The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 10 – 10
We’ve established that the four winds created the four beast empires of the Earth; that together with the rest of the 70 demons, they are the spirits behind the civil governments of the world. That every house, every town, every county, province, state, government and empire – probably seven ranks in total – is led and inspired by an invisible spirit being, the “demon” of that polity.
We’ve also said that these same four “winds”, the “four spirits of the heavens” are the four beasts of Revelation 4-5. More precisely, the four creatures picture the four winds and their empires of “all kindreds, tongues, peoples, and nations”.
We’ve also showed that just as they surround the throne in heaven before and behind, left and right, so likewise the four camps surrounded the throne in the wilderness – thus, the four “beasts” in the wilderness were the groups of Israelites towards the four cardinal directions – which like the beasts, “turned not when they went forward” (Numbers 2:17, Ezekiel 1:12).
We’ve also noted that the four camps in the wilderness (Reuben, Dan, Judah, and Ephraim) were each paired with one of the four camps of Levites (Aaron/Moses, Kohath, Merari, Gershon), who in turn were each meant to be led by one of the four sons of Aaron (Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar).
This, in the context of a beast, would naturally make three parts of authority – the body (the camp of Reuben, say); the head (the camp of Kohath, say); and the eyes of that head; the Aaronite son who was meant to liaise with that particular Levite camp, and through them to that particular Israelite camp. Said differently, these were the heart, spirit, and soul of the southern beast.
Thus in Revelation 6:1, 3, 5, 7, each creature shows John one of the four horsemen – because each of the beasts is responsible for the actions of that particular horseman. Which means these four creatures are the eyes of the four horsemen, for they “come and see”.
And that would make the horsemen the head of the beast, for what does a horseman do if not… guide the beast? Thus the horse is the beast, the horseman is the head of the beast, and the creature speaking to John was the eyes of that beast!
Thus making the horse itself correspond to the three angelic tribes of that camp; say, Reuben. And making the horseman correspond to the Levite tribe over those camps; remember, the Levites were purchased by God instead of the firstborn, making each Levite head of a house of Israel. And finally, making the four creatures themselves correspond to the sons of Aaron.
As I said, each of these Levite camps was meant to report, initially, to an individual Aaronite. After the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, this put extra duty on the shoulders of Eleazar and Ithamar, but the goal was to have one high priest with four Aaronic eyes over four Levite camps which were the heads over four camps of twelve tribes.
This strongly suggests a correlation between the pattern of 1 high priest (Aaron), the 7 of God (his wife Elizabeth), and their 4 sons (Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Ithamar) and the 4 Levite tribes (Aaron/Moses, Kohath, Gershon, Merari) and the 4 camps of Israel (Judah, Reuben, Dan, Ephraim)…
To their heavenly versions, with their corresponding 1 angelic high priest, the 7 spirits of God, the 4 winds/spirits of heaven, the multitude of eyes which fill their 4 beasts, and finally the 4 beasts themselves – the empires that contain all the multitudes of mankind.
UNBROKEN SPIRITS
Just to be clear, these four angels are not actually the beast. They are the spirits which give life to the beast (James 2:26, Revelation 13:4, etc.). The spirits who, by their striving, caused the beasts to form out of the waters of mankind (Daniel 7:2-3). Said differently, they are the light in the beast’s body. At least, that’s the idea (Matthew 6:23).
The soul of these beasts, of course, was meant to be God; the sons of Aaron were merely proxy souls, spirits sent to represent and speak for God who was indeed the soul of the beast. But in practice, as with all of us… the unbroken spirits think they know better than the soul that sent them, and ignored its judgments in order to protect its own beast from its own soul!
As in Earth, so it is in heaven. Because that was always part of the plan. Remember how the Levites camped around the tabernacle to protect people from God? (Numbers 1:50-53). The four camps of Levites (including the camp of Aaron and Moses) were there to act as a barrier, to prevent the less holy Israelites from getting too close to the Lord’s house and getting killed.
Their role was literally to be a barrier between the people (the beast) and the soul (the Lord). And that was what they were meant to be – for the sake of the beast, “that it die not”. Just as our own spirit “knows the things of man”, and communicates with our heart for us (1 Corinthians 2:11).
But what happens when the wall of separation becomes so solid that no communication can pass through it? If the wall is not broken – which is to say, has no gaps in it to pass through – then it is an unbroken wall, a wall with no doors.
Or in this case… an unbroken spirit which doesn’t let a single unfiltered word pass in either direction. A spirit which takes it upon itself to handle the beasts’ questions, and doesn’t tell the heart the things the soul wants it told – or changes the message to what it things the soul meant, or what it thinks the heart needs to hear.
Such a wall must be broken down completely, for it is doing its job too well… and thus not doing it at all.
WALL OF SEPARATION
Read Ezekiel 42:16-20; now curiously, the word translated as “east side” that Ezekiel is sent to measure is literally “east spirit”. He also measures the north spirit, south spirit, and west spirit! Thus, the four winds are being measured. The four spirits of the heavens!
