Revelation 19:17-21

Do You See the Love of Christ?

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on June 6, 2021 at Beacon Church.

Have you ever stood in a freshly mowed hay field and smelled what it smells like? Have you ever had the pleasure of seeing the bales of hay collected from the field and stacked in the barn? I have. I remember the fresh callouses on my hands from grabbing those bales by the twine and throwing them onto the flat deck trailer. I remember the sweat, and the aching muscles, and the way others made that work look so easy. But I remember the satisfaction of persevering until the job was finished and seeing the last of the bales collected from the field and I remember what it smelled like.

Jesus once told a parable about the Kingdom of Heaven and said, "[It can] be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away."  (Mat 13:24-25) When the plants began to grow it was obvious it wasn’t just wheat in the field. The servants asked their master who owned the field, “Didn’t you sow good wheat seed in your field? Why are there weeds growing among the wheat?” And the Master told them an enemy had done this. So they asked if they should go through the fields and pull up the weeds and the Master told them, “No.” He said, "Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, "Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn."' (Mat 13:30) Now in Revelation 19:17-21, this isn’t about wheat but it is about a harvest. In this passage, John describes three things he sees—an invitation, a gathering, and how it ends—that confirm to believers nothing will ever be able to separate you from the love of Christ.

Just glancing at the passage you will notice first, there are birds (17-18), then a battle (19), then bloodshed (20-21). But it’s the characters John sees that are really interesting. The characters mentioned form what’s called a chiasm—like an X-shaped pattern that draw our attention like a spotlight on a stage to the middle and centre of the passage. So we have a) the birds (17, 21), the enemy armies (v18, 20-21a), the Rider and His army who I’ll just tell you now is Jesus Christ (v19); then His enemies are mentioned again (20-21a), and lastly, the birds (21b). That’s the structure, you see?

>> The birds, the enemies, >>Jesus and His army; << the enemies, the birds<<

The structure of the passage zooms in on Jesus and His army and then zooms back out again. And then you notice that the enemies are gathered against them but it’s like Jesus and His army just sit there waiting for them to advance. They don’t’ seem the least bit afraid, or intimidated, or surprised. That’s weird but it gets weirder when you notice what the birds are invited to do and then that there is no fighting at this battle. So let’s zoom out and start at verse 17 with the birds. It’s the first thing John says that he saw:

Vultures invited to the Aftermath (17-18)

There are two parts to this scene, what John saw and what John heard. He saw an angel and he heard him invite birds to supper. So first let’s look at what John saw: “Then I saw an angel standing in the sun…” (Rev. 19:17a ESV).

The scene is easier to understand when we first realize it’s built on a passage in the Book of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 39:17, God says to the prophet Ezekiel,

As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field: “Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood.” (Eze 39:17 ESV)

It’s obvious here that this isn’t about sparrows and hummingbirds but about birds that eat carrion—like vultures. Circling in the sky, telling you something is dead or about to be dead and they’re planning on eating it. The more vultures the more carrion you can expect to find. So what John sees here in his vision is an angel doing what God told the prophet Ezekiel to do: to invite birds to a great and gruesome supper. It’s also not necessarily predicting literal birds but a lot of literal carrion.

We learn two things from this: First, the angel, like the prophet Ezekiel, is a herald announcing exactly what God tells him to announce. Second, the invitation to the birds comes from God Himself. Maybe that’s why John saw the angel “standing in the sun?” It doesn’t mean “inside the sun” but probably that the sun was right behind the angel. That might symbolize the authority behind the angel’s words. Unlike the angel in 18:1, this angel isn’t bright like the sun he’s just standing with the Sun behind him. But the word “angel” literally means “messenger” so maybe that’s the idea: that this is just a messenger, like Ezekiel the prophet was just a messenger, but the real glory belongs to the One who sent him?

Second, look what John heard: John heard the angel invite birds to supper.

…And with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, "Come, gather for the great supper of God,  18 to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great." (Rev. 19:17-18 ESV)

What John hears is a summarized reworking of what God told Ezekiel to say in Ezekiel 39:17-20.

17 "As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field: 'Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood.  18 You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth-- of rams, of lambs, and of he-goats, of bulls, all of them fat beasts of Bashan.  19 And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you.  20 And you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors,' declares the Lord GOD.  (Ezek. 39:17-20 ESV)

You can see the Ezekiel passage represented in what John wrote in verses 17b-18. The two passages are parallel.

But here’s what’s so weird about this: the birds are invited to the aftermath of a battle before the battle has even taken place. It means God knows who is going to win the war before they even show up to fight. And it is “all the birds” that are invited meaning God knows just how extensive the number of fallen will be. We learn that the invitation is from God, that like Ezekiel, the angel is just the messenger but that the God knows every part of how this is going to turn out long, long before it happens.

