The Revelation Unlocked

By Carolyn M. Prince

Prophetic events in The Revelation of Jesus Christ have been locked from our understanding ever since they were given to John about AD 95. However, God has never intended that His people be in darkness during the fulfillment of latter-day prophecies. Daniel was told that the words of his latter-day prophecy were closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Then none of the wicked will understand, but the wise will understand. This is the time of the end! Now, at last, symbols in Revelation, as well as other parts of the Bible, are explained from Scripture in a way that can be easily understood. The Revelation Unlocked tells about the redemption of Israel and explains the series of events by which Almighty God will bring into effect His promises given in Genesis to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ultimately revealing His supreme power over all creation. It also tells about clearly visible signs that will precede the tribulation period, and answers many of our questions regarding latter-day prophecy. For more information, please visit www.therevelationunlocked.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 31, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453552858

Carolyn M. Prince

Carolyn M. Prince is a business, church, and civic leader residing with her husband in Loris, South Carolina. At a young age, she often saw latter-day prophecy different from the way it was presented. She thought she was just confused, but later the Holy Spirit led her to realize this may not be the case. She asked God to help her see the truth during Bible study; and when studying latter-day prophecy, most of the time, the Holy Spirit led her to understand it completely different from what was being taught by others. Prayerfully, she told God that if He would show her the truth from Scripture, she would write it down. After many years of Bible study, the answer to that prayer resulted in The Revelation Unlocked.

Book preview

The Revelation Unlocked

Carolyn M. Prince

Copyright © 2010 by Carolyn M. Prince

Library of Congress Control Number:0911587

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4535-5284-1

                    Softcover            978-1-4535-5283-4

                    eBook                 978-1-4535-5285-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture Quotations

are from the HOLY BIBLE, AUTHORIZED KING JAMES VERSION, with modern usage word changes in the text that will help the reader.

Hebrew and Greek words and definitions

are from STRONG’S EXHAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE OF THE BIBLE, including Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words of the original, with references to the English words, by James Strong, S.T.D., LL.D., Madison, N.J., 1890.

Rev. date: 05/14/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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CONTENTS

1. Abraham’s Seed

2. Understanding Symbolism in Prophecy

3. Signs Preceding the Tribulation Period

Regathering of Israel

Massive Invasion of Israel

Rebuilt Temple

Red Heifer Purification

Great Revival

Opening the Seals

144,000 Christian Jews

4. The Rapture

5. Chronology of the Tribulation Period

6. Antichrist and His Empire

Daniel’s Dream Vision

The Ten Kingdoms

The Rod of God’s Anger

7. Tribulation Period

8. Warnings of Coming Judgment

9. The Little Book

10. Abomination of Desolation

Isaiah’s Vision of Abomination

Two Witnesses

11. Israel’s Travail in Birth

12. Beast Out of the Sea

13. Cleansing the Temple

14. Cups of Wrath

15. Doom of Babylon

16. Second Coming of Christ

Armageddon

Judgment

Resurrection

17. Marriage of the Lamb

18. New Heaven and New Earth

CHAPTER ONE

Abraham’s Seed

Who is God? While many may dispute the seemingly endless answers to this question, the Holy Bible is the only source that provides clear instruction as to who God is. In Genesis, chapter 1, we see God’s great affirmation of Himself and the universe. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (v. 1), and He created all that is in them (vv. 2–27).

In the Bible, there are many explanations as to who God is. In the New Testament, Jesus teaches that the Father is God (John 6:27), Paul teaches that Jesus Christ is God (Titus 2:13), and Peter teaches that the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3–4). Yet in Deuteronomy 6:4, the Lord God of Israel said, The LORD our God is one LORD; and in Mark 12:29, Jesus also said, The Lord our God is one Lord.

God clearly shows us in the book of Isaiah that no other god in heaven or on the earth is able to actually be a God. In Isaiah 45:21–22, the LORD (Jehovah) said, There is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior; there is none besides Me. Look to Me, and be saved . . . for I am God, and there is no other. In Isaiah 44:6, both God the Father and God the Son speak singularly, as if to further emphasize God’s position. Thus said the LORD [Jehovah], the King of Israel [the Father], and His Redeemer, the LORD [Jehovah] of Hosts [the Son]: I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God. Likewise, in Isaiah 48:11–12, the LORD (Jehovah) said, "I will not give My glory to another. . . . I am He; I am the First, I also am the Last."

The book of Revelation does an excellent job of describing who God is. In Revelation 1:8, the Lord God, the Almighty, said, I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending. And in verses 17–18, Jesus said, I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Revelation 22:13 affirms, I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. Then, in verse 16, He identifies himself as Jesus.

