Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #16 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are reading Revelation 13:10:

He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

At the end of our last study, we were discussing the Greek word translated as “patience” in this verse, which is Strong’s #5281, and I would pronounce it as “hoop-om-on-ay” (hupomone) and it is derived from Strong’s #5278, which is pronounced “hoop-om-en-o” (hupomeno) and it is a compound word.  “Hupo” is a word that means “kept under” and “meno” means to “abide” or “endure” or “continue.”  We went to John 15 and we saw how it was used there, as the Lord Jesus used this word, repeatedly, to refer to “abiding” in Him, “continuing” in His love by keeping the Word of God, upholding the truth of God and continuing in those things we have received, by God’s grace.  The word “hupomeno,” Strong’s #5278, basically means to “abide under,” or to “continue under” and it would be to be under God’s Word, which means you are in submission to God’s word and humbled before it; we are not above it; we are not attempting to come out from under it, but we are “under” the Word of God.  When we are in that kind of relationship to God’s Word, we can expect affliction and persecution to come for the Word’s sake, especially at the time of the end – at the time when there was Great Tribulation and now beyond the Great Tribulation, as we live in the world in these days after that Tribulation in the Day of Judgment.  We can expect that persecution and affliction to continue for the Word’s sake.  God does not lie to us or deceive us.  He tells us the truth: it is through much tribulation we enter into the kingdom of God.

So, this word, Strong’s #5278, is the Greek word from which our word “patience” is derived.  I want to look at a couple of places where this word is found.  It says in Matthew 10:19:

But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.

This is similar language to Mark 13:11 and it is referring to the “hour” of the Great Tribulation.  Then it says in Matthew 10:20:

For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.

God’s people will speak what the Holy Spirit tells us to speak.  God will not tell us audibly; there will be no breaking of the barrier of the supernatural, but it is through the Word of God.  The Bible says that when we compare Scripture with Scripture, the Holy Ghost teacheth.  When you teach, do you speak?  Yes, of course, you have to speak.  Well, the Holy Ghost teaches when we compare Scripture with Scripture and that is how He will speak to us.  When God does so, He takes full responsibility: “For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.”

Then it says in Matthew 10:21-22:

And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Where it says “for my name’s sake,” you could substitute “for the Word’s sake.”  There will be hatred toward the people of God because of the things the Word of God declares and are coming forth from the Bible, which God has unsealed at the time of the end.  In verse 22, where it says, “but he that endureth to the end shall be saved,” we find our Greek word #5278 and it is translated here as “endureth.”  This word is also translated a couple of times as “patience” or “patiently,” yet, it is a word that means “to endure.”  It is that compound word that means to “continue under,” so we can understand Matthew 10:22 to say, “But he that ‘continues under’ to the end shall be saved.”  It is the one that continues to trust the Bible and continues to trust right doctrine which God has graciously and kindly opened up to us.  And He has opened up much information at the time of the end. 

Knowledge has increased tremendously over the course of the last several years, as God carefully opened up His Word through the methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture and the Holy Ghost teacheth; the Holy Spirit began to speak and doctrines were brought forth:  the doctrine of the end of the church age, the doctrine of annihilation; the doctrine of Christ being slain from the foundation of the world and paying for sins at that point and not at the cross; the doctrines of the timeline of history and the timeline of Judgment Day; the doctrines that God brought spiritual judgment on the churches and then brought spiritual judgment on the world, as well as several other doctrines.  God’s people are required to continue to check these things out to make sure these things are so and when they hear them, they go to the Bible to make sure the Bible is saying these things.  But, once that has been done and these things have been proven to the individual through the Word of God, then their response is, “I am obligated to accept this teaching.”  They place themselves “under” these teachings and they become a steward of them.  Remember, in 1Corinthinans, chapter 4, God speaks of those that are stewards of the mystery of God.  The mystery is the parable that is explained as Christ spoke in mysteries or in parables and when God grants us understanding of the hidden truth of the parable, then we become stewards of it.  Once again, we take the time to verify it and then we are a steward of it. 

