Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #24 of Revelation, chapter 11, and we are going be reading Revelation 11:12-13:

And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

I will stop reading there.  We have been looking at verse 12 and the language of “ascending” up to heaven and we saw how that fits with God’s salvation program.  Whenever He saved anyone at any point in history, it was as if they ascended upon the Son of man and then descended as a messenger.  They ascend in a cloud (which relates to the judgment of God), but at this same point of judgment, there was also great salvation because there was great fear which fell upon those that saw the “two witnesses.”  God is giving us language to let us know that He did work a wonderful and glorious work of salvation and there was a great multitude saved out of the Great Tribulation; they did ascend up to heaven to be seated in Christ Jesus, yet they did not “descend” because they are not commissioned – there is no more sending out of messengers with the message of salvation.  God, by omitting the word “descend,” is really emphasizing the truth that this was a “one way ticket to heaven,” in effect; that is, there is the salvation of the great multitude, but then God’s salvation program concludes and there is no more need to send messengers into the world.  “And their enemies beheld them,” in the sense that the world was a witness to these things, as the declaration of Judgment Day of May 21, 2011 went throughout the nations of the world.

Then we read in Revelation 11:13:

And the same hour was there a great earthquake…

This refers to the “hour” of judgment, the last hour or the “one hour” of Great Tribulation.  God does typify the Great Tribulation period as “one hour” and it is the last hour of the work day in the parable of the vineyard.  It is the eleventh to the twelfth hour and then comes the “night” when no man can work.  The same “hour” refers to the judgment.  It is the same “hour” that they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; it is the time of judgment.  Remember, back in Revelation, chapter 9, God did speak of Judgment Day this way, in Revelation 9:15:

And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

So the judgment came at an “hour,” and we can actually say that the spiritual “hour” was 6 PM, because the work day is 12 hours long.  Jesus told us that in the Gospel of John: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?”  God lays out the spiritual work day, the day of salvation, in the parable of the vineyard in Matthew 20, where workers are hired to labour in the vineyard.  They are hired at the third hour, the sixth hour and the ninth hour.  Then the pattern of every three hours is broken because some are still standing idle all the day and they are hired at the “eleventh hour” for the final hour.  That last “hour” typifies the Great Tribulation and that is when God also completed His salvation plan; He saved the best for last and He poured out the Latter Rain and saved that great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation – out of that hour.  Then the twelfth hour or the last hour came to an end on May 21, 2011.  The “twelfth hour” would have come at 6 PM, spiritually speaking.  It is now “night” and no man can work.  The Lord Jesus Christ is that “man” who is in view and He now no longer performs the work that He was sent to perform: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent,” or that people become saved through the work of Christ.  So we can look at Judgment Day as an “hour” and, spiritually, that “hour” is the end of the twelve-hour work day, or 6 PM, and that is the point at which all the elect of God “ascend” to be seated in Christ Jesus.

And the same hour was there a great earthquake…

In the Greek this “great earthquake” is “megas seismos.”   We find the language of a “great earthquake” (the two words together) only a few times in the Bible.  One time it is used in relationship to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, in Matthew 28:2:

And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

We are very familiar with that account.  The Lord Jesus Christ was no longer in the sepulchre; He had risen from the dead.  Yet, that “great earthquake” was unusual.  If we were to analyze what this “great earthquake” accomplished, it caused the stone to roll back and it opened up the sepulchre.  A sepulchre is a tomb where the dead are buried, but Jesus was not there.  He had risen. 

This same idea, in a slightly different way, comes into view a little bit later when we look at this “great earthquake.”  But, first, let us look at a couple of places were a “great earthquake” is mentioned.  It is mentioned in Revelation, chapter 6, and we went through this passage earlier in our study in the Book of Revelation.  It says in Revelation 6:12:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

As we read this account, we can quickly see the relationship between what we are reading here in Revelation 6 and a verse like Matthew 24:29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.”   We have the same language in Revelation 6:12, but it is joined with the language of a “great earthquake” and it is pinpointing the time of judgment.  We recognize that the “great earthquake” must relate to judgment, but this is pinpointing the time for us, so we know when the “great earthquake” occurred.  We can use the past tense now because the 23-year Great Tribulation period began on May 21, 1988 and concluded on May 21, 2011.  Matthew 24:29 says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened,” so the end of the Great Tribulation began Judgment Day on the world and it was the point of occurrence of that “great earthquake.” 

