Today’s topic is going to be a phrase that I read just a few weeks ago. I have read this a couple of times in the Old Testament in my daily reading as I go through the Bible. It struck me, so I decided to dig a little deeper into it to understand what it really meant and what it was talking about.
The phrase that I came across a few different times in the Old Testament is the phrase “the perfection of beauty.” I do not know if that sounds familiar to you, but that phrase is found in the Scriptures a few times. Particularly, it is found in the Old Testament.
This phrase is mostly referring to Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem, which are all references to the chosen people of God. The chosen people are typified by a physical nation, whether it be Israel, or Judah, which is the southern part of Israel, or the city of Jerusalem itself. All three, and a few others cities that we will see later on in the study today, are referred to from time-to-time in the Old Testament as “the perfection of beauty.”
When we hear that phrase, if you are like me and you see that in writing or you read it out loud, you think that that is a good connotation. When you say this to someone or if you were to say this to someone—for example, if a husband said to his wife, “Honey, you are the perfection of beauty”—that is a huge compliment. Basically, it is talking about the pinnacle of beauty, the ultimate, there is no blemish; you are the perfection of it and it cannot get any better.
This is a wonderful phrase, but, unfortunately, as God uses it over and over again in the Old Testament, we see that it is used as a lament over what something once was, sadly. So it is something that was perfect in beauty, in a certain way or form or type, and then, suddenly, it lost its beauty and there is a great lament over it.
A great picture of that might be to go back 45 years in history, or so, in Hollywood. If you remember, Marilyn Monroe was elevated as probably the most beautiful woman in Hollywood at that time. She was cut off right in the middle of the height and the peak of her career through a drug overdose and suicide, and a great lament was made, at least amongst people who were moviegoers at that time in this country, her fans, certainly Hollywood. Or the president back then, John Kennedy. He was cut off at an early age. Camelot was what they referred his presidency to, from 1960 to 1963, before he died. At the 45th-year anniversary of this, there was a great lament made over John Kennedy. He was not only physically attractive as a man, but he also spoke very eloquently, and he was just cut off by a sniper and there was great lament made.
But let us take a look at how God uses this term for the nation of Israel and Judah and Jerusalem, the city itself, to see, really, what we can learn from that. Psalm 50 is the first place that we will pick this phrase up. In Psalm 50:2-4, we read that God says:
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty…
So there is the phrase and it is modifying Zion. There is a comma after the word Zion:
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
So who are the chosen people in the Old Testament? I said it earlier. They were the nation of Israel. In this case, Zion, which is another term for Jerusalem or Israel itself, “the perfection of beauty.” And then it says here, unfortunately, two verses later, after all of this fire that is going to happen in the next verse and it is going to be very tempestuous, that God “may judge His people.”
God is calling them “the perfection of beauty,” but He is going to judge them, so it seems to be an anomaly that that would be the case. You are using the phrase “perfection of beauty,” but in the next token, on the other side, you are going to cut it off; you are going to judge it.
Well, that certainly is a seeming paradox, but let us take a look and see why and what builds this up. Lamentations is the perfect book to lament, as the word lamentation means to have a great lament, a wailing, a crying over something that was lost. We use that phrase sometimes to describe the environment at a funeral; great lamentation is made over someone who has died.
Lamentations 2:1-3 says:
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel…
You see the good terminology used here to describe Israel: beauty, His daughter. And then He says here:
…and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
So we are back to God being angry with Zion.
The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down…
That is a key phrase:
…he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof. He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
So what is similar in this passage that we just read with Psalm 50 about the “daughter of Zion,” this beautiful daughter, this “perfection of beauty”? What element did we see that is common? We see judgment. In particular, we see the fire here. Do you see the fire that we read in verse 3 of Lamentations 2, that flaming fire coming after them and they were thrown down in verse 2?
Go to verse 15 of the same chapter in Lamentations. It says there in Lamentations 2:15-17:
All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty…
There is our phrase again.
…The joy of the whole earth? All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it. The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down…
There is the phrase again, thrown her down.
…and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
So we see negative language with “the perfection of beauty.” Jerusalem was lifted up as “the perfection of beauty.” We will see why in a moment, but what we are seeing here is that every time we read the phrase “the perfection of beauty” or “the beauty of Israel” or the beauty of Jerusalem or Zion, we are seeing in the same breath that God is talking about judging her and lashing out this great fire against her or throwing her down.
