Bowls of Wrath

If people in hell were given a second chance, they’d change their minds, right? Wrong. In The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis, “tourists” from hell are allowed to visit the outskirts of heaven. There, each is met by a friend who tries to convince them to stay, a choice which would require repentance. …

The Heavenly Temple

When have you had an especially strong feeling of God’s presence? Perhaps it was when you were out hiking, communing with the Creator. Or perhaps it was at your church, as you raised your voice with others in joyful song. These are the times that spring most quickly to my own mind. In Revelation 1…

Final Harvest

Julia Ward Howe penned “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” during the American Civil War: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marc…

Call for Wisdom

What is the “mark of the beast” (vv. 16–17)? There have been many colorful speculations. Credit cards and Social Security numbers have been suggested. As science has advanced, more sophisticated technologies have been put forward as candidates, including bar codes, implanted microchips, smartphones…

Beast from the Sea

Pastor Justin Dillehay has pointed out that the beast in Revelation 13 bears a striking resemblance to the beasts in Daniel 7. Daniel saw four different beasts, while John saw only one, but “it reads like a mashup of Daniel’s four.” Since the beasts in Daniel’s dream are explicitly identified as ki…

Woman and Dragon

Consistency is a good principle to follow when interpreting symbolic stories in the Bible. In Jesus’s Parable of the Sower, the “seed” is the “message of the kingdom” even when the results differ (Matt. 13:1–23). In Ezekiel’s allegory of an abandoned baby, the girl (later woman) is Jerusalem or Jud…

The Seventh Trumpet

According to legend, King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table established a society called Camelot and tried to make it a utopia. They fought for righteousness and justice instead of mere wealth or fame. Of course, this dream fell apart due to sin. Yet some of the legends say that Arthur did …

Two Witnesses

One day, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray (Luke 9:28–36). There He was transfigured, and His divine glory revealed. Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Jesus about what would soon happen to Him in Jerusalem. An awed and nervous Peter wanted to put up three shelters, one…

A Little Scroll

So many wrong predictions have been made about Christ’s Second Coming that there is a Wikipedia page devoted to the topic. Hippolytus of Rome, for example, predicted that Christ would return in AD 500. More recently, a cult leader predicted He would come back on Pentecost in 2019. They are only two…

Seven Trumpet Judgments

We’ve all experienced times in our lives we might label as a crisis, either personal or in our community, our nation, or even the world. The word permacrisis is defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.” At this poi…