Obviously in context, God meant “side”, which is how translators render it. And yet, God also meant wind, for here He tells us the job of these four winds was “to make a separation, between the holy and the common” (verse 20). Hence, their function was to separate the holy (the tabernacle, the soul) from the common (everyone else, the beast)!
Paul references this “wall of separation” in Ephesians 2:11-16, calling it “the middle wall of partition” in the KJV. This wall existed to make sure that no Gentiles would approach the temple, and it still existed in Paul’s time in the temple in Jerusalem, a low stone wall with warning signs forbidding entry to the court of Israel on pain of death.
This preserves the symbolism of the Levite tribes around the tabernacle, who no longer camped around the temple since now there was an actual wall! Yet Paul said that, because of Christ, this “middle wall of partition” would be broken down, meaning that Gentiles would be able to approach directly to the temple from then on. The evil spirits would be broken, allowing the soul and heart to communicate without filter!
Thus, one meaning of the wall being “broken down” is that these four beasts will be broken and their kingdoms taken away (Daniel 7:11-12), and given to the saints (verses 26-28). When that time comes, the beasts will lose their dominion but they themselves will continue to live. Which is to say, the spirits will not die, even though the body of the beast dies. The eyes will live – at least for a time.
From another angle, these four walls/spirits being “broken down” means that the 144,000, Israelite or Gentile, have no need for a Levite barrier preventing them from camping up against the tabernacle; because the Levites no longer need to serve that function for them.
We do not need them to be a wall of separation, to give us distance from the holy; for we are not joined to the body of the beast, not joined to the angels and through them to Christ, but attached directly to the head (Colossians 2:18-19). Much more on that another day.
PORTERS
As always, think about this in many different ways; what is a wall? What is a barrier? How are people separated from God? Remember the flaming sword which guarded the way to the tree of life; it did so both by being a physical barrier (effectively a wall), and by deceiving (making it hard to find) and with flame (testing those who came to see who was worthy of entry).
Thus, these four walls/camps/winds/creatures simultaneously serve the function of testing those who are worthy, and keeping out those who are not. They are, therefore, guardians – such as those who would protect gates from intruders, and guard the wall from invaders. Protecting the holy from the unclean, and protecting the unclean from the wrath of the holy.
With that in mind, it’s time to study a little-known but very highly ranked job in the temple of Solomon – the porters. Around the temple, there was a series of walls; and in these walls there were gates. And in charge of these gates were the porters: 1 Chronicles 9:17-32.
Contrary to the modern English meaning “bearer of burdens”, porters didn’t carry things, they opened things. They were named for opening the doors (from the Latin portus, “door”), and their main job was to open and close the gates morning and evening (verse 19).
But they weren’t just doormen, they were guards. For once the gates were open, these “porters” stood there at the gate, to prevent Gentiles and unclean people from entering the temple grounds (2 Chronicles 23:19).
Each of these porters was given charge of the gates in a particular direction, corresponding to one of the four directions or “winds”, as Ezekiel called it. Thus corresponding to a particular one of the four spirits of the heavens, four creatures of Revelation and Ezekiel, and the camps in the wilderness.
The porter’s foremost job was to challenge those who try to enter, to see if they are clean or unclean, shepherds or thieves (John 10:2-3). You’ll notice this is, fundamentally, the job of the Levite camps in the wilderness, which these porters specifically replicated in the temple of Solomon (1 Chronicles 9:26-27). So they replaced the camps of Kohath, Merari, Gershom, and Moses.
They guarded the gates day and night, even though they are closed at night (1 Chronicles 9:33-34). They were, essentially, a continual royal guard such as exists at Buckingham Palace today. Weekly, the guard rotates and a new one comes in (2 Chronicles 8:14, 1 Chronicles 9:25).
But what happens when the guards don’t do their job? Malachi 1:10. When they won’t close it (to keep out the wrong people) or open it (to let in the right people)? Revelation 3:20. What good is a guard who won’t open the door if it’s nighttime? Luke 12:36-38.
They were supposed to be there, awake, ready to do their job anytime, and to do this they were given the other Levites “to prepare for them” (2 Chronicles 35:15). The actual opening of the gates was the job of the lower-ranking porters (of which there were roughly a few hundred, depending on the era – 1 Chronicles 9:22, Ezra 2:42, etc.).
This left the “chief of the fathers” free to supervise wherever they were needed, day or night. Which is why, unlike the rest of the porters who worked by courses, the chief porters lived in the temple constantly; for as you read above, they “lodged about the temple” (verse 27).
BEYOND DOORMEN
But there’s more to their job than just opening and closing doors and guarding the entrance (1 Chronicles 9:29-32). They supervised everything that passed through the doors; making them not only doormen, but also customs and immigration officials for the temple grounds.
But even more than that; for excepting the actual offering of the holy things, they were in charge of literally everything else that happened in the temple. They measured, ground and mixed the spices and ointments, managed the oil, wine, flour, gold and so on; even baked the shewbread and other bread offerings.