What happens if you are physically beautiful? What is the huge temptation, whether you are a man or a woman? Pride, because you get a lot of adulation and attention from other people, do you not, if that is the case? Pride can really bubble up and lift you up to say, “Wow! I am so good looking, physically.” God is using that analogy here to show that pride is what happened to Jerusalem, to Israel, to Judah, to Zion.
The word “perfection,” as in “the perfection of beauty,” is Strong’s #3632. I am just going to read three passages in Ezekiel that talk about perfection, and let us see why Judah, Israel, or Jerusalem, was called “perfect.” For a moment, forget about the fact that pride was lifted up. Why was she called “perfect”? Why was she not just beautiful like others; she was, actually, the perfection of it?
The first verse in Ezekiel is in Ezekiel 16. We will start in Ezekiel 16:1-2 to get the context:
Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
So what are we talking about here? Stay with me on this. What are we talking about? It is verse 2—Jerusalem. The subject matter of this chapter is Jerusalem:
…cause Jerusalem to know her abominations…
So God is speaking to the prophet Ezekiel to send a message to Jerusalem, “I want her to know the abominations that she has committed.”
Alright, let us go on then and read in verse 8, Ezekiel 16:8:
Now when I passed by thee…
This is Jerusalem; again, the subject of the chapter.
…and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
This sounds like Prince Charming coming along to sweep a girl up off her feet to marry him.
Ezekiel 16:9:
Then washed I thee with water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil.
So picture Prince Charming coming by, in our earthly analogy, to pick up off the ground someone who is dirty, physically in blood, whatever that would all mean, the connation of just being in despair and in a tough situation, certainly not anything glamorous. But this prince comes along and lifts her up and says in verse 10, Ezekiel 16:10-12:
I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.
So what is happening here to Jerusalem? Though found in blood and very unappealing, God has dressed her up with these beautiful ornaments and these jewels and this crown, finally, in verse 12. And then verse 13, Ezekiel 16:13:
Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver…
And at the end of verse 13, it says:
…and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.
So God did this to them and, all of a sudden, Jerusalem prospered in beauty.
Ezekiel 16:14:
And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.
So why was Jerusalem perfect: It was through what? It was through Him. It was through the Groom. It was through God Himself, because He said here:
…for it was perfect through my comeliness…
A lot of times, we said it earlier, if you are very attractive physically, not only do you have attention from other people, but you are going to have a lot of friends who want to be associated with you. Why? It is just the nature of people. Especially when you are in school, this is what happens. If you are good-looking, you are very popular. If you are a girl, all the girls want to be your friend because they know that you will get a lot of attention and they feel good being with you.
And that is what happened here. God is saying that because He was “the perfection of beauty” and because He was over them—He was the One who put His Spirit over them and betrothed them as His wife in a covenant that He made with them—that is why they were beautiful. That is why they were perfect; it was through Him.
Then verse 15 talks about the consequence of their pride. Ezekiel 16:15:
But thou didst trust in thine own beauty…
So God is saying that they trusted in their own beauty:
…and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by…
So what happened was that it went to her head. Jerusalem had all of this beauty from God. It was not necessarily physical. It was really a spiritual perfection in that they were God’s people as long as they followed His commands and His covenant, but what happened was that their pride was lifted up.
Remember in Solomon’s day? There was nothing like the nation of Israel. It was the most wealthy nation on the planet. It had the wisest king and man who had ever lived, save Jesus Christ when He finally came along and said, “Behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” But they fell mightily from that point, because what happened to Solomon at the very end of all of that? Solomon was as close to perfection as we could find, with his intellect and his physical appearance and the glory that he received from people, the peace in his kingdom, all of the wealth in Israel. But what happened at the end of Solomon’s life? What was his downfall? He turned to the idols of his many wives, and they were his ruin. God said that He was not going to punish Solomon during his lifetime; but in his sons’ lives, He would rend the kingdom. So that is what happened, even to Solomon, and that is a great lesson for us.
Another example in the Bible of this perfection is in the same book of Ezekiel, but in chapter 27. Let us start in verse 1. Here we are going to see a different city that is called “the perfection of beauty.” It is not going to be Israel, Judah, or Jerusalem at this point, but it is a synonym for what it is pointing to today. Ezekiel 27:1-2:
The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus;
So we are lamenting once again. What happened? Ezekiel 27:3:
And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty.
