The Revelation of Jesus Christ
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a part of His program which He had not up to that time revealed. The translation of the church and the peculiar characteristics of the church age were revealed later through the Apostle Paul. When the Word of God refers to anything as a "mys tery," it does not mean something hard to understand, but simply some truth that God, in His wisdom, has kept secret until His time for revealing it. When the disciples asked Jesus, "When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age?" they had in mind the coming which is foretold in Old Testament Scrip ture, that coming when Jehovah shall take the reins of govern ment in His hands. They had in mind that day when the Son of God shall plant His feet upon the Mount of Olives, and set in motion the current that shall sweep evil and unright eousness from the face of the earth.-when He shall reign "from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." 2. Daniel's Prophecy of the "Seventieth Week." In His Olivet discourse, the Lord Jesus answered the disciples' ques tions by referring to Dan. 9:27. (Compare Matt. 24:15.) He gave them a description of the period of time which is to run its course just prior to the return of the Lord to set up His reign on earth. I do not believe that anything which Jesus said to the disciples during the Olivet discourse has reference to the church age, in which we are now living. It is, I believe, an account of what will take place during the period of time known as the "seventieth week," described in the book of Daniel, the same period which John depicts in the chapters of Revelation which we are now to consider. After describing the first half of that period, our Lord said to His disciples, "All these are the beginning of sorrows" ( Matt. 24:8). Then He went on to add: ''When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place ... then shall be great tribulation" (Matt. 24: 15, 21). That period of time consists of seven years, divided into two parts of three and one-half years each. The first period of three and one-half years is "the beginning of sorrows"; the second half, the great tribulation period.
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