Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #19 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are continuing to look at 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.

We are continuing to look at that phrase at the end of verse 10: “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”  That led us to Matthew, chapter 21, and that parabolic picture that the Lord Jesus gave us in cursing the a tree and the things He said to His disciples after He cursed the fig tree with an eternal curse.  Then He says something even more mysterious, in Matthew 21:20-22:

And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away! Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

In our last study we saw how the kingdom of Satan is typified by “seven mountains” and the seventh mountain was the period of Satan’s rule from the beginning of the Great Tribulation, throughout that entire period of twenty three years, and then his final period of rule came to an end.  It was the seventh and last kingdom of Satan.  What happened then?  It was Judgment Day and God cast that mountain into the sea, but, here, we are seeing that it is through the believers because Jesus is speaking to the disciples, who represent the true believers, and He is telling them, “You will do what I did to this fig tree.”  When God opened up His Word regarding the judgment on the churches we, likewise, cursed “a fig tree” because the fig tree represented national Israel, but Israel in turn represents the New Testament churches and, therefore we have cursed the “fig tree” with an eternal curse as we declared what God had said about judgment beginning at the house of God.

But, in addition to that (“but also,” as it says in our verse), He says, in Matthew 21:21:

…but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

We have done this, also, because God began to reveal through the Scriptures as He opened up additional information from His Word concerning Judgment Day: it was a spiritual judgment, just like the judgment on the churches and congregations was a spiritual judgment.  He also let us know that it was a time when God shut the door to heaven, put out the Gospel light in the world and ended His salvation program.  These were the identical things that He did to the churches and we are sharing this information with all that will listen and, in doing so, the “mountain of Babylon” or the “mountain of the kingdom of Satan” is being cast into the sea, as the sea represents the wrath and furious anger of God in pouring out His punishment on all the unsaved inhabitants of the world. 

It is not that we are “judging” or that we have any power, of ourselves, to “curse the fig tree” or to speak and cast a mountain into the sea, but it is done by God.  God is the one that is the Judge and performs the doing of these things, but as He opens up His Word to reveal what He has done, then it can be said (and it is being said, in Matthew 21) that will do what Christ did in cursing the fig tree and, more than that, we will do something additional by casting that mountain into the sea.  As we proclaim that a spiritual judgment took place on May 21, 2011, we are saying that you cannot see it with your physical eyes.  You cannot look around and see any destruction; you see no literal fire of God’s wrath.  We point to Scriptures that says, “The sun shall be darkened” and “the moon shall not give her light,” and we do not see any of that.  You could look for the next full moon and you will still see a bright moon in the sky, so it is not literal at all.  We declare from the Bible that the “door is shut,” yet, we cannot see any physical door in the heavens above.  We could never see the door while it was open and we cannot see it now that it is closed.  But, again, God is doing the same thing He did during His judgment on the churches; you will “see” these things through “eyes of faith,” and that is why the emphasis in Matthew 21:21 is on faith:

…Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

It shall be done according to the perfect timetable of God and His “times and seasons,” and according to the “revelation of the righteous judgment of God” in its proper time, as God is now showing us these things.   So now we speak of these things and we believe them.  We trust the Bible and, therefore, it is by faith that we understand that heaven’s door is shut, the light of the Gospel has been put out and God has now saved all of His elect.  All of these things were revealed in the Word of God, the Bible, and we believe them.  This is why it says, in 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:

Then it says in Matthew 24:30:

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.

You see this is a sign God is giving in heaven.  The darkening of the sun and the moon and the falling of the stars are a sign of the coming of the Son of man, but since it is not literal the spiritual heavens were spread out by the Bible.  In Revelation 6, regarding Judgment Day, God speaks of the heavens being rolled up like a scroll because a scroll is how the heavens were first seen as God put the lights of the spiritual heavens in the sky through His Word and He lit the world through His Word.  But now it is the time of the end.  It is Judgment Day and it is time to put the lights out, so let us roll up the scroll.  If you close the Book, the Bible, no light would emanate or come forth.   In a sense, that is what God has done and this will be seen, not physically, but we will “see Christ coming in the clouds,” because the clouds refer to judgment.  We will “see” it in the Scriptures, in the Word of God.  

