“But the God of
all grace,
who hath called us unto
His eternal glory
by
Christ Jesus,
after that ye have suffered a while,
make you perfect,
stablish, strengthen, settle you”
(I Peter 5:10).
The sufferings of Christ
have
been chronicled in many
portions of Scripture
“I gave my back
to the
smiters,
and
my cheeks
to them
that
plucked off the hair”
(Isaiah 50:6).
“His visage was
so
marred
More than any Man,
and
His form
more than
The Sons of Men”
(Isaiah 52:14).
“All my
bones are out of joint: . .
.
My strength
is
dried up like a potsherd;
and my
tongue cleaveth to my jaws;
and
thou
hast brought
me into the
dust of death”
(Psalm 22:14,15).
But God, after Christ
was
“
made a
little lower than
the angels
for the
suffering of death,”
has
“crowned (Him)
with
glory and honor”
(Hebrews 2:9).
For it
became Him,
for
whom are all things,
and by
whom are all things,
in bringing
many sons to glory,
to make the
captain of
their
salvation perfect
[complete, finished]
through sufferings”
(Hebrews 2:10).
We who are
“born again, not of corruptible seed,
but
of
incorruptible,
by
the word of God,
which liveth and abideth for ever”
(I Peter 1:23)
have
received the Spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry,
Abba, Father”
(Romans 8:15).
“Rejoice, inasmuch
as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings;
that,
when His glory shall be revealed,
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy”
(I Peter 4:13).
Christ must
“needs have suffered,
and
risen again from the dead”
(Acts 17:3)
to “(take) away the sin of the world”
(John 1:29),
and we,
By faith,
as
children of God
and
joint-heirs with Christ,
are “
Always bearing about in the body
the
dying of the Lord Jesus,
that
the life also of Jesus might
be
made manifest in our body”
(II Corinthians 4:10).
But
“I reckon that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy
to
be compared with
the glory
which shall be revealed in us”
(Romans 8:18).
Revelation
20:12
And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God,
and
books were opened.
And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.
And the dead
were judged according to their works, by
the things which
were written in the books.
Vision of the Four Beasts
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon,
Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed.
Then he wrote down the dream,
telling the main facts.
2 Daniel spoke, saying, “
I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. 3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. 4 The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.
5 “And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth.
And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’
6 “After this I looked, and there was another,
like a leopard,
which had on its back four wings of a bird.
The beast also had four heads,
and dominion was given to it.
7 “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast,
dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong.
It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces,
and trampling the residue with its feet.
It was different from
all the beasts that were before it,
and it had ten horns.
8 I was considering the horns,
and there was another horn,
a little one, coming up among them,
before whom three of the first horns were
plucked out by the roots.
And there, in this horn,
were eyes like the eyes of a man,
and a
mouth speaking pompous words.
Vision of the Ancient of Days
I watched till
thrones were put
in place,
And the Ancient of Days was seated;
His garment
was white as snow,
And the hair of His head was like
pure wool.
His throne was a fiery flame,
Its wheels a burning fire;
A fiery stream issued
And came forth from before Him.
A thousand thousands ministered to Him;
Ten thousand
times ten thousand stood before Him.
The court was
seated,
And the books
were opened
I watched
then because
of the
sound of the pompous words
which the
horn was speaking;
I watched till the
beast was slain,
and its
body destroyed
and given to the
burning flame.
12 As for the rest of the beasts,
they had
their dominion taken away,
yet their lives
were prolonged for
a season and a time.
“I was watching
in
the night visions,
And behold, One like the
Son of Man,
Coming with
the
clouds of heaven!
He came to the Ancient of Days,
And they brought Him
near before Him.
Then to Him
was
given dominion
and
Glory and a kingdom,
That all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
Which shall not pass away,
And His kingdom the one
Which shall not be destroyed.
Daniel’s Visions Interpreted
“I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit within my body,
and the visions of my head troubled me.
I came near to one of those who stood by,
and asked him the
Truth of all this
So he told me and made known
to me the
interpretation of these things:
‘Those great beasts, which are four,
are four
kings which arise out of the earth.
