Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #12 of Revelation 2, and we are presently looking at Revelation 2:10:

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

We are moving on in this verse as we look at the statement, “…the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days…”  We wonder, “What period of time is God speaking about?” 

We know this is addressed to each of the angels of the seven churches, and as the Lord speaks to the seven churches, He is talking about positive things and negative things that He sees in them during the church age, the 1,955 years that went from 33 A. D. to 1988 A. D.  He had some very harsh and negative things to say because during the church age there were wheat and tares growing together.  But He also had some good things to say due to the presence of His true people, the elect, within the churches.

We know that Satan was active in the congregations during the church age, the time in which he was bound.  The Bible tells us that he was “bound” at the cross in 33 A. D. for “a thousand years,” a figurative period of time that represents the entire church age.  Even though Satan was bound, it did not mean that he was inactive because of what we read in these chapters in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, and from what we read elsewhere in the book of Acts, all of which took place after the cross at the beginning of the church age.  Satan was very active in opposing the true Gospel.  And he was active in the churches and congregations of the world.

At the end of Revelation 2:9, it spoke of those “which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.”  He was overcoming churches early on by the method of sowing tares among the wheat, as the revealing parable in Matthew 13 teaches us.  He was infiltrating the churches and congregations by placing his people (unsaved individuals from his kingdom of darkness) within the churches as deacons and elders, and so forth.  That is why the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was such a problem, and God hated it because since it was not a true doctrine.  It was a lie, and Satan is the father of lies, so this doctrine had its root in him.  So Satan was active.

As we look at this verse, the Lord says, “…the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days…”   We understand that the number “ten” points to completeness, so we have to look at the possibility that this refers here to the completeness of the church age, and that the devil would somehow cast some of the Lord’s people into prison in order that they be tried, and that would occur over “ten days,” or over the completeness of the church age.  That is one way we can look at this.

But there is another way we can look at this, and that is to follow the method we always use to understand Scripture, and that is by searching the Bible to find out if we can find something that relates to and identifies with this verse using similar words or ideas.  When we do that, we do find something that relates to this verse in Daniel 1, a chapter in which Daniel and his friends were in Babylon, having been taken captive out of Judah. 

Let us think about that first.  They had been taken captive.  They were not there out of their own free will.  Who took them captive?  It was King Nebuchadnezzar, ultimately, who took them captive.  He was the ruler of Babylon.  He was the one who decided to assault Judah, conquer it, and bring the Jews to Babylon as captives.  So Daniel,  Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego were four young Hebrew men who were captive in Babylon against their will.  Why is that important?  It is important because of what it says in our verse in Revelation 2:10: “…the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried.”  Babylon was a place of captivity, and a prison is a place of captivity, so we can see how being held captive in Babylon could tie in with our verse and the idea of being “cast into prison.”

The second thing to think about is that it was the king of Babylon, ultimately, who brought Daniel and his friends to Babylon where they were held captive.  So we could say that the king of Babylon cast them into prison.  We could say that, but how would that tie in with our verse in Revelation 2? 

Once we realize that the king of Babylon was the one who took Daniel and all the Jews captive, we remember that God likens the king of Babylon to Satan, the devil.  It says in Isaiah 14:4:

That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

Then God begins to speak of other things, but all in the context of the statement that it is a parable about the “king of Babylon.”  As we read along, it says in Isaiah 14:12-14:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

We do not have to read too many verses to see how this description of the king of Babylon fits Satan.  This describes Satan’s desire to be like God, and we see parallel language regarding Satan, “the man of sin,” in 2Thessalonians 2:4: “…so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”  Satan is typified by the king of Babylon, so when King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against Judah historically, God was using that assault as a spiritual picture of Satan’s assault at the end of time when he was loosed from his being “bound” for that thousand years, and he came against the churches and congregations to accomplish God’s purpose of bringing destruction to the New Testament churches.  So that is the second thing that ties into Revelation 2:10:

behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison…

And in Daniel 1, we find that Daniel and his friends have been cast into Babylon by the king of Babylon.  Or to put it another way, it spiritually points to Satan casting them into prison, and it is a picture of the Great Tribulation when the Lord loosed Satan to come against the churches of the world to carry out God’s judgment against them.

