I am almost (shamefully) getting used to a certain few people on here who are convinced that if you want to know ANYTHING about the "End Times", just ask them. Because they really do believe (I guess) that they know all things.
So, when I ran across this in one of the books I was reading recently, I just had to pass it along to the newer people who might actually start believing these ego-bound people.
v4: Of course, everyone wants to know: What did the seven thunders say? An astounding amount of scholarly ink has been wasted on the solution of this problem. But, in this life at least, we can never know the answer. St. John was about to write down what the thunders had spoken, when he heard a Voice from heaven saying: Seal up the things that the seven thunders have spoken, and do not write them. The message was intended for St. John’s ears only. It was not intended for the Church at large. But what is important here is that God wanted St. John to record the fact that he was not supposed to reveal whatever the seven thunders said. God wanted the Church to know that there are some things (many things, actually) that God has no intention of telling us beforehand.
This serves well as a rebuke to the tendency of most sermons and commentaries on this book — that of a curious searching into those things that God has not seen fit to reveal. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). In other words, “Man has been given the law, which he must obey. He has been told what the consequences of obedience and disobedience are.
More than that, man does not need to know.” R. J. Rushdoony writes: “Man is more often prompted by curiosity than by obedience.... For every question a pastor receives about the details of God’s law, he normally receives several which express little more than a curiosity about God, the life to come, and other things which are aspects of ‘the secret things which belong to God.’ As against curiosity and a probing about ‘secret things,’ we are plainly commanded to obey God’s law and to recognize that the law gives us a knowledge of the future which is legitimate.”
In the final chapter of the book St. John is commanded: “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near” (22:10); the message of the Book of Revelation, as a whole, is contemporary in nature, referring to events about to take place. In contrast, however, the message of the Seven Thunders points us to the far distant future: Daniel was told to “conceal these words and seal up the book until the time of the end” (Dan. 12:4), for the reason that the time of its fulfillment was not at hand. Similarly, when St. John is instructed to seal up the words spoken by the Thunders, it is another indication that the purpose of Revelation is not “futuristic”; the prophecy refers to the time of the establishment of the New Covenant, and points beyond itself to a “time of the end” that was still very distant to St. John and his readers. We are thus taught two things: First, the Book of Revelation is a contemporary prophecy, concerned almost entirely with the redemptive-eschatological events of the first century; second, the events of the first century were not exhaustive of eschatology. Contrary to the theories of those interpreters who would style themselves as “consistent preterists,” the Fall of Jerusalem did not constitute the Second Coming of Christ, the end of the world, and the final resurrection. There is more to come.
So, when I ran across this in one of the books I was reading recently, I just had to pass it along to the newer people who might actually start believing these ego-bound people.
v4: Of course, everyone wants to know: What did the seven thunders say? An astounding amount of scholarly ink has been wasted on the solution of this problem. But, in this life at least, we can never know the answer. St. John was about to write down what the thunders had spoken, when he heard a Voice from heaven saying: Seal up the things that the seven thunders have spoken, and do not write them. The message was intended for St. John’s ears only. It was not intended for the Church at large. But what is important here is that God wanted St. John to record the fact that he was not supposed to reveal whatever the seven thunders said. God wanted the Church to know that there are some things (many things, actually) that God has no intention of telling us beforehand.
This serves well as a rebuke to the tendency of most sermons and commentaries on this book — that of a curious searching into those things that God has not seen fit to reveal. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). In other words, “Man has been given the law, which he must obey. He has been told what the consequences of obedience and disobedience are.
More than that, man does not need to know.” R. J. Rushdoony writes: “Man is more often prompted by curiosity than by obedience.... For every question a pastor receives about the details of God’s law, he normally receives several which express little more than a curiosity about God, the life to come, and other things which are aspects of ‘the secret things which belong to God.’ As against curiosity and a probing about ‘secret things,’ we are plainly commanded to obey God’s law and to recognize that the law gives us a knowledge of the future which is legitimate.”
In the final chapter of the book St. John is commanded: “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near” (22:10); the message of the Book of Revelation, as a whole, is contemporary in nature, referring to events about to take place. In contrast, however, the message of the Seven Thunders points us to the far distant future: Daniel was told to “conceal these words and seal up the book until the time of the end” (Dan. 12:4), for the reason that the time of its fulfillment was not at hand. Similarly, when St. John is instructed to seal up the words spoken by the Thunders, it is another indication that the purpose of Revelation is not “futuristic”; the prophecy refers to the time of the establishment of the New Covenant, and points beyond itself to a “time of the end” that was still very distant to St. John and his readers. We are thus taught two things: First, the Book of Revelation is a contemporary prophecy, concerned almost entirely with the redemptive-eschatological events of the first century; second, the events of the first century were not exhaustive of eschatology. Contrary to the theories of those interpreters who would style themselves as “consistent preterists,” the Fall of Jerusalem did not constitute the Second Coming of Christ, the end of the world, and the final resurrection. There is more to come.
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