But the saints of the
Most High
shall receive the kingdom,
and possess the
kingdom forever, even forever and ever.’
19 “Then I wished to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the others, exceedingly dreadful, with its teeth of iron and its nails of bronze, which devoured, broke in pieces, and trampled the residue with its feet; 20 and the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn which came up, before which three fell, namely, that horn which had eyes and a mouth which spoke [i]pompous words, whose appearance was greater than his fellows.
21 “I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, 22 until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom.
23 “Thus he said:
‘The fourth beast shall be
A fourth kingdom on earth,
Which shall be different from all other kingdoms,
And shall devour the whole earth,
Trample it and break it in pieces.
24 The ten horns are ten kings
Who shall arise from this kingdom.
And another shall rise after them;
He shall be different from the first ones,
And shall subdue three kings.
He shall speak
pompous
words against
The Most High,
Shall
persecute
The Saints
of
The Most High,
And shall intend
to change
times and law
Then the saints
shall be
given into his hand
For a time and times
and
half a time.
‘But the court shall be seated,
And they shall take away his dominion,
To consume and destroy it forever.
Then the kingdom and dominion,
And the greatness of the kingdoms
under the whole heaven,
Shall be given to the people, the
saints of the Most High.
His kingdom
is an everlasting kingdom,
And all dominions
shall serve and obey Him.’
28 “This is the end of the account.
As for me,
Daniel,
my thoughts greatly troubled me,
and my countenance changed;
but I kept the matter in my heart.”
- Daniel 7:1 Lit. saw
- Daniel 7:1 Lit. the head or chief of the words
- Daniel 7:8 Lit. great things
- Daniel 7:9 Or set up
- Daniel 7:10 Or judgment
- Daniel 7:11 Lit. great
- Daniel 7:15 Lit. in the midst of its sheath
- Daniel 7:17 Representing their kingdoms, v. 23
- Daniel 7:20 Lit. great things
- Daniel 7:25 Lit. wear out
- Daniel 7:28 Lit. word
The sea gave up the dead
who were in it, and
Death and Hades delivered up the dead
who were in them.
And they were judged, each one according to his works.
Daniel 7:10
A fiery stream issued
And came forth from before Him.
A thousand thousands ministered to Him;
Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.
The court was seated,
And the books were opened.
Read full chapter
- Daniel 7:10 Or judgment
Daniel 7:10 in all English translations
Satan
Bound 1,000 Years
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven,
having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 He laid hold of the dragon,
that serpent of
old,
who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;
and he cast him
into the
bottomless pit,
and
SHUT HIM UP,
and
set a seal on him,
so that he should
deceive the nations
No More
till the thousand years were finished.
The Saints Reign
with
Christ 1,000 Years
And I saw thrones, and they
sat on them,
and
judgment was committed to them.
Then I saw the souls of those
who had been beheaded
for
their witness to Jesus
and for
The word of God,
who had not worshiped
the
beast or his image,
and had not
received his mark
on their
foreheads or on their hands.
And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead did not live again
until the thousand years were finished.
This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
Satanic Rebellion
Crushed
Now when the thousand years have expired,
Satan will be released
from his prison
8 and will
go out to deceive
the nations which are
in the four corners of the earth,
and Magog,
to gather them together to battle,
whose number is as the
sand of the sea.
9 They went up on the
breadth of the earth
and surrounded
the
camp of the saints
and
The beloved city.
And
Pentecostal fire
came down
from
God out of heaven
and
devoured them
The devil,
who
deceived them,
was cast into
the
lake of fire and brimstone
where the
beast
and the false prophet
are.
And they will be
tormented
day and night
forever and ever
The Great
White Throne Judgment
Then I saw a
great white throne
and
Him who sat on it, from
whose face the earth and the heaven
fled away.
And there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great,
standing before God,
and
books were opened
And
another book was opened,
which is
The
Book-of Life
And the dead
were
judged according
to
their works,
by the things which were written in the books.
