Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #13 of Revelation, chapter 11, and we are continuing to look at Revelation 11:10-11:

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. 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.

We are continuing to look at the “two witnesses.”  The death of the “two witnesses” was laid out for us in the previous verses and they represented the witness of the Word of God within the congregations during the church age.  When they were overcome and killed, that was the end of the church age.  The Word of God lost all effectiveness (to save) because God’s Spirit had left.  It takes God’s Spirit to save.  

You know, some people say that at this point in time during the Day of Judgment, it is not possible that God could have ended His salvation program because the true believers are still living in this world.   Since the true believers are still here, they insist that the Spirit of God is still here to save.  Besides the fact that this does not harmonize with many Bible verses, there is a big problem with the example God gave us concerning the judgment upon the churches.  What did He say?  Let me read this in 1Peter 4:17:

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God…

This would be the churches.

… and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

There are two groups of people in view.  There is the judgment that begins on the house of God and then another group of people that “obey not the gospel,” and this would be a reference to the unsaved people of the earth.  And we know the Bible instructs us that judgment begins on the church and then transitions to the world and God gives the “cup of His wrath” first to the city called by His name (which points to the churches) and then the identical cup is given to the unsaved people of the earth.  The judgment is basically one judgment and this is what the 10,000 total days of judgment would indicate; the 8,400 days of judgment on the churches, plus the 1,600 of judgment on the world, equals 10,000 days, which points to the “completeness” of the judgment upon all the unsaved peoples of the earth – inside and outside the churches.  God views the final judgment as a whole and complete judgment.  So we can learn many things about the final judgment on the people outside of the churches by looking at how God brought the judgment upon those within the congregations during the 23 years of the Great Tribulation.

What we have seen is that God left the churches at the very beginning, on May 21, 1988, when the church age ended.  The Holy Spirit came out of the midst and Satan entered in and the “two witnesses” were slain.  Yet, at that point in time, you could have found many true believers in the churches.  It was not God’s purpose to let His people know right away what He had done.  It was actually around the year 2001, about thirteen years after the judgment began, that God began to open up information from the Scriptures that the church age was over and His people were commanded to come out of the churches.

So let us think about this.  This means that for years there were true believers within the churches and they were still actively sharing the Gospel; that is the nature of the child of God.  They could have gone on tracts trips or shared the Gospel with friends, and so on.  God’s Spirit had left the churches, so there we have a case where God’s Spirit had abandoned the entity of the corporate body and, yet, the true believers had remained behind. 

So, must there be salvation for the members of the congregations because there were still true believers within those churches?  No – the presence of a true believer within a church meant nothing as far as salvation is concerned.  The presence of a true believer cannot deliver salvation; we cannot save anyone at all and God is not obligated to save anyone just because a true believer happens to be present.  The 23 years of judgment on the churches is testimony of that truth, especially the first 2,300 evening mornings when virtually no one was being saved in the world and for the entire 23 year period no one at all was being saved within the churches.  It was impossible because God’s Spirit had left; He left the churches on their own and even left the true believers there for a period of time.  Perhaps one of the reasons God did this is because we can learn from that example something about the presence of a child of God in an area where God is bringing judgment.  The judgment was the removal of the Holy Spirit and the end of salvation within the churches.  There was a famine not of bread and water but a famine of hearing the Word of the Lord; faith comes by hearing and there was no opening up of the ears of any person during the entire period of the judgment upon them.

How can it be then that people can say that God is still saving because of the presence of believers in this world?  It cannot be.  God has given us proof positive; He has given us the example of what He did to the churches.

Now May 21, 2011 came and it is the day that the judgment on the churches expires and it is the day of transition where judgment expands to every unsaved person in the world.  God’s Spirit departs and He abandons the world, just as He did the churches, in the sense that He will no longer do the “work of salvation.”  This is what Jesus meant when He said that He must do the works of the One who sent Him while it is day, because the night cometh when no man can work.  He was referring to Himself; He cannot do the work of salvation during the spiritual night.  It was only during the Day of Salvation that He can perform that work.  So on May 21, 2011, the Great Tribulation ended and “immediately after that Tribulation,” the sun is darkened and it became spiritual night.  Now there is no one to be saved because everyone whose names were included in the Lamb’s Book of Life has been found.  How can you save someone that has not been predestinated to salvation?  How can you save someone whose sins were not paid for before the foundation of the world?  God has accomplished all that He intended to accomplish regarding the salvation of His elect, so He just leaves off saving and He abandons His salvation program as far as ministering the Gospel to the world in order that individuals hear and become saved, because there is no purpose to that any longer.  There is no reason to do it.  God knows that the lost sheep of the house of Israel have all been found. 

I am sorry, but the Gospel has never been here for the psychological well being of people.  It was not sent forth just so people could feel good that there is still a Gospel that is “available” to them.  That has never been the purpose.  The purpose has always been specific, designed by God to locate His lost sheep.  He sent it for the lost sheep of the house of Israel and once the sheep were all found (as they have been), there is no more sending of that salvation message.  This is what we have been proclaiming here at EBible Fellowship: God has ended his program of sending forth the believers as messengers of the Gospel to seek and find the lost sheep.  This is all over and done with because it has been completed.  It is really an excellent reason for not going forth with the Gospel in order to find sinners with the hope they might become saved.   God has already won the victory in that area.  He has done all He intended to do. 

