Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #26 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are looking at Revelation14:11:

And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

We have been looking at this verse for a couple of studies and we have seen that the Bible will not allow any conclusion that relates to everlasting punishment, without end, or the idea of “eternal damnation” that the theologians and churches have put forth during the many centuries of the church age.  The idea of a place called “Hell” where people will suffer without end is not permitted by the Bible.  Deuteronomy 25, verses 1 through 3, are part of the Law of God which declares that a judge may not give more than “forty stripes.”  The important principal established by that Law is that a judge cannot punish a transgressor without limitation – there must be a limit to the punishment.  The rest of the Bible then comes into clearer focus and we understand that what God has said, repeatedly, in many Scriptures is that there will be an “end” to the wicked.  The language of the Bible is that the wicked will “perish,” or be “cut off” or “be no more,” and God says this, time and again, throughout the Bible.  Yet, we have misread these things down through time to try to apply the punishment of the wicked to a place of eternal torment called “Hell.”  There is no such place that will be created, as “hell” identifies with the grave; death is the close of life and the end of the wicked person’s existence and they will “know nothing” ever again.

This means that when we look at a verse like Revelation 14:10, where it says, “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever,” we must look more closely.  Are we missing something?  It cannot be an eternal, unlimited judgment, so it must be something else.  When we look at the Greek word for “for,” which is “eis,” Strong’s #1519, we find that with small words like “for” we will not find too much help because they are used so often that Strong’s Concordance has an index where all the places they are found are mentioned, but not much help is given.  If you go to the Englishman’s Concordance, you can find all the places they are listed and the various English words into which they are translated and you will find this word is translated as “in” or “into”.  For instance, you can go Matthew 2, verse 1 or verse 8, and find this word translated as “to.”  You can also find it translated as “into” in Matthew 2, verses 11, 12, 13, 14, 20 and 21, and so on.  This is just a small sampling of how often this particular word “for” is translated as either “to” or “into.”  Once we make that substitution, which the Bible permits because God allows its use in numerous other verses, our verse then reads:  “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up to ever and ever,” or “to the point of” the destruction of this world and the creation of the new heaven and new earth or to the entry point of eternity future.  That is the idea that is being given here and it is the same idea we find in Revelation 20:10:

And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

The word “for” is the same Greek word “eis,” Strong’s #1519, so it is “to ever and ever.”  It is to the end of the world and while this world lasts, there is “day and night,” as it says in Genesis, when God made a statement after the flood that He would not bring destruction like the flood ever again upon the earth, until the end of time.  It says in Genesis 8:22:

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

God says that “while the earth remaineth,” the “day and night shall not cease,” and the implication is that once the earth is removed and shaken, as the Bible tells us in Hebrews 12, there will no longer be “day and night.”  The Lord tells us of the new heaven and new earth, in Revelation 21, that there will “be no night there.”  The time keepers of the sun, moon and stars (the celestial clock that God placed in the heavens above to govern time during the history of the world) will be destroyed with the destruction of this world; the whole universe is to be burned and melted with a fervent heat, as we read in 2Peter, chapter 3.  Therefore, “time,” which is part of this creation, is no more.  Remember what it said in Revelation 10:6:

And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

Time will be destroyed when this world is destroyed and when the universe is destroyed.  There will be no more time and no more “day and night.”  Day and night are not possible because it is a time reference that continues while the earth remains, but when the earth, the heavens and all this creation are destroyed, time is no longer and there cannot be “day and night.”  This is the help God has given us to understand verses like we just read, in Revelation 20:10, where the beast and the false prophet “shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”  It is not possible for the torment to continue for ever and ever.  We have seen that from Deuteronomy 25, but, secondly, it is not possible because “day and night” do not continue for ever and ever into eternity future.  Day and night have an end once this world is destroyed, so on both counts God is letting it be known that we had better watch what He is saying and not be deceived, as mankind has been deceived through the superficial reading of the Scriptures that, seemingly, indicate God’s punishment of the sinner will be for evermore.

That is the same thing we find in Revelation 14:11:

And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night…

Here is the time reference that lets us know that what happens to those that worship the image of the beast (whose names were not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life) is that their period of “torment” is appearing in real time within the normal course of this world.  The world is still here and continues; the sun rises and sets; the moon appears in the night and the stars are still in the heavens.  The 24-hour periods of time that God built into the fabric of this creation from the very beginning are still in operation.  The clock is “ticking” and time is continuing and, therefore, when we come across verses that seem to indicate that the wicked are being punished and are suffering day and night, or there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” or that they are cast into outer darkness, there must be recognition by the faithful Bible student that this is happening in this present world during the normal 24-hour periods of the “day and night.”  It is all happening within the boundaries of time.  This is the teaching of the Bible.  

