The Third Woe: The Story We Are Writing

If everything was finished at the cross, and I believe it was, then the question isn't what God still has to do. It's what we do now. The third woe in Revelation is the one never written down. John heard the seven thunders and was told to seal it. That silence isn't a gap in God's plan. It's the space we're standing in.

This is the training ground. Not a waiting room for rescue, but a kingdom where we learn to be kings and priests, walking in authority, setting creation free from its bondage, being salt and light, vessels of God's hand in a world that still groans.

That devotion matters so much because of what happened in the garden. When the serpent came to Eve and she ate, they lost their rights, their authority, their friendship with God. Sin's effect is that damaging: it breaks relationship and strips authority. So this is on-the-job training, learning by faithfulness to choose God constantly, through the refining fire, so we understand what sin actually costs.

The righteousness is already there. He sets things right, and we are saved. But the fleshly part still needs to learn how to submit to the Spirit. Otherwise God could have simply said to Adam and Eve, don't worry, I'll fix it with My blood, and put us all in heaven from the start. He didn't, because the training is the point.

The cross was the event. This is the echo.

“Which was preached to every creature”

I find this verse in Colossians so interesting:

“If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;”
— Colossians 1:23 (KJV)

Was preached. Past tense, as if it has already been preached to everybody. How can that be? My prophetic understanding is that it refers to the cross: the finished work Jesus did, that specific day He fulfilled salvation. The cross is the gospel.

The word Paul uses here is ktisis, creation, not only people. The cross is the one moment in history where the gospel was preached to all of creation at once, not by human preachers but by the event itself. Paul already told us creation speaks:

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
— Romans 1:20 (KJV)

And on that day creation answered. The moment Jesus gave up the ghost, the whole created order reacted:

“And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”
— Matthew 27:51-53 (KJV)

The veil tore, the earth quaked, the rocks split and the graves opened. That was the finished work proclaimed to every creature under heaven.

“And then shall the end come”

Many people love to preach that the Lord will come once the gospel has reached everybody. These are the verses they point to:

“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
— Matthew 24:14 (KJV)

“And the gospel must first be published among all nations.”
— Mark 13:10 (KJV)

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,”
— Revelation 14:6 (KJV)

But if Colossians says the gospel was preached, as a global event at the cross, then Jesus was pointing at something just over the hill, within hours. Right before His crucifixion He was pointing to His own death and resurrection. The prophecy was never stalled for two thousand years. It was fulfilled, just like He said.

Look at the Greek. The “world” in Matthew 24:14 is oikoumene, the inhabited world of that time, the world under Rome, the specific place and time frame where Jesus was speaking. And at the cross the gospel was written for that whole world to read, nailed above His head in its three languages:

“And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.”
— John 19:19-20 (KJV)

Hebrew, Greek and Latin: the languages of the oikoumene. The gospel of the kingdom was proclaimed to the whole inhabited world in a single moment.

And the end? The end is the cross. Jesus Himself is the end:

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
— Revelation 1:8 (KJV)

He is the fulfillment of time, and on the cross He said it:

“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”
— John 19:30 (KJV)

So I don't see Jesus speaking of something a very long distance ahead. The whole idea is the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, not to take us away in flight:

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
— Matthew 6:10 (KJV)

He came again in glory, by His Spirit

When Jesus said He would come in His glory, that is the Holy Spirit, when the tongues of fire fell on the disciples. “Tarry and wait, I will send you One who will testify of Me.” That One is not some different person. It is His own Spirit, the way He came back, glorifying His church and empowering them as the firstborn among many brethren. Jesus said it plainly:

“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”
— John 14:18 (KJV)

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”
— John 16:7 (KJV)

Paul calls Him the Spirit of Christ:

“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”
— Romans 8:9 (KJV)

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:17 (KJV)

And at Pentecost He kept His word:

“And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
— Acts 2:3-4 (KJV)

Jesus did come back quickly. The coming of Jesus was through the Holy Spirit.

Like a thief, in the time of visitation

They did not know the time of their visitation. They expected glorious, exuberant manifestations from the sky, something on a white horse, and He came in a very humble way: God with us. The manger instead of a throne, a carpenter instead of a king, a cross instead of a crown. Jesus wept over Jerusalem for this:

“And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”
— Luke 19:44 (KJV)

That is why He came like a thief. They expected Him in some way, and they didn't even know He was already in the house:

“But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.”
— Matthew 24:43 (KJV)

The kingdom arrived as a Person, not a parade:

“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
— Luke 17:20-21 (KJV)

The hour nobody knows

“But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”
— Matthew 24:36 (KJV)

Even these words of Jesus were spoken about the hour of the cross: the moment He would atone, and the Father's acceptance of that atonement. That was the hour He was speaking about.

The third woe: the story we are writing

Revelation names the woes. The first is past, the second is past, and then:

“The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.”
— Revelation 11:14 (KJV)

But the third woe is never described. Just before it, John hears the seven thunders and is told not to write:

“And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.”
— Revelation 10:4 (KJV)

That is the one place in Revelation where something is sealed out of the text, and it sits right between the second woe and the seventh trumpet. The Bible gives us no written ending there, only an unknown time frame. The third woe is unmentioned because we are writing that story now. We are writing God's word by being the living word:

“Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:3 (KJV)

And one day, as Paul says, we will know Him completely:

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

A training ground for kings and priests

This is the part I hold most dear. We are not waiting to be rescued. We are already positioned:

“And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:”
— Ephesians 2:6 (KJV)

“And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
— Revelation 1:6 (KJV)

What Adam and Eve lost in the garden, authority and friendship with God, is being restored in us as we learn to choose Him, as the flesh learns to submit to the Spirit. Creation is waiting for exactly that:

“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
— Romans 8:19-21 (KJV)

So we are salt and light, vessels of His hand, setting creation free:

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”
— Matthew 5:13-14 (KJV)

Our point is to learn authority and to be like Him, so He can be Himself through us.

Jesus and the Bride

This is what the whole of Revelation unveils: a wedding. The Bridegroom has already come, by His Spirit, and lives in His Bride. The third woe, the unwritten chapter, is the Bride being made ready, learning to reign with Him, writing His story with her life.

“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.”
— Revelation 19:7 (KJV)

“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”
— Revelation 22:17 (KJV)

The cross was the event. This is the echo.