Now the question is: What are we doing with our stewardship?  For those that have gone back from maintaining and holding on to these things, you will not find them speaking of the end of the church age any longer; you will not find them saying Christ was slain from the foundation of the world; you will not hear them speaking of annihilation; and you definitely will not hear them mentioning that Judgment Day occurred on May 21, 2011.  So they have come out “from under” the Word and they are no longer continuing in the faithful teachings of the Word of God; they are no longer continuing in the doctrines of Christ, as God painstakingly and carefully made sure His people understood the information about the end: “the wise will understand,” and none of the wicked will understand.  Ecclesiastes 8:5 says: “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.”  The Lord pointed out to us in Amos 3:7: “He revealeth his secrets unto his servants the prophets.”  He let us know that the time of the end will be as the days of Noah.  Well, in the days of Noah, God gave Noah, first of all, 120 years of forewarning and then he directly told him, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth,” and He brought the flood, so Noah could know the very day of the flood.  God also let it be known that He went to Sodom and grabbed hold of Lot’s hand before the fire and brimstone fell and dragged him out of the city, so Lot had forewarning and foreknowledge of approaching judgment.  Many Scriptures support the teaching that God would give information concerning the final judgment to us as custodians and stewards of His Word. 

But those in the churches say, “No man knows the day or the hour.  Oh, yes, we are to keep watch, but we cannot ever expect to see anything while we are keeping our watch for the coming of the Lord.”  They fail to see the ridiculous nature of their doctrine that they are to watch but they cannot expect to see anything.  That is why God mocks them in the Book of Isaiah and calls them “blind watchmen” and they are like a guard dog that cannot bark.  That is the exact spiritual condition of the churches and congregations and that is the exact spiritual condition of any ministry or of any professed believers (whether inside the churches or outside of the churches) that place themselves in the position that “no man can know the day or the hour.”  That teaching, unlike other erroneous teachings, has a very specific purpose.  The purpose of coming to the conclusion that “no man knows the day or hour” is to ward off all the end time doctrines – all of them.  It wards off information about the Great Tribulation; it wards off information about the Day of Judgment; it puts at a distance the idea of spiritual judgment coming on May 21, 2011.  It removes them, almost magically (I hate to use that word), from any discussion and they bring up this verse, “No man knows the day or the hour,” and it is as if they are saying, “So be gone, those of you that have your Biblical timeline of history and you lay out this timeline.  Yes, it is precise and I cannot find fault with it, but ‘No man knows the day or hour,’ so I dismiss it out of hand and with a wave of my hand, I turn from it.  I now, contentedly and with my Biblical backing, can turn my attention to the things of the world and to living my life in this world without worry or concern about knowing the days are short and Christ is coming.  I do not need all this ruckus of spiritual judgment on the churches and spiritual judgment on the world.  Now I am free and why am I free?  I am free because, ‘No man knows the day or hour.’”  By doing so, they have come out from “under” that teaching, as well as a great many other truths that God so graciously has given us.  That is the only way to put it.  For our benefit, blessing and welfare, God has given to us large amounts of information.  He has increased our knowledge concerning His end time program of “times and seasons,” and for these people, now it is all gone.  It is all put behind them. 

