Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #19 of Genesis, chapter 28, and we continuing to look at 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.

This Scripture has set us off in a direction where we were looking at “ascending and descending,” and we saw how it was God’s program to save a person, and then to immediately commission them to be a messenger of the Gospel.  So in salvation, they ascended to heaven, as it were, and then to carry out the task of being a messenger, they would descend and go forth with the Word of God.

We also looked at how the Lord Jesus descended into “the lower parts of the earth,” and then ascended in His resurrection.  Additionally, we went off into another area – maybe it was a tangent, but it is important information.  We discussed what God has done at the end when He completed His salvation program (May 21, 2011), and all His elect have “ascended,” as it were, to be seated in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus.  But we are not sent back to earth with the task of carrying the Gospel (for the purpose of salvation).  According to Revelation 11:12, they ascended, but they did not descend again, in that sense, because the Lord did not want to give any kind of indication that there would be sharing of the Word in an evangelistic way, implying that salvation was still in effect.  So He just pictured the ascending or rising up, but without the descending.  They were not sent back.

This also led us to some verses like 1Thessalonians 4:15 (and following), where we read that the Lord would descend in the Day of Judgment with a shout and the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.  From there, we saw that in Revelation 18:1, there is an “angel” that came down, and the word translated as “come down” is the same Greek word translated as “descend” in many of the verses we went to, and He is coming down with the Word, because it said the earth was lightened with His glory.  In our last study or the study before that, we were following that particular Greek word that is translated as “lightened” or “enlightened,” as it says in Ephesians 1:18: “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.”  And we saw how that relates to the revelation of His righteous judgment in the time of the final judgment of the world, as we are presently living on the earth in that time.  

And it is also a time when God gets great glory, as many verses indicate that when Christ comes as Judge, He comes in great glory.

I would like to go back to 1Thessalonians 4 to begin our study today.  It says in 1Thessalonians 4:15-18:

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: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

God is laying out the final judgment, and the process of how it will work itself out.  The Lord will come.  He Himself will descend from heaven with a shout.  He will “come down,” as we saw 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…

By the way, this is the same word “voice” that is used in 1Thessalonains 4:16.  It goes on to say in Revelation 18:2:

… saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…

As I mentioned before, anytime we see this refrain (and it is found several times in the Bible), it is a statement that is basically declaring the fall of Satan’s kingdom of this world.   We could understand it to say, “The world is fallen, is fallen,” and the Bible tells us that a kingdom divided cannot stand, or that a house divided cannot stand.  And if you cannot stand, you fall, which is one of the reasons why we see this constant “division” all over the earth.  It is an indicator that the world has fallen.  Satan’s kingdom of this world is not standing or abiding, but it is indeed fallen in the Day of Judgment. 

Going back to 1Thessalonians 4:16, it said, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God…”  We read of three things here: 1) He will descend with a shout; 2) with the voice of the archangel; and 3) with the trump of God.   So there is a shout, a voice and a trump.  There are three things, pointing to the purpose of God for Judgment Day, and all three things are synonymous – they are saying the same thing.  So as we look at each one of them, we are going to be directed back to the same spiritual truth.  Each one of these statements identify with the Word of God.

For example, it says, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,” and the Greek word translated as “shout” is #2752, and it is “keleuma,” and it is only found in this one verse.  This is the only place in the Bible that this particular word is used.  However, it is derived from another Greek word, #2753, “keleuō,” and that word is translated as “command” and “commandment” or “bid.”  It is found three times in Matthew 14, starting with Matthew 14:9:

And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her.

It is also used in Matthew 14:19:

And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass…

And it is also used in Matthew 14:28:

And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

The word “bid” is this same word.  It is a commandment to come unto Him on the water.  It has to do with a commandment by one in authority, such as King Herod (in verse 19) or the Lord Jesus Christ.  He can command His subjects to obey.

So the Lord, in the Day of Judgment, descends from heaven with a shout.  You can understand it to be a loud sound, as I do not think we are prohibited from understanding it that way, but there should also be a recognition that the “shout” is a command or commandment of God.  And where do we find the commandments of God?  And the answer is that it is in the Bible.  The whole Bible is God’s Law book, full of commandments. 

So the shout identifies with the Word of God, the Bible, and then it goes on to say, in Thessalonians 4:16:

… with the voice of the archangel…

We know the word “arch” is a word that would mean “chief,” and “angel” can mean “messenger.”  And Jesus is the Messenger of the Covenant and He is the Chief Messenger.  He is Supreme Ruler, so He would be over all other messengers, as all of God’s people are messengers.  The angelic beings that are also called messengers, and Jesus is Chief of all, and He descend with a shout and with the voice of the Chief Messenger.

The word “voice” is the Greek word “phōnē,” and as I said, it is found in Revelation 18:2: “And he cried mightily with a strong voice.”

Or, we find it in Matthew 24:31.  We have already read this verse a couple of times in our last two studies, but let us read it again, as it also speaks of the coming of the Lord, in Matthew 24:30-31:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet…

The Greek word “ “phōnē,” Strong’s #5456, is translated here as the word “sound.”  It is the great “voice” of a trumpet.  Interestingly, in Matthew 24:31 in the context of Christ’s coming, we see Him coming with a “voice” and with a “trumpet,” which is the next word we see in 1Thessalonians 4:16.  So it is a great voice of a trumpet, and the voice identifies with Christ, if we go to John 3:29:

He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.

The bridegroom is Jesus, so it is the voice of Jesus, which would obviously be His Word, the Bible.

