11 And I beheld, and I heard the
voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and
the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of
thousands;
10,000 times 10,000 is, of course, 100,000,000
angels. Since an angel is the presence of someone or something who is
physically somewhere else….
Isaiah 63:9 In all their
affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his
love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all
the days of old.
Matthew 18:10 Take heed that ye
despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their
angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Acts 12:13 And as Peter knocked
at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. 14 And when she knew Peter’s voice, she opened
not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the
gate. 15 And they said unto her, Thou
art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is
his angel.
….these angels may represent believers who will be raptured or
translated, as we are already seated in heaven by angels that represent us…
Ephesians 2:6 And hath raised us
up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
Hebrews 12: 22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company
of angels, 23 To the general assembly
and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
…as Christ Himself was here on
earth and in heaven at the same time…
John 3:13 And no man hath
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man
which is in heaven.
The living redeemed, you for
instance, still on the earth, have their angels in Heaven praising God.
Modern science believes there is a
similar number of stars in the heavens as there are grains of sand on earth
although by their guessing they believe there are more stars.[1]
The Bible states a similar idea by parallel phrasing.
Genesis 22:17 That in blessing I
will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of
the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall
possess the gate of his enemies;
Hebrews 11:12 Therefore sprang
there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in
multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
God dares Abraham to tell, or
count, the stars (think of the bank teller).
Genesis 15:5 And he brought him
forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be
able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
Although God Himself can count
them and, in fact, has names for every one.
Psalm 147:4 He telleth the
number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
But, notice how the Holy Spirit
uses the parallelism as a figure of speech to denote a large amount rather than
simply representing an exact figure speaking to the Hebrews who left Egypt.
Deuteronomy 1:10 The LORD your
God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven
for multitude.
So, what does ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands tell
us? Two possibilities present themselves. Either there are more than 100
million in this vision or there is simply a great and huge amount in this
vision that we cannot count. Trying to put an exact number on an estimation or
generalization, the way the Bible is written, is the error of imposing
modernism on the Bible and treating it like the owner’s manual to your car.
Here is a similar statement in
Daniel.
Daniel 7: 9 ¶ I beheld till the
thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was
white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like
the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from
before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten
thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
(To show you how perverted
prophecy can be made, a popular and influential Texan, a Methodist preacher at
the opening of the War Between the Southern States and the Federal Government,
W.H. Seat wrote that the Ancient of Days was
not God but the United States of America in prophecy. This view of America as a
redeemer nation a Christnation, if I
can use that was not uncommon.)[2]
[1] Robert Krulwich, “Which Is
Greater, The Number Of Sand Grains On Earth Or Stars In The Sky?” National
Public Radio, 9.18.2012. http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-of-sand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky.
[2] W.H. Seat, The Confederate States of America in Prophecy (Nashville, TN:
Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1861), 30,39. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7861633W/The_Confederate_States_of_America_in_prophecy
No comments:
Post a Comment