The book of Ezekiel was written over 2600 years ago; John wrote Revelation over 1900 years ago. God has been planning this supper for these metaphorical birds and the literal carnage it indicates for a long time. He planned the menu, He planned the place, He planned the time, and He sent out the invitations to the aftermath before anyone involved had any idea any of this was going to happen much less how it would all end. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega; the One who is and who was and who is to come. This also confirms what we should already guess: this passage about the birds isn’t for the birds. It’s for people who read this book or hear it preached. I said John describes three things he sees—an invitation, a gathering, and how it ends—that confirm to believers nothing will ever be able to separate you from the love of Christ, and while you might not see what this has to do with the love of God yet you should be able to see it’s telling us something about God. After the invitation, the second thing John saw is…

Enemies gathered to Armageddon (19)

“And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army,” (Rev. 19:19 ESV). If this gathering of armies is a literal gathering of armies, and I think it is, the scene John saw was still highly symbolic. He saw a beast—that’s a symbol. So it seems the whole scene is probably a symbolic way of predicting a literal assembling for war. We’ve been expecting this war. Back in chapter 16, the prophecy of the sixth bowl predicted the symbolic drying up of the symbolic “Euphrates River”—which, like in the Old Testament, stood for a literal empire near that river. In Revelation, the sixth bowl was about the decline of the Ottoman Empire that previously controlled not just Turkey but everything between Greece and Iraq, and from Syria to Egypt (including what is Israel today). That empire was “dried up” in fulfillment of the sixth bowl and by the end of World War I all it had left was the country we today call, “Turkey.” It was no longer a global superpower. But in that same prophecy in the sixth bowl, John also saw evil spirits go out to the kings of the earth to “assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty… And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon,” (Rev 16:14, 16). So yes, we’ve been expecting this war. [See my explanation of the meaning of the word Armageddon.]

The gathering of armies to Armageddon for the Day of the Lord seems to be associated in some way, then, with the country of Turkey. This is confirmed by the verses we just read about invitation to the birds (No, not because the country is called “Turkey”—that part is just coincidence). Verses 17-18 are a summarized re-working of Ezekiel 39:17-20, which is a small portion of a single prophecy in Ezekiel 38-39 about an alliance of nations that gathers together and invades Israel on the Day of the Lord. There it’s not called “Armageddon” but it would appear to be talking about the same Last Battle. There, the invading armies seem to want to destroy Israel as the people of God, here in Revelation the focus has been on the Church of Christ as the people of God. But connecting Armageddon with Turkey, and with Ezekiel’s prophecy of the Last Battle in connection with the invasion of Israel, it appears that Israel and the Church become somehow the same thing.

It could be what Paul predicted in Romans 11, “all Israel will be saved.” Whereas “a partial hardening has come upon Israel” for the last 2000 years, by the time the Last Battle is over, the hearts of the Jews will be softened toward Jesus Christ and they will repent of their unbelief and believe in Him. At the end of Ezekiel 39, after the invitation to the birds and the aftermath of the battle, God declares to Israel, "And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD." (Eze 39:29) In the New Testament, that’s how sinners become Christ-followers! By the work of the Holy Spirit regenerating the elect! The Church of Christ was laid on the foundation of Jewish apostles. And the day is coming when the Church will include the fullness of His chosen people from the nations and from Israel. All of God’s people together, finally joined to Jesus, are those standing with Jesus in verse 19. How did they get there? They were invited. “And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’,”  (Rev. 19:9 ESV). They were chosen by God, called, justified, and glorified. “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31 ESV). We are His field of wheat but an enemy sowed weeds in the field.

Verse 19 is clear: the gathering of armies against Christ includes, among other nations, the beast that in Revelation is associated with the nations of western Europe formerly under the Roman Catholic Church. And verse 19 is clear that these armies are hostile to Christ and His people. Let’s compare that to how Ezekiel described this Last Battle.

The passage in Eze 38-39 about the inviting of the birds to “the great supper of God” began with the Lord telling Ezekiel to prophesy against a ruler from the north of Israel, called “Gog of the land of Magog”—God told Ezekiel that this Gog would lead an alliance of armies from 7 nations; that Gog would have an arrogant plan in mind, “an evil scheme” to invade Israel after Israel has been regathered from all the nations and is safe and secure in their homeland once again. Gog will plan an attack. Ezekiel 38:17 even implies this Gog will think he is doing his god’s will and fulfilling prophecy by coming to destroy Israel. But when his armies come against Israel, the Lord God explodes in wrath and anger and destroys Gog, all the armies with him, and even rains fire down on his homeland, “Magog” (Eze 39:6). God says the bodies of all of Gog’s forces will be buried in Israel—and then God tells Ezekiel to do what the angel in verse 17 does: to invite all the birds to come and eat their flesh. Looking then, at verse 19, this leads to the conclusion that Ezekiel’s Gog-alliance is what John describes as “the kings of the earth with their armies.” We’re ready now to see why, in the sixth bowl (ch. 16:12-16), Turkey is associated with the Last Battle at Armageddon.