So now there is another city. It is called Tyrus and they are saying, “I am the perfection of beauty.” Okay, what is it pointing to then? Why is God calling Jerusalem “the perfection of beauty,” Judah, Israel, and now Tyrus?
These nations and these cities are all repeated where in the New Testament? In the book of Revelation, and they are a picture, a word picture, an analogy of who or what God’s “perfection of beauty” was after He was done with Israel.
When Christ came and the veil of the temple was rent in two when He hung on the cross, where did He turn His affection? He turned it away from the nation of Israel and He turned it towards the New Testament church. So the New Testament church became the new “perfection of beauty,” but it did not last long, which we will see in a moment. So Tyrus here is a picture of that ultimate New Testament “perfection of beauty,” just as Israel, Jerusalem, and Judah are.
Let us go to one more chapter, chapter 28 of Ezekiel, in verse 11. Ezekiel 28:11-12:
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
So now God is talking, once again, to Tyrus, and He is saying, “Alright, you are the one who said that you are the perfection of beauty.” Ezekiel 28:13:
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering…
Now pay attention to what I am going to read here, because I am going to go to Revelation afterwards and we are going to see similar language. That is why these books tie together. It is not just because we see Tyrus or Jerusalem, but we are going to see the same exact language here, which is why we are making that leap and saying that the New Testament church was also God’s “perfection of beauty” when He turned His attention away from Israel in 33 A.D.
But here in Ezekiel 28:13, we read about:
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold…
Look at verse 14, Ezekiel 28:14:
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth…
Verse 15, Ezekiel 28:15:
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
So what is God saying here? What is “the perfection of beauty” really? When did it occur? It occurred when God married this woman in blood, as we read earlier, who is a picture of Jerusalem whom He picked up and gave all of these jewels and crowns, but in the beginning was when there was this “perfection of beauty,” until verse 15. What ruins it?
Marilyn Monroe had an incredible career in Hollywood 45 years ago and what ruined it? The drugs, the overdose, her life was taken, gone.
Verse 15 says, Ezekiel 28:15:
…till iniquity was found in thee.
So she was perfect in beauty until one thing happened. When iniquity was found, then the beauty began to wane and it was gone.
That is a sad picture whenever we see that in our modern world. A year ago, if you were in the supermarket, you could not avoid all of the magazines, right at the checkout, with Britney Spears. It was in the news for months because of all of the problems that she had, that young musician who is adulated as such a perfect beauty, I guess, in the music world and in Hollywood, and yet she had all of those problems with substance abuse and things. It just turned ugly for this young girl.
But that is what happens. When iniquity is found, then the beauty begins to wane, and then, all of a sudden, God is beginning to talk here about fire in verse 18 of this chapter. Ezekiel 28:18:
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore…
What is God going to do:
…therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
So there are consequences to turning away from that blessing.
Now, I said earlier, Tyrus was a picture of the New Testament church. Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel are all pictures of “the perfection of beauty.” But then, eventually, they were judged. Every time we read that there was a great lament, fire was going to destroy them. God was going to judge them because iniquity was found in them.
What happened in the book of Revelation? Let us go to Revelation 2 and pick this up in verse 1. Revelation 2:1:
Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
Let me ask you a question before I go on. Is God going to talk good or bad about Ephesus here? Both. Revelation 2:2:
I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil…
So far, it is good.
…and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Another good thing that He says about them. Revelation 2:3:
And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
Again, very good things are being spoken about Ephesus. Revelation 2:4-5:
Nevertheless…
Nevertheless—a key word there.
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
When was this book written in history? About when? 90 A.D.; only about 60 years after the cross. So Christ was talking here to the Apostle John about how wonderful this church of Ephesus was in the very beginning, but what did we read in Ezekiel 28:15:
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
And it did not take long for God to say here in Revelation 2:4:
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast…
Not because you will but:
…because thou hast left thy first love.
You see, that is looking back at the past. They have already left their first love, so God is already chastising the new “perfection of beauty,” the New Testament church, only 60 years after it was started.
Now we are 2,000 years into it. Do you think it got better? It did not. We are under this impression that the church had this great beginning and it went on. Okay, there were the Dark Ages in Europe around 1000-1200 A.D. and then all of a sudden the Renaissance came and then suddenly the great Reformation in the 1400’s and 1500’s and 1600’s in Europe.
