Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #7 of Revelation, chapter 6, and we are continuing to read Revelation 6:8:
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
As we read these of four judgments of God that have come “over the fourth part of the earth,” it led us back to Ezekiel, chapter 14, and I would like to read Ezekiel 14:13-14:
Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord JEHOVAH.
Four times God says this: “though these three men were in it;” that is, if they were in the earth at the time when God is judging it, they should deliver neither their own sons nor daughters (neither their own children). Well, here it says they should deliver but their own souls, but then a little further down it says in Ezekiel 14:16:
Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves, but the land shall be desolate.
Actually, we could understand it this way: in verse 14, God is making just a general, overall statement about their ability to bring deliverance to any souls – there is none. That means God is basically saying that they cannot bring the word of God in such a manner that someone out there in the world could be saved. Then He brings it closer to home, right into their families; even in their own homes, amongst their own children, they cannot deliver son or daughter.
We are going to look at this a little closer at this time. It is not a pleasant thing for us to discuss, but it is where God’s Word has guided us. No one ever said that Judgment Day was pleasant. It is not something pleasant at all and we have entered into the Day of Judgment and, as a result, there are going to be some things that are very harsh and very difficult for us to see come to pass, but it has come to pass.
This is what God is telling us in places like Ezekiel 14 and, here, he mentions three men: Noah, Daniel and Job. And He mentions these men four times; He does not mention them by name each time, but He makes reference to these three men four times to emphasize the number four and that this is a worldwide judgment. It is judgment on all the world; it is not describing the judgment on the churches.
Now, in another place, God does mention some faithful men as He describes His judgment, first on Israel and then, in turn, on the churches and congregations. It says in Jeremiah 15:1-4:
Then said JEHVOAH unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith JEHOVAH; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity. And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith JEHOVAH: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
Now, here, God is describing the judgment that He brought upon the nation of Israel or Judah and, in turn, that spiritually represents the judgment He brought on the churches and congregations at the time of the Great Tribulation when judgment began at the house of God. And in this context, notice how God refers to Manasseh, the king of Judah, but, more than that, the LORD refers to Moses and Samuel.
Now if you had to pick a couple of individuals to represent the nation of Israel or Judah or the people that identified with God’s kingdom (the outward representation of His kingdom on earth), then you would pick Moses and Samuel. Moses is the one that God gave the Law to when He delivered Israel from Egypt and then Moses continued with them throughout the forty year wilderness sojourn. Moses is so completely identified with Israel that we constantly read in the New Testament that the Jews referred to “the Law of Moses.” The Law of Moses and Israel go hand in hand.
And Samuel was also a very faithful prophet of Israel. He was a prophet at the time of the end of the judges; he was, in fact, the last judge at the beginning of the reign of the kings, as Samuel would annoint Saul to be king over Israel. The Books of 1st and 2nd Samuel completely identify with Israel.
So God chose these two individuals. They are the most faithful examples He could find of men that would represent Israel and, in turn, would represent God’s people that inhabited the churches during the church age. And, so, God says, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.” And that means that they would not be able to prevent the wrath of God from being poured out at the time of the end – when the proper season came – and the church age ended and it was time to begin the judgment; the judgment had to commence and begin at the house of God and it did not matter what faithful man was in a church at that time, or even several faithful men. No, the churches were guilty; they did not keep God’s law perfectly; they maintained their high places. So the Lord could justly bring judgment and He determined there would come a certain day and God did it.
Now in Ezekiel, chapter 14, God takes three men, as He says in verse Ezekiel 14:14: “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it,” and, again, it is referring back to verse 13 where it says, “when the land sinneth against me.” And the Hebrew word translated as land is often translated as earth. So when these three men – Noah, Daniel and Job – are in the land at the time of judgment, then “they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord JEHOVAH.” Then as we read the passage, there is nothing that mentions Israel. There is nothing that mentions an indicator that would tie it into the churches, until we get to Ezekiel 14:21, where it says:
For thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?
And, here, is not God mentioning Jerusalem? Yes, but notice He says, “How much more,” because He is indicating that Jerusalem receives “more stripes.” He just got done describing the stripes – the judgment on the world – from verses 13 through 20 and then He turns His attention to Jerusalem that would typify those that identify with Him (they are professed Christian) and “How much more” will they receive. In the Day of Judgment which we are presently living in, yes, the world is being judged, but so, too, are those that are in the churches and congregations; the professed Christians that are unsaved receive greater punishment or “more stripes.”
So verse 21 is not saying that these passages have to do with Jerusalem or the churches, but it is just language that is indicating that God is describing His wrath upon the world and then follows it up with discussion of wrath upon the churches because all are unsaved and all are going through the Day of Judgment. So, again, back in Ezekiel 14:14, the LORD points out Noah, Daniel and Job and as we discussed a little bit in our last study, you could not find more faithful men that Noah, Daniel and Job.
Noah, who found grace in the eyes of the LORD, we read in Genesis, chapter six. Noah was the man that God came to and told him He was going to destroy the world and gave Noah instructions to build an ark – a boat – and to build it upon dry land, because He would send a flood to destroy the earth. So Noah, faithfully and with much diligence over one hundred and twenty years, built the ark and, in doing so, he built it to the saving of his house and also as a condemnation to the world. So the LORD selects this most faithful of men.
