The Apocalypse, with its dire forebodings, will reach its climax as the Lamb comes out of heaven with His cortege riding upon white horses, for the purpose of exacting vengeance upon His enemies and to set up His kingdom. All who refuse the Lamb as their Saviour will come under His wrath.
Following the symbolic prophecies through chapter nine of Revelation, John must prophesy again before many nations, peoples, tongues and kings. This prophecy, which covers eleven chapters (ch. 10-20), chapters 10-11 being a parenthesis, concerns the ones to whom the everlasting gospel will be preached, who will be the same as those under the beast in the crisis.
The first nine chapters of Revelation secretly set the stage for the crisis. In these chapters all is symbolic, shrouded in mystery that only those who are in tune with God’s thoughts can unravel. Without the little open book all is an enigma. Everything remains a mystery to the world until all of God’s efforts to retrieve His creature have been expended (Rev. 9:20-2120And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: 21Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. (Revelation 9:20‑21)).
A mighty angel, with his right foot upon the sea and his left foot upon the land, cries with a loud voice that there would be no more delay, but at the sounding of the seventh trumpet the mystery of God would be finished. The Son of Man, at this juncture, according to Psalm 2, will ask for His inheritance of the nations, in view of taking His own throne upon the earth (Psa. 110).
The curtain having been drawn aside, Satan’s instruments come forth, challenging the rights of Christ in regard to the nations. Having been given Satan’s throne and much authority, the beast will extend his control over the nations of the prophetic earth, ruling with tyranny towards the last. Babylon then falls.
Complete apostasy over the prophetic earth will be the result, except those who have received the gospel of the kingdom, as the false prophet, causing the image of the first beast to be set up, will demand that all worship the beast and carry his mark — otherwise the penalty of death. This seeming triumph of the wicked will be short.
All martyrs having been raised for blessing, the marriage and supper of the Lamb find heaven in the condition that it will enjoy for the thousand-year reign of Christ. Earth has yet to be prepared for that reign.
As the Lamb comes forth from heaven with His train, the beast with the confederate kings will attack, resulting in the beast and false prophet being cast into the lake of fire.
The harvest of the earth and the vintage will usher in the setting up of the throne of the Son of Man, as Satan is bound for one thousand years.
The millennium closes with Gog and Magog being destroyed when Satan will be loosed for a season. The first “Gog and Magog” are earlier.
At the time of the final tribunal, just before the eternal state is brought in, Satan and all those whose names were not found in the Lamb’s book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.
Chapter fourteen gives a chronology of the events of the crisis of the little open book.
This is a general summary. See chart on the following pages.