The apocalypse of these last verses of chapter nineteen follows the same pattern in visions of the defeat of the hosts opposing Christ. The second Psalm decreed that thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’ s vessel, and the apocalypse declared that they were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. One of these passages cannot be considered more or less literal than the other--both were figurative expressions which signified the utter end of the persecuting authorities of heathenism against Christianity. The phrase cast alive into a lake of fire was equivalent to burned alive, and it symbolized complete destruction. The signal triumph of the cause of truth represented by the burning alive of the beast and the false prophet did not symbolize the destruction of the Roman Empire, but of the persecutions waged by the emperors, which the beasts represented. The lake of fire was not literal any more than the beast was literal. Neither was subject to literal application--both were figurative. The beast symbolized the persecuting power of the Roman emperor; and casting him into a lake of fire signified the complete defeat of the heathen powers he represented in the war against the church; and it was accomplished by the sword that proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus Christ, the Rider of the white horse. The sword was not a literal steel blade; it was the Word of God, the weapon by which the church won the victories over heathenism and idolatry; and which is even yet the only righteous weapon in the warfare of the truth against error. The last passage of this chapter verse twenty-one, was the brief vision of the defeat of the remnant which had been slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse. This remnant symbolized the enemies of Christ other than the persecuting beasts. It represented all forms of error and evil and doctrines of antichrist that stood in the way of the church. They were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse; and the text identified the sword by the modifying phrase: which sword proceeded out of his mouth --the Word of God. By his word all forms of heathenism were exposed and the enemies of his cause, in the battle imagery, were slain, or defeated. They were figuratively slain, by a figurative sword: which sword proceeded out of his mouth--that is, by the teaching of the truth and the spread of the gospel. To complete the visional and metaphorical picture, chapter nineteen ends with verse twenty-one in the final statement: And all the fowls were filled with their flesh. As the birds devour the carrion, the truth consumes every form of error inimical to the cause of Jesus Christ. The Lord foretold that this result would follow the destruction of Jerusalem in Matthew 24:31 : “ And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” The equivalent declaration of the apocalypse is in chapter 11:15: “ And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” Another parallel to this Revelation passage is the reference of Paul in Ephesians 5:5 to the inheritance in “ the kingdom of Christ and of God.” The kingdom is everlasting; the inheritance is eternal; and therefore the reign is forever and ever. These parallels between the Lord’ s account of these events in advance of their occurrences, and the visions of John in anticipation of the same series of events, have formulated accumulative evidence throughout the book, that the apocalypses of Revelation were but the extension of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew--the Lord’ s own forecast of the events preceding and subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem.