complete ruin.
The modern nations of Israel are deceived and part of this babylonish system! (Jeremiah 50:4-8, 13-15; 51:6-9 and Isaiah 47:1, 5, 7-9, 11; 48:1, 12, 17-20 describe it.) Ancient Israel was in Egypt when God poured out His plagues. Like Israel, God calls us out of this world’s “Egypt.”
Understand this basic instruction about the Christian calling. God’s people are not of this world or its systems (John 17:14-16). Regarding the religious and political systems of this Babylon, God instructs, “Come out of her, MY PEOPLE, that you be not partakers of her sins” (Rev. 18:4). Babylon means confusion. The true servants of God have come out of this world, its governments and its confusion (I Cor. 14:33). Because they are separate from it, they shall also be separated and spared from its plagues.

Chapter 19: The Wedding Supper and Another Supper

The setting of chapter 19 is in heaven. Many angels surround God’s throne (vs. 1-2), describing His “righteous...judgments” on the great whore.
Now that she is gone, and Christ has returned, what happens next? “I heard…the voice of a great multitude...saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the MARRIAGE of the Lamb is come, and His WIFE has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And He said…Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the MARRIAGE SUPPER of the Lamb...” (vs. 6-9)
The New Testament identifies the Church as Christ’s BRIDE. Several passages reveal this (Matt. 25:1-10; Eph. 5:23). At His Return, in one