Chapter 1: Chronological problems

Hello everyone and Shabbat shalom. This is just an addendum lesson or um call it what you will presentation on our topic as of late being the New Jerusalem. One thing that we didn’t really discuss is when the New Jerusalem descends. And so I wanted to give you a brief overview of the reasons why I believe the New Jerusalem comes with Yeshua rather than at the end of the Millennium. So again, just a brief lesson here, a brief thought so you guys can kind of see what my thinking is.

When reading the book of Revelation in a purely chronological method, it presents problems with the timeline of events. Let me just show you some of these right now. In the book of Revelation, you have the seven seals. And in the in those seven seals, you have the white horse, which is conquest. The red horse is war. The black horse is famine. The pale horse is death. Um the fifth seal, the souls are crying out from under the altar. You have cosmic disturbances happening under the sixth seal, the sky receding, men are hiding. Seventh seal is the silence in heaven and it introduced the trumpets which come next chronologically.

The first trumpet we have hail and fire and vegetation burning. The second mountains are thrown into the sea. I believe some people believe this would be a reference to a cosmic mountain. In other words, a comet or something like that, you know, hitting the sea. Sea life destroyed. Third, trumpet, wormwood falls, waters made bitter. Fourth, sun, moon, stars darkened. Fifth, locust from the abyss torment men. Sixth, angels are released. great army kills a third of mankind and then the temple in heaven is opened. Seven bowls of wrath, which again chronologically, if you’re looking at this chronologically, the first bowl soarses on those with the

mark of the beast. Second, sea becomes blood and all sea life dies. Third, rivers and springs become blood. Fourth, sun scorches men with fire. Fifth, darkness on the beast kingdom. That’d be Babylon. Sixth, Euphrates dries up. The uh the kings of the east arise, Armageddon is gathered. Seventh, the great earthquake, hail, Babylon split, and the cities fall. When you look at that list, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven bowls of wrath, and everything that happens with them, it’s pretty reasonably fair to say that after looking at what happens above, the earth is in a pretty bad place.

I dare say barely livable when you consider everything that’s supposed to be happening uh during this time chronologically. Revelation, the return of Christ happens in uh Revelation 19. The marriage supper of the lamb. Yeshua returns on a white horse with armies of heaven. The beast and false prophet cast into the lake of fire. Kings and armies slain with a word from Yeshua’s mouth. And then again, chronologically, we have the millennial kingdom coming. Satan’s bound for a thousand years. Saints reign with Christ for the Millennium and then the first resurrection.

Then you get to final rebellion and judgment. Satan is released after the thousand years. Nations gathered for battle. Fire from heaven destroys them. Satan cast into the lake the lake of fire forever. The great white throne judgment. Death and Hades cast into the lack lake of fire. And then again chronologically we have the new heaven and the new earth. Revelation 21, the first heaven and earth pass away. There’s no more sea. God dwells with his people. Wipes away every tear. Death, sorrow, crying, and pain are gone. So according to the book of Revelation, if you read it chronologically, by this time in history, everything should be kosher. And I I apologize for using that word, but everything should be golden. It should be perfect. We should be um in eternity with God.

There’s no more sorrow, no more death, no more crying, no more pain. The first heaven and the first earth have passed away. And then we get the descent, the descent of the New Jerusalem. The angel shows the bride, the lamb’s wife, the holy city. The city is described with its dimensions, its foundations and walls. There’s no temple. Nations walk in its light. Kings bring their glory into it. Okay, that is a brief synopsis of a a purely linear chronological reading of the book of Revelation. Now, aside from some of the

problems that I can already see in this list, does anyone see the huge glaring problem here? There are huge glaring problems here. Let’s look at them. We have the new heaven and the new earth coming. Okay? Everything is done away with. The new earth, the new heaven comes. No more sea. God dwelling with his people, tabernacling with his people, wiping away every tear, death, sorrow, crying, and pain are gone. And then comes the New Jerusalem.