From Genesis to Revelation, Jesus Christ is Jehovah God. In Isaiah 43:10–11, the LORD (Jehovah) said, I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. I am the LORD, and besides Me there is no savior. Therefore, Jesus Christ is the same LORD God Almighty, who, in Exodus 20:2–3, told the nation of Israel, I am the LORD your God. . . . You shall have no other gods before Me. He is also the same one and only God who said in Hosea 13:4, I am the LORD, your God, . . . you shall know no God but Me, for there is no savior besides Me. So Jesus is not just another god or a god, as some have claimed. In John 10:30, Jesus even said, I and the Father are one.

Therefore, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three separate gods, or even three separate beings who make up one god. This Supreme Being is one God with three personal self-distinctions. He has one physical body; and that body is the risen, flesh and bones, glorified body of Jesus Christ the Son. In Him dwells [inhabits, resides permanently] all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9).

When Abraham was old and had no heir, God told him that, like the stars, he would not be able to number his seed. Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. The LORD made a covenant with him, saying, Unto your seed [descendants] I have given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates (Gen. 15:6, 18).

"I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you. . . . I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you, and to your seed after you. And I will give unto you and to your seed after you, the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession . . . (Gen. 17:7–8). In this passage, stranger," Hebrew maguwr, means In the sense of turning aside for lodging; a temporary abode. It is translated dwelling, pilgrimage, where sojourn, and be a stranger. So the promised land is the land in which Abraham was a sojourner.

God also told Abraham, Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, . . . Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him (Gen. 17:19). And God told Isaac’s son, Jacob, Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel (Gen. 32:28). After God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, his descendants were known as Israelites or children of Israel.

In Galatians 3, Paul writes, To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He did not say, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, And to your seed, who is Christ (v. 16). If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise (v. 29).

For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith (Rom 4:13). God’s law, given 430 years after the promise, cannot annul the promise. It was added because of transgressions, till the seed (Christ) should come to whom the promise was made (Gal. 3:17, 19).

In Psalm 105:1–11, the nation of Israel was told to give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name, and make known His deeds among the nations (v. 1). They were told to remember His marvelous works, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth (v.5). O you seed of Abraham His servant, you children of Jacob His chosen, He is the LORD our God. . . . He remembers His covenant forever (vv. 6–8). The covenant He made with Abraham, and His oath unto Isaac, He confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying, Unto you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion of your inheritance (vv. 9–11).

The nation of Israel, however, has never yet possessed the land from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates (Gen. 15:18), the land in which Abraham sojourned. Many other prophecies about the nation of Israel also remain unfulfilled. During the nearly two thousand years prior to becoming a new nation in 1948, Israel had ceased to exist. Many years of conquests and increasing neglect had turned Palestine into almost a wasteland. However, regarding the Israelites, in Romans 11:2, 25, Paul tells us that God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew, but that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

In the very beginning of the book of Revelation, God sent an angel to give John the revelation of Jesus Christ to show to His servants things which must shortly come to pass (Rev. 1:1). His servants are those who have been bought with His blood (1 Cor. 6:19–20; Eph. 1:7), those who, like Abraham, believe in the Lord who justifies the ungodly, and to whom God counts it for righteousness (Rom. 4:5). Because of Abraham’s righteousness, God promised not only to make him exceedingly fruitful, but that He would be God to him and to his descendants (also known as seed) after him in their generations forever (Gen. 17:6–7).

In Scripture, seed refers not only to one’s physical offspring, but also to their spiritual offspring. The seed is the Word of God (Luke 8:11). He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and good seed are also the children of His kingdom (Matt. 13:37–38). The seed is sown by witnessing to others, thereby bringing forth new growth (offspring) and fruit of its own kind (Matt. 13:36–43). In Isaiah 1:4, we are told that people laden with iniquity are the seed of evildoers, children who are corrupters; they have forsaken the LORD.

Sin brings judgment and judgment brings death (Heb. 9:27; Mark 9:42–47; 1 Cor. 15:56). Yet Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, There is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. No one except Christ has lived, or ever will live, a sinless life. In Romans, chapter 3, we see that we are all under sin (v. 9), there is none righteous (v. 10), and there is none who does good (v. 12). Therefore, by deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight (v. 20). But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed . . . even the righteousness of God which is through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe (Rom. 3:21–22).

In 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, Paul declares to us that the Gospel by which we are saved is that Christ died for our sins (v. 3), was buried, and rose again on the third day (v. 4). Christ’s blood was not shed to atone for the sins of obedient people. If we were obedient to all God’s laws, there would be no need for redemption. However, Romans 3:23 states, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But Paul affirms in Romans 1:16–17 that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. In the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As the Scripture says, The just shall live by his faith (Hab. 2:4).