Some or all of these porters were also involved in the singing in the temple (1 Chronicles 15:16-18), and singers and porters are mentioned together often (Nehemiah 12:47, for instance), and were probably both under the rule of the chief porters.
Thus, the Aaronite priest communicated with the porter, and the porter communicated with the rest of the Levites in his group. And if a Levite had a problem or news to share, he told it to the porter, who REported (get it?) it to the priest.
The porters, therefore, in every sense of the word acted as a “wall of separation” between the priesthood and the Levites, and between God and the people. In fact, the porters seem to have basically run all non-sacrificial aspects of the temple, subject only to the Aaronites. You might compare them to sergeants in the army, who manage all the real work, but make none of the decisions.
Just as, in the wilderness, it was the heads of the camps of the Levites who were in charge of all the preparation and cleanup that happened in all the offerings, sacrifice, and accounting of tithe and so on. That job was now done by the porters, who replaced the heads of the Levite camps towards the four winds around the tabernacle (1 Chronicles 9:24).
But more than that; for the porters did not simply replace the heads of the Levites, they replaced the Aaronite heads over the Levites. For 1 Chronicles 9:19-20 explicitly tells us that his job had once been done by a son of Aaron!
This plainly says that Shallum, a Korahite (not a priest) replaced the job that had been done by a junior priest, in this case Phinehas; most likely this refers to his job before he was appointed high priest, as Eleazar had once been in charge of the Kohathites while Aaron was the high priest (Numbers 3:29-32).
And of these four porters, one of them was chief – Shallum – just as of the four beasts, one was greater than the others (Daniel 7:19). Just as, in the wilderness, Judah was the “lawgiver” of the tribes (1 Chronicles 28:4)… and like Shallum was in charge of the EAST gate! (1 Chronicles 9:17-18).
It’s also worth noting that the flaming sword was placed eastward of Eden – to protect the entrance, thus at the east gate of Eden; it’s also worth noting that God placed “cherubim”, which is a plural word there; thus, multiple angels.
And if Eden represents the tabernacle, then it stands to reason these cherubim would be arranged in the same pattern as they were in Ezekiel 10:1, 8-21; which is to say, four of them, who likewise were arranged to the east of the temple (verse 19), at the east gate. Which is where the four porters were based! (1 Chronicles 9:17-18).
All of which means the four chief porters, and their corresponding gates, correspond directly to the four beasts of Revelation and John and Ezekiel, and also to the four sons of Aaron and their corresponding camps of Levites and Israelites towards the four winds!
KORAHITES
Interestingly, the porters were mostly of the sons of Korah, the rebel who died in Numbers. What’s also interesting is that Korah’s rebellion in Numbers 16:1-3 was headed by four men and their houses. Korah, the highest-ranking non-Aaronite Levite; Dathan, Abiram, and On, who were high-ranking sons of Reuben.
Also fascinating is the fact that Korah was the chief of the camp of Kohath, who camped to the south; right up against the camp of Reuben, whose princes joined them in the rebellion. Which goes a long ways towards confirming what I said about the Levite camps corresponding to the Israelite camp nearest them.
Regardless, the rebellion of Korah against the priesthood of Levi would correspond to a rebellion by the chief of these four porters against the seven spirits whom God gave authority over the porters. But note that this was, as always, not a rebellion against God, or the Lord!
It was a rebellion against Aaron and Moses, not the Lord! They were willing to risk their lives in offering to the Lord because they honestly believed God would choose them (verses 3, 16-19). Just as the angels they picture likewise believe!
But consider also what Korah sought; “the priesthood also” (verse 10). Now if the seven of God (Elizabeth) was Aaron’s wife, then she pictured the seven spirits, thus the seven stars of God, then if Korah was made a priest, he would have been placing his throne above them!
Thus, as the fallen angel in Isaiah likewise did, he sought to place his throne “above the stars of God”! (Isaiah 14:13). For Aaron’s position meant rulership over that house! (1 Chronicles 9:11). And that is precisely the position “the bright and morning star” sought – to be over the seven stars of God!
Note also that Isaiah’s rebel sought to place his throne on the “mount of the congregation” a place which only priests and prophets were allowed to be (Exodus 19:20-24, Exodus 24:1-2). And what was the angel’s punishment for this? Isaiah 14:15. Sound familiar? Numbers 16:28-33.
Note that both went into a pit! In a new way that other kings don’t usually die (Isaiah 14:18-20). And we can draw one more correlation to the same entity in yet another symbol in Revelation 20:1-3. So then the porters, and the sons of Aaron, pictured the spirits of the four beasts.
And Korah pictured the head of those four beasts, the greatest one among them; the one who, therefore, was the fourth and terrible beast who “went down into the pit” for his sins.
HOUSES OF PORTERS
As has been noted, these are the four chief porters. This obviously means they have other porters under them – other angels that help them do their job. Which, if you wanted to be poetic about it, meant that these porters were “full of eyes within” (Revelation 4:8).
