Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #11 of Revelation, chapter 11, and we are going to look at Revelation 11:9:

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.

This refers to the dead bodies of the “two witnesses.”  We have seen that they identify with Moses and Elijah, “the law and the prophets,” and, in turn, this would identify with the Word of God, the Bible.  The true believers also have identification with the “two witnesses” because they are the messengers of the truths of the Word of God.  So God speaks of the “two witnesses” lying dead in the street of the great city where our Lord was crucified and that city could only be Jerusalem, which points to the New Testament churches and congregations at the time of the end.  Their dead bodies in the street indicate that the Word of God within the churches has become “lifeless” and ineffective.  It is no longer powerful and there is no blessing of God upon it; the Spirit of God is not operating within the churches, so the witness of the true believers within the congregations would also be impacted by it. 

The corporate church, which identifies with the Word of God and was the outward representation of the kingdom of God, is also viewed as “lying dead in the streets” by the people of the world.  That is why it says, “And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations,” because this points to the universal scope of the judgment on the churches, which has spread to all the nations of the world.  They are all witnesses to this awful tragedy of the death of the witness of the Gospel which had been ongoing for almost two thousand years; for 1,955 years God was in the midst of the churches and blessing individuals all over the earth through the testimony of the “two witnesses” of His Word. 

Now it has all changed; it is all over and their testimony is finished.  They are as dead corpses for this “three days and an half” period, which points to the first part of the Great Tribulation.  Notice it says that the kindreds, peoples, tongues and nations “shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.”  The peoples of the world are the nations or the “Gentiles.”  Remember it had said at the beginning of chapter 11, in Revelation 11:2:

But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

The Gentiles are the nations.  It is a translation of the same Greek word.  In both the New Testament and Old Testament, God has a word that can be translated as either “Gentiles” or “nations.”  So the people, kindreds, tongues and nations are the ones that see their “dead bodies” and “shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.”  They are giving every evidence that they are dead.  They are like a carcass that the fowls of the air are feeding upon; yet, the people of the world are not allowing this shameful corpse, which is the church, to be put in a grave. 

We have to realize, first of all, that the people of the world do not have that kind of power or ability to prevent a burial of the churches and congregations, unless God gave them that power.  It was of God that Satan was loosed.  It was of God that His Holy Spirit was removed from the churches.  It was of God that Satan overcame the churches and killed them and it was of God that their “headless corpse” would lie there for everyone to see and it was of God that they not be buried.  When it says that they “shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves,”  the word “suffer” means “allow,” so they will not allow or permit their dead bodies to be put in graves.  This same word “suffer” is found in Matthew 23, where the Lord condemns the scribes and Pharisees, and He says in Matthew 23:13:

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

It is as though the scribes and Pharisees are somehow preventing those that would enter into the kingdom of heaven from entering in.  Of course, if someone is one of God’s elect, no one can prevent him from being drawn and saved or prevented from entering into the kingdom of heaven.  God permits many false religions; God permits many false gospels; God allows the operation of Satan to develop lies and deceits and even to try to get as close to the true Gospel as possible.  God allows individuals to be ensnared and caught in those kinds of false gospels.  So, on the one hand, the gospel of the scribes and Pharisees does not suffer people to enter in because they do not have the true Gospel; they do not have a “door” (Christ) that could bring people into heaven. 

But, ultimately, it is God that is behind everything.  God’s will is perfect and He is able to orchestrate all events so that no one can be kept out of heaven (nor has ever been kept out of heaven) because of the underhanded dealings and the lies of the false gospels that are out there.  That was Satan’s hope and that was the reason he fought against God down through the centuries, as he tried to imitate Christ and the true Gospel in order to keep even one of God’s elect from entering into the kingdom of heaven.  If only he could have done that, he would have made the Gospel of none effect, but he was never able to do that.  He could never prevent even one individual from being saved, if God had obligated Himself to save that person. 

Let us look at the idea that Revelation 11:9 presents and that is the idea of the “dead body” of the churches, which had represented God on this earth.  And it is a dead body that is not permitted to be buried and we do have other language in the Bible that gets into this same topic.  It says in Psalm of Asaph.  I will read Psalm 79:1:

A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance…

The Hebrew word “heathen” could be translated as “Gentiles” or “nations,” so this matches Revelation 11, where it speaks of the Gentiles coming against the holy city.  It goes on to say in Psalm 79:1-3:

…O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.

You see, the picture is an enemy force of heathen (the nations) coming against the people of God.  Of course, historically, that is what the Babylonians were – they were heathens that came against Judah and slew the people of God, literally, with the sword and the bodies would have been lying on the ground for a period of time.  This is a picture God is painting of the spiritual reality of what took place when the church age ended and when Satan was loosed and came against the camp of the saints and slew the two witnesses: “The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven,” and “there was none to bury them.”  This is really a very significant statement God is making.  (Of course, everything in the Bible is significant.)  It is not only that the dead bodies are lying there, but the dead bodies are lying there because “there was none to bury them.”  If there were someone to bury them, then they would not be lying there for the fowls to feed upon.  Let us keep that in mind as we read further, in Jeremiah 14:13-16:

Then said I, Ah, Lord JEHOVAH! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. Then JEHOVAH said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart. Therefore thus saith JEHOVAH concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them.