But God is saying here that they left their first love. They got lifted up and pride took over once again and haughtiness.
Remember, we said earlier that Tyrus in Ezekiel was a picture of the New Testament church? Let us go to Revelation 18 and show the same language with all of those beautiful jewels that God had given them to make them beautiful. In Revelation 18:10, He is going to use a different word, but it is the same language with the stones, except that cinnamon is replacing the city:
Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
So the word now is Babylon and not Tyrus. Revelation 18:11-13:
And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones…
That is the language that we read in Ezekiel 28 about Tyrus. It continues:
…and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense…
Etc., all the way down to the end of verse 13, which says:
…and souls of men.
And souls of men; who was entrusted with the souls of men? The church. The New Testament Church.
We are seeing here that God is weaving in parallel language to Ezekiel 28, but He is helping us understand that it is the New Testament church that is being chastened by God. The judgment has come because of what we saw earlier, the lifting up of pride. They were perfect through His comeliness, as we saw Jerusalem in the Old Testament. But in 60 years or even less than that, they had already turned from their first works and started committing iniquity.
So now, let us to go to the New Testament. In Matthew 23, Jesus is foreshadowing the end of time, and He says in Matthew 23:37 what it is going to be like. Again, let us pick up the language of the city, this “perfection of beauty,” in verse 37, Matthew 23:37-38:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
What does “desolate” mean? It means “without inhabitant,” and why it is desolate is because God has removed Himself from it, and that is what He did to Jerusalem when the veil of the temple was rent in two. It happened to Jerusalem in 587 B.C. when the Babylonians destroyed Judah. It happened to Israel, the northern kingdoms, in 709 B.C. when the Assyrians destroyed them. Many times, God sent judgment, and, finally, He left the house desolate, but now He is saying:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets…Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
And the very next chapter, Matthew 24:1, starts:
Jesus went out, and departed from the temple…
So what is the insinuation there? He departed from the Jewish temple and that was showing that they were getting cut off. Then the very next couple of verses talk about the end of time, which is tied into the temple, because the New Testament church is likened by the temple of Jerusalem.
Matthew 24:1 continues:
…his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple.
Then verse 2, Matthew 24:2:
And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
What did God say in Lamentations about “the perfection of beauty” and Jerusalem and Zion? Because her beauty caused pride to be lifted up, what happened? He said, “You will be thrown down,” and then He talked in Lamentations about the fire that would come and devour them. So the same language is being used here of being thrown down, and we know that that is a picture of the end time because of Matthew 24:3:
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
He had just talked about the temple being thrown down. He was not talking about 70 A.D. The disciples made it clear:
Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
So that was a picture, a foreshadowing of the New Testament church that was going to be thrown down finally after its iniquity because of its pride, and it is thrown down; it is desolate. Remember, He said, “Your house is going to be left unto you desolate and you are going to be thrown down. I am going to leave you and you will be thrown down. You were once the perfection of beauty, but no more,” and because of what? Because of sin, and pride was a big part of it.
We went to Revelation 18 before, but let us go back to Revelation 18:17-18:
For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!
In other words, it is another way of saying, “What is more beautiful than this? Is there anything more perfect in beauty than this great city?”
Revelation 18:19:
And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
That is not talking about New York City or London. It is talking about the church. That is what was beautiful, but she is made desolate. Remember, Jesus said in Matthew 23, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets, but your house will be left unto you desolate.”
Here, we are seeing in Revelation that the tie-in is that they are left desolate. The church is being left desolate. He is leaving the church. We read at the end of Revelation 18:21:
…Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
Remember what Matthew 24 said? Jesus said, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,” and we are reading here that they are left desolate. Babylon is left desolate. The New Testament church, the picture of that “perfection of beauty,” is left desolate, and it is an “abomination of desolation.”
Why is it an “abomination”? Because once God’s comeliness is removed, they are left with that abomination. Remember the picture in Lamentations of the Jerusalem that was in blood and God came and put His skirt over her and gave her all of those jewels and a crown and made her beautiful and called her then “the perfection of beauty”? But when He is no longer there, they are just abominable. The abomination of desolate means that they are empty. They are just an abomination. There is no beauty whatsoever. Now there is nothing good at all.
