Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #20 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we will be looking at Revelation 13:10-12:
He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
I will stop reading there. We had taken a bit of a detour from Revelation 13 because God spoke of the “faith of the saints,” both here in chapter 13 and in chapter 14. It is a very similar statement in chapter 14. In both cases the place is “here,” or in this place: in chapter 13, the time and place is the Great Tribulation and in chapter 14, the time and place is Judgment Day on the world. Here, the patience of the saints will be tried. “Here,” the faith of the saints will be shown and will become evident and it will give God glory. “Here,” through the end time judgments of God: first, upon those called by his name, the New Testament churches and congregations; and, secondly, upon the world itself – the nations of the world and all the unsaved peoples of the earth.
Since God emphasizes the faith of the saints in both these chapters in the context of the Great Tribulation and of Judgment Day, we went to Matthew 21, where the Lord Jesus cursed the fig tree and speaking to His disciples, He said they would not only do this but (also), “if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.” Incredibly, we saw how God, in just a few verses in Matthew 21 (verses 18 through 22) laid out his entire judgment program. He laid out, in parabolic language, the judgment on national Israel when Christ cursed the fig tree and he laid out the judgment on the New Testament churches that came at the time of the end at the start of the Great Tribulation, He also laid out, for all to see, the final judgment of the world and the judgment on Babylon, the kingdom of Satan.
It really is amazing. I have read those verses, possibly hundreds of times, and you have probably read it many, many times. It “stands out” and it is very interesting language – there for all the world to see throughout the New Testament church age. It was written in the 1st century AD and we are now in the 21st century, so for almost 2,000 years God’s program was laid out. First, He had to deal with national Israel and that would happen when Christ went to the cross and the veil of the temple was rent in twain; the fig tree was eternally cursed. Then God had to deal with the churches, which Israel typified and, therefore, the fig tree can also represent the corporate church. God would bring judgment on them similar to the judgment He brought on Israel and that was done at the beginning of the Great Tribulation when God ended the church age, removed His Spirit from them and pronounced an eternal curse on the churches. They would be fruitless from that point forward, just as Israel was fruitless from the 1st century AD and thereafter. Finally, God brought the last judgment, the judgment on “Babylon” or the judgment on the world, which the people of God would be instrumental in executing, as the Bible says that Christ comes in judgment with His saints and they will cast, by faith, the “mountain” into the sea. It is really a testimonial and witness from God to the fact that He will perform spiritual judgments on the churches and on the world at the end of time through opening up these things in the Scriptures to His people and that is why it is said to be done by faith: by faith, you will “curse the fig tree,” and by faith, you will say to the mountain, “Be thou cast into the sea.” Again, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
So how do we prove these things? We go to the Scriptures and we look at Revelation 9. We look at Revelation 13 and Revelation 14. We look at Jeremiah 50 and Jeremiah 51 and Isaiah 24, and so forth, and we begin to pile up evidence – Scripture. The Bible begins to confirm these things and then we share it with others. And some say, “What are you talking about?” They do not see the judgment on the churches and they say, “Look, I go to church and we are gaining new members. The offerings have been wonderful and we are building an addition to the church building and it is already a lovely church building. We have central air conditioning and it is very comfortable. We are probably going to do more improvements.” They cannot see what you are telling them. They are focused on the external, corporate body and the pastor seems like a nice guy and his family seems nice and there are lots of nice people that come to the church. Everything is nice. Everything is good.