And since eyes are symbols for angels (Revelation 5:6), that each “beast” had a host of angels under his authority! These winds, then, are the spirits who put their spirits into the whirlwinds (wheels) underneath them (Ezekiel 10:17).
Which, of course, we already know to be true; as you learned in the last lesson, the four beast angels are chief of the twelve which includes them, who in turn are chief of the seventy. And like those seventy, the porters were ALSO over the host of the Lord – the armies of God! (1 Chronicles 9:19).
What’s more, these four chief porters were named Shallum (retribution), and Akkub (insidious), and Talmon (oppressor), and Ahiman (my brother is a gift); one thing you immediately notice, on seeing the English versions of their names, is that they’re all pretty awful names.
I mean, these are names you give your kids if you want them to grow up to be comic book villains. So it’s odd that the chief porters have such atrocious names, unless they are angels God wasn’t too fond of – those who, for example, built the four beast empires He was going to destroy!
So seeing them as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse isn’t hard, when you compare them to the meaning of your average Hebrew name (God is good, gift of God, deliver me, etc.). It is probably possible to draw a correlation between these names to conquering, famine, pestilence, and death if you tried hard enough.
The best of the names is Ahiman, and he isn’t even named for himself – his name praises his brother! Possibly indicating that he was the one of the four who repented… the one who accepted that his “brother” of the 70, the Lord, “was a gift”? And of the four horsemen, the only remotely positive thing was the “conqueror” – the one who overcame?
Regardless. We do know that the porters of David’s time were of the tribe of Korah, and since it said that all Korah’s house died in the pit, these must be sons who stood apart from their father’s rebellion (Numbers 16:24-27, Numbers 26:10-11).
Sons who, therefore, left his house. Thus, they have already proven themselves capable of rebelling against an evil father. Because remember: the temple pictures the universe as it will be, while the tabernacle pictured the universe as it was.
So these individual sons of Aaron, porters, winds, etc., may come and go, but their bishoprick will always exist; even if God kills two of them and their brothers have to pull double duty for awhile, He will always seek to restore the pattern as soon as possible.
HEAVENLY PORTERS
There is an enormous amount of work to be done behind the scenes in the temple, and these porters were in charge of all of it; everything except the actual sacrificing and stuff done in the holy place (1 Chronicles 9:26-34).
They received the tithes and counted it; they kept track of the stores of all the holy things. They disposed of garbage and prepared the shewbread and baked it; they did all the menial tasks, to free the priests to minister to God – since that was why God had given them the Levite camps, whom the porters replaced (Numbers 18:6-7).
In the same way, an enormous amount of work has to happen to make the universe run, and to move God’s plans forward. We take it for granted that it just “happens”, but these chief porters, and the “many eyes” who are under them, are tasked with doing most of it (Revelation 15:6-7).
Note that the beast – one of the porters, probably the chief porter – gave them each one of the vials, from the Greek phiale. Interestingly, though our English word “vial” is a direct borrowing from the Greek word, it couldn’t be more different from a Greek phiale. A vial means, to us, a tall slim cylinder; to the Greeks it was a shallow bowl like the picture at right.
This is what John saw in his vision, more or less; the Greeks used these as wine glasses (crazy, right?); but knowing their purpose, and knowing that this was the temple John was seeing in Revelation 15, turns out we already knew exactly what these vials are, for Moses made them for the temple!
Exodus 37:16 (GWV) For the table he made plates, dishes, bowls, and pitchers to be used for pouring wine offerings. All of them were made out of pure gold.
This was upon the table of shewbread (verses 10-16), which therefore also held the drink offerings. So if John saw a golden bowl being handled in the temple in heaven, it was these golden bowls, the only golden bowls that existed in the temple, which were made for pouring and drinking wine offerings!
So why did the porter give the seven these bowls? Because it had been his job to prepare it, just as it was the job of the seven to offer it! (1 Chronicles 9:28-29). So OF COURSE it was one of the four beasts who handed the wine offerings to the seven angels; because that was, and had always been, his job!
Thus the seven last plagues that the seven angels pour out are simply wine offerings poured out of the temple of heaven! Offerings prepared for them by the four beasts/porters! Which of course, is what God told us if we’d just listened; for these vials were full of the WINE of the wrath of God (Revelation 14:8-10)!
So OF COURSE they were the wine offering bowls from the temple! So when the beast gives one of the seven a wine-offering bowl full of “the wrath of God”, it means that this wine somehow correlates to the wrath of God.
And what does wine represent? Genesis 49:11, Isaiah 49:26. Thus, Jesus gave us His blood to drink in symbol as wine (1 Corinthians 11:25). Thus, these bowls – if we reverse the symbol in the temple – are meant to keep track of blood.
For God returns the wine/blood people shed back onto their own heads (Ezekiel 23:31-34) and makes them drink of what they served others (Revelation 17:1-6, Revelation 16:19). Thus these drink offerings picture that recompense being delivered, the blood they shed being poured out on them (Luke 11:50-51).
