Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #26 of Revelation, chapter 6, and we are going to be looking at Revelation 6:12-14, and we read in Revelation 6:12:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

In our last study, we were looking at the fact that the Bible, throughout the Scripture, paints the picture of Judgment Day as the day of “darkness.”  We looked at well over a dozen verses where, again, and again, and again, God was speaking of the “sun” being darkened and the “moon” not giving its light and the “stars” falling from heaven and this would bring “darkness” upon the world.

Now we can prove from the Bible that Judgment Day is a prolonged period of time; that is, when we read in Matthew 24:29 the statement, “immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened,” and we can prove, from Mark 13:24, that this situation will be longer than a “single day,” because it says in Mark 13:24: “But in those days (plural) after that tribulation.”  It is letting us know that when the sun is darkened and the moon is not giving its light and the stars are falling from heaven, it is a prolonged experience – it is not taking place in a single day: “in those days (plural) after that tribulation.” 

And after that tribulation comes Judgment Day, which means that Judgment Day is an extended period of time.  Now we do not learn from Mark 13 how long the period of time for Judgment Day would be, but from elsewhere in the Bible we have learned there is a very good possibility that Judgment Day will continue for 1,600 days, thus completing the judgment of God.  The Great Tribulation went for 8,400 days and 1,600 days added to that figure brings us to 10,000 total days of judgment, completing the wrath of God upon all the unsaved (first, on those in the churches and then following that, on those in the world). 

This is a good possibility for what God is doing and since we know absolutely (there is no question about this) that there is a period of “days” where the Bible says the sun is darkened, the moon does not give her light and the stars fall, it must be spiritual language.  That is because it is not physically or literally possible for the sun to be dark and all the events that the Bible refers to concerning the moon and stars to happen (literally) and for the world to continue for any time at all.  If those things literally happened, that would be the “end of the world.”  The world would not be able to continue on and, certainly, not for a period of “days.”  In addition, without the sun, moon and stars, there would be no timekeepers and no way of tracking time and keeping a record of days any longer, as they were created for “times and seasons.” 

So we know that God is giving us a spiritual picture.  And what is that picture?  God put the sun and the moon and the stars that lighten the world into place to teach us about Himself, as the “sun” typifies God and the “moon” is a representation of the Word of God and the “stars” are a picture of His people that carry forth that message.  They are the “types and figures” the Bible has put forth concerning the Gospel, the Word of God, which lightens the “darkness” of this world. 

This world is in the darkness of sin and corruption and it is only the Word of God in the spiritual realm that can lighten that darkness and God did lighten the darkness as He saved individuals over the course of history; and He, especially, shined a brilliant light into the world just recently during the Great Tribulation and saved a “great multitude” of people.  This was all during the day of salvation, but the Bible says, “The night cometh when no man can work.”  God joins the language of “night” with “darkness” in the very beginning, in Genesis 1:5: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.”  So it is very significant that immediately after the Tribulation, the “sun” is “darkened.”  That would bring “night,” and, as Christ said in the Gospel of John, in John 9:3-5:

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Here, the Lord is indicating that as long as it is “day,” then He will “work,” and remember what the Bible says concerning the “work of God.”  A little earlier in John, chapter 6, the Jews asked Jesus, in John 6:28-29:

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

This is the work that the Lord Jesus Christ entered into the world to perform; He is the “faith” that saves sinners.  We are saved and justified by the faith of Christ, not by our own faith and He does the “work of God” that certain ones predestinated to salvation would believe (in a saving way) through His faith.  That work is one He can only work while it is “day.” 

