Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #17 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we are going to read Genesis 28:12:

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.

We have been taking our time and going carefully through the language of “ascending and descending” upon the ladder, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, according to John 1:51.

We saw in Revelation 11 that at the time of the Great Tribulation after the “two witnesses” stood upon their feet, outside of the churches and congregations the great multitude became saved and they “ascended” up to heaven.  So it followed the same pattern Jesus referred to when He said that “from now, angels of God will ascend and descend on the Son of man,” but in Revelation 11:12, they ascended up to heaven, but there is no reference to them descending again.  And some think, “Well, that is because that is the Rapture at the end, and there is no more evangelization because everyone has been saved and taken up to heaven.”  And they have part of that right because everyone that was to be saved has been taken up to heaven, spiritually, seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.  But it is not the end of the world.  And they are also right that it is the end of evangelization on the earth because God has completed His salvation program by saving everyone He intended to save.  There are no more names left in the Lamb’s Book that yet need to become saved.  There are no more elect individuals that must have the Word applied to them to become saved.  It is all done. 

It is all complete, but now God has a judgment program for a short period of time – another “tribulation” in which He will judge the world.  And the word “tribulation” is synonymous with judgment.  When we speak of the Great Tribulation, the judgment was on the churches.  That is what it means.  And we just never before applied “tribulation” to the judgment on the world.  We knew there would be judgment on the world on May 21, 2011, and we previously thought it would be (literally) five months, and yet we never called it a “judgment.”  It is a synonym for judgment, and we are in the “second tribulation” of God’s end phase of history.  The first tribulation was judgment on the churches, which was two parts, totaling 23 years.  And from the Biblical evidence we can gather, the second tribulation will be 23 inclusive years or 22 actual years.

Then we went to Revelation 10:7:

But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished…

And the seventh angel sounds with the fifth and the sixth angel.  They all began to sound on that date of May 21, 2011 when Judgment Day began.  It is a prolonged sound of the trumpet, and in an interesting way the book of Exodus in the Old Testament refers to a time when the “trumpet sounded long.”  We read that in Exodus 19:16-19:

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because JEHOVAH descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.

And this language does identify with judgment, so the voice of the trumpet sounded long.  It is a prolonged blast of the trumpet.  We have all heard trumpeters playing a trumpet and he holds a note, and there is a prolonged blast for 10 or 20 seconds – it sounds long.  That is the idea of a prolonged judgment.  The trumpet blew and Christ came as Judge of the earth, spiritually, but because we are looking at a judgment period of 22 actual years, it is as though the trumpet sound is being continued throughout the entire period of time until we get to the last day.

So the Bible can speak of the time of the Resurrection, for example, as happening at the time of the last trump, as it does in 1Corinthians 15:51-52:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

You see, everything has to be harmonized and fit together.  So if we at EBible Fellowship are saying that May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day, that means that the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpet (the seventh is the last trumpet) began to sound.  And this is why Mr. Camping thought we were all going to be changed and it would be the time of the Resurrection and Rapture (on May 21, 2011), and that idea actually fit.  But when that day passed and then several years passed, we have to look at the Bible to see how to understand this.  If it is Judgment Day, and it says that at the last trump, the dead will be raised, and we will be changed.  If we are saying the trumpet sounded, but there has been no change for the people of God in receiving their new spiritual bodies, and the answer is found in the preposition “at” in 1Corinthians 15:52:

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump…

The Greek preposition is actually the same word translated as “in” earlier in the verse: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”  It should say, “in the last trump.”  It is with it.  You see, it sounds and as long as the blast is maintained, then it is within the time of its sounding that these things can come to pass.  It can be the time of the Resurrection and the time of the Rapture, and God can be faithful to what He said and to the fulfilling of His Word.  In other words, on the last day of the prolonged judgment period (which we believe at this point will be some day in the year 2033), the trumpet that has been sounding for this entire period of time and is still sounding on the last day, there will be the the Resurrection of the elect dead, and the Rapture of the elect that are still living, and everyone is taken up.  And then God has fulfilled His Word.

So what a prolonged judgment has done is to give the Lord options – He can fulfill things at the beginning, or anywhere in between, or at the end of it, and still be true to His Word.  And that also allows Him to “test” and to make it appear that the judgment did not happen.  The fact that it is invisible (as spiritual things are invisible in the physical word) and the fact that it is prolonged gives an appearance to most people as something that has not happened, but it has happened and is still in the process of happening until it is complete.  So this is what God has done, and this is why we read in Revelation 10:7:

 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished…

Here, the mystery is that mystery spoken of in Romans 11:25-26 that the Gentiles shall be fellowheirs with the Jews, and in that manner “all Israel” will be saved.  It is the completion of God’s salvation program to save all the elect, and when He saved the last one, He saved all of spiritual Israel.  And that was a “mystery” because the Gentiles were also called spiritual Israel.  It is parabolic, and mysteries are those things which God has hidden in His Word.  Therefore, this particular mystery of God saving both Jew and Gentile and all being “spiritual Israel” was finished before the seventh trumpet sounded, as it was “about” to sound.  The trumpet could not sound first and then God completes His salvation program, but it was right before He sounds or right before we reached the completion of that 8,400 days of the Great Tribulation period when the Latter Rain would end.  And right before we transitioned to the judgment on the world, God saved the last one of “spiritual Israel.”  The lost sheep of the house of Israel – that last little sheep – was found, and then this mystery of God was finished.  As soon as that mystery was finished, the trumpet could sound.  The seventh trump – the three final trumps sounding simultaneously – and the last three woes take effect.  And it was a prolonged sounding.  The trumpet will sound long, and during its sounding during the entire period of the judgment of God, the Lord will work out His judgment program for all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.  He will also severely try His people to see if they are “gold, silver precious stones” or “wood, hay stubble.”

