Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #28 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are looking at Revelation14:12:

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Once again, I would like to point out the context of this statement is right in the midst of a prolonged discussion of Judgment day, the final judgment of mankind in this world.  There is no mistaking what God is talking about in the previous verses; the cup of the wine of the wrath of God is being given to all who worshipped the image of the beast.  They performed that worship during the Great Tribulation period.  That is when Satan was loosed and that is the time God assigned Satan the name of the “beast” and the time he was given great authority and rule in both the world and the churches.  That is when all the unsaved whose names were not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life were worshipping him.  They were not worshipping God.  They were serving sin and, therefore, they were serving Satan.

In the verses after verse 12, we find the language of harvest and Christ putting in the sickle in the Day of Judgment and reaping the earth.  In between, this verse is found: “Here is the patience of the saints.”  The Greek word for “here” is “hode,” and it means “right here in this place or right here at the time and place of judgment.  This is exactly what we have learned from the Bible in these days after the Tribulation.

No one had ever understood what this verse was doing here in this context.  I think I mentioned before that a caller had called the Open Forum and asked Mr. Camping what he thought of this verse.  He went on to explain some things, but then he said he was not sure why this verse was in the place it is in.  That is because we had never thought (and I had never heard) that God’s people would be left on the earth in the very Day of Judgment.  Actually, the whole idea of the world continuing and God punishing the wicked on the earth was a relatively new idea, also.  We had come to that conclusion based on the understanding that there was no such thing as eternal “Hell.”  When we read the language of the Bible about people being tormented and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” and days (plural) continuing after that Tribulation, we thought we finally had the answer.  The Bible spoke of “five months” of torment and a time frame was developed that went from May 21, 2011 to October 21, 2011, but we have since learned that the “five months” is correct as a “figure,” but it was not a literal five months – we were incorrect about that.  It is a spiritual representation of the duration of Judgment Day (however long it turned out to be) and the Bible is now presenting the likelihood of 1,600 days from May 21, 2011.  That entire 1,600 day-period would be typified by the “five months.” 

We have realized that there is “time,” or “days,” after the Tribulation, as Mark 13:24, says: “In those days after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened,” and so on.  The language of the sun being darkened and the moon not giving her light has to do with the removal of the Gospel light.  There would not be salvation, we thought, for that literal “five months.”  That was a new understanding of judgment taking place, but even then we thought that on May 21, 2011, the believers must be raptured and taken out of the world; they could not be left on the earth as the world is coming under the wrath of God and God is actively punishing them.

Since then, we have seen many verses (more and more, as time goes by) where God does indicate His people will be left on the earth to go through Judgment day.  1Thessalonians 4, verses 16 and 17 actually give a big hint of that idea when it says, “We which are alive and remain” on the earth.  Also, Zechariah, chapter 13, speaks of the “third part” going through the fire and 1Corinthians, chapter 3, mentions that there will be a time when the “gold, silver, precious stones” and the “wood, hay, stubble” are put to the fire and Judgment Day will declare, or reveal, which people were God’s elect.

Once the “blinders” came off to this particular doctrine and once we allowed for the idea that God’s people would go through Judgment Day, as it says in 2Corinthians 5:10: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.”  In other words, we will be “made manifest.”  We are not experiencing judgment or being punished, because our sins were paid for from the foundation of the world in the Person of the Lord Jesus; God will bring us through this period in order to demonstrate our innocence (in Christ) and to show forth that we have no sin upon us through our endurance in going through the fire and coming out the other end.  It will demonstrate, conclusively, that there were no sins upon these elect that would cause us to be burned like the rest.  But why are the others burned?  It is because of their sins and because they had no Saviour.  But for those that come through the fire, God gets the glory. 

There are numerous verses that teach this, but let us just go to one place in Isaiah, chapter 24, where God is describing judgment upon this earth.  It says in Isaiah 24:4-6:

The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.

Few men are left: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  The “few” are the elect and they are on the earth in the day of the wrath of the Almighty, the time of the intense spiritual fire that was kindled in God’s anger.  All the other inhabitants of the earth are burned, but “few men left” because the few endure the fire and come through it.  In order to come through the fire, you must be in it and that is exactly where we find ourselves, living on the earth in the Day of Judgment, despite what the churches traditionally taught and theologians have told us.  Just about all theologians of the past have said, “Oh, that is not possible.  That cannot happen.  God will rapture His people first.”  The only question and the only thing they argued about was whether God would take His people out of the world pre-Tribulation or post-Tribulation.  In other words, would God take the elect out the world before the Tribulation began or would He let them go through the Tribulation and take them right after it was over?  Family Radio and EBible, in times past, held to a post-Tribulation rapture.  We believed that God would let His people go through the Tribulation, but there are many theologians that continue to teach that the people of God will be taken in the Rapture before the Tribulation and they will not go through that grievous period. 