But it takes faith and the discernment of spiritual things and that is why only the wise will understand and none of the wicked will be able to understand. They cannot grasp these things, so many fail to understand the judgment on the churches, but some others understood that – they seemed to grab hold of that and we do not know why. Some intellectually understood the judgment on the churches. They intellectually understood that they needed to come out of the churches. This was probably due to the fact that they never really liked “church” to begin with or they did not want the church having authority over them. Perhaps they did not like the doctrines and they were not free to express their own ideas or develop their own doctrines. They were very independent-minded people and, yet, they had never become saved. They were independent and proud and they relished the idea of coming out from under church authority. “You mean the Bible is telling me that I do not have to go to church or partake of the Lord’s Table? I do not have to listen to the pastor or give an offering to the church? They may have understood this to mean that they could do what they wanted: “I can do what I want. I am the one in control. I am the one who determines right doctrine and wrong doctrine. I am the one that is the authority now.” But their authority is not the Bible. Again, these are unsaved people and the child of God would not have that mindset, but we are trying to understand how an unsaved individual could (at least intellectually) “agree with” the idea of the end of the church age and appreciate that, but who knows what they have been doing on Sundays? They could have been watching baseball or football or some other sport, or they could have been just sitting back and relaxing and doing what they please, with the full backing (they think) of the Word of God: “The Bible tells me not to go to church. The Bible tells me to stay out of the churches.” Of course, the Bible does not tell us we can step all over the Sabbath. The Bible tells us to remove our foot from God’s holy day, but, perhaps, these individuals did not get into those details, but they had the idea, “I am being faithful because I am not going to church.” You can see how that could be appealing to some people: “I have God’s blessing to not go to church.”
I know some people, for instance, that have never gone to church and if you would tell them, “Look, you are doing the right thing. The church age is over and it is a good thing that you do not go to church.” They would probably look at you and be stunned because they have just been doing what they wanted to do all along. If you take people with the same “heart” (never saved) and you tell them they are in the position of being outside the churches and never to return; you tell them they are not under church authority and they are on their own and it is just them and the Bible and who knows how often they pick up the Bible? How often do they spend time with God in prayer? They might get up and read a Psalm and they may pray for two minutes and then they say, “Oh, now I have done my spiritual duty and the rest of the day belongs to me.” We can see how they might like that idea. They are natural minded, independent-minded and proud in heart, so they can agree with that doctrine and they could have looked forward to that day of May 21, 2011: “Sure. Sure. I like that idea of the end of the church age and they are saying some other things about May 21, so I will go along with that, too.” So the day came and nothing happened as previously thought regarding the way it would happen. Seemingly, nothing happened, but God did do what He said as far as that being Judgment Day and as far as ending His salvation program; He shut the door of heaven. These are extremely major happenings, but in the visible realm nothing happened. You could not “see” anything. Therefore, many people that had joined up (because they liked the idea of the end of the church age and being on their own) were then angry. Their true nature comes forth and they are angry and they feel like fools because they did align themselves with these teachings and with Family Radio and these people. The world is mocking them and the church is mocking them and they do not like it at all, so some of them retreat quickly from the information and others retreat over a longer period of time.
However, many of them maintain the idea of the end of the church age; they like that idea, but they go back from the Biblical timeline of history; they go back from May 21, 2011 being locked in as Judgment Day. They do not “see” what we are talking about when we refer to the spiritual judgment – that is foolishness to them. It is ridiculous to them. You know, that is the reaction of some people. It is as if we are talking about “little green men from Mars” when we say that God did bring judgment in a spiritual way. They look at you in disbelief; it does not hit home with them. They fail to understand.
Remember what it says in Ecclesiastes, chapter 8: “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.” A wise man is a true believer that is made wise through the Holy Spirit and he discerns both time and judgment. We know the timeline; we know the dates, as God opens these things to our understanding. But we also know both time and judgment, so we are able to discern the spiritual nature of Judgment Day. We are able to “see” it in the Bible and we are able to believe it by faith, “the evidence of things not seen.” Yet, this is where the people that were never saved come up short. They had intellectual understanding and they understood certain portions related to the end of the church age – being on their own and being independent and, basically, doing what they please in their Christian life; they felt they still had the blessing of God because God did not want them to go to church, so there was no one to inspect what they believed or understood and that made them their own authority. These people followed along up to the point where it began to be troublesome for them, when affliction arose for the Word’s sake. Then they quickly retreated. They did not have the “faith” or the spiritual eyes to see.
