Posted by Elana Janson on November 01, 2015 at 11:21:00:
Spiritually Sodom
The word “Sodom” appears in Revelation 11:8: “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”
This verse comes in the section (Rev. Chapter 11:1-13) concerning the “two witnesses”.
It is essential at this point in time that Christians understand this section of Revelation in which this verse appears. I say this because we have in 2015 reached that time that representatives within the Christian Church are prepared to make decisions that ignore the validity of certain verses of Scripture because they believe they are out dated or contradicted by other verses in the Bible. These decisions are causing uneasiness within holy communities because in the past Christians would not have dared to make decisions that have for millennia been accepted to be against God’s will. In the case of the word “Sodom”, this is particularly controversial because of God’s fierceness and resolve to destroy Sodom with fire.
God is watching
Revelation has revealed that God has through the centuries watched over His People, and for this reason He has timely provided that the seals of the book Revelation been “loosed”, so that we can understand why this has happened in 2015.
I am going to give an analysis of this section of Revelation so that the readers can make their own assessment of how I believe Revelation reveals why the nations and some churches of 2015 will take these decisions concerning “Sodom”.
Revelation 11:1-14King James Version (KJV)
11”And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.”
Revelation reveals that God would protect the Christian Church.
The “temple of God” is the Christian Church that through the past two thousand years followed the teachings of Jesus. The “altar” must be measured because Revelation wishes to reveal how Christians will again be savagely killed in the end time (Rev 6:9-11) as they were in centuries passed. It should also be noted how the numbers of church goers will decrease in the end time (“them that worship therein”). (Compare attendance at the sports stadiums).
2 “But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.”
Forty-two months.
“Forty and two months” is the same time that the beast out of the sea speaks “great things and blasphemies” (Rev 13:5).
Three and a half
The “forty and two months” refers to the time of the “short season” when the “beast” finally rules. (Note how this measure relates to ‘three and a half’ years. In the Bible ‘three and a half’ also ‘time, and times and a half time’ indicates a measure known to God.) However, God made known the time measures of Revelation so we can know that this time is the measure relating to the “short season”. Which I believe we are living at the present time and the beast is “loosed” (Rev 20:3).
God gives this measure of “forty-two months” to indicate the” short season” when the beast finally rules. Because of the repetition of words in Revelation and knowledge such as the time of ‘war’ given in ‘months’ in Scripture we can know that the ‘short season’ is also a time of war.
“Holy city” here refers to Jerusalem on earth and the “New Jerusalem” (Revelation 21:2 “And I John saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven”). It is a time that the nations trample the message of everlasting life (in the New Jerusalem) through Jesus Christ.
In the “short season” the ‘beast out of the sea’ which was established to be the rise of secular rule (the weight of the majority, symbolically indicated by the rider on the black horse carrying the scales) through the centuries will cause also Jerusalem to be trampled. We are seeing this happen at the present time.
Rev 11:3 “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth”.
The words “two witnesses” have extensive meaning.
During the entire time of “temple” and “altar”, from the time of the coming of the Christ to the Return, the “two witnesses” will spread the words of Christ. “Two witnesses” include all representatives of the Christian Church through the ages.
The words “two witnesses” also incorporate meaning from verses in the Bible.
“Two witnesses” relate to Moses and Elijah (in later verses there are examples from their work). They also relate to the disciples that Jesus Christ sent out in two’s (Mark 6:7 and Luke10:1). The words also include the meaning that a ‘witness’ declares what really happened. The witness of two persons or three declares the validity of a matter (Deut 19:15; Mat 18:16 and Mark 6:7).
Through the total time of the rise of the Christian Church believers will face death and grief (“clothed in sackcloth”) in their purpose to make peoples and persons repent of sinful deeds (1Kings 21:27 and Mat.11:21).
“a thousand two hundred and threescore days”
The measure “a thousand, two hundred and threescore days” is approx. three and a half years, to be precise 3.45 years. Revelation also uses this measure in Rev 12:6. Note that the repetition of these words “a thousand, two hundred and threescore days” in Revelation indicates that God will preserve His Church through the time of the “short season”.
Revelation 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
Rev 11:4 “These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth”.
The “two witnesses” are further defined in the words “two olive trees” from Zechariah 4:3 and 11-14.
The “two olive trees” are the high priests and kings (“priests and kings” Rev 1:6). Revelation stresses the importance in history of the unity between church and state.
The “candlesticks” are the congregations through the ages.
