Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #14 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we are going to read Genesis 28:12-13:

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, JEHOVAH stood above it, and said, I am JEHOVAH God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

We have been looking at what the Bible has to say about the language of “ascending and descending.”  And we have seen that the Lord Jesus Christ first descended into the lower parts of the earth, or into “hell” or death, and then He rose.  And the resurrection was the ascending of the Lord Jesus out of hell and into heaven.  That was the order of things for Christ – He descended first, and then ascended.

But, here, the Lord speaks of the angels of God “ascending and descending on it.”  John 1:51 picks up this same kind of language, except instead of it being a ladder, God tells us what the ladder had pointed to – the Son of man.  It says in John 1:51:

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Here, the order is for the angels, which are messengers or God’s elect, and we “ascend up.”  We live on the earth as human beings.  As we were living our lives, the Lord sent forth His Word.  He sent forth these “messengers” with the Word, and it brought life to the dead sinner.  At the moment of salvation, he was lifted up into the heavenlies to be seated in Christ Jesus.  Or, we could say, he went climbing up the “ladder,” as it were, on the Son of man.  Christ is the One who comes between man on earth and God in heaven, and He allows only certain people (the chosen few, the elect) to ascend upon Him to gain entry into heaven.

And throughout the history of the world until the date of May 21, 2011, once someone ascended, then God would dispatch these same sinners that had been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and He made them his “angels” or “messengers” that would carry the Word of God, the Bible.  God sent them back to the earth.  It was just like the man that had been a lunatic and naked, harming himself as he wandered among the tombs.  Then Christ saved him and put him in his right mind, and he desired to follow the Lord, wanting to stay with Him.  But the Lord Jesus told him to go home to his town and tell them what God had done for him.  That is exactly the idea here.  When a man experiences the wonderful, glorious salvation of God, he is restored to his right mind, and then he is sent: “Go with the Gospel.  Go tell your family and friends and everybody else what God has done for you.” 

That has been the process throughout the history of the world, except it was interrupted at certain times according to God’s program of times and seasons, and this went on all the way up to May 21, 2011, and on that date, there was a (permanent) interruption to this process.  There was a change.  And we read about this change in process in Revelation 11.  But before we get to that verse, I want to look at some of the earlier verses, so we can have the context in view.  We read of the two witnesses beginning in Revelation 11:7-10:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

We have gone over this chapter in the past, and we are very familiar with it.  The two witnesses represent the witness of the Word of God, the Bible, within the churches and congregations.  The two witnesses are basically a figure of Moses and Elijah, or the Law and the Prophets.  And the Law and the Prophets would represent the entire Old Testament, the part of the Bible that the Jews possessed.  So God uses that figure of the two witnesses witnessing or giving their testimony, and then their testimony is finished because God gave life to His Word and energized the witness of His Word within the churches and congregations during the church age from 33 A. D. until May 21, 1988.  During that time, people became saved.  The Spirit of Christ was present in the congregations.  How did they become saved?  It was through the hearing of the Word: “For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  And the churches had Bibles.  The preacher would open the Bible from the pulpit and preach to the congregation.  For the many hundreds of years of the church age, it was often just the preacher that had the Bible.  The common people did not have Bibles, so it was necessary that they come to church to hear the Word of God, and God used the preaching and reading of His Word to save His elect who would have had to go into the congregations.  But many that entered into the churches during the church age were “called,” but they were never God’s elect, so they were never saved.  And, yet, God did save there.  That was where God was doing His saving work.

But then came the end of the church age, and at that time, the “daily” was taken away, as Daniel tell us.  The Spirit of God, the Light of the Gospel, departed out of the midst of the churches.  God left the churches, but the preacher remained, and most of the people remained, and the Bible remained.  In order to illustrate what this (change) was like in the churches, one Sunday could have been the last Sunday of the church age when God was still there, and someone could have been saved through the preaching of that Bible.  But the very next Sunday, which was the first Sunday after May 21, 1988, it was the end of the church age, and God had abandoned that church.  So the preacher could have preached a follow-up sermon that was just as faithful and read from the same Bible he read from the Sunday before, but nobody could have become saved – not there, and not in any church in the world.

 And that is because it is not just the Bible that saves.  If it were just the Bible that saves, then we would not have a corporate church of about two billion professed Christians that are not Christians in their hearts and are not truly born again.  But it is the Bible that saved in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, and it is the Holy Spirit that blesses the Word to the heart and ears of people, so that faith (Christ) will come, as a result.  If you only have the Word, the Bible, but you do not have the Spirit, then there can be no salvation.  And that is why the “two witnesses” were lying dead in the street.  And notice that God said in Revelation 11:8:

And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

And the Lord was crucified outside the gates of the city of Jerusalem, a type and figure of the corporate church.  So then Jerusalem or the churches became as “Sodom and Egypt,” a house of bondage, and a place of rampant sin as typified by Sodom.  And this is where the dead bodies of the two witnesses lie. 

We are also instructed through the Greek word that is translated as “dead bodies.”  (It is used three times to indicate it is the purpose of God.)  It is the Greek word, “ptōma,” which is the identical word used to describe the “headless corpse” of John the Baptist.  John the Baptist had his head cut off, and the disciples later came and took up his “corpse,” or “ptōma.”  It was without a head.  And this is not a very common word – I think it is found only about five or six times in the New Testament.  It is used three times in Revelation 11; it is used once regarding John the Baptist; and it is translated as “carcase” in Matthew 24:28 where it says, “For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”  It is a “headless corpse.”  Christ, the head of the church, has left that body.  And, again, that emphasizes the idea that the two witnesses (the Law and the Prophets) are dead – it is still there, lying in the streets, but it has no power to save.  And the people remaining in the churches are delighted with this and they rejoice over them, making merry, as they can now turn the churches into their own “idol,” as they form their own doctrines and gospels and, yet, they can still call themselves by the name of Christ.  So this was the spiritual condition that happened on May 21, 1988.  The time figure used here in Revelation 11:11 is “three and an half days,” and it represents the first part of the Great Tribulation. 

