In Revelation 5:8-9, after the Lamb has taken the book that could not be opened by any other, the four beasts and twenty-four elders fall down before Him and...
When Moses was distressed because of the greatness of the task of leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, God commanded him to gather seventy elders to help him carry the burden (Numbers 11:16). Moses gathered the seventy round about the tabernacle and the spirit that was on Moses rested on the seventy (Numbers 11:24-25).
The Book of Numbers describes the layout of the tabernacle and the encampment in the wilderness. The tabernacle faced eastward toward the rising of the sun. If you were to go inside of the tabernacle and look out to the east you would see Moses (the prophet), Aaron and his sons (the priest), the tribe of Judah (the king) and the sun. Could it be that from God's viewpoint in the tabernacle He saw the future work of the Son of God? Jesus Christ is the prophet, priest and king and according to Malachi 4:2, He is the "Sun of righteousness". In addition to this we can see that the work that Jesus did during His earthly ministry was that of a prophet. In His death, burial and resurrection, He preformed His priestly work. When He comes again in Revelation 19, He will be coming as a King establishing His throne and when He is ruling and reigning, truly, He will be the "Sun of righteousness" with healing in His wings.
Gary North, in "Millennialism and Social Theory" (p.136-137), demonstrates the worldly outlook of the Christian Reconstructionists. He labels those who disagree with his postmillennial doctrine as "pessimillenialists." That is, they are pessimistic because they do not believe that Christians will conquer the world before the physical return of Christ. One of the greatest faults he sees in premillenialists is their conviction that Christians should be looking for the return of Jesus Christ. According to him: "Christians were told to look skyward prior to the fall of Jerusalem... But their deliverance came in history... That one-time deliverance of the early Church is today long behind us. It is surely time for Christians to begin lookingforward, in time and on earth, for their deliverance, not upward." He even scolds an amillennialist for saying, "Come, Lord Jesus, come."
In the 1780's, the Baptist pastor John Leland was fighting against Virginia state taxes going to support the Episcopalian clergy. One clergyman argued that they had to have the tax income in order to have the time needed to prepare for sermons. Leland responded that he could expound the scriptures without special preparation and the Episcopalian challenged him to prove it by preaching on a text provided just before the sermon. "Leland went into the pulpit and was handed a text which proved to be Numbers 22:21, 'And Balaam saddled his ass.' Mr Leland first commented on the account from which the text was taken, and then said he should divide his subject into three parts: 1st, Balaam, as a false prophet, represents a hireling clergy; 2nd, the saddle represents their enormous salaries, and 3rd, the dumb ass represents the people who will bare such a load." Quote taken from "How Satan Turned America Against God" by William P. Grady (p.159-160).