Chapter 2: Purpose of trees and rivers

If that’s the case, what then is the purpose of the river and the trees that we see associated with the New Jerusalem? In Ezekiel 47, we read, “Then he said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. And it shall be that every living thing that moves wherever the rivers go will live. Okay, that statement right there speaks to regenerative life to me that wherever

the waters go, those things that are living will continue to live. They are regenerated. They are strengthened. Okay. There will be a very great multitude of fish because these waters go there. They will be healed. Well, wait a minute. I just read above that before this New Jerusalem comes down, all death, sorrow, crying, and pain are gone. The new earth has arrived. Everything has been made new. So what need will they have to be healed?

Everything will live wherever the river goes. But again, it all should already be alive. It should already be the new earth. Let’s continue. It shall be that fishermen. H there’s there’s going to be fishermen after everything is done in in the new heaven and the new earth. We’re going to have fishermen fishing. That’s interesting because there’s no more death in the New Jerusalem in the eternal existence. What are these fishermen going to be doing with those fish? Eating them? Killing them? There’s no more pain.

Again, it presents a problem. They will be places for spreading their nets. Their fish will be of the same kinds as the fish of the great sea, exceedingly many. But its swamps and marshes will not be healed. Okay, so now I’m supposed to believe that after the New Jerusalem arrives and everything has been made new that we’re still going to have swamps and marshes that are left unhealed. Again, it creates problems. They will be given over to salt. Along the bank of the river on this side and that will grow all kinds of trees used for food. Their leaves will not wither. Their fruit will not fail. They will bear every uh brew bear fruit every month

because their waters flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for medicine. What need does somebody in the new earth have of medicine? What need will somebody in the new earth have for food? Again, it just doesn’t make sense that the purpose of these rivers and trees are for the healing of the nations. They are for leaves and for medicine.

But if I read Revelation chronologically, I learned that the descent of the New Jerusalem is the last thing to happen when supposedly all the regeneration has happened before it. Again, it just doesn’t make sense. Zechariah 14:8. And in that day it shall be that the living waters shall flow from Jerusalem. Half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the western sea. In both summer and winter it shall occur. Are we going to have summer and winter in the new earth? I don’t think so.

So again, we have all of these things pointing to an earlier arrival of the New Jerusalem. Revelation 22, he showed

Chapter 3: When the city descends

me a pure river of of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Where will the throne of God and the Lamb be on earth? It will be in the New Jerusalem. He’s not going to prop up his throne in the existing third temple. No, it’ll be from the New Jerusalem. In the middle of its street on either side of the river was the tree of life which bore 12 fruits. Each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Now again, when everything is done and all things are made new, there’s not going to be any such thing as nations.

Gentiles. We faithful will all be with him in his kingdom and all things are done. The final judgment has been made. The new earth is here. The new heavens are here. We are going to be like him. And with him there will be no more quote unquote nations that need to be healed. So again, these are just little nods in my mind as to why the New Jerusalem comes with Yeshua. And to me, that’s exactly what we see. Zechariah 14:4-5,

in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Thus the Lord my God will come and all the saints with you. So the saints are with Yeshua at his coming. You remember our discussion of last week of the bride in the carriage. In this case, the bride is in the New Jerusalem where they have been hidden away according to Isaiah in their chambers for a little while until Yeshua deals with his enemies. And then they descend with him to Mount of Olives. Revelation 21. Come, I will

show you the bride, the lamb’s wife. And he showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. So this this holy Jerusalem that John is seeing at this point in history has within it all of the redeemed of the first resurrection. And together we will descend with Yeshua, not at the end of the Millennium, but at the beginning of the Millennium.

Chapter 4: A thematic approach

Then I wanted to show you this another little challenge that I have in um coming to my conclusion. When you look at the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls, what do you see? You see some some things that appear to be happening multiple times. Let’s start at the top under the seals. The sixth seal, the sun goes black, the moon turns to blood, stars fall. That’s Revelation 6. But in the trumpets, the fourth trumpet, we also have the sun, moon, and stars being darkened. Revelation 8. And under the seven bowls, the fifth bowl, the kingdom is full of darkness. So what’s happening here? Do we have three separate times when things go dark or is it all happening at the same time?