Rev 11:5-6 “And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoured their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.”
God will protect the witnesses of the testimony of Jesus Christ. God can empower His People as he did in the time of Elijah and Moses. Elijah could stop the rain and Moses brought plagues upon Egypt.
Rev 11:7 “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.”
Understand the “beast”
There comes a time that the testimony of the two witnesses comes to an end. There comes a time that the “beast” rules the entire earth. Through all the times of the spread of the Christian Church to the ends of the earth it will survive (see Rev
12:14 “And the woman (the Christian Church) were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the face of the serpent”).
(Note how Revelation uses the words “time and times and half a time to indicate the “three and a half”.
The reason for this is that this time includes the time of the rise of the beast and the short season. This is how accurate Revelation is!)
The nations of the globe, in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries strove to establish secular rule. They believed this was the only way to lasting peace because religious differences and wars had for centuries brought so much death and strife to the nations. As I have often said on this website God allowed this (Rev 17:17). However, the further result of this would be that some would lose their Christian faith and “worship the beast” in the end time. This is also revealed through the fourth rider of the apocalypse on the pale horse that is followed by Death and Hades. God confirmed in the Divine Intercession in 1996 that the fourth rider, comes with the spread of secular rule across the globe since 1947.
The mark of the beast
Revelation reveals (Rev 16:2) that a “noisome and grievous sore” would befall “men which had the mark of the “beast”.
Rev 19:20 reveals that those who received the mark of the beast and worshipped his image will ultimately be destroyed along with the beast.
Rev 20:4 reveals that those who avoided the onslaught of the beasts described in Revelation will live and reign with Christ indefinitely.
“Two witnesses” scorned in the end
time
Rev 11:8 “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”
The “great city” in the end time (“the people and kindreds and tongues and nations”) shall trample on the beliefs of the prophets of Scripture, but also disregard those that through the past two thousand years carried and died for the testimony of Jesus Christ (“two witnesses”). Not to put their bodies in a grave has always been a great insult to those who died. In other words modern man looks down upon and cares nothing for those who wish to uphold the total understanding of Scripture.
The ‘global village” of 2015
The ‘global village’ of the twenty-first century is the “great city” of Revelation. It is spiritually Sodom because the nations at this point in time see it fit to accept what was previous thought to have been evil in ancient Sodom. It is also “spiritually” Egypt because we have reached that point in time that God’s people are ‘slaves’ and their opinion oppressed in modern society and have to be delivered to the promised land (the New Jerusalem). The spiritual values of the “great city” of the present time are as in the time that Christ was crucified.
Rev 11:9 “And they of the people and
kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.”
Rev 11:10 “And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.”
In the final time there will be a sense of joy concerning the undermining of the will of the Church. Modern man does not wish to be bound by the directives of Scripture. Gifts are given at Christmas, but the people do not follow the Laws of God.
Rev 11:11 “And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
The “three days and a half” here implies the time determined by God that the “two witnesses” will be resurrected.
The total time of “temple” is I believe about two thousand years (since the coming of the Christ) which Revelation measures in two periods of “three and a half days” (Rev 11:9 and 11). The time of the ‘short season’ or “altar” (Rev 6:9-11) is unknown to us but we can “measure” it through the signs of the end time. It remains God’s measure that we can only know it by the signs that I believe we are seeing at the present time, but what we can not exactly estimate at this point in time. What Revelation is revealing these are times preordained by God.
At the end of the “short season” the “two witnesses” (those that stood strong in the will of God) will ‘stand upon their feet’ and those who are going to witness this are going to be filled with great fear.
Rev 11:12 “And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.”
And those on earth are going to see them ascend to heaven.
Rev 11:13 “And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.”
And then comes the final “great earthquake’ that the inhabitants of the earth will witness.
Inevitable
It seems therefore that decisions that are being taken concerning “Sodom” would inevitably come at this point in time. Revelation is revealing that in the “short season” the nations are “spiritually Sodom”. The present day decisions to nullify or circumvent through other verses what has for millennia been accepted as God’s directives were already predicted in Revelation in the time of John on Patmos.
At this point in time we must stand firm and strong in our convictions and be very wary not to make decisions that satisfy modern man, but are contrary to the will of God. Christians must today keep to the teachings of Jesus Christ and in their faith God must be their ruler and priest even though we live in a time of secular rule.
I believe God made known the time measures of Revelation on 22 August 1996 so that we can be prepared for decisions made in the time that the world is “spiritually Sodom”.