Some people fail to understand this and they claim, “Oh, the believers are still here, so God must still be saving.”  They are not looking at what God did to the churches, while He left the true believers there for years, but He did no work of salvation.  They are not looking at other Scriptures that indicate it is God’s plan to try the believers in order to bring them through the spiritual fire as silver and gold, as they endure to the end of all things.  They are not looking at the tableau or demonstration that God says His people will manifest in “appearing” before the judgment seat of God: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” and the “we” is referring to the true believers, and the purpose is not to make payment for sin, but to demonstrate that we have already made payment in the Person of Christ from the foundation of the world.  All of these things are in view during this period of Judgment Day, but it is just not true that the presence of true believers means that there must be more salvation.  That is a false claim by desperate people.  They really are desperate; they are trying everything they can think of and searching the Bible up and down to disprove the doctrine that God has shut the door.  They are not searching the Bible correctly.  Remember, God says the Bereans searched the Bible to see if these things “were so,” rather than to see if it is “not so.”  In other words, they are thinking, “Let me get out my concordance and find whatever I can find to disprove this heresy.”  Do you see how their minds are already made up in a certain direction?  Of course, apart from the grace of God, it will remain fully set in that (wrong) direction.

Let us go back to Revelation 11:10:

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.

In our last study we saw that the word “rejoice” can be positive or negative, depending on how it is used.  It is a good thing to rejoice over God’s salvation program or to rejoice over the Lord Jesus Christ.  But when the world “rejoices,” it is at calamity or perceived disaster that has struck the kingdom of God.  When Judas covenanted for silver to betray the Lord Jesus, the chief priests rejoiced and that was an evil rejoicing.  There was nothing good about their joy.  We saw the true believers rejoice in the truth, but those that are not true believers rejoice in iniquity and this is the nature of the world; they rejoice in things they should not rejoice in and they are sorrowful at things for which they should not sorrow.  It is the reverse of how it ought to be.  God’s Word ought to be a cause for rejoicing.  Truth ought to be a cause for rejoicing for all men.  When people hear truth from the Bible, it should make their hearts rejoice in God and rejoice in His Word.  Is it not wonderful that God has brought me the truth?  Yet, the reality is that there is hostility toward that truth; they save their rejoicing for evil things. 

In the case of the two witnesses’ death, “they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them.”  We looked at Obadiah regarding how Esau rejoiced that his brother was being devastated by the enemy.  We also find that God faults the Babylonians for the very same thing, in Jeremiah 50:10-11:

And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith JEHOVAH. Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage…

It was true that Satan was carrying out the will of God, but God took note that Satan was doing so in a very joyful manner.  It was similar to Jehu, the captain that God made king of Israel, but God first gave Jehu the task of slaying the evil king and his family that ruled over Israel; Jehu went about that task zealously.  Destruction was something he was very good at, so Jehu was a type of Satan. 

God gave up his church to Satan and his emissaries and they relished the opportunity to do all they could do against the people of God and the testimony of the Word of God within the churches and congregations.  They brought great destruction and they did so eagerly and God says they were glad and they rejoiced.  Again, that would point to the world being happy that the testimony of the “two witnesses” was destroyed.  The testimony would have been the declaration of the Word of God which had the power of the Spirit of God behind it and which had convicted the world and troubled the world because they could not escape far enough away from the witness of the Bible.  It really was a “torment” to them which had made them very uncomfortable.  Now it was finished.  The truth that was being declared was gone and the power behind it was gone and even the declaration of those truths was being cast aside by the churches, once God left the church. 

For instance, the churches taught for centuries that divorce is wrong and that a man and a woman should stay married.  Even though that would have been something that blessed the people of the world, it was a form of torment to them because they could not do their sinful pleasure and leave a wife and take a new wife, as they chose.  But now the church age was over and now those in the churches were becoming just like the world.  There were just as many divorced people within the churches as outside the churches – the pastors divorce, the elders divorce, and the deacons divorce.  So now there is no more “torment” or troubled minds regarding divorce; that law of God has been trampled under foot by this assault against the churches.

Another example would be Sunday the Sabbath, which was correctly taught by the churches for centuries.  The church bells would ring in the town and the city would otherwise be quiet; work was not taking place in many places where the Word of God had come and churches had been established.  People knew that Sunday was a day to go to church; it was the Lord’s Day and not a day to work or a day to play, but to be involved in spiritual things.  But then came the end of the church age and the witness of God behind the proclamation of Sunday the Sabbath was removed and, suddenly, churches were having Super Bowl parties and the pastor might have a part-time job later that evening and members of the congregations were working more and more on Sunday and soon it was just like any other day of week.  The “torment” that was behind the declaration of Sunday the Sabbath had troubled and vexed the people of the world; they wanted that day to be like any other day and they wanted to do their own pleasure and their own will on that day.  And now, finally, there is no more “torment” and no more bothered minds.  How can they be bothered by this church?  Now this church will even serve you beer while you watch football on Sunday in some churches.  There is no more “witness” of that true doctrine of the Bible within the churches and there are many other things that once had “tormented” people as God had His people declare these things, but now it is all ended.  There is no “torment” because there is no true witness any longer which has the power of God’s Spirit behind it.  And now we see the result of that all over the world in countries where Sundays used to be respected as the Lord’s Day, but now it is a day for shopping, for sports or for work, like any other day of the week.  Sometimes, it is even more trampled upon than any other day of the week. 

This is all the result of the death of the “two witnesses,” as God ushered in the end of the age.  The last stage of the world had come.  It was God’s plan and He allowed the churches to become a vain witness to His Word.