# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1859_S297
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Twentieth Chapter of the Revelation of St. John. 297

understand the vexation which the devil, and his minions along with him, felt over so shameful a defeat, especially since, so far as their bodily standing was concerned, they were left fairly threadbare besides. But this torment embittered every victory and every hope of victory for them, even in the glorious period of the Thirty Years' War. The torment lasts to this day, "day and night" — proof that we must here think of no change yet in the present state of things, and at the same time a hidden indication that the kingdom of the prince of this world, though soon overthrown again, still had its days, that is, happy times of victory, such as 1547–52 and later in all lands where the Gospel became known, especially also in France at the time of the Blood Wedding, but that it could nevertheless never get over the vexation that is prophesied to it here.

And yet the devil still hopes for a turn of events that should set him and his creatures back on their feet. So it must here be said to him that the torment he already feels in the present alternation of victory and defeat will afterward give way to one

that shall last "from eternity to eternity." These last words now form the bridge to the second part of this chapter, in which, as has been said, we look behind the curtain that has just now been drawn back before our eyes. Of this latter half it holds especially true, as was mentioned earlier, that it, together with the whole close of our mysterious book, cannot be explained, because our sight has no measure for the boundless eternity that is here opened to it.

May God grant us to recognize from it as much as we need, so as to sing from the heart:

"Make heaven ever sweet as sugar to me
And this world bitter as gall,
Help that in the world's tumult
Eternity be set before me.
Ah God, I pray through Christ's blood:
Only make a good end for me!"

Verse 11 stands in contrast to verse 4. God wanted to show that He alone can build the church. The many thrones had spoiled it, and nothing else ever came of it, because there were too many men, one always wanting to be here, another wanting to go out there. Now comes One throne. It was victorious ("white"), and how great! What the pope, like a shadow standing on its head in the water, had striven after with his pomp — that appears on the shore of eternity. This throne need not be occupied either, and thereby much mischief is forestalled. Human blindness, pride, ambition for rank, devilish envy, and everything of that kind is cut off. Here already sits One whom no one disputes the throne, who also does not die. And yet another advantage. All disaster has come from this, that the earth still stood, and that the mother who offers her breasts to every child of Adam and pours in her milk first, in the end always got the most