Of course, some people are probably saying, “I do not remember any great earthquake.”  We had expected a great earthquake.  We thought there would an enormous, worldwide earthquake that would open up the ground and the bodies of the dead would rise from the ground to be littered on the earth.  We were incorrect about that.  Here, we see the language of a “great earthquake,” just as we did in Revelation 11, but the problem was that we took it literally and that is a dangerous thing to do when studying the Bible.  Of course, there were reasons that led us in the direction of believing it would be a literal earthquake, but we were wrong.  We were right that May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day and we were right that a “great earthquake” did occur on that day, but we were wrong about the nature of the earthquake – it was a spiritual earthquake.  God sent a spiritual earthquake and since it was spiritual, it meant that no one could see it or feel it; the ground did not shake; the bodies of the dead were not thrown out of the graves.  Then everyone decided it was all wrong and everything about the “supposed” Day of Judgment was wrong.  We had told people, “Look for a great earthquake on that day and that will be the evidence of God’s judgment.”  Yet it was God’s plan to bring to pass a great earthquake, but it would be spiritual and this would lead people to believe that nothing had happened at all.

Now I am sure someone is shaking his head and saying, “Oh, right, a spiritual earthquake.  You are imagining things.  You are just desperately trying to prove that something did occur on May 21, 2011.”

Let us start with the question, “Is there such a thing as a spiritual earthquake in the Bible?”  And the answer is, “Yes.”  As a matter of fact, if we go to the Old Testament, we read in Jeremiah 10:22:

Behold, the noise of the bruit is come…

The word “bruit” means “report,”

…and a great commotion out of the north country…

The Hebrew word translated here as “commotion” is also translated as “earthquake” in other places in the Old Testament.  It should have been translated as “great earthquake” and then it would have said:

…and a great commotion (earthquake) out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.

We are familiar with the last phrase in that verse, as it is pretty typical language when God is speaking of His judgment on Judah of old, which in turn is a picture of the judgment that comes on the New Testament churches at the time of the end when judgment begins at the house of God.  The judgment or earthquake comes out of the “north country” because the Babylonians, historically, came against Judah out of the north; the Babylonian king typified Satan and the Babylonians typified the emissaries of Satan that assaulted the New Testament churches and overcame them.  Then Satan was set up as the “man of sin” and he was the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place.  Because God had forsaken the churches and given them over to Satan, this was one of the ways that God brought to pass the judgment against the churches and they become “a den of dragons.”  One of the names of Satan is “dragon” and the devils that entered into the churches with him would have been the rest of the dragons and the churches would have become a “den of dragons,” or a den of unclean spirits, wickedness and evil, after God’s Spirit left the churches. 

But, this all happened spiritually.  The cup that God gave to the churches was a spiritual cup.  As it says in Jeremiah 10:22, the great earthquake that came out of the north country was a spiritual earthquake; there was no actual earthquake that took place.  So we see the same principal: God gave the cup of His wrath to the churches, which was spiritual in nature; then He takes the identical cup and gives it to the inhabitants of the world to drink.  God brought a great earthquake on the churches when they became a desolate wilderness and then He brought a great earthquake on the world on the day He told them He would do it.

Let us also look at Revelation 16:17-19:

And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

This ties in with Judgment Day on the world.  As we saw in the figure in Jeremiah 10:22, Babylon was instrumental in bringing the judgment on the churches, but once the judgment was complete and Satan had accomplished the purpose God had given him to do to bring judgment against the churches, then God turned around and brought judgment on the king of Babylon (Satan) and on Babylon (Satan’s kingdom), and there was a “great earthquake” that took place and it “shook” things spiritually, we could say.  Obviously, nothing physical was shaken, but spiritually many things were shaken on May 21, 2011, as far as God’s salvation plan for this world.  For instance, after we read in Matthew 24:29, that “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened,” then we read at the end of that verse in Matthew 24:29:

… and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

Here is the “earthquake,” or the image of the lights of the Gospel being shaken and God’s salvation program being forcibly removed out of its place and it would no longer go forth as it had throughout the day of salvation. 

Let us also look at Acts 16, where we read of some interesting and unusual things that take place in a prison as a result of a great earthquake.  It says in Acts 16:25-26:

And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.

Here, we have a “great earthquake” that took place and we would have to say that this is extremely unusual because what happened when the great earthquake occurred was that there were no deaths and no damage of any kind to the city or to the buildings.  The only thing God records concerning this “great earthquake” is that “the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.”  So it was, in fact, a “great earthquake.”  It was not just a minor tremor; the Bible says it was a “megas seismos.”  We are used to great earthquakes that cause great damage, but in Acts 16 the “great earthquake” caused minimal or no damage.  All it seemed to have accomplished is that it opened the prison doors for all the prisoners in that city. 

Actually, we would have to say that this gives the appearance of a miraculous “great earthquake,” because it seems to be so precise in its focus, as if the earthquake had a purpose, which was to free the captives held in the prison.  That seems to be the only thing that happened as a result of this “great earthquake,” and this is highly unusual.  We read this and we are amazed that God records a “great earthquake” that only sets all the captives free.