You know, the Bible also tells us how long the “day” lasts, in the Gospel of John, in John 11:9-10:

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

When would the night be?  Well, it would come at the end of the twelve-hour day and God gave us a parable in Matthew of a man that had a vineyard and hired laborers to work in his vineyard from very early in the morning.  They went and worked and then we are told that he hired laborers at the third and the sixth and the ninth hours.  Then, finally, he hired laborers at the “eleventh hour.”  The last group of laborers was hired at the “eleventh hour.”  The Hebrew day would start at 6:00 a.m. and the eleventh hour would be at 5:00 p.m., so he hired them to work “one hour.”  We know this is so because the other laborers complained when the work day was done and everyone was paid the same wage and they said, “We have borne the burden and heat of the day, but these last that only worked for one hour, you have made them equal unto us.”  They received the same payment. 

In that parable God is instructing us concerning the “reward” for everyone that labors in His Kingdom, in the Gospel, and we all receive the same reward of eternal life.  That is one major truth, but another truth that God is teaching through this parable is that the “work day” is twelve hours long, just as Jesus said in the verse we just read: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?”  Then He refers to “night” that follows and as He said in John 9:4, “The night cometh when no man can work.”  He is referring to Himself and how He cannot perform the work that the Father gave Him to do any longer.  And what is that work of God?  It is that “ye believe.”  Christ will perform that work “while it is day,” the day of salvation, but the “night” comes (“and the darkness He called Night”) and “immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun is darkened.”  There is darkness upon the earth, spiritually. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that God refers to the Great Tribulation period as “one hour,” that last hour that the laborers went into the vineyard and then, finally, the “day” ended.  Well, that “one hour” identifies with the “little season” of the Great Tribulation.  That is exactly what happened; God stirred up His people, like never before, and many that had been “idle” were now put to work.  They entered into the service of the Lord and went about the Lord’s business and fervently got the Gospel message out – it was the “end” of the day and God told us exactly when the day of salvation would end, May 21, 2011: it ended the Great Tribulation and ended that “one hour,” the last hour and it ended the twelve-hour work day and ended the time that Christ would work.  Now the “night” comes, immediately after the tribulation, on May 21, 2011, and continues to our present time.  Now “no man can work.”  Christ is not working; He is no longer working in His people to get the Gospel out that people may become saved.  That work is done and now we are in “darkness” in the world.  This is the “night” that the Bible has spoken of.

Let us ask the question:  What does the “darkness” bring?  We have seen, again, with many Scriptures that God indicates that Judgment Day is a day of darkness.  We also saw in our last study that it is through the shining of the Light that God saves.  We know that God has ended His salvation program.  He is no longer saving sinners because He is no longer shining the Light of the Gospel, as it says in Psalm 80:19:

Turn us again, O JEHOVAH God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

And now there is no shining of the sun; God, who is likened to the sun, is not shining and, as a result, no one is being saved.  That is one grievous truth that the Bible is teaching.

But what else does the “darkness” bring?  Let us go to Job 17:13-16:

If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.

Now, here, Job is describing the grave.  That is “death” and, remember, we have learned recently, as God opened up this information that the grave identifies with “hell” in the Bible.  Notice that “death” and the “grave,” here, are related to “darkness” in verse 13: “If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.”  This is not the only place that death and the grave are identified with “darkness.”  It says in Psalm 88:3:

For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

Now this is a Messianic Psalm that is referring to the suffering of the Lord Jesus, but it is teaching us about spiritual “darkness.”  And, again, we find that darkness is identified with the grave and the pit and death, and all of that identifies with “hell.”  It identifies with the Biblical teaching of hell – darkness is very closely related to hell itself.  It read in Psalm 104:19:

He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.

Now, here, God is indicating that at a time of “darkness,” beasts (young lions) seek their prey.  I wanted to read that because that relates to Revelation 6:8.  Our present period of Judgment Day is really summarized in this verse in 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.

You see how the beasts come forth in the “dark night” and that is where we are, spiritually.  Let us also go to Psalm 143:3:

For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

Darkness and death go hand in hand.  Again, we have entered into those days “after the tribulation” and these are dark days for the earth, for the unsaved people of the world.  Yes, unsaved people have always been in “darkness,” yet, at the same time, God had a Gospel available.  During the church age, which continued for almost 2,000 years, there was “light” in the churches and the churches were carrying their message to the nations of the world, but then the light of the churches went out at the beginning of the Great Tribulation when judgment began at the house of God.  There was a period of “virtual darkness,” we could say, because God was saving virtually no one during the first 2,300 days of the Great Tribulation, but it is possible that a handful became saved. 