Almighty God is the righteous judge; and those whom He loves, He will rebuke and discipline (Rev. 3:19). There will be two kinds of judgment: one of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who are saved through faith in Him and acquitted, and the other of unbelievers who are unsaved and condemned. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in his body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10). There is, however, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

Paul tells us, If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, Whosoever believes in Him shall not be ashamed (Rom. 10:9–11). For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (v. 13). Salvation, therefore, comes only through the Lord Jesus Christ.

When creating Adam, God did something unique with him that He had not done with any other creature on earth. God created man in His own image (Gen. 1:27). The LORD God . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Thus, man is a living soul, and he has a body! Since only man had the breath of life breathed into his nostrils by God, only man’s soul was created immortal and cannot die. We are souls living in bodies. While a man’s body will eventually die, the soul living within that body is immortal and will live forever.

Paul, himself a tentmaker, compares the impermanence of our earthly body to that of a tent in which we are longing for a permanent heavenly body in the presence of the Lord. If our earthly house, this tent [body], were dissolved, we have a building of God. . . . For in this [body] we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our house [body] which is from heaven (2 Cor. 5:1–2). While we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. . . . We are confident . . . and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord (vv. 6, 8).

Christians look forward to a resurrection day in the future. Jesus said, The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves shall hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation (John 5:28–29). In John 11:25–26, Jesus declared, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. In this passage, our Lord declared His ultimate authority over death and the grave.

While some people deny the existence of the soul after death, Scripture clearly shows both life and consciousness after death. Matthew 25:41 tells us that those who have been cursed are cast into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Therefore, all the unrighteous, those who have not repented of their sins, are forever cursed and cast into hell (Mark 9:43–48).

Here, the Greek word for hell is geenna, meaning Ghenna, a valley of Jerusalem, used figuratively as a name for the place (or state) of everlasting punishment. In this passage, Jesus said, It is better for you to enter into life maimed than . . . to go into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched [put out] (Mark 9:43). Unlike a fire in your fireplace, which eventually burns up and goes out, the eternal fire of hell cannot be put out. Therefore, whoever is cast into hell will be on fire eternally and will never be completely burned up.

In the New Testament, Hades is also translated hell. Hades means Unseen, that is, ‘Hades’ or the place (state) of departed souls. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew equivalent is Sheol, meaning Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), including its accessories and inmates. In Luke 16:19–31, Jesus describes Hades (or Sheol) in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Both were dead, and they knew they were no longer living on earth. Although the rich man finds himself cast into the flames of hell (v. 24), he still has emotional feelings (torments) and visual perception, as he recognizes both Abraham and Lazarus, which also indicates he remembers the past and his life on earth.

The rich man has the ability to communicate with others, and his communication with Abraham shows that he realizes that repentance would have been necessary for him to have been spared eternal torment (Luke 16:25–31). In Old Testament times, all the dead went to Hades or Sheol, but they were separated by a great gulf (v. 26) so that no one could cross to the other side. Since Christ’s resurrection, however, the saved go directly to heaven to be in His presence (2 Cor. 5:6–8; Phil. 1:23). Scripture also shows that both life and consciousness continue between death and resurrection (Isa. 14:9–11; Matt. 22:32; Rev. 6:9–11).

What will our resurrection body be like? First John 3:2 states, We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And Philippians 3:20–21 says, We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our lowly body to be fashioned like His glorious body.

Since Jesus will change our bodies to be like His body, what is Jesus’s resurrection body like? In Revelation 1:13–18, John indicates that he saw a real body, not a spirit. Jesus’s resurrected body is a real body with shape and form. He even ate food. His body could be touched and yet pass through material form (John 20:26). It is also a body that can be recognized (John 20:16, 18, 20).

Luke 24:39–43 gives us a clearer description of Christ’s resurrected body. Jesus said, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. And when He had spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet. . . . He said unto them, Do you have here anything to eat? They gave Him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb, and He took and ate it before them.

Therefore, Jesus’s body is one that can be touched, seen, heard, conversed with, and fed. Jesus’s resurrection body is a perfected formation of His earthly body. If our bodies will become like Jesus’s body at our own resurrection, we can expect that our bodies will be perfected versions of the one we have here on earth.

Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is Almighty God, Himself, in the flesh! By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth. . . . All things were created by Him and for Him (Col. 1:16). Yet the depth of His love was so great that Jesus chose to undergo intense and terrible suffering for the sins of His people.

In Isaiah 53:5–12, the Scripture states, He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth. . . . For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. . . . He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. . . . When you make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed . . . (v.10). He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. . . . He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). We are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as a Lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Pet. 1:18–19). Christ was crucified, buried, and on the third day He arose again (Luke 23:33, 53; 24:3–6).

Although the nation of Israel is a holy people unto the Lord (Deut. 7:6), they have continually rejected Him as their Savior. Paul had a deep desire for the Jewish people to come to know Christ. His prayer to God for Israel was that they may be saved. They were like many unsaved people today, who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God (Rom. 10:1–3).