You might think that some people just do not want to talk about the end, but they are not doing away with the Biblical calendar or judgment on the churches.  But, give them time.  Give them time – they have just started their retreat; they have just begun to turn back; they have just initiated the process of “going away” from the Word of God.  How does God respond to someone that turns back?  They have gone up to a point, but then they decided, “Well, I had better get back to that other road, wherever I took that fork in the road.”  Remember, if individuals are not upholding the Word of God and they are not being faithful stewards of His mysteries and right doctrines, then God begins to work against them.  He begins to fight against them.  If they have lost one truth – and it is a major truth – then it is often the case that they will lose more.  They will lose sight of other things because the Bible is that intricate and delicate work of God where all things fit together so perfectly; you cannot “rip” something out and expect everything else to just hold their place.  No – other things begin to fall and they begin to go back on other doctrines.  We have seen it.  We have seen it with some people that were right with us (prior to May 21, 2011).  That is what they said – they claimed to understand these things and they possessed knowledge of many of the things that EBible continues to hold to and to declare.  Yet, in many instances, now they say, “Oh, no man knows the day or hour.  How do you know the church age is over?  How do you know God ended salvation for the churches?  There might be saved persons there.”  And, so, it begins.  You see, the doctrine of “No man knows the day or the hour” is not just the ‘edge of the wedge,’ but it is a hammer blow that has cracked open the wall.  Satan (the enemy) does not just have a tiny crack to infiltrate, but it is a huge, gaping hole that has been brought against the sound teaching of God’s Word.

Well, okay, let us also look at Matthew, chapter 24, where this same Greek word is translated as “endure” or “endureth.”  It says in Matthew 24:11-13:

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

It is he that will “continue under” or “abide under” to the end will be saved.  We should add that it is not because of his effort or his work, as if a person can keep oneself faithful and maintain right doctrine on our own.  It is because the ones spoken of here that are “enduring” or “continuing under” are the elect; they are the ones to whom God has given a new heart and a new spirit.  They have the Spirit of Christ within and, therefore, God holds them fast and they are steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.  They continue to keep the faith.  They continue to trust God.  They continue to wait on Him and patiently endure through the affliction, the tribulation and the reviling.  They accept the criticisms and they accept the judgments of man, because with them it is a small thing to be judged of man in comparison to the judgment of God.  Who cares if a man thinks you are a heretic?  Who cares if someone thinks you are of Satan?  What does that matter?  That is their minuscule judgment that is based upon their own faulty thinking.  We know it is faulty because God warns of reviling anyone.  No one has that right or allowance from God.  Even the Lord Jesus would not speak evil of Satan, we read in the Book of Jude.  Yet, there are those that think that they must serve God by letting it be known that these persons, or these ministries, are heretics and do not love the truth.

You know, EBible has been spoken evil of to some very terrible depths.  It has been interesting to see how many (and how often) people will speak evil of Ebible Fellowship because of the teaching that we maintain: May 21, 2011 was, in fact, Judgment Day and God did shut the door and He did put out the light of the Gospel.  That has sparked the ire and anger of many and they gnash on us with their teeth.  Yet, if you would take all of their anger and fury and wrath and pile it up, what is it?  It does not amount to much at all – it is like a little “puff.”  On the other hand, there is the wrath of God and the anger and fury of Almighty God, which is upon the wicked of the world.  That is what we should fear – we fear God.  We do not fear man.  We do not fear the judgment of man or their bulls, decrees or edicts of man.  Who cares what the corporate churches declare?  They had declared that Family Radio was heretical leading up to May 21, 2011.  The churches do not know the truth and they had not upheld the truth for many years; they were churches God had abandoned. 

So we are not concerned with the determination or sentence pronounced upon us by churches or individuals.  Our main concern and only concern is: “What does God think?”  Are we faithful to the Bible and to what the Word of God says?”  The Bible is our authority and, really, I think that when we get all these angry responses, it is evidence and proof of the truthfulness of the Word of God.  As God has said, affliction arises for the Word’s sake.  It is not about us.  They could not care less about us.  As God said to Samuel, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.”  It is not you, personally, but it is the Lord that is the offense; it is the Word of God that is the offense.  It is the Word that declares these things.  It is the judgment of God that is blasphemed.  That is the real problem some people have – it is not with us, as we stand beside the Word of God, and as God draws us to His Word and holds us closely to Him through His Word.  It is the Word itself that is the offense and this is what people despise and not (necessarily) the true believer.