Well, we know that the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem was foreshadowing the end of the Church Age. Remember, they were left desolate. Let me just look at Jeremiah 22 real quick at one or two verses there, because we are just going to tie it together to prove and show that this is the nature of the end of time, that it is a lamentation over “the perfection of beauty” becoming ugly, so-to-speak. It is a great lament over someone young and beautiful just being cut off in death through sin, through a sad tragedy. But here we see in Jeremiah 22:1:
Thus saith the LORD; Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
He talks in the next couple of verses about, “If you do no violence or spoil the hand of the oppressor or do no violence to the fatherless or the widow, things will be well, and upon the throne of David, there will always be a king riding a chariot in and out of the city.” Then He says in verse 5, Jeremiah 22:5:
But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation.
That is the key word that is woven over and over in and out of the Old Testament and the New Testament. That is what ties these together, the desolation, because they did not follow His commandments. That is why Ephesus, though lifted up in the first couple of verses in Revelation 2, was then chastened, because He said, “Nevertheless, I have found that you have left your first love.”
So here we are seeing that they are not following His commands, hence the nation of Judah was destroyed, and in Jeremiah 25 is when this whole destruction comes. We read in verse 1, Jeremiah 25:1:
The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon;
And what we see in this chapter is all of the judgment that came. Jeremiah 25:8-9:
Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land…
That is what happens. God is bringing the enemy against them. In this case, He is bringing Satan into the church. He is allowing him to “stand in the holy place.” He leaves, so Satan has free rein and he is not being suppressed by God any longer to stay out.
In all of Jeremiah 25, we see this in Jeremiah 25:17-18:
Then took I the cup at the LORD’S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me: To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation…
So, we see it again. God starts with Jerusalem. Read the rest of chapter 25 in Jeremiah and you are going to read about all of these other cities and nations that also get the judgment, but it started at Jerusalem, “the perfection of beauty,” because they had become ugly and abominable through their sin, so God left them.
To tie it all together and to really bring an end to this study, we are saying that “the perfection of beauty,” through God’s comeliness, was Judah, Jerusalem, Israel, even Tyrus, that merchant city, and God left them desolate and He destroyed them with fire and He judged them because they had turned from their goodness to iniquity. Pride had taken over.
We now will leap into the New Testament and see some similar language, and we say, “Well, the New Testament churches are now ‘the perfection of beauty.’” So let us prove this.
If you were taking an English test or a literature test and someone said, “Read Revelation, chapters 1, 2, and 3, and in one sentence, tell me what the context of the whole book is,” what would you say?
God is speaking to the seven churches, in Asia Minor, in particular, in particular, to be exact. You cannot get around that. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 in the book of Revelation, if you had to summarize them, it is God speaking to the seven churches of Asia Minor. And in all the cases, He talks about some positive things and then He brings in the negative about them.
So the context of the whole book of Revelation is the churches. To be able to say that the book of Revelation then is not about the New Testament church is intellectually inept, because that is what the topic and subject matter of the whole book is. The whole three chapters from the starting point are dealing with the seven churches of the New Testament that had begun in Asia Minor and were chastened by God because they had left their first love. Remember that “the perfection of beauty” is from the beginning until iniquity is found in them, as we read in the Old Testament over and over again.
Now let us do a thumbnail sketch of the next two chapters. Revelation 4:1-3:
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
So what is chapter 4 talking about? The first three chapters are on the New Testament church that had begun in that day. Chapter 4 is on God’s throne and all who are around it. That is the rest of the chapter. Chapter 5 is now talking about Christ opening up seals. Revelation 5:1:
And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.
And in verse 5, Revelation 5:5:
…Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
So chapter 5 is talking about Christ opening up the seven seals, which have to do with judgment.
The first three chapters are on the church. Chapter 4 is about God’s throne and the people around it. Chapter 5 is on these seals that were tight and sealed for all of these years and Christ finally opens them. And in chapter 6 in Revelation, as we move through it, what do we read? Revelation 6:12:
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
This is all about God’s wrath at the end of time. Where do you think the wrath is pointed? What is the context of the book of Revelation? It is the seven churches which are a type of the New Testament church, “the perfection of beauty,” which had already begun to go awry and astray in a mere 60 years after they were started.
God’s wrath is being pointed at the churches and we can lock that in because in Jeremiah 25, where did God’s wrath begin? It began first with Jerusalem, then the rest of Jeremiah 25 talks about all of the other nations of the world that got His wrath. The same thing here in the book of Revelation. You cannot get away from these common analogies; the tie-ins are lock-solid.