It is actually not possible for someone to hold to the doctrine of annihilation (which is Biblically correct) and, at the same time, to hold to the idea of Christ coming and destroying the world in a moment at the time of His coming and there is time no more, because it does not allow for “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  It does not allow for the “torment” the Bible speaks of in places like Revelation 9, where there is mention of “five months” of torment, which is a figure to represent the duration of Judgment Day.  There are numerous Scriptures that indicate that the wicked are experiencing the “torment” of God in some way and it is worked out over “time,” or over “day and night.”  So when people return to the idea that May 21, 2011 was not Judgment Day and they say, “Oh, we are waiting for the Lord to come and when He comes it will all suddenly be over,” but what happens then?  They have not taken many verses in the Bible into account and tried to fit them with all Scripture.  For instance, we know that the Bible says, “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.”  These are the time keepers, so if it were a literal reference, it would mean the end of the world.  But the problem with that idea is that it says in the parallel verse in Mark 13:24-25:

But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall…

It says that there is a period of time called “those days” (plural) after the Tribulation, in which the sun is dark and the moon is not giving its light and the stars have fallen.  How can that be?  In order to have time, you need the “sun, moon and stars.”  You cannot think that right after the Tribulation, God comes and destroys the sun, moon and stars and it is all dark, but the world is still here; it could not operate for even the smallest amount of time and, certainly, there could not be a period of “days” without the sun, moon and stars in operation.  In addition, Genesis 22 tells us that “while the earth remains” there will be “day and night,” so we need the sun, moon and stars, so how do these people explain it?  I am sorry to say that they do not explain it, but they just avoid these passages and they do not harmonize them together.  

Yet, there is an explanation.  The Great Tribulation ended on May 21, 2011 and the sun was darkened, spiritually, and the moon (the light of the Word of God) went out and the stars fell, which means the light bearers (the believers) went dark as far as bringing a message of ongoing salvation.  The light of the Gospel, spiritually, went out across the face of the earth, while, literally and physically, the sun, moon and stars remain.   “In those days after that tribulation,” the day in which we presently live, the lights of the Gospel remains dark, spiritually, but the celestial lights in the sky remain and there is “day and night,” in which “torment” is taking place; the Day of Judgment, which is likened to “five months” of torment, is taking place over time in which the beast, the false prophet and the unsaved in the world are being “tormented to ever and ever,” to the day when the time of God’s wrath shall have been completed from the cup He had measured, which will (in all likelihood) be a complete 10,000 days of judgment; on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles on October 7, 2015, we will (in all likelihood) come to the point of eternity future and the “torment” will cease and God will finalize the destruction of all the unsaved people and the earth and heavens.  The “torment” would have taken place to the point of “ever and ever.”

This is what we want to look at in Revelation 14:11:

And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night…

Remember the reference “to ever and ever.”  The Greek word translated as “ever and ever” is “aion,” Strong’s #165, and it is translated in some interesting ways in the New Testament.  Let us start with 1Corinthians 10.  In the previous verses God was describing Israel’s history and the spiritual significance of it, and then he says in 1Corinthians 10:11:

Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

It says, “The ends of the world,” and it is very interesting that it does not say “the end of the world” (singular), and it is as if there is more than one end.  It does not make sense until we understand that the English word “world” is also a translation of the Greek word “aion.”  This word is translated as “world,” on occasion and it is also translated as “course” or “ages.”  Let us go to Ephesians 1:21:

Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

The word “world” is “aion.”  So there is a present world and there is a world to come and we recognize that because the Bible says that there is this present earth, but there will be a “new earth.”  It says in Ephesians 2:2:

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world…

Our word is “course.”  The word “world” here is a different word, “kosmos.”  Here, it speaks of “the course of this world,” and “aion” is translated as “age” in a couple of places and that really helps me to understand this word better.  Substitute that in Ephesians 2:2: “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the age of this world.”  It is not the world itself, but an “era” or “epoch.”  It says in Ephesians 2:6-7:

And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

The word “ages” is our word “aion.”  So God speaks of “ages” that are to come.  He says there is the “ends” of this age, in 1Corinthians 10:11, and there are “ages” to come.  This is a rather difficult word to grasp, so I want us to get a feel of it.  It says in Hebrews 9:26:

For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

The word “world” is “aion.”  It is actually plural there, so it is saying that he appeared “once in the end of the ages.”  Now Christ was made manifest in 33 AD to demonstrate what He had done from the foundation of the world.  God is indicating that in 33 AD, when Jesus appeared, it was the “end of the ages.”  Why would the Lord say that 33 AD was the “end of the ages”? 

I think when we look at Biblical history, we see the creation of the world and then there was a period of time to the flood – that was a distinct period of time, 6023 years from creation, until the flood in 4991 BC.  Then from the flood, there was general history unfolding until the formation of Israel, as God began to deal with the family of Abraham; that was another distinct period of time from the flood to Abraham.  Then from the formation of national Israel to Christ was another different era or period of time.  From Christ, in 33 AD, we have the beginning of the church age and it lasted for 1,955 years.  And notice that we call it the “church age” and this word “aion” can be translated as “age.”  We can look back at Biblical history and we can see that God had an entirely different program for the “church age” than He did for the age of “national Israel.”  Prior to the nation of Israel’s formation, he dealt with individuals from the flood to Abraham.  And even before that, there was a different period from creation until God destroyed the world with the flood.  So we can see “eras” or “ages” and I think that “ages” is what this word points to, more correctly.