The sea gave up
The dead
who were in it,
and
Death and Hades
delivered up
the
dead who were
in them
And they were judged,
each one
according to his works.
Then Death and Hades were
cast
into the
lake of fire.
This is the second
death.
And anyone not found
written in the
Book of Life
was cast
into the lake of fire.
If the fig-tree after failing
for two years,
brings forth no fruit the
third year,
it never yields.
This parable is accommodated by some
Commentators to the
Jewish synagogue. But, the illustration applies to all
unrepenting
sinners,
whose final doom
is represented by that
of the fig-tree in the parable."
He said to him,
“Bring Me a
three-year-old cow,
a three-year-old female goat,
a three-year-old ram,
a turtledove,
and a young pigeon.”
It seems that every few years, a red heifer
(red cow)
is born in Israel, and it results in some people thinking
that the return of Jesus is near.
Why is this?
What does a red heifer have to do with the end times?
Before we explore that question directly, it is important
to understand the significance
of a red heifer in the Bible.
To meet the
requirements of the Old Testament law,
a red heifer
was needed to help accomplish the
purification
of the Israelites from uncleanness--
specifically,
the ashes of a red heifer were needed
(see Numbers 19).
Because red heifer ashes
were necessary for
the purification rites held at the temple,
many have regarded
the appearance of a red heifer today
as heralding the construction of
the
third temple and the return of Christ.
According to rabbinical tradition,
there have been
nine red heifers sacrificed since Moses’ time.
Since the destruction of the second temple,
no red heifers have been slaughtered.
The rabbi Maimonides (1135—1204) taught that
the tenth red heifer
would be sacrificed by the
Messiah Himself
(Parah Adumah, ch. 3, § 4).
The Temple Institute, a group advocating the construction
of a third temple,
reports that five flawless red heifers from Texas arrived
in Israel on September 15, 2022
(https://templeinstitute.org, accessed 9/22/22).
Many people view this
event as a fulfilment of prophecy,
since the acquisition of a red heifer is a
major step forward
in plans
for anew temple.
The Mosaic Law
specified that the red heifer was to be
“without defect or blemish”
and to have never borne a yoke
(Numbers 19:2).
The sacrifice of the red heifer
was unique in the law in that it
used a female animal,
it was sacrificed away from
the entrance
to the tabernacle,
and it was the
only sacrifice
in which the color of the animal
was specified.
The slaughtering of a red heifer
is described in Numbers 19:1–10.
Eleazar the priest was to
oversee the ritual
outside the camp of the Israelites.
After the animal was killed, Eleazar was to
sprinkle some of its blood toward
the
front of the tabernacle
seven times
(verse 4).
Then he left camp again
and
oversaw the burning of the carcass
of the red heifer
(verse 5).
As the red heifer burned,
the priest was to add
“some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet wool”
to the fire
(verse 6)
The ashes of the red heifer were then collected and stored
“in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp.”
The ashes were used
“in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin”
(Numbers 19:9).
The law goes on to detail
when and how the ashes of the
red heifer
were used in purifying those who
came in contact with a dead body:
“Whoever touches
a human corpse will be
unclean for seven days.
They must purify themselves
with the water on the third day
and on the seventh day; then they will be clean”
(verses 11–12).
The purification process involved
the ashes of the red heifer in this way:
“Put some ashes from the burned purification offering
into a jar
and pour fresh water over them.
Then a man who is
ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop,
dip it in the water and sprinkle . . .
anyone who has touched a
human bone or a grave or anyone who has been killed
or anyone who has died a natural death”
(verses 17–18).
The commands concerning the red heifer
were yet another foreshadowing
of the sacrifice
of Christ
for believers’ sin.
The Lord Jesus was
“without blemish,”
just as the red heifer was to be.
As the heifer was sacrificed “outside the camp”
(Numbers 19:3),
Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem
(Hebrews 13:11–12).
And, just as the ashes of the
red heifer cleansed
people from the contamination of death,
so the sacrifice of Christ saves us
from the penalty and corruption of death.