So we see here that obviously the book of Revelation is about God’s wrath on the churches. Regardless of the timing of the end, you cannot refute the fact that the end will be characterized by God judging the churches first and then the rest of the world, ending in judgment. We are very privileged to have a huge advantage in understanding the timeline of history and when these things will happen, the fact that they are happening right now.
Let us close with this final lament, because “the perfection of beauty,” so beautiful to look upon, so pretty and pleasant to the eyes, but yet a lament over the fact that it will no longer have that beauty. Matthew 5:48, really, I think, summarizes the whole lesson today. It is in one verse. I am going to read it and you are going to say, “What does that have to do with what we just talked about?,” but you will see. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus is speaking this beautiful sermon and He says:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
You see, with a lot of things in life (someone said this earlier), when it first starts out—for example, you start a marriage, you start anything, you start as a young baby—it seems like it is just perfection. It all starts off beautifully and then, suddenly, you have your first problem. The child has its first temper tantrum, you know, all of these types of things in life, whatever they may be. But here, Jesus said:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
He is commanding us to be perfect and since we cannot be and are not, what happened in the Old Testament to “the apple of His eye,” “the perfection of beauty”? They turned. They went to sin and pride and were judged. With the New Testament church, “the perfection of beauty,” finally, sin took over real quick.
What is the key way to look at this? Is it them out there? Well, it is the New Testament church, but it is also you and me. So “we,” not “they,” we have made a mess of what was perfect in God’s eyes. He calls us to be perfect. We cannot be, so we make a mess of the whole thing, and He finally judges it. He finally brings fire upon it and wrath and it is left desolate when He leaves. It is no more beautiful. It is totally desolate and it is a thing to lament over.
But we can be thankful, because, again, you and I were all part of this. I was in the church eight years ago and beyond. We were in the church when God was judging the church, starting in 1988, as we understand from the timeline of history. We were all part of it.
So it is not “they.” It is we who have made a mess of His perfection, His comeliness, “the perfection of beauty”; hence, we are being judged. But we are being called to come out and to seek Him through mercy, asking Him to have mercy upon us, not to judge those people out there and “Thank You for what You have done for me.” No, it should be, “Lord, have mercy upon me. I do not deserve anything.”
This whole mess is finally going to be done with in a little over two years and it will start all over and “the perfection of beauty” will not just last for that little short start time, maybe 60 years or less, but the new heaven and the new earth will be a place wherein dwells righteousness, so it will be a “perfection of beauty” for all of eternity. What a blessing to hope for and to look forward to. Amen.
John: Alright. Before we close with a hymn, does anyone have anything to add or subtract or ask? Jared.
1st Question: Another couple of verses to add to your arsenal. Isaiah 3:16-26, where it talks about the haughtiness of the “daughters of Zion” and it goes through all of the different types of jewelry that the “daughters of Zion” wore and how it would be taken away and the stink would be given.
John: Yes, that is good, just looking at the beginning, with the same language of all of those jewels and things.
1st Question (continued): Yes, going all the way down then to verse 24, Isaiah 3:24:
And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
John: That is great. Do you all see the tie-in there with what we studied with the fire? Very good.
1st Question: You mentioned also that when it talked about the thing of beauty, the word fire was also used there, and we read of “burning instead of beauty.”
John: That is an excellent summary. Thanks, Jared. That really is. That is really good. Lester.
2nd Question: When the church loses its beauty, does that mean that it is not faithful anymore?
John: Remember what Jesus said in Revelation 2 to Ephesus, Revelation 2:4-5:
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love…repent…or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick…
God gave the New Testament church about 2,000 years to repent from that error of leaving His truth, but then He finally did remove Himself in 1988, as we understand from the timeline of history. He removed Himself from the church and left it desolate, so that is why. He gave them plenty of space to repent. He gave “us,” not “them,” us, I am part of it, too, and we did not and He finally commanded us to come out because He is judging it. So He says to come out or we will be part of that fire and that burning.
Anybody else? Greg. One more? Isaiah?
3rd Question: He wants to know why the moon was turned to blood? We read that in Revelation 6.
John: Yes, we did. Why was the moon turned into blood? I do not know, Isaiah. I know that there are a couple of different ways to look at that and I am not schooled enough on that topic to be able to answer authoritatively, so I am going to defer. I bet your daddy knows though. I bet you do.
Alright, let us close with a hymn.