Gog of the land of Magog is something of a mystery. It seems there has never been a kingdom called Magog. The prophecy is deliberately mysterious though. “Magog” just means the land ruled by Gog.[i] It’s not the name of his kingdom but a reference to his lands. So Gog and Magog are a mysterious way for God to identify a future country by its geography and history. So who was Gog? I’ve always thought it was Russia because Gog comes against Israel from the “far north.” But archaeological discoveries and more recent scholarship have identified Gog with an ancient king of Lydia.[ii] Gyges to the ancient Assyrians. And if Gog really is Gyges, that ancient King of Lydia, then in John’s time, the boundaries of what Ezekiel names as Magog encompass all seven of the seven cities named in Revelation 1 when Jesus told John, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea." (Rev 1:11 ESV) That whole area was long ago ruled by Gyges, King of Lydia—it was his land: Magog. And today, all seven of those cities, along with the lands of half of Gog’s allies, can be found in the Republic of Turkey.

By connecting the Battle of Armageddon with Ezekiel’s prophecy against Gog, the prophecies of Revelation have come full circle back to how the book began: as a message from Jesus to seven of His churches in the lands that today are called western Turkey. The message John is writing is for people who read Revelation or hear it preached. And I said, John describes three things he sees—an invitation, a gathering, and how it ends—that confirm to believers nothing will ever be able to separate you from the love of Christ. Are you starting to see what this has to do with the love of Jesus for His people? The third thing John saw is…

The End of War on Earth (20-21)

20 And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.  21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.  (Rev. 19:20-21 ESV)

The way John sees this is worth noticing. There’s no fight. There’s just sudden victory for Christ and sudden defeat for His enemies. As if the Lord just spoke and it came to pass. First John sees the beast and the falseprophet arrested.[iii] In our study of Revelation, especially in my devotional videos on YouTube, we’ve seen that the Beast by this point in time represents an alliance of nations in western Europe. And verse 20 identifies the falseprophet: this is, as we seen before, the Roman Catholic religious system that built cathedrals and gave people “the mass,” deceiving people into believing that this is how to save their souls. This falseprophet is captured along with the beast but it doesn’t say the falseprophet was there among the armies gathered against Jesus. The last time the falseprophet was mentioned in Revelation was in 16:13, in the sixth bowl, as somehow inciting the nations to gather for war at Armageddon. The falseprophet wasn’t mentioned in the gathering of armies in verse 19 but he is among the first to be held responsible, along with the beast. And their punishment is worse. They aren’t just slain like the rest of the invaders, they are thrown alive into the Lake of Fire. They are the first to be sentenced to eternity in Hell. But they will not be the last.

The rest of the armies are slain by the sword but not just any sword. “…By the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse…” That’s the Rider from verse 15, “from whose mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations…”—those words come from a prophecy about Jesus Christ in Isaiah 11:4. "…with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked." It’s similar to how Paul predicted the second coming of Jesus:

When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed… (2 Thess 1:7b-10a ESV)

This isn't just a day of Justice but of glory, not just of judgment but of Jesus, not just of wrath but of reward. Verse 20-21 tell us who will be taken away and punished but verse 19 already told us who remains. And when all the enemies of Jesus are removed from the Earth, what will be left? When the Last Battle is over there will be no more war. Remember what I called “the chiasm of characters” in this passage?

>> The birds, the enemies, >> Jesus and His army; << the enemies, the birds<<

 The Last Battle isn’t like any other battle. It’s more like ocean waves throwing themselves against an unbreakable rock. It’s like an army of ice cubes attacking the Sun. It’s what happens when those who hate Christ try to attack Him.

And so, verse 21 ends where verse 17 began: the vultures come and eat their fill. They are sated, gorged because of the sheer extent of the loss of life that will happen when the nations try to destroy the Author of Life. What’s left of their glory, of their power, of their fearsome strength? It’s all food for birds.

A voice says, "Cry!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.  7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.  8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.  (Isa 40:6-8 ESV)

But it wasn’t Jesus these armies came to destroy. In Ezekiel 38:16 God accuses those nations of trying to destroy His people: “You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes." (Eze 38:16 ESV) Their fatal error is in seeking to harm people who belong to the Lord. And when that happens, who will be left? Jesus compared this day to the days of Noah when the Flood waters came and took the wicked to destruction: "the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left."  (Mat 24:39-40) The people who remain are the people who are with Jesus, as Paul prophesied, "and so we will always be with the Lord." (1Th 4:17) John the Baptist also prophesied this about Jesus and this last day, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." (Mat 3:12 ESV)

All flesh is grass. The wheat is gathered and the chaff is burned. When the dust settles and the smoke clears, when the noise of battle and tumult is silenced, the Lord Jesus will be there with all who belong to Him. And there will be no more war. In verse 7 it was announced that the marriage supper of the Lamb had arrived but in verse 11 we saw Him dressed for battle; in verse 8 we saw the Bride adored with bright linen, and in verse 14 we saw her as the army with Christ. In verse 7 we read about the marriage supper and in verses 17-21 we have seen the birds come and feast on the flesh of those who tried to harm the Bride of Jesus Christ. But He would not permit them to harm a single hair on her head. The time for waiting is over.

And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’…And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. (Hosea 2:16–20 ESV)