So the last three trumpets sound, and we also read of the Lord Jesus coming with the sound of a trumpet.  And, again, we have to harmonize these things.  It says in 1Thessalonians 4:15-16:

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Our word “descend” appears here, and this time it is the Lord Himself that is descending.  Has the Lord Jesus descended from heaven with a shout and with the trump of God?  Yes – we were just discussing the seventh trump, which would fit and identify with Jesus Himself coming in judgment.  And the Bible does teach that Christ has come. 

Sometimes, I think, some people do not fully understand this, and they still speak of Jesus’ coming as a future event: “When Christ comes…”  And I am speaking of people that have some understanding of what God has done in bringing a spiritual judgment.  And I think the reason they say that is that they are looking to the very last day of the prolonged judgment period, and they think, “On that very last day, Christ will come.”  But they do not understand the process.  It helps to first think of Christ coming as Judge of the churches.  Did God judge the corporate church?  And the answer is, “Yes.”  And did He judge them spiritually?  And, once again, the answer is, “Yes.”  And that means that Jesus came as Judge against the churches, but no one saw Him with their physical eyes.  No one could look in the sky and see Him descend to ruin the churches and make them desolate, but that is exactly what He did.  He judged and completely destroyed all the churches and congregations in the world with His judgment. 

So that helps us to understand that when Christ came as Judge of the world…and, again, the Bible locks in that date of May 21, 2011 as the transition day when Christ expanded the judgment to all the unsaved inhabitants of the world.  Actually, He is judging the elect as well, and His judgment will determine, as we stand before Him, whether we have done “good or evil.”  And the elect will be found to have done good because their sins had been paid for and, therefore, we will endure to the end. 

But judgment is under way.  He is executing His judgment.  He is presently seated upon the judgment throne, reigning over the nations of the world and reigning on the earth as the Supreme Lord, King and Judge.  So, yes, we would have to say that He has “descended” from heaven.  Later on, we will look at what it means concerning the shout and the voice of the archangel.  We will look further at the “trump of God,” and we will see how that fits in.  But right now, let us go to another verse where we find the word “descend,” but it is translated as two English words, “come down.”  It is found in Revelation 18:1-2:

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

When the Bible makes this declaration, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” we know this is speaking of Judgment Day.  We could read it as, “The world is fallen, is fallen.”  And, historically, Babylon fell after 70 years of tribulation, from 609 B. C. to 539 B. C.  Then the king of Babylon was slain by Darius, the king of the Medes and the Persians, and Darius took the kingdom.  He was a great type of Christ, and He took the kingdom in a night.  He came like a “thief in the night.”  That is the Bible’s teaching concerning the fall of Babylon, and since these verses are telling us that Babylon is fallen, it is referring to the time after the Great Tribulation.  On May 21, 2011 Babylon fell.  The kingdom of Satan, which was typified by Babylon, fell. 

The evidence a fallen kingdom, according to the Bible, is a house divided.   A kingdom divided cannot stand.  Satan, divided, has an end, we are told.  And we are seeing “division” everywhere we look, and not just the typical nation against nation, but there are divisions between races, sexes, genders, and politics and in every area imaginable on the earth.  And everyone is going “head to head,” fighting one another.  There is also Biblical evidence, as we read in 2Chronicles 20 and in Zechariah 14, where it says that at the time of the end, the enemies of the kingdom of God will destroy each other.  They will fight one another and do battle with each other, while the people of God stay out of it, just as did Jehoshaphat and his army.  That is what God told him: “Ye shall not need to fight in this battle.”  The Lord would fight for them, and the way the Lord fights in the battle of Judgment Day is to stir up trouble in the enemy kingdom, allowing them to be angry, hostile and hateful against one another, destroying one another and exposing one another’s sins, shaming one another, and so forth.  And we are seeing all these outside indicators of the fallen kingdom of Satan, and of a world that has fallen.  “Babylon is fallen.”

Again, this statement, “Babylon is fallen,” sets the timeframe.  It tells us this is Judgment Day.  I will read the first verse again, in Revelation 18:1:

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven…

It is just like what it said in 1Thessalonians 4:16: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.”  And, remember, He is the Archangel or Chief Messenger of the covenant.  The word “messenger” can be translated as “angel.”

Again, it says in Revelation 18:1:

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

Regarding the reference to “glory,” we could look at many verses, but I will just turn to Matthew 25:31-32:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

Here, the interesting thing is that when Christ descends from Heaven, it says that He “comes down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.”  And this is an amazing bit of information because this word “lightened” is a translation of a Greek word that is often used to describe spiritual enlightenment.  For example, it says in 1Corinthians 4:5:

Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

This is also referring to Judgment Day, and it says the Lord “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.” 

Or, we read in Ephesians 1:18:

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

Or, we could turn to Hebrews 6:4:

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

Or, it says in Hebrews 10:32:

But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

To be “illuminated” is to have your eyes of understanding enlightened.  You are “seeing” now because the light is on. 

And, again, incredibly, this is what God is saying would happen when the Lord Jesus descends from Heaven in the Day of Judgment.  There will be an “enlightenment” on the earth.  “The earth was lightened with his glory.”