Once again, we see familiar language in the Book of Jeremiah, as Jeremiah is a Book in which God emphasizes the judgment that comes upon a rebellious people.  It is a Book that is teaching us about the judgment which begins at the house of God at the time the end of the world and it began to happen back in May of 1988.  God speaks of the “sword and famine” killing the people “and they shall have none to bury them.”  The sword would point to the Word of God and the famine would point to the fact that the Holy Spirit is no longer in the churches.  A sermon is preached (and they may even be teaching faithfully) about what the Bible has to say, but there is no Holy Spirit to bless the Word to the ears of the listeners.  Therefore, there is a “famine” in the land of the churches, not a famine of bread of water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord, because “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” God must be there to open the ears of the ones that hear, but God is not doing that and this famine has killed the ones that remained in the churches.  It is all past tense.  God has not only accomplished this upon Judah of old, but He has also accomplished this upon the churches.  The 23-year Great Tribulation period has already come and gone and God has slain all that were in the churches, the “third part,” of all the professed Christians that remained in the corporate body.  They were killed and “there was none to bury them.”

Let us remain in Jeremiah and go to chapter 16.  It says in Jeremiah 16:4-6:

They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. For thus saith JEHOVAH, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith JEHOVAH, even lovingkindness and mercies. Both the great and the small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them:

Again, they will die and they will not be buried.  God is taking away “peace” from this people.  Of course, Jesus is our “peace,” and this is what is being referred to.  Christ has been removed from the churches and that resulted in their spiritual death and Christ has left the carcasses of the dead bodies of his saints lying in the streets, as they identified with the Word of God that was now “lifeless” in the churches.  It does not say it in this passage, but it is implied that there was none to bury them.

Now let us think about why God would say, “There was none to bury them.”  What would it mean if there was someone to bury them?  Being “buried,” in the Bible, can point to salvation.  I am not saying that it means this all the time, but it can mean this, according to the language God gives us in Romans 6:3-4:

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Here, it says, “we are buried with him by baptism into death.”  This would be the baptism of the Holy Spirit, not water baptism.  This is the baptism that God must baptize us with through His Spirit and this can only happen if were predestinated to receive it – if Christ had died for us from the foundation of the world.  If that was the case, He would have applied His redemptive work to us sometime in our lives, before ending His salvation program.  We would have been “baptized into His death.”  It says a similar thing in Colossians 2:11-12:

In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

Again, we are “buried with him.”  The “dead bodies” of the saints would point to those that are unsaved and are professed Christians within the congregations, but it also could point to an elect individual that would later come out of the churches.  Remember, the dead bodies are lying dead in the street for “three and a half days,” which is the first part of the Great Tribulation and “there is none to bury them,” according to other Scriptures we saw in the Old Testament.  There is no Christ in the midst of the churches any longer that could cause them to be “buried with him in baptism,” and there could be salvation.  Since there is none to bury them, they remain in open shame and they remain lying there, spiritually speaking, for everyone in the world to see.  I think this is what God means when He says in several places: “And there was none to bury them.” 

Let us just look at one last place in this study.  It says in Jeremiah 25:30-33:

Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, JEHOVAH shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for JEHOVAH hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith JEHOVAH. Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of JEHOVAH shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.

This passage refers to the nations of the world.  We saw that verse 30 mentions the “inhabitants of the earth;” verse 31 says that JEHOVAH “has a controversy with the nations;” verse 32 says, “from nation to nation;” verse 33 says, “the slain of JEHOVAH shall be in that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth.”  This clearly indicates it is the judgment upon the world.  When we look at the overall chapter in Jeremiah 25, we see that this “cup of wrath” was first given to Jerusalem and it then it was given to the nations, so we are on solid ground in understanding that this is judgment on the world and, yet, we find similar language regarding the judgment God brought on the churches, where there was the killing of the “two witnesses,” and Psalm 79 spoke of the dead bodies of the saints and there is “none to bury,” and the fowls are feeding upon them.  The reason for this is because it is the same “cup of wrath.”  The spiritual judgment which first came upon the churches is now upon the world and God has slain all the unsaved people of the earth.  They have been killed, spiritually, and it is as if their “dead carcasses” are lying all over the world, even though they are all physically alive and walking around.   This is because once God shut the door of heaven, He established that the righteous would be righteous still and the filthy would be filthy still, so, for all intents and purposes, God slew them with the sword of His Word.  He killed them all and, yet, “there is none to bury them,” because the Lord Jesus Christ has departed from this world, as far as the possibility of salvation.  There is no more salvation.  There is no possibility that any could be “buried with him in baptism” any longer.