Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #24 of Revelation chapter 19 and we are going to read Revelation 19:17-21:

And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.  And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study we were discussing the similarity between the “marriage supper of the Lamb” and the “sacrifice” God often speaks of in the Old Testament when He is describing Judgment Day.

We saw that the language of the Bible concerning eating the body and blood of Christ related to His sacrifice at the point of the world’s foundation when He died as the sacrificial offering for the sins of His people.  That provided the Gospel which was to be partaken of in the sense that the people God had chosen unto salvation before the world began would be drawn to God through His Word.  In so doing, they would “eat the flesh of Christ” and “drink the blood of Christ.” 

As we said before, Jesus did not use the word “flesh” in Luke 22 or 1 Corinthians 11.  He referred to eating His body and drinking His blood. Here in Revelation 19, God speaks of the “marriage supper of the Lamb” or the “supper of the great God,” which is Judgment Day.  Remember, the Old Testament language identifies with the supper.  When God destroyed “Gog and Magog,” which is the identical picture to Satan and his forces, God referred to it in Ezekiel 39 as: “my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you.”  Again, let me read it in Ezekiel 39:17-19:

And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.

God is indicating that the “death” of Satan and the forces of his kingdom of darkness is the “flesh” and the “blood” that is to be partaken of by the “fowls” of the heaven.  This is a very similar idea to the true Gospel of the Lord Jesus; it is the Gospel the Bible lays out when it speaks of the sacrifice, who is Christ, the acceptable sacrifice to God for sin.  In order to live, you must “eat” of the sacrifice of Christ and to eat of that particular sacrifice brought life.

But in the case of the final judgment of mankind, God is sacrificing the unsaved people of the earth.  He is sacrificing the wicked in order to slay them for their sin.  That is the purpose of a sacrifice.  Christ’s sacrifice of Himself was for the sins of His people.  The animal sacrifices that God instituted in the Old Testament were “signs” or Laws that God gave that were to be carried out, but the animal sacrifices could never pay for sin.  Yet, they illustrated the necessity of “death” for sin and the shedding of blood for sin.  Often the meat or flesh of the sacrifice was eaten, as God prescribed in certain cases. 

So we have Christ’s sacrifice and the partaking of Him.  The animal sacrifices were also to be partaken.  Finally, it is mankind’s sacrifice of their own lives that must be given to God; they are not doing so willingly, but it is the demand of the Law of God: “The wages of sin is death.”  Unsaved mankind must make payment for their own sins as they have transgressed the Law of God.  As God exacts payment from the sinners for their sins, it is their “offering” and it is an acceptable offering which will, ultimately, satisfy the Law’s demand.  Once God’s Law is broken, it requires payment.  It requires sacrifice and the unsaved will have to make that sacrifice for their own sins.  The Law of God will smite them and kill them and the Law will have been appeased.  The sacrifice will be received by God from each individual for their sins.

The difference between Christ’s sacrifice for His people and the sacrifice of the unsaved of their own lives is that Christ’s sacrifice was more than sufficient for all His sheep, as He paid for the sins of a multitude of sinners.  Because He is eternal God, He was able to do that.  God was pleased and satisfied and, therefore, there was no sin remaining on those Christ had died for and they were “free” to live for evermore.  They are “free indeed.”  For the unsaved, they must give up their lives and be put to death.  Since they are simply man (and not God), when they die, their death is only sufficient to pay for their sin, but they do not have the power to overcome death and rise again.  Therefore, they will remain eternally dead.  That is the payment God’s Law requires for sin and that is the payment each sinner will give, but they will never recover from it.

In the Day of Judgment, God is viewing Judgment Day as this great supper or sacrifice and, again, He says, in Revelation 19:18:

That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

The “flesh” is mentioned three times.  The “fowls” are to eat the flesh of all of these groups of people and it points to all the people of the world that had no Saviour.  They still had their sins upon them.  Compare that to what Jesus said in John 6:48-60:

I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. T he Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?

After hearing this, many of the disciples ended up “going back,” as it said in verse 66: “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.”  Christ spoke in a parable.  He was speaking spiritual truth and they were hearing words that were strange and if they took it literally, it sounded ugly.  To literally eat His flesh and drink His blood would be cannibalism and God had said in Leviticus that man was not to drink the blood and, yet, Christ said again, and again, to eat His flesh and drink His blood.

It has been reported and I do not know how accurate this report is, but it is part of church history.  Early on the Romans accused the Christians of cannibalism due to the language that was associated with the Lord’s Table – the bread became Christ’s body or flesh and the grape juice or wine became His blood.  I do not know if this report is accurate, but we can definitely see that in the wording and the “type and figure” that God uses of eating the “flesh” and drinking the “blood.” 

It is not that unusual or “off the wall” for us to understand that God has made an enormous change in the Gospel in the Day of Judgment.  The Bible is opening up information at this time regarding the “revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” and we have seen language concerning the “new wine” back in Malachi.  The wicked would be trod under foot and that word “tread under” was a word related to “sweet wine” or “new wine” and God used it in the context of the time of Judgment Day when it is the day of wrath.  There has been a major change to the Gospel.  The Gospel had been the same throughout the day of salvation as God would have mercy on whom He would have mercy.  He would bestow the sceptre of His grace to those that He had predetermined to save.  He would save certain ones as the Gospel went out into the world.  It called many, but few were chosen, but the door of heaven was open.  Toward the end of time, God flung the door wide open during the second part of the little season of the Great Tribulation to save the great multitude.  He saved the best for last and the Gospel was always the “bread” and the “wine” or the “flesh” and the “blood” of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The sinner was called to “eat His flesh” and “drink His blood,” and to partake in the sacrifice that Christ had made, if the sinner happened to be one of those for whom Jesus had died.

But now God’s salvation program is completed and the door of heaven has shut and God is no longer beckoning people to the throne of grace to find grace to help, as far as salvation is concerned.  The Gospel has changed, according to the change in “seasons” from the day of salvation to the Day of Judgment.  In the Day of Judgment, the sacrifice being declared by the Word of God to the sinners of the world is no longer the sacrifice of Christ wherein they would be called to come forth to partake of His body and His blood.  They are now the sacrifice.  God has slain them with the action of shutting the door of heaven and He has guaranteed their death and, for all intents and purposes, He has killed them.  They are simply waiting the final day of the prolonged period of judgment and they will be annihilated for evermore.  This is the Bible’s message that is being declared to all the world.  God says, “Publish, and conceal not.”  We are to prophesy again.  It is a bitter message.  It is sweet in the mouth of the people of God, but it is bitter to our stomach because there is no salvation involved in it.  It is all wrath and judgment for the unsaved people of the world and they are the ones that the “fowls” are to feed upon in the Day of Judgment.  It is the “flesh” of the spiritually dead people of the world.