Is it a a thematic understanding of these events rather than a chronological understanding of these events? What about the earthquake? In the sixth seal, it says there’s a great earthquake. In the seventh trumpet, there’s also a great earthquake. In the seventh bowl, there’s also a great earthquake. So, do we have three great earthquakes or do we have one? Same thing with the mountains and the islands removed. Under the sixth seal, mountains and islands are removed. Under the seventh bowl, every island fled. Mountain’s gone. So, you can just go down that list.

I’m going to go through some of them right now individually, but you can go down that list and see the problem with a chronological understanding of the events of Revelation. When you read it in a linear fashion, too many things seem to be happening again, repeating themselves. Unless that’s not the way we’re supposed to be reading it. Let’s look at some of these things here. We have under the seventh bowl an earthquake. Noises and thunderings and lightnings. There was a great earthquake. Under the seventh trumpet, we also have a great earthquake. Lightnings and noises and thunderings and an earthquake.

Under the sixth seal, we also have an earthquake. I looked up. He opened the sixth seal and behold, a great earthquake. So maybe we should do this. Maybe instead of thinking that we have three separate great earthquakes, maybe it’s one and the a lot of these things that we thought were happening one after the other are actually happening at the same time. When did this great earthquake happen? Three different times or once? I have another one here. The mountains.

In the sixth seal, we see that every mountain and island was moved out of his place. In the seventh bowl, the mountains were not found. The hail. In the first trumpet, we see hail and fire. In the seventh bowl, a great hail from heaven fell upon men. What about the blood? In the second trumpet, the sea became blood. Well, wait a minute. It also says in the second bowl, the sea becomes blood. How can the sea turn to blood twice? It can’t. So again, these things are thematic in my mind. We see the blood in the rivers. Third trumpet, third of the waters became wormwood. That is bitter, unusable,

undrinkable, nastiness is the word for wormwood in the Greek. But also in the third bowl that the springs of water all became blood, which would be what? Nastiness, undrinkable, contaminated. So again, it appears to me to my eyes that these things are not happening linearly, but at the same time, fifth trumpet, we see that the locusts are released to cause torment. What’s another word for torment? Pain. Lots of pain. To torment those who have taken

the mark for five months. Their torment was like the sting of a scorpion. Growing up in Arizona, I know what that’s like. Yet in the fifth bowl, we see that men are gnawing their tongues because of the great pain. Again, why? What’s causing this pain? I believe it’s one and the same. So in a nutshell, it’s for these reasons that the same signs show up again and again. Lightning, thunder, earthquake, hail in chapter 4, 8, 11, 16

that matching disasters seem to hit the earth, rivers, sea, and sky sky across the seals, trumpets, and bulls. Chapter 6, chapter 8, chapter 16. that the very same time span keeps being restated. The 1260 days, the 42 months, the times, times, and time and a half, that the fall of Babylon is announced more than once. Three times it’s announced, and that the nations gather for the last battle more than once. It’s for those reasons that I understand Revelation not as a straight timeline, but as several passes over the same ground. Each cycle

covers the same end period from a different angle, building in intensity. All of them land at the same finish. So again, it’s like standing on top of a tall building and you’re looking down over a city. In your view, you can see many things happening all at once, and none of the things that are happening to your eyes are known by the third parties. So, you’re looking to your right and you see a man trip and fall in the crosswalk. While at the same time,

looking to your left, you see a car accident in the intersection. These things are happening at the same time that this is John’s vision. He is looking out at a great screen, if you will, and he’s seeing these things happening in much the same fashion. And so it is, I believe, with the timing of the New Jerusalem and with the events in the book of Revelation not being chronological, but thematic. That’s my two cents. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts and your replies and your rebuttals and your

rebukes. As you know, I’m open to them all. Thanks for watching this brief lesson.