Since then, we have learned now that there are two tribulations.  We are presently in the second tribulation, which is a recompence for the first tribulation, the Great Tribulation, which was the judgment on the corporate church, as God used Satan and his emissaries as instruments of judgment and now (in our day) God is repaying them. 

So it would be more correct to say that this time reference (three and an half days) is a figure of the first tribulation, the Great Tribulation, and during that first 2,300 evening mornings, the witness of the Bible within the congregations was dead.  Nobody could be saved – not a single soul in any of the churches of the world.

However, this also relates to the statement in Revelation 8:1, “there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour,” and when we look up that word for “silence,” it allows for the slightest bit of “noise,” as it were, and that causes us to condition the idea of no one being saved anywhere in the world with the word “virtually.”  That is, absolutely no one was saved in any church congregation.  However, there is a possibility that maybe a handful of individuals were saved outside of the churches during that time.  Therefore, virtually no one was saved in all the world for 2,300 evening mornings, which works itself out to be six years and almost four months, from May 21, 1988 through September 7, 1994.  They were 2,300 grievous evening mornings.

Then we read what God did after this in Revelation 11:11:

And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.

It was after “three days an half,” or after the 2,300 days, or after the silence of about the space of half an hour.  And then there was a transition from the first part of tribulation, the Great Tribulation, which was the grievous six years and almost four months, to the second part of about 17 years.  The first Tribulation totaled 23 exact years or 8,400 actual days.  So there were 2,300 grievous and horrible days, followed by 6,100 days which the Bible calls the Latter Rain.   And the Latter Rain period was the time when the two witnesses…and notice that God says the two witnesses or the “two prophets” stand upon their feet, and this is to indicate that on September 7, 1994, the Spirit of God returned to the earth, as it were, and it was the time of the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit, another grand plan to save many.  The Bible says it was a great multitude that was saved out of great tribulation. 

So the Word of God had been “energized,” and it was as though they stood upon their feet, but it was outside the corporate church.  Other Scriptures demand that we come to that conclusion.  It was not happening within the congregations in any sense – there is no possibility of that.  Remember, it says in Jeremiah that “there hath been no latter rain, ” and they did not experience the Latter Rain within the corporate church.  It was exclusively outside of the world’s churches.  The figure God uses is that “they stood upon their feet.”  There are a couple of verses that help us understand that phrase, but we will just look at Acts 26 where the Apostle Paul recounted his experience and transformation on the road to Damascus.  We read in Acts 26:14-18:

And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Here, notice the command, “Stand upon thy feet,” and then we are told that Saul (who would have his name changed to Paul) is “sent.”  Then the Lord said in Acts 26:17: “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins.”  This has everything to do with God’s magnificent salvation program, and that is precisely what is in view with the two witnesses standing on their feet.  The Word of God had now been restored on the earth, but outside of the churches.  God would do a mighty work of salvation, as we know because this is now in the past.  God would have His elect people share the Gospel to the world, and He completely ended His relationship with the churches and He would no longer use the churches of the world to bring that final declaration of the Gospel to save the last of the elect, the great multitude. 

No one would have thought that was possible!  How could God save a great multitude from all the nations of the world without using the churches?  It would have been literally impossible throughout 99% of the time that the church age was active, from 33 A. D. to 1988.  How could a few elect outside of the churches ever hope to reach the whole world with the message of the Gospel so this great multitude could hear and become saved?  It would have been impossible.  The churches were in every nation and they had the Bible translated into practically every tongue, and they had people that spoke these languages.  And if there was to be a great finale of salvation, certainly He would have used the churches He had established, but God completely dismissed them!  “You did the work I intended you to do during the time period I desired you to perform it, but now I have come to visit and judge you first.  Judgment begins at the house of God, as I find you greatly wanting and, therefore, I will cast you into a bed of great tribulation.” 

And that is exactly what God did, and He literally “cut off” about two billion people.  He did not care for their wealth, their great numbers or their position within the nations where He intended to save that great multitude.  Seemingly, everything you would think He would need to accomplish the salvation of a great multitude (a greater number than had ever previously been saved), the churches possessed.  Yes – they possessed many things that would have been helpful.  However, they lacked faith; that is, they lacked the Spirit of Christ.  And in the churches was an overwhelming number if tares.  Satan had infiltrated the congregations, and they had perverted the pure Gospel of grace and turned it to a gospel of works, so God would not use them.  At the end, He would purify His Gospel and open up the eyes of His people to salvation by the faith of Jesus Christ, and not faith in Jesus Christ, as the churches had perverted that truth by adding a little bit of man’s works.  But in contributing that little bit of work, it became a “works gospel,” so God just removed them from Himself and said, “I will do it.   I will save this great multitude.  I will call my people to come out of the churches, and outside of the churches, I will work.”

And it just so happened that at the time of the end, God opened up the electronic medium.  He opened up the minds of mostly secular individuals to develop amazing things like, radio, television, internet and mobile hand-held phones, so practically everyone had access to information, and the Gospel could be sent to many by using just a few.  And we know the story.  We know that God opened up the platform for the faithful ministry of Family Radio at that time, although it is no longer faithful.  But at that time through the teaching of Mr. Camping, God sent the Gospel to all the world with the worldwide proclamation, “May 21, 2011, Judgment Day!”  In so doing, it was a glorious picture of the two witnesses standing on their feet and great fear falling upon them that saw them.  We will have to continue this in our next Bible study.