In Zechariah 12:10, speaking of the time when Israel will be redeemed, the LORD [Jehovah], who formed the spirit of man within him (v. 1), said, "I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplications, and they shall look upon Me, whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son (v. 10). God demonstrates His love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . . Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5:8–9).

God is triune, which is revealed in His tripersonal existence as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Jeremiah 2:13, God calls Himself, the fountain of living waters. The element of water as an analogy can help us understand the triune existence of God, as water also takes on three different forms. Whether in the form of water, ice, or steam, it is essentially the same substance. Likewise, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one being: God. God, the living water, loved us so much that a part of Him became solid, in the form of the man, Jesus Christ, so that He could redeem sinful mankind to Himself. Once we believe in the risen and living Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit, the steam of God, comes to abide within us.

Jesus said, If any man thirsts, let him come unto Me and drink. He who believes in Me, . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Then John said, This spoke He of the Spirit, whom those who believe in Him receive (John 7:37–39). Mortal life can be reproduced by man, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spirit and immortal life. Man, being naturally born of blood, when he is born again by faith in Jesus Christ, is born of water and the spirit, without which, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5). Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration [act of spiritual rebirth], and renewing of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).

Therefore, as the life of the flesh is in the blood (Lev. 17:11), the life of the soul is in the living water; and this water of God in the believer will be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:14). God freely gives this living water once we trust in the shed lifeblood of the body of Christ Jesus to atone for our sins. Jesus said, Let him who thirsts come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely (Rev. 22:17). In 2 Peter 2:15–17, Peter said those who have forsaken the right way, and gone astray following false religions, are wells without water. Therefore, they are without the Holy Spirit, the living water of God.

Christ, with His own blood, obtained an everlasting redemption for us, to cleanse our conscience from dead works that we may serve the living God (Heb. 9:12–15). We are told in Galatians 4:4–5, that God sent forth His Son, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law (or cursed). Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24). Therefore, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree (Gal. 3:13; Deut. 21:22–23). Christ died for our sins, putting into effect God’s New Covenant with man.

Under the New Covenant, the first and greatest commandment is: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. . . . The second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:37–39). The apostle John wrote, This is His commandment, that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment. He who keeps His commandments dwells in Him and He in him. By this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us (1 John 3:23–24).

Although God was manifest in the flesh and man is made in the likeness of God, man is not a god, nor can man become a god. The serpent deceived Eve into thinking she would be like God if she ate of the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:1–6), hence, the first sin. Man is immortal, and he can have eternal life; but man is not eternal (from everlasting to everlasting), and neither is man a supreme, all-powerful being. God clearly said, Beside Me, there is no God (Isa. 44:6).

The life of the flesh is in the blood (Lev. 17:11), and God has made from one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts 17:26). As by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; thus, death passed upon all men, for all have sinned (Rom. 5:12). Sin is transmitted through the blood; therefore, since Adam sinned, all mankind has sinful blood (1 Cor. 15:22).

In Leviticus 25:48–49, we find in God’s laws for redeeming a slave that he must be redeemed by someone related to him who is willing and able to pay the price. All have sinned; therefore, all mankind has sinful blood and is a servant or slave to sin and cannot redeem himself. Animals are not related to man; therefore, they cannot redeem a man. Animal sacrifices in Old Testament times only pointed toward the time when the true Redeemer would come.

Since unblemished blood must be offered to atone for the soul of sinful man, and since man must be redeemed by a blood relative who is willing and able to pay the price, only the sinless blood of an eternal perfect kinsman redeemer could atone for the sins of all mankind, past, present, and future. Because of His laws for redeeming a slave, God’s celestial being alone was not enough to redeem mankind. Although He is eternal, He was not kin to man, and He had no blood with which to redeem mankind. For God to redeem mankind, God himself had to become kin to man, yet without the sinful blood of Adam. This made necessary the virgin birth of Christ, because only God was willing; and only God, in the form of man, could pay the price.

The blood that flows in the veins and arteries of an unborn baby does not come from the mother. It is only after the male sperm fertilizes the egg that blood can develop; therefore, the blood of a newborn baby is contributed by the male. This is why we inherit Adam’s sin and not Eve’s. For God to become kin to mankind, and yet have sinless blood, He could partake of the flesh of woman, but not the blood of man.

In Deuteronomy 5:1–33, Moses reminded the nation of Israel of the laws God gave them to observe and do. However, only Christ has, or ever will, fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17; 19:17). The apostle Paul said, Whatever things the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that . . . all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is manifested, . . . even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe. . . . For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:19–23).

Since all have sinned (Rom. 3:23), and it is impossible for any man to continually obey all the laws, there are no works which man can do that can justify him in the sight of God. Therefore,