I would like to look at a couple of other places, but I think we can already see it is the Word of God, the Bible.  But there is an interesting place it is found, in John 5:27-28:

And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

There is no question that this is speaking of Judgment Day, but it is very curious how God is describing this: “For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves,” and remember that the “grave” is “hell.”  Hell is the grave.  They are one and the same.  In fact, in the Old Testament the word translated as “hell” is the word “sh^e'ôl” (sheh-ole'), and it is almost evenly translated, being translated about thirty times as “hell” and about thirty times as “grave.”  So we could substitute one for the other.  And as we have discussed, on May 21, 2011, God turned the nations (the world) into “hell,” according to Psalm 9, by shutting the door of heaven.  He fixed everyone’s spiritual condition, which had previously only been the case upon the point of death, but now everyone’s spiritual condition is established and will not be changed; the righteous will remain righteous, and the unsaved will remain unsaved.  Therefore, the world has become like a graveyard.  It is the condition of the grave, or of death and hell.  And all that are physically in the graves and have died in their bodies, as well as all those living that are in the graveyard of this world, spiritually, shall hear His voice when He comes to execute judgment.  Christ has been given authority to execute judgment, and He will “speak.” 

The voice of Christ, the bridegroom, will speak in that day, and all will hear.  The elect will hear.  We shall hear the voice of Christ, as it also says in John 10, “…and they shall hear my voice.”  The word “voice” in John 10 is this same Greek word “phōnē,” and the elect of God hear His voice.  We are hearing it because we are physically alive, but we are hearing it on a spiritual level in the spiritual condition of being in the “grave,” as the whole world has been turned into “hell.”  And we were hearing it as He came in judgment, and we will continue to hear it over the course of this prolonged judgment day until it is complete on the last day.  Then on the very last day, the elect whose physical bodies are in the ground or in the sea (wherever their bodies are), will hear His voice and rise up out of their physical graves to receive new resurrected bodies.  They will go first.  They will proceed us, and then we which are alive and remain in the spiritual condition of hell and the grave of this world will follow suit, and we will rise up in obedience, as God qualifies and enables us to rise up to His voice.  Then all (the elect) will be together with the Lord.

At that point, the unsaved will “hear” His voice, and the unsaved dead bodies will hear in the sense that they will be brought up out of the ground, but they will not be made “alive” in any sense, as they will just be left on the ground, and they will match the spiritual condition of all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth that were physically alive on the earth to go through the prolonged judgment period to the last day.  And God has made it known by exposing their sins, day after day, for many years, and bringing them to shame in a public manner, that they are, indeed, “dead bodies” in their unsaved, sinful condition.  They are “full of dead man’s bones,” no matter what their outer veneer of how they look or how they try to appear, but at this point, it has become evident that all these people have no life within them, spiritually, and they are, therefore, as “dead men.”  And it could be said that the ground has been scattered with their “dead bodies,” even though they may physically live over the course of the prolonged Judgment Day.  Then, on the last day, they and all the remains of the physical bodies that have come up out of the ground will be utterly destroyed with a fervent heat.  It is very possible God will “loose” the atoms of the very creation of the universe with its sun, moon, stars and planets and everything that is part of the physical creation of the earth, as 2Peter 3 speaks of everything melting with a fervent heat, in 2Peter 3:10:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night…

That is, Christ came as a thief on May 21, 2011, but in that prolonged period of judgment, it goes on to say in 2Peter 3:10:

… in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,

And the Greek word translated as “melt” is translated as “loose” or “unloosed” in other places.  It is the Greek word “luō,” and that could fit in with an atomic explosion, the separating or loosing of atoms when a great explosion occurs, even as a limited number of atoms in a bomb.  But just imagine if all atoms simultaneously are “loosed.”  There would be, “a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”  The earth and the works are burned up.  The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “Are ye not my work in the Lord?”  Remember 1Corinthians 3: “Every man's work shall be made manifest,” whether it be “gold, silver, precious stones,” or “wood, hay stubble.”  There, God is referring to people as “work” that is enduring or lasting.  The “gold, silver, precious stones” are His elect, but the others are flammable or combustible and will be destroyed by fire.  The “wood, hay stubble” are the “works” that will be burned up.  The work of God was the creature “man,” made in His own image.  God worked six days to create the heaven and the earth and everything therein – all the animals, insects, birds, fish and man.  All the works will be burned up, and they will be gone forever.   What happens to the creation happens to the sinner, as the creation is utterly destroyed and annihilated.  We do not have some fantastic ideas of this present creation enduring the fires of God.  We understand that God will burn it and it will be gone, and we will never see it, feel it or hear from it again.  It will be completely gone.  So, too, with the sinner.  This is actually pointed out in Isaiah 51:6:

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment…

Here is described the destruction of the universe and the earth, just as it says in 2Peter 3, but notice what it says next in Isaiah 51:6:

… and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.

That is, God’s salvation goes on forever for the elect.  But for those others that dwell on the earth, they will die or perish in like manner to the earth itself – a terrible fire that will melt the substance of the physical creation.  In other words, the physical realm of existence that is specific to this creation will be destroyed.  Everything that is physical or that is “matter” that you can see or feel around you, including people, will be completely destroyed.  They will be wiped out and gone forever.  And this is why the most important thing was always regarding your spiritual condition.  Were you born again, or were you dead in your soul?  If you remained dead in your soul, then upon your physical death, you have no “life” left, and all the unsaved that are destroyed on that last day have no spiritual life whereby they can continue to live, because only that which is spiritual can continue on.  Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  So those with spiritual life on that last day will be equipped with spiritual resurrected bodies.  That is the type of body we will receive, and that is the type of body in which we can enter into the glorious new heaven and new earth that God will create.  And that is where we will dwell with God eternally, forever and ever.