WINE OFFERINGS
According to that last verse, God has been keeping track of all the blood that was shed on Earth since ABEL! (Isaiah 26:21). But the interesting question is… how has He been keeping track of it? And where?
God knew, in the time of Abraham, that the sins of the Amorites were not yet filled (Genesis 15:16). Note how the idea of “full” is used to reckon sin, implying a volume – as in, how full the vial is. So how, exactly, does God keep track of the Amorites’ sins?
People are far too willing to gloss over questions like this with magic phrases like “He just DOES”. But why does God need servants in His temple if He just DOES and KNOWS everything and IS everywhere? Angels exist for a reason, and they have a real function – a SERVICE that God uses them for! (Hebrews 1:14).
Having said that the four beasts are the four porters, and knowing that the Earthly mirrors the heavenly, the question is answered simply by remembering that it was the service of these chief porters to prepare and keep track of all the things in the temple, with specific reference to the wine in THESE GOLDEN BOWLS!
But how exactly are the angels involved in that? Well, we know that the Amorites had not yet shed enough blood to fill the golden bowl. But Sodom had! And how did God find out? Genesis 18:20. He had HEARD about, but not seen personally, the sins of Sodom from these two ANGELS who took Him to see for Himself!
And we know that their destruction was specifically done to give us an example of what the end times will be like (Jude 1:7). Like in the end times, those “who sighed and cried for the abominations” received a mark (Ezekiel 9:4-6, Revelation 7:2-3).
And Lot was one of those who “was vexed with their deeds” (2 Peter 2:6-8). And like in the end times, the city was not hurt until they were safe (Genesis 19:22). Note that the angel could not do anything until Lot was safe. Why? Because the four beasts were forbidden from hurting the Earth UNTIL the righteous were safe!
That tells us that this angel was one of the four beasts, or at least one of his underlings – not one of the seven. The other angel might have been of the seven – but this particular one was a beast angel. A demon angel. One obedient to the Lord in executing righteous judgment.
But notice why Sodom was destroyed: “the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD” (verse 13). In like manner, the sins of Nineveh “came up before the Lord” (Jonah 1:2). Their bowl was almost full, the beast angel informed him; in 40 days at this rate, it would be full (Jonah 3:4).
The Lord could either prepare fire and brimstone for them, as He had for Sodom, or warn them to repent because His patience was wearing thin. And, being merciful and “not willing that any should perish”, did His best to warn them (Jonah 4:10-11).
And what do you know? It worked! (Jonah 3:5-10). It didn’t work when Sodom’s bowl was full, and Lot tried to get them to repent (Genesis 19:7); it didn’t work when Israel’s bowl was similarly full and the Lord sent many prophets (Jeremiah 25:4-7)… but it worked in Nineveh! (Matthew 12:41).
DRINKING THE OFFERING
Jonah’s message was probably given about 800 B.C., and Nineveh didn’t fall to Babylon until 612 B.C. Which means Jonah must have not only convinced them to sin less, for even with less sin they couldn’t have lasted that long without being destroyed with so little space left in the bowl.
In addition, the Lord, impressed by their repentance, must somehow have made their bowl last longer. No conceivable change in their habits could have taken a bowl with 40 days’ sins left in it, and made it into a bowl that would last for 200 years!
So somehow the bowl was emptied; and the most obvious way of doing that – the easiest way to empty the bowl, and one consistent with the metaphor – is to drink of the offering bowl Himself. That is, after all, why it existed (Numbers 28:7).
Read Deuteronomy 32:36-39. Note how, in the context of the Lord judging His people – and the bowl of wine represents the sins which need judgment – the Lord references other gods who drank the wine of their drink offerings.
The implication is clearly that the LORD needs to drink their wine offerings in order for Him to “be their protection”. Thus, if the Lord your Elohim drinks your wine, you are forgiven; if you offer it to the other Elohim and they drink your wine… let them try and save you.
Again in Psalms 75:7-8, also in the context of judgment, the Lord has a cup in His hand – “he pours out of it”, and the wicked “drink the dregs of it”. The translation is difficult, but again to be consistent with the metaphor He pours the good stuff off into His mouth, and tosses the sediment at the wicked.
Remember, the wine represents sin. And making people drink it means making them pay for those sins (Jeremiah 25:15). Logically then, if the Lord Himself drinks it… then HE pays for your sins. But the priests are strictly forbidden from doing that (Leviticus 10:9, Ezekiel 44:21).
Note that this specifically includes both Aaron (and the seven) and ALSO the four sons of Aaron (the four winds/beasts). Because no priest is qualified to forgive sins; only the Lord (Mark 2:7-10), and the heirs of the house of Melchizedek, His house, which excludes priests of the Lord (John 20:23).
WE are allowed to drink wine, as Jesus did (Luke 7:34). Because it is the job of our house to forgive sins, but not of the house of Levi, whose job was to report sins and to cover them with blood. And so when the Lord receives a drink offering, He sniffs it; He swirls it, looks at the legs.