And that would be another tie-in to Revelation 2:10:

…behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days…

It says, “and ye shall have tribulation,” and we know that “tribulation” was normative for Christians throughout time, as the Lord said in John 16:3: “In the world ye shall have tribulation…”  Therefore it could apply to the children of God during the church age.  That is true, but there was also a special program of God at the end of the church age when He would bring judgment against the congregations, and He identifies that period of time as the “little season” of  “great tribulation.”  Sometimes God refers to the Great Tribulation simply as “tribulation.”  It says in Matthew 24:21:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

The word “tribulation” is Strong’s #2347.  It is the Greek word, “thlipsis,” and when God adds the word “great,” it is “megas-thlipsis.”  But notice what it says in Matthew 24:29:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened shall the sun be darkened…

This is the same Greek word, “thlipsis,” but God does not call it “great tribulation” here, but He just says, “…after the tribulation of those days…”  He sometimes uses the word “great” with it, but He can use just the word “tribulation” to refer to this period of time.  In a parallel passage, it says in Mark 13:19:

For in those days shall be affliction…

This is Strong’s #2347, the same Greek word “thlipsis,” and it could have been translated as “tribulation” rather than “affliction,” but the translators chose to translate it as “affliction.”  Again, it says in Mark 13:19:

For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.

It is essentially the same verse as we read in Matthew 24:21, but the word “megas”  is absent.  God did not include that word, and yet He was speaking of the same period of time (Great Tribulation).  In our verse in Revelation 2:10, it just uses the word “tribulation,” the same word, Strong’s #2347.  It does not say “great tribulation,”  but it says, “…and ye shall have tribulation ten days…”   That is, there would be a period of time representing the completeness of tribulation, and this would apply to the Great Tribulation, and God actually does speak of the Great Tribulation during His address to the church at Thyatira  in this same chapter in Revelation 2:20-22:

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. 1  And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

God did warn the churches.  As He spoke to those at Thyatira, He was speaking to all the New Testament churches as a whole.  If they were not obedient and faithful, they would be cast into “great tribulation.”  So in our verse in Revelation 2:10 God is also providing a similar warning: “…behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days…”

So let us go back to Daniel 1 because we have not read these verses.  It say sin Daniel 1:9-10:

Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs. And the prince of the eunuchs said unto Daniel, I fear my lord the king, who hath appointed your meat and your drink: for why should he see your faces worse liking than the children which are of your sort? then shall ye make me endanger my head to the king.

Let me stop and explain that Daniel and his friends were Jews.  They had a “diet” they were to adhere to, as God had commanded the Jews not to eat certain foods.  But now they were in Babylon, a Gentile nation that did not have that command, and the Gentiles ate many things the Jews could not eat.  So Daniels and his friends purposed in their hearts that they would not defile themselves with the portion of the king’s meat or the wine which he drank.  So they went to the prince of the eunuchs who was favorable to Daniel, and they asked that they might not eat this food, but the prince of the eunuchs was troubled and worried that his life would be endangered.  Then it says in Daniel 1:11-12:

Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days…

Let me stop for a second to say that the word “prove” is also translated as “tried” in some places in the Old Testament, and that is very interesting because it could read, “Try thy servants…ten days.”  And remember that in Revelation 2:10 it said, “…behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days…” 

So here we have two more elements that match our verse.  We have a relationship with the idea of “prison” since Daniel and his friends were being held captive in Babylon.  And we have a match with the devil casting them into prison  because King Nebuchadnezzar, a type and figure of Satan, who ultimately was responsible for casting these young men into Babylonian captivity.  And now we have a match for being proved (tried) for ten days.

And we do not find this tie-in with anything else in the Bible, so I am fairly certain that God is instructing us through these connections about how we are to understand Revelation 2:10. 

Again, it says in Daniel 1:12-16:

Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king's meat: and as thou seest, deal with thy servants. So he consented to them in this matter, and proved them ten days. And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat. Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat, and the wine that they should drink; and gave them pulse.

So we have several things that relate to our verse in Revelation 2:10.  And notice the concluding statement of Revelation 2:10:

…be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

Certainly it was faithfulness that marked the desire of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  We could say that it was faithfulness that marked their entire stay in Babylon, or the completeness of their time in prison.  It was marked by an outstanding desire to obey God, and the ability to keep God’s commandments.  It would not be too much later when the three young Hebrew men refused to bow down to the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they were cast into the fiery furnace.  And it would not be much later when Daniel was recognized by the king for his constant faithfulness. 

I think with all these connections, we can see how Revelation 2:10 is actually a verse in which God is declaring to the churches what would happen when He would come to visit at the set time at the end of the church age, and He would see that they were not faithful.  So God began to judge them, and He turned them over to Satan, and as a result of that action, Satan was used as an instrument to judge the churches, and He also used Satan to try His people during the entire Great Tribulation period.  Certainly that was a very trying period of time for the saints of God.