Revelation 22:12 And, behold, I
come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work
shall be. 13 I am Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the end, the first and the last. 14 Blessed are they that do his commandments,
that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the
gates into the city. 15 For without are
dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and
whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. 16 I
Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I
am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say,
Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And
whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. 18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the
words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God
shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words
of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of
life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this
book.
PART FIVE For verse 17 remember when Jesus was talking to the
Samaritan woman at the well.
John 4:13 Jesus
answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst
again: 14 But whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
For verses 18 and 19 there
are other verses about adding or taking away from God’s word.
Deuteronomy 4:2 Ye
shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the
commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Deuteronomy 12:32
What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add
thereto, nor diminish from it.
And yet, we should be aware
of the specific context. In Jeremiah the Holy Ghost did allow for added words
to the text as He directed.
Jeremiah 36:32 Then
took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of
Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king
of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.
The context here is the
prophecy given in Revelation. The entire book of the entire Bible containing
Old and New Testaments was not available until the middle of the second
century, probably another 50 years after Revelation was written. There has long
been a temptation to add to the prophecy, to flesh out things that aren’t given
in the book, and to make assumptions that aren’t supported by the text. I have,
therefore, tried to be careful about making dogmatic assertions and insisting
that what I think is the correct interpretation like so many do. I wanted to
avoid the presumption that you find in many prophecy conferences, sermons, and
written texts that say that such-and-such an interpretation is the final word.
I am reminded of the proverbial egg on the faces of many preachers just after
the year 2000 rolled around. Messing with the book of this prophecy is a very
serious matter.
As an example there were
supposedly two sermons given before Congress in 1857 by a Methodist preacher
who would go on to be a chaplain in the Confederate Army that outlined the
common thinking of the era before the Civil War, that America, not a
reconstituted Israel, was the Promised Land and that Armageddon would be fought
in the Mississippi River Valley against a combined force that included England
and Russia.[1]
The coming American Civil
War made not a few people see the Apocalypse unfolding before them as is
evidenced by the Yankee Unitarian Julia Ward Howe who wrote the song The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a
Unitarian under the influence of a preacher who was one of the supporters of
the infamous John Brown who called for wholesale murder as a means of freeing
Southern slaves. She even used the music from a song about John Brown to accompany
her apocalyptic lyrics.
It is this type of
appropriation and interpretation of the prophecy of this book that God
condemns. Be careful how you apply what you are reading.
[1] Pitts, A Defence of Armageddon or Our Great Country Foretold in
the Holy Scriptures In two
discourses, Delivered in the Capitol of the United States, at the request of
several members of Congress, on the anniversary of Washington's birthday, 1857,
105.
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