Then He drinks the “just” wine, the blood that deserves to be forgiven; and the bitter, cruddy stuff on the bottom He throws at the guy who made it. Just like any wine snob does to this day. #goldenruled. And the more of it the Lord declares “sewage”, the worse the punishment will be of those who made it.
And apparently, those golden vials in Revelation are box wine.
GOD IS WATCHING
Most people assume God just “knows” everything. But what if He doesn’t? Or more importantly… what if He doesn’t bother to know everything? (Isaiah 59:1-2). Sure, God could find out anything He wants to; all He has to do is ask an angel, or go there Himself as He did with Sodom.
So sure, God could do anything He wants to. But why have servants if you’re going to do every boring task yourself? For that matter, what use are the saints to Him in the resurrection if He is going to insist on micromanaging every facet of the universe forever?
Consider verses like Matthew 10:29-30. How does God know? Is it really worth His time to keep a running tally of the hairs on billions of people? But they ARE counted. Is it worth His time to keep track of the populations of sparrows? (Luke 12:6-9).
Or consider Psalms 50:11. Does He know every ox in the world… or does He have people who do that for Him? I suppose He could do it but really… is that something that needs done perfectly, that He can’t trust anyone else to do it for Him?
Or does He rely on angels to tell Him things like this? Note particularly that the angels are in the context there in Luke because this is their job. We know for a fact that God’s eyes are “in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).
This is how “the ways of man are before the EYES of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings” (Proverbs 5:21). But we know that the seven angels are the EYES of God! We also know that the four spirits – four beasts – are likewise “spirits of God”, and are likewise full of eyes of God!
So God is not personally in every place… Because He doesn’t need to be! He has people in every place “beholding the good and the evil” and then relaying the important things for His personal consideration. At least… the things they believe to be important.
Do not all the “eyes” wait on Him? Psalms 145:13-16. They wait on Him so that He can satisfy the desire of “every living thing”!
PRESERVING KNOWLEDGE
We’ve talked about the role of the eyes of God many times in the past; but what we haven’t stressed before is that these “eyes” not only behold the good and evil… they also PRESERVE KNOWLEDGE OF IT! (Proverbs 22:12). Both the bad things, and the good (Malachi 3:16).
Notice that a book was written in front of Him – but therefore, not BY Him! So when the righteous do well, or evil, the “eyes of the Lord” preserve knowledge – by writing it down! So when it says that God knows all the stars by name… how does He know? Psalms 147:4.
Don’t miss the dual meaning; yes, there are a jaggity-bajillion actual stars which are named and counted SOMEWHERE, by SOMEONE. But this also means that the angels, the OTHER “host of heaven” (1 Kings 22:19) likewise are counted and named by someone…
And since the host of heaven is the host of the Lord, whom does the Bible say keeps track of these things? (1 Chronicles 9:19). Thus it is the job of the porters of heaven to keep track of the stars, and the stars. For the porters, the beasts, are “over the host of the Lord”.
And if the Lord needs to know something about a certain one… He has only to ask one of the four spirits who is always “standing before the Lord of all the Earth” (Zechariah 6:5). One of our angels who do always behold the face of God! (Matthew 18:10).
Those angels who record whatever you to do their little ones in their houses, and make an account of every idle word that men say! (Matthew 12:36)… to be used in the day of judgment. Like, you know… drops in a golden bowl in the temple.
DIVINE VOICEMAIL
But the angels also note righteousness – even when it annoys them to do so (Job 1:6-8). Because their job is to behold the good and the evil. To prepare the wine and the oil, which as I’ve said before pictures your righteousness. And also to prepare the incense!
Which is how the good likewise “comes up before God” (Acts 10:3-4). God didn’t see Cornelius, a Gentile, praying to Him (Ephesians 2:12). He didn’t hear him because there was a wall of separation between them!
Which we now know to mean a camp of beast angels over his nation, hiding God from them and them from God! Which is why it says the prayers eventually “came up before Him”, brought there through the chain of command of the angels responsible for Cornelius’ house!
Cornelius was not one of the Lord’s people, not part of His inheritance. And yet His prayer found its way to the Lord. And yet note the phrasing “it came up before Him”. Which means that a different angel, the angel under whose authority he was, noted his praying to the Lord and passed it on to his own lord.
To prove this is how it really works, consider Revelation 5:8. These beasts and 24 elders each had phiale – bowls– full of the prayers of the saints. Which means once again, that there is a volume of prayers, and that a bowl can be “filled” and, when filled, must be offered to God.
And as with the bowls of wine, in Revelation 8:3-4 we see the seven angels, plus one who must be the high priest himself, “and to him was given much incense”. Given by whom? By the people who have ALWAYS prepared the incense! 1 Chronicles 9:29.
