Revelation
12:12 ¶ Therefore rejoice, ye heavens,
and ye that dwell in them. Woe
to the inhabiters of the earth
and of the sea! for the
devil is come down unto you, having great wrath,
because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time.
Why the sea?
Is this referring to people inhabiting
islands of the sea?
Or are sailors also considered to be
"inhabiters of the sea", because they live for
months or years on the ships?
Additionally, it doesn't mention seas,
plural, but sea, singular.
Most of us have been taught, or
conditioned, to somehow see the word "oceans",
when the scriptures only says "sea".
Does it mean a particular sea, or seas
in general, generically?
If particular, which sea would that
be?
I imagine that most of us would
immediately think of the Mediterranean, but could
it be the Aegean?
A number of scriptures seem to be
speaking generally when using sea, but some are
particular:
Revelation 8:8
And the second angel sounded, and as it were a
great mountain burning with fire was cast into
the sea: and the third part of the sea became
blood;
Revelation
10:2 And he had in his hand a little book open:
and he set his right foot upon the sea,
and his left foot on the earth,
Perhaps the burning mountain wasn't
cast generically into the oceans of the world, but
rather into a specific location.
Also, can someone's right foot be generically
set upon the oceans of the world, or at a specific
place?
Then the next chapter starts out with:
Revelation
13:1 ¶ And I stood upon the
sand of the sea, and saw a
beast rise up out of the sea, having seven
heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten
crowns, and upon his heads the name of
blasphemy.
I was continually taught that the beast
rising up out of the sea meant that he would come
out of the nations.
They would cite the following as a proof
text:
Daniel
7:2 Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by
night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven
strove upon the great sea.
3
And four great beasts came up from the sea,
diverse one from another.
However, the other twelve times that, "great
sea", is used, it is speaking of the Mediterranean,
e.g. Israel's west border.
But, even when shown that, the temptation is
to say that sea still refers to the different
nations that those empires came from.
So if sea in Revelation 13:1 generically
means Gentile nations, then what about John?
Was he standing generically upon the Gentile
nations?
Or was John standing on the sand of the shore
of the Aegean on the island of Patmos?
If so, did he see the beast rise up out of
the Aegean?
How can we say that the first use of sea in
line one is particular, but the second is generic?
Maybe we only do that when we try to fit what
we already believe, into line one, to help support
what we already believe.
Then I read:
Revelation
21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for
the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away; and there was no more sea.
Again, I've been taught that
means that there will be no more oceans on the new
earth.
Would that mean no bodies of
water, at all?
Or would that allow for
smaller, fresh water lakes?
John had been exiled to the
isle of Patmos, in the Aegean.
From anywhere on that island,
all he saw was water.
Perhaps on a very clear day, he
could see a little of closer islands.
And maybe, on the clearest of
days perhaps he maybe could see the faint hint of
the mainland.
John was surrounded by water,
which cut him off from the brethren, and love
ones.
He could not swim the distance,
or charter a boat, as he was a prisoner.
When he was young, and a
fisherman with his father Zebedee, and his
brother, water meant fishing.
But on Patmos, water meant
separation and exile.
When I worked and lived, for 9
years on St Croix, I could only go a short
distance in any direction, and there was water.
That really got to a number of
mainlanders who went to work there, they soon
left, as they could not handle it.
Staying there was not a
vacation, it was work.
However, Calvary Baptist church
is there, and it is a great church with a great
Pastor.
John was in exile, not there to
be part of some church of Patmos, it was not that
kind of island at that time.
From St Croix, on a very clear
day, we could barely see a bit of St Thomas, 30
miles away.
I was not a prisoner on St
Croix, but it was rare and expensive to see family
and loved ones.
John had no such possibility.
Perhaps, for a while, John
thought that he would not see the brethren or love
ones again, until he saw them in heaven.
So, seeing, "no more sea", on
the new earth, may have had a particular, personal
meaning for John.
On the new earth, the saved
will no longer be separated by the sea.
The word sea is used twenty six
times in the book of Revelation, alone.
Why the sea?