The red heifer ritual as established in the Mosaic Law was fairly simple; in the interval since that time, Judaism has added many standards and extra criteria. Talmudic tradition speaks of the type of rope the red heifer was to be bound with, the direction it was to face when being slaughtered, the words spoken by the priest, the wearing of sandals during the ritual, etc.
The rabbinical rules listed many things
that would disqualify a red heifer
from being sacrificed:
if she had been ridden or leaned on,
if she had a garment placed over her,
if a bird had rested on her, and if she had two black or white hairs,
among many other conditions not found in the biblical text.
Jesus prophesied
a desecration of the temple
to occur during the tribulation
(Matthew 24:15; cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:4);
for that to happen, there obviously
will need to be a temple.
Assuming those who
dedicate the end-times temple
follow Jewish law,
they will need the ashes of a red heifer,
mixed with water,
for the ceremonial cleansing.
If a blemish-free red heifer
has truly been found and is in Israel,
that could be one more piece falling
into place for the
fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
The rapture is not contingent on
The presence
of
any particular
cow.
Must a red heifer be found before the temple is rebuilt?
Not necessarily, although temple advocates
certainly want one for ceremonial purposes.
Are animal sacrifices of any type required today?
No, Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the law,
and His sacrifice provides true forgiveness and life eternal.
Scripture explicitly
contrasts the red heifer ceremony
with the
greater sacrifice of Christ:
“The ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:13–14).
A popular song by John W. Peterson
starts out with the words,
“He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, / The wealth in every mine.”
The song lyric comes from Psalm 50, which says,
“Every animal of the forest is mine, /
and the cattle
on a
thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains, / and the insects in the fields are mine”
(Psalm 50:10–11).
Saying that
God owns the cattle
on a
thousand hills
is another way of saying
that
everything belongs to God.
The context of Psalm 50 sheds some light on the meaning of the statement of
God’s ownership of cattle.
Beginning in verse 7, God is “testifying” against Israel.
He says, “I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices,”
which means that the Israelites were carrying out their
duties regarding the sacrifices according to the Law;
they were doing things right, externally.
But then God puts the sacrifices in perspective, saying,
“I have no need of a bull from your stall / or of goats from your pens”
(verse 9),
and He reminds them that
“every animal of the forest is mine, / and the cattle on a thousand hills”
(verse 10).
God can get animals anywhere; they are already His.
He doesn’t need to be offered them by man.
Why is God telling the people He doesn’t need their animals?
The answer is in the message of this psalm, which includes these points:
1) God requires more than external compliance to commands;
He desires internal righteousness.
Even though the people were procedurally blameless in regard to the sacrifices,
they were lacking in true worship.
In Psalm 50:14–15, God says,
“Sacrifice thank offerings to God, / fulfill your vows to the Most High, / and call on me in the day of trouble; / I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
2) God does not need sacrifices
for “food.”
God does not need anything;
He is the Self-existent One.
He is the Creator and Sustainer; nothing creates or sustains Him.
This is in direct contrast
to the pagan gods,
whose mythologies taught their need to eat.
Sacrifices brought to the idols
were considered the food of the gods.
The One True God of Israel
makes a clear distinction
between Himself and the false deities
(Psalm 50:12–13).
3) God rebukes “worship” based solely on obligation;
thanksgiving is an important part of
true worship
(Psalm 50:14),
as is a relationship
grounded in salvation:
“I will deliver you, and you will honor me”
(verse 15).
4) God defies the notion that what people
give to Him is “theirs” and
that they are being magnanimous
in parting with their property for God’s sake.
Many people today harbor the
false perception that they own stuff
and then give some of it to God.
God owns the cattle on a thousand hills—is it really generous
of us to give God a cow every now and then?
If everything we have is the Lord’s,
how magnanimous is it to give God ten percent?
God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
He owns every animal and every bird and every beast.
He owns us.
For His greatness and goodness,
we “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--
the fruit of lips
that openly profess his name”
(Hebrews 13:15).
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