Note once again, this job of the 4 porters had once been done by the 4 sons of Aaron (Numbers 4:16). So we can infer, with confidence, that the incense was given to the angel in Revelation 8 by one of the beasts, probably the chief porter beast, as it always had been.
Regardless, note the phrasing in Revelation 8:4; the prayers “ascended up before God” because the angel offered it to Him. Precisely the phrasing used for Cornelius and Nineveh, in both a good and bad way.
Thus, this angel is choosing to pass these prayers, having been thus prepared, before God. Note I said “prepared”, for these spices were “beaten small” in Leviticus 16:12-13, which is a direct parallel of the events in Revelation.
If the spices were the prayers of the saints, what would “beating them small” mean? The most obvious answer is condensed and edited versions of people’s unnecessarily long-winded prayers, so that God can read the bottom line without wading through hours of “bless this and bless that, thank you for this and that”.
This is a radically different look at prayer – for we are examining the networks by which prayers pass to God’s ears. And not all of them do. Like the rest of us, God has people whose names are in His phone; people whom He answers instantly, day or night, no matter what He is doing.
And like us, all the other numbers He doesn’t recognize get declined, and go to spam. If they leave a message, His secretaries go through them and see if there’s anything that actually deserves His attention. That process might take days or weeks before He gets around to clearing out the inbox.
And those angels who just pass on all prayers, even ones that shouldn’t be considered, waste God’s time; which gives another way of looking at Leviticus 10:1-2. Perhaps one of the reasons they were killed was because these two of the four were particularly bad at discerning which spices were worthy, and smelled nice… and which prayers were a stench in His nostrils? (Isaiah 1:13-15).
THE PRACTICAL ASPECT
In real terms, then, we are saying that the four porters, and the rest of the seventy, are the “eyes” that filled the four beasts. That the rest of the thousands or millions of daemon-angels under them make up the heads of the four beasts; and the humans they rule make up the bodies of those beasts in Revelation 4:6-9.
And so when Sodom sins, an angel notes it. Not just any angel but the angel who has received, as his inheritance, Sodom. The angel whose house it is to manage and monitor. That angel tells his boss, who tells his boss (insert as many ranks as necessary), and eventually it winds up at the desk of the chief porter, who tracks it in a ledger of some sort, symbolized as a bowl of blood-red wine.
In this fashion then, each time a man sheds blood, a drop of wine is added to the bowl labeled “God’s wrath” on the table of shewbread in God’s heavenly temple. And when the bowl gets full of the sins of the Amorites, or Nineveh, or Babel, or Sodom, and so on…
Then the porter angel takes it to the priest, who then offers it to the Lord for final judgment (Exodus 18:19-26). And so He judges it; did the angel keep track of the sins properly? Do these people deserve the judgment thus passed on them by the four winds, and confirmed by the seven spirits?
And if the Lord agrees that the wine is good, that there is no grace or mitigating circumstances to ameliorate the sins, then God commands the angel to pour the wine back on their own heads (Revelation 16:6; see also Jeremiah 2:19, Proverbs 1:29-31).
And this wine, thus poured out on the heads of those who shed it, “quiets his spirit” (Zechariah 6:6-8). Just as good wine does for any of us. For remember – the spirit is the fraction who wants justice. And if the Lord is angry at someone, sending the war-chariots of the four beasts to cause many of them to die – symbolically, pouring out wine on them – calms His spirit down.
A UNIVERSE RUN BY ACCOUNTANTS
And yet this concept makes the four most powerful angels on Earth, after the seven spirits of God and the high priest himself, seem like glorified accountants. Am I really saying that the four spirits that stand before the Lord, the eyes of the four beasts, are just bean-counting number-crunchers?
Not at all. Think about it; what is the fundamental job of a civil government? To enforce righteousness. How do you do that… if you don’t keep track of it? If you don’t have a record of your laws, and a record of the violations of those laws… what are you governing?
Do you know what the earliest writing was? The origin of the squiggles on clay and sheepskin? Taxes and offerings. The earliest writing, around the world, was meant to tally money levied by the government; to keep track of offerings given to the priests.
Thus government as such only exists because that same government employs people to write things down, on a permanent medium that cannot easily be changed later (initially, fired clay) so that these documents can be used as witnesses against later infractions.
If I give you an order, then a year later you break it, you can say “no, that’s not what you said!”, and it’s your word against mine. But if I carve that order onto a stone, like the code of Hammurabi, if you break the law, I can prove to you what the law said.
Likewise, if we agree to a price for a land, or wages, we can both remember it wrong a year later and have a dispute. But what’s written on stone or clay is proof. And as it happens, nearly half of the code of Hammurabi involves contracts.
So a beast empire can only exercise its power by counting. By keeping track of laws and offerings, of revenues and crop yields, of the names of those in authority and those who own lands; of the inheritance of power and of money. This is all done by accounting.
Yes, a king exercises power and expands his territory by his army. But without accounting, who pays the army? Without accounting, who knows what taxes to gather from the people? Without accounting, who knows who has made an offering to your gods?