We saw how Jeremiah 51:24-25 calls Babylon “a destroying mountain” and God will make it a “burnt mountain.”  Let us also turn to Revelation 18, which is a well known chapter where God is detailing the judgment of Babylon.  It says in Revelation 18:20:

Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

Now it does not mention a “mountain” here, but it speaks of “a great millstone cast into the sea,” and that represents Babylon.  Of course, mountains are made of stone.  One thing is for certain, God is picturing Babylon as being cast into the sea and, once again, the sea illustrates the wrath of God in the Day of Judgment.  This imagery God describes in these verses is also taken from Jeremiah, chapter 51, so let us go back to Jeremiah 51:60-64:

So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words; Then shalt thou say, O JEHOVAH, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

That is how Jeremiah, chapter 51, ends.  Here, God refers to the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Jeremiah is part of the Bible.  As Jeremiah speaks to Seraiah, he is giving him instruction that when he comes to Babylon he is to read all these words, especially chapters 50 and 51, because that is how the Book concludes (with judgment on Babylon).  There is a chapter 52, but it just goes back into an historical narrative.  But Seraiah is first to read the words that were spoken against Babylon, to cut it off and it shall be desolate for ever.  It is an eternal curse of God against Babylon.  Once he is through reading the Book, he is to bind a stone to the Book and cast the Book and stone into the midst of the Euphrates, the river of Babylon.  And as the Book of Jeremiah sinks and goes down into the Euphrates, then that represents Babylon sinking. It is a picture of Babylon being cast into the great river Euphrates and notice the connection God is making between the sinking of Babylon and the Book of Jeremiah, which is part of the Bible.  It is the Words of God written against Babylon that are tied to the stone and cast into the river; the stone weighs it down and it sinks and Babylon is being drowned or destroyed in the sea.  It is a vivid illustration of the mountain (O Destroying mountain), which represents the kingdom of Satan, as the king of Babylon was a type and a figure of Satan and his kingdom of darkness  It is the final judgment of the unsaved people of the earth as they are cast down into the sea.

Let us just read a couple of other places in the Book of Revelation that may begin to make more sense, now that we are understanding that Babylon is typified as a mountain and God speaks of casting that mountain into the sea to picture Judgment Day.  It says in Revelation 6:12-13:

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…

As soon as we read this, we know what it is speaking of because the Bible is making identification as if waving a flag to us and we know this has to do with the time immediately after the Great Tribulation.  As we compare Scripture with Scripture, as we read earlier in Matthew 24:29, the sun is darkened immediately after the Tribulation and that is Judgment Day, so that is what we are reading about here in Revelation, chapter six.  Then we go on in Revelation 6:13-14:

…even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

At the time of Judgment Day, God is speaking of the mountains moving – every mountain is moving.  Yes, we know that Satan was down to his last “head,” representing his last kingdom (or mountain), but when Satan was judged at the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of Judgment Day, it was a judgment against all his periods of rule over the earth; all his “heads” came under judgment and all the mountains (picturing Satan’s rule over the unsaved people of the earth throughout history) really come into view as being under God’s wrath and, therefore, God speaks of “every mountain” being moved out of their places. 

It also said in Revelation 6:14, “And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.”  There is that reference to the spiritual heaven being tied together with the Bible: the Bible is that which unravels the heaven and the Bible is that which “rolls up” the heaven at God’s beckoning.

According to the command of God, it was now time to darken all the Gospel lights in this world, so it is like an old-fashioned scroll that you just “roll it up” and now the writing cannot be read.  This idea is connected to the moving of the mountains and it is all happening in the Day of Judgment.

Let us look at another verse in Revelation 16:19-20:

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. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

Every island fleeing away is a reference to the continents because every continent is like an island and, therefore, it is a picture of the world.  What is the world, but the kingdom of Satan?  So God is really doubling or repeating the same thing when He says, “every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”  Notice that in Revelation 16:19, God is clearly focused on the judgment on Babylon and then He speaks of every island fleeing away and every mountain not being found and it is exactly as it was stated in Revelation, chapter 6, but Revelation 6 did not mention Babylon, but it was discussing the judgment on the world in Revelation 16:14:

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

It is just another bit of evidence that confirms that the judgment on Babylon and judgment on the world are one and the same.  Babylon is typified by the islands and by the mountains.  It is the kingdom of Satan and he rules over this world; Satan and the unsaved people of the earth are these mountains that are cast into the sea, according to Matthew, chapter 21, and God’s people will be involved.  The Lord Jesus comes to judge the world with ten thousands of his saints; the complete number of the elect is instrumental in the judgment on the world.  It is a judgment God performs and He has written about in His word which he opened up to reveal to His people His righteous judgment and day of His wrath.   It is a judgment we see.  We see it, first of all, by faith; we believe by faith and we share it with others and, in so doing we have done what Christ has done in cursing the fig tree by believing that the church age has come to and end; God is utterly through with the churches and congregations and it is an eternal judgment upon them.  And, secondly, now we also wholeheartedly believe that God has brought about Judgment Day on May 21, 2011.  What did we say about this leading up to that date?  We said, “The Bible guarantees it!”  What an incredible statement of faith that is.  What an incredible declaration of faith that is.  Now, in these days after the Tribulation and after researching and examining all the information that caused us to make that declaration in the first place, we have gone back to the Bible and we have searched the Scriptures to see if these things were really so.  (Were we wrong?  Were we in error?)  We have affirmed this to be so: May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day.  It was the day God shut the door to heaven.  We believe it and, therefore, it is understood by faith.  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  That is exactly what a spiritual judgment is.