But God’s people were granted spiritual eyes to see and they continued on, understanding and believing these things; they are able to discern both the time and the nature of the judgment. They understood how a spiritual judgment explained so many things. They understand how God could bring these events to pass as a snare upon all the inhabitants of the earth, as it says in Luke, chapter 21. It explains how Christ could “tarry.” We looked for Him on May 21, 2011 and we looked for that destruction, but it did not happen. Yet, He did not “tarry.” He did, in fact, come on that date as the Judge, and He will come on the last day of this period of judgment. The prolonged nature of Judgment Day also fits with Scripture – it fits and harmonizes with what the Bible says. Yet it is resisted by many because they cannot see it with their physical eyes.
Let us just look at one last thing concerning casting the “mountain” into the sea, in Genesis, chapter 7. This is the “flood chapter,” when God warned Noah that in seven days He would bring the flood. Then seven days later, on “the seventeenth day of the second month” of Noah’s calendar the flood came. We have learned that God makes a tie-in in 2Peter, chapter 3. First, God discusses the flood in the first part of the chapter and in the last part of the chapter He starts talking about the end of the world. Right in between the discussion of the destruction of the world by the flood and the destruction of the world by fire, the Lord gives us that verse: “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” He placed this verse very precisely in the midst of the destruction of the first world by flood and our present world by fire, so we could see the tie-in regarding the number of days spoken in the warning given to Noah: “Yet seven days…” That was true historically, but, spiritually, God was saying, “Yet seven thousand years and I will bring the final judgment to destroy the world.” A day is as a thousand years and exactly 7,000 years from 4,990 BC, in the year 2011 AD, the Great Tribulation came to an end. That 23-year Tribulation came to an end, which was exactly 8,400 days long, on May 21, 2011, which had the underlying Hebrew calendar date of 2/17. That was the date on which “the seventeenth day of the second month” had fallen in Noah’s day. It was the date that fell seven days later from the date God told Noah – God told Noah on the tenth day of the month and seven days later was the “seventeenth day of the second month,” and the flood began. Exactly 7,000 years later on “the seventeenth day of the second month” of the Hebrew calendar, which correlated with May 21, 2011 in the Gregorian calendar, God shut the door of heaven and began to judge the world, just as He had done 7,000 years earlier. We read in Genesis 7:17-18:
And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth..
The Bible likens the waters of the flood to the Word of God in 1st Peter. The word “prevailed” is a word that means “victorious.” This is picturing judgment upon sinners. God’s Word had warned sinners in the days before the flood through Noah, the preacher of righteousness. Over the course of 7,000 years of history, up until 2011, God had warned people through His Word that they were to seek Him while He could be found. The Word of God declared the judgment of God and at the time the judgment comes (first, with the flood and, now, at the time of the end of the world), the Word of God is triumphant or victorious. That is why it is said that the waters prevailed, in Genesis 7:19-20:
And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
The “mountains” of the earth of that day were covered. We do not know how high they were, but the waters of the flood rose to a point of 15 cubits higher than the highest mountain, however high that was. The mountains were probably not as high then as they are today, since after the flood there would have been some mountain building. But however high those mountains were, the waters of the flood went above and covered them and the waters prevailed; that is, the Word of God prevailed over the mountains. And that is exactly what happened 7,000 years later.
The Bible speaks of Babylon as a mountain that is cast into the sea. The judgment of God comes upon the world, the kingdom of Satan which is typified by Babylon, and Babylon is thrown into the sea. The waters cover over Babylon and Babylon sinks down into the depths of the sea, picturing the wrath of God and above it are the triumphant waters that represent God’s Word, the Bible. The Bible foretold these things. The Bible warned the world about these things. God sent His people forth to proclaim to all the inhabitants of the world and all the nations that they had until May 21, 2011 to seek the Lord. Up until then, He could, perhaps, be found (from man’s perspective). There was an opportunity to go to God and beseech Him for mercy. But then would come the wrath of God and the shutting of the door, as the ark’s door did shut on the “seventeenth day of the second month” of Noah’s calendar. God shut the door on the “seventeenth day of the second month” of the Hebrew calendar, which had the underlying date of May 21, 2011. Judgment commenced and the wrath of God has cast Babylon into the sea. God’s people “see” it and God’s people believe it, by faith.