Without writing who knows the accomplishments of the king? Or the greatness of his glory? Who knows what the king expects of them, or what the gods of the king promise them for obedience to his great cause?
So no, the beast angels are not glorified accountants. Governmental power, all governmental power in history, is, at the end of the day, glorified accounting. Thus, glorified accountants are automatically beast angels. Their job is to note the suffering of widows, and execute judgment (Psalms 82:3). They note it – but often do nothing about it, apparently.
THE WINE OF ANOTHER
Thus the angels whom God charged with preparing the offerings, the spices, the wine and bread and oil, are – by virtue of the job that they have – the same angels whom God has charged with watching for sins and noting righteousness; rewarding the just and punishing the wicked.
Which is why He is so angry at those who have failed to do so, those angels whose scales use unjust weights in their measurement of sins (Leviticus 19:35-36, compare to Daniel 5:23-28). Note that they were specifically misusing the vessels of the house of the Lord by DRINKING WINE out of them (verses 2-4).
God used these metaphors about measuring and weighing because the heads of these kingdoms are accountants who have glorified themselves and are drinking wine out of the vessels they were supposed to offer to God.
Remember: the Lord poured out wine on the heads of those who deserved punishment. Then He, and HE ALONE, drank it – for He alone could take their sins into His broken body and forgive their sins. But here Belshazzar, the human head of the first beast was drinking HIS wine out of HIS bowls!
Since the human head is a puppet of sorts for the angelic head (Daniel 11:1), this means that this angel was taking it upon HIMSELF to forgive the sins of his people and not simply passing the bowl of wine up to the Lord for judgment.
But remember: this is one of the four sons of Aaron, in symbol. Meaning that this angel is one of the tribe of Aaron, and thus a priest – and who is SPECIFICALLY forbidden from drinking the wine when he exercises the office of a priest!
It is not his job to forgive the sins of his people; it is his job to note them, his job to punish them. And so this particular glorified accountant lost track of the job he was sent to do (Daniel 5:23) – and forgot to keep a just hin, a just ephah, and a just weight so that the Lord’s vials are filled justly.
And instead, just drank the wine himself out of the Lord’s vials, so the Lord wouldn’t destroy his people. How did that work out for him? When he ceased to keep proper track of the Lord’s wine, he ceased to be a kingdom.
And what was the very first thing the head of the next beast did? Start accounting properly!
Daniel 6:1-2 (GWV) Darius decided it would be good to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom. Over these satraps were three officials. Daniel was one of these officials. The satraps were to report to these three officials so that the king wouldn’t be cheated [out of the tax revenue of the provinces].
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
These chief porters, and their millions of underlings, are charged with keeping track of things, noting the good and evil of a person, of a people, of a nation. And when it gets too much, and the cup of wickedness runneth over, God has to either drink it, or more likely, pour some of it back on their heads.
On the other hand, when the righteousness of a person, a people, or a nation become too great, their righteous acts have to be acknowledged. And these angels keep track of that, too. The eyes of the Lord are roaming over the whole Earth for exactly this purpose.
So every one of the menial jobs in the temple corresponds to a very real job that, right now, an angel is doing. When an angel prepares wine, he is tracking the evil done by people. When an angel prepares oil, he is tracking the good done by people.
When an angel prepares incense, beating it small, he is keeping track of the prayers of the people in his house. And when that angel gives it to a priest, a messenger of God, that angel offers it to the Lord and the prayer comes up before Him.
When a human porter counts the tithe in the temple, somewhere in heaven an angel notices the houses, lands, jobs, friends and so on that you have given up for the Lord’s sake, and the help you have given to your fellow man for the Lord’s sake, and notes a credit towards your heavenly bank account. Because there is literally a storehouse of these things being made in heaven for you (Matthew 6:20).
We know the porter angels receive and count the wheat, grind it and sift it and form it into bread (1 Chronicles 9:29-32). But we also know that Satan does that! (Luke 22:31). Which makes Satan one of these porters, as well – in charge of sifting the saints and preparing them for baking! But we’ll come back to that in the future.
And when these loaves are baked, it represents our spiritual bodies being created; for we know that Jesus’ body was a loaf of bread (Luke 22:19); which mean ours must be too (Hosea 7:8). Thus, if the angels are preparing loaves for us, it pictures the “body thou hast prepared for me” (Hebrews 10:5).
For if the names of the saints were at that time written in heaven, it means someone WROTE their name in a book in heaven (Luke 10:20). And Jesus was on Earth at the time! All of these jobs were still being done in heaven because they had never been Jesus’ job! Which means it must have been written by the angel with the inkhorn (Ezekiel 9:2-3, 11).
And in that same book is not merely our name; but both the specifications and preparations of the body that we presently have on this Earth, and the body which is being prepared to go with our name (Psalms 139:14-16).
Read it closely; who saw our imperfect substance on the Earth? Who wrote it all down? HIS EYES!!
And do you know what is just FULL of eyes? Those four BEASTS!