Yet, there was the hope of the “latter rain,” and following those first 2,300 days, the “latter rain” began to fall: “The Lord set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people.”  It was a second Jubilee, a very happy time and a blessed time for the people of the world (whether they realized it, or not).  Now the “Light” was shining brilliantly once again all over the earth outside of the churches and congregations and God was doing a mighty work of saving.  He would save a great multitude of people from every tribe and nation and tongue. 

Then that period of time ended because God finally concluded His salvation program.  He saved the last of His elect and, therefore, there was no further need to send the Gospel into the world any longer.  He had completed His salvation.  He saved all He had intended to save and now came the time (because God is perfect in His ability to work these things out) that the Tribulation ended and “immediately after the tribulation” the sun was darkened and the moon did not give its light and the stars fell from heaven, and, this time, it would be permanent for the world. 

There is no other epoch of time – no other periods of time in which God intends to save a group.   There was the “firstfruits” during the church age and, finally, the last to be gathered during the Feast of Ingathering and that would be it.  No more salvation was available.  Every one whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life had been found and now the “darkness” remains while God punishes the unsaved people of the world and, simultaneously, severely tests His people to see whether they are true believers – if they are “gold, silver and precious stones” or whether they have been deceived and deceiving and they are “wood, hay, stubble.”   The spiritual fire that God lit will show this and demonstrate which is the cas.  Now the world lies in “darkness” and God has brought the world into the condition of “hell.”  He has brought the unsaved inhabitants of the earth into a condition of “hell.” 

Let me read a verse in 2^nd Peter 2:4:

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

Now, here, the Lord is speaking of the “fallen angels” (Satan and the angels that became demons).  They were created “good,” but they fell and followed the devil and God judged them and cast them down to “hell.”  Did they go to a place called Hell, a location somewhere?  No – they were still free on the earth; we have every evidence of this: the Bible speaks of Satan going “about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”  We have many instances of demonic activities recorded in the Gospels.  They had free rein.  Yet, they were “cast down to hell,” in a condition of being under the wrath of God and notice also how it says in 2^nd Peter 2:4: “and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.”

Notice the “darkness.”  Now this is a different Greek word, but it is very much the same idea.  There is “darkness” related to “hell” or the “grave” or “death.”  Well, how were they “cast down to hell” and what are these “chains of darkness?”  The “chains of darkness” means that God had made no provision for the salvation of any of the fallen angels.  He came and took upon Him the “seed of Abraham.”  He died for men and not for angelic beings.  That means there was no light to shine upon the fallen angels; there was no light of the Gospel that could enlighten their darkness and this “chained” them and kept them bound in an unsaved condition, in the condemnation of being under the wrath of God and, ultimately, to be destroyed at the end of time.  So God refers to this spiritual condition as “hell.”  They are in the condition of “hell.”  Likewise, God has shut the door of Heaven.  He has put out the Gospel light, as He says in Revelation 18:23:

And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee…

He is referring to Babylon which, in turn, is a spiritual reference to the kingdom of Satan in this world, in the churches and outside the churches.  There is no more light – not even the light of the candle, let alone the light of the “sun.”  There is no more light in thee and no more voice of the bridegroom, which is Christ, nor of the bride, which is the body of believers.  There is no more salvation.  God has brought the world into “chains of darkness.”  He has “cast them down to hell,” reserved for the very last day of the Day of Judgment, in which He will finally destroy every unsaved individual, along with every unsaved fallen angel.  This is the terrible truth.  This is the terrible information the Bible is revealing at this time.  Yes, these days are “dark,” indeed.  These days are days of the “lowest pit.”