Daniel was taken as a captive from Judah and taken to Babylon and in Babylon Daniel faced many severe trials and tests. Right from the very beginning he was tested as to whether, or not, he would eat the king’s meat – meat that was abominable to a Jewish man. And Daniel trusted in the LORD and he found grace in the eyes of the prince of the eunuchs, both he and his friends. And all through the Book of Daniel we read of tremendous faithfulness of this man of God as he lived in the most difficult of circumstances in an evil kingdom under an evil king. Yet he glorified God greatly.
And then there was Job, that man from the East, from the land of Uz. He was tried in such a severe way that even when we read it today we shake our heads. How could a man (and he was a real man used by God as a type of Christ) experience such grief and such loss, as God took from him great riches and took from him his possessions and took from him his ten children; all at once, all of his children died in a single day. Yet, he did not curse God; he glorified God through it. And if that were not enough, he was also afflicted with sore boils from head to toe, so that he had to take a potsherd in order to scrape himself. This was not an affliction of an hour or a day, but it was prolonged day after day and Job found no comfort upon his bed. During the night he hoped for the day and during the day he hoped for the night. He is given to us as an example of suffering patience and affliction, a true man of God and someone that God worked in greatly, in order for him to be so faithful.
Noah, Daniel and Job – what do they have in common? Why did the LORD select these particular men? Why these individuals? Why not Moses? Why not Samuel? Why not David? Why not other faithful men? Well, when we look at Noah, Daniel and Job, we find they have one outstanding thing in common and that is that they do not identify with Israel or the church at all, but, rather, they identify with the world.
Noah lived a couple thousand years before Abraham. There was no Israel at the time that Noah lived; he was an individual man of God. Yes, God seemed to work down through his family line, but Noah was just a man of the world. He did not belong to any corporate body or any people that were outward representations of God’s kingdom on earth. He was an individual man.
Likewise, Job was a man from the land of Uz, the land of the East, and the greatest of the men from the land of the East, and he had no identification with Israel and, therefore, no identification with the churches and congregations. So we can readily see how these two men would represent God’s people today that are outside of the churches and congregations, living in the world and living in the earth in the Day of Judgment, but what about Daniel?
Daniel was a Jew. He was born in Judah, so, certainly that ruins this idea that these men were chosen as a result of being a representation of someone apart from the churches. No, it does not ruin it, because Daniel was taken as a very young boy from the land of Judah. He was taken captive and taken to Babylon and the nation of Babylon represents the world. Remember that God commanded the Jews that they were to go into captivity and submit themselves to what God was doing in bringing judgment upon Judah. Spiritually, we correctly understood that to mean that we (God’s people) had to leave the churches and congregations and go to the world, the world which Babylon represented. So Daniel, from the very beginning of the Book of Daniel, lived his life in Babylon throughout the entire Book. Even when Daniel gets old and gray headed, he is still living in Babylon – he spent his whole life in Babylon. And he is a picture of God’s people that live in the world outside of the churches and congregations.
God could not have selected three more faithful men or three men that represented God’s people in the world and not in the churches. So the LORD has carefully handpicked these men to let us know (those of us that are living today at this time). “Look, when Judgment Day comes, as it did on May 21, 2011, and when I send these four judgments upon the world, even though the most faithful of men were in the earth at that time, it would not mean that anyone would become saved. It would still result in the end of salvation. The door is shut. The light of the Gospel is out. Noah, Daniel and Job cannot change that. Noah, Daniel and Job cannot convince me to open the door for any individual. They cannot convince me to, once again, shine the Light of the Gospel into the world so that other sinners can hear and become saved and the Light could shine upon them and create a new heart within them. No, this will not happen.”
It is the will of God. That is why there are three men because it is His purpose that judgment will come without mercy and there is nothing that a true believer can do about it. Furthermore, this confirms to us that the idea that because God’s people are living in the world proves that there must be ongoing salvation is completely unbiblical. There is no way that this is taught in the Bible. “Though Noah, Daniel and Job” were in the land it would not mean that God would continue to deliver individuals; it would have no impact whatsoever.
Just as today, the presence of true believers in the world does not impact God’s plan of shutting the door to heaven. It has no consequence upon it. It is just a wrong idea and, perhaps, it is an idea where some are hopeful that maybe it cannot be the Day of Judgment; and maybe they hope this way for good reason in that they desire that people would still become saved. And, of course, all of us desire that we would (as it says in Luke 16) and could “come from hence” and cross the gulf to the poor sinner that is under the wrath of God and bring the “drop of water,” but we cannot. The Bible will not permit it. God will not allow it. The Scriptures forbid it. There is no more salvation. And, here, God is emphasizing this in this passage by bringing up these three men. No, the presence of a child of God cannot impart grace; it cannot impart salvation. Only God can impart grace and only He can deliver. And when He had determined that the day of deliverance has ended, then He has shut the door and no man can open it.