Yet, what have we learned from the Bible concerning the Great Tribulation?  It was a spiritual judgment that began at the house of God.  God ended the church age and the Holy Spirit came out of the midst of the congregations (in 1988) and God commanded His people to depart out of the churches.  Through that command to leave the churches, God established a process to “sift” the wheat from the tares; those that remained behind were the tares and, finally, after the end of the 23-year Great Tribulation, all that remained within the churches were bundled as tares because all the elect had already come out.  Now it was time to bring the Day of Judgment on the world and to make the transition from judging the churches to judging the entire world.  Those that did not hearken to God gave evidence that they were tares.  Then Judgment Day came on May 21, 2011, and the spiritual fire was lit upon the whole world and the tares were cast into that fire, spiritually.  We have talked about that many times. 

The point that I was making is that the theologians were wrong about the fact that God would take His people out of the world before the Tribulation.  God left them to go through it and is it not interesting what it says in Revelation, chapter 13?  We discussed this when we went through this chapter, but it is a chapter which consistently describes the Great Tribulation.  It begins with the beast coming up out of the sea, which is another way of saying that Satan was loosed; he was given great authority and power over the churches and over the earth.  But the whole chapter (every verse) is completely focused on the 23-year Great Tribulation period, May 21, 1988 through May 21, 2011.  In this chapter we read in Revelation 13:5:

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

The “forty and two months” is a representation of the complete time period of the Great Tribulation, which worked out to be a full 23 years.

Then it goes on to say in Revelation 13:6-8:

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

This is very familiar language, once we have gotten accustomed to reading these things in the Book of Revelation, in the Book of Daniel and elsewhere in the Bible.  Satan makes war with the saints and overcomes them and this is key information to let us know that it is the time that God had allowed for Satan to win and to bring judgment upon the churches and congregations of the world during the Great Tribulation.

Then in this context, as it continues to describe the Great Tribulation, in the midst of this discussion (like we saw happen in our verse in the midst of Revelation 14:12) of the judgment on the churches, it says in 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.

You can see how very similar the last part of this verse is: “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”  Again, we must ask the question: “Why would God make this statement in the context of the Great Tribulation?”  Well, we know.  It is very obvious to us because we have lived through it – we have gone through the entire 23-year Great Tribulation and we have the vantage point of looking back.  We know, without any doubt, that God left His people on the earth then and He tried us and He severely tested the professed Christians in all the churches in the world through the opening up of the Scriptures at the time of the end.  The Lord said to Daniel, “Seal up the words of the book til the time of the end,” and then knowledge would increase.  As God opened up His Word, it was very enlightening in many doctrines that we had previously held – God corrected us and gave us the rod of correction through His Word.  As we compared Scripture with Scripture, we realized that we were wrong about a place called “Hell.”  We were wrong about Christ paying for our sins at the cross and that He actually paid for sin from the foundation of the world.  We learned that the nature of the Great Tribulation period was the very end of the church age.  It was not, as we had thought before, that the light of the Gospel would go out little by little and it would be getting harder and harder to find a faithful church.  But, rather, the Light of the Gospel had gone out of all the churches of the world at the very same time; God’s Spirit left all congregations at that instant and Satan’s spirit entered into the churches to rule as the “man of sin.”  We were to get out of the churches because we could no longer be there.  At this grievous and awful time in history the beginning of the end takes place, as judgment began at the house of God, and here we would find “the patience and the faith of the saints,” God’s elect that had been made holy by the blood of Christ, as He had washed away their sins and made them clean so that God would see no sin in them.  Here is that patience; it would be demonstrated throughout the entire period of the Great Tribulation.  It was a long 23 years and a Great Tribulation that the world had never seen before.

And, in Revelation 14, we find a similar construction of the chapter.  From verse 8 to the end of the chapter, it is focused on Judgment Day and the final judgment of the world.  We find a similar construction and a similar “positioning” of the statement in Revelation 14:12:

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Theologians had thought that God’s people would not go through the Tribulation and they were wrong about that.  “Yes, they will go through the Tribulation and, as they do so, they will show forth these particular characteristics that will bring glory to God: patience and faith.  They will endure to the end, patiently, and they will wait upon God’s Word.”  They will do so through the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Likewise, even though the theologians are certain and sure that the saints would not be on the earth in Judgment Day, they are in error.  How many things can we look back upon that theologians were certain and sure about, but now we see error?  How certain and sure were just about all theologians about the doctrine of Hell where they thought the wrath of God would be poured out for evermore upon sinners and they would suffer without end?  I am not saying that some of those theologians may not have been true believers; some were.  But, you see, God had given a warning and let me read it, in Mark 13:11:

But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.

This was “hidden language” and this Scripture did not open up until the time of the end, but if they could have understood it, theologians would have realized that God was saying not to think before hand what to speak or even premeditate on what will take place in that “hour.”  But in that “hour,” we will speak and it will not be us that speaks but the Holy Ghost, and that is because God had sealed up the Word until the time of the end.  And some very faithful theologians that were men of God that wrote hundreds of years ago could not penetrate the information that God had sealed concerning the time of the end.  There was no way for them to know and, yet, they did read these things in the Bible and they did write their commentaries and give their opinions on what their understanding was during a time when they “saw darkly,” as 1Corinthians tells us, and when things were hidden from them.  So they wrote about “Hell” and they wrote about God rapturing His people before bringing about the Day of Judgment and they wrote about many other things that were erroneous.  We cannot allow the writings of theologians to dictate our beliefs and understanding, no matter how faithful they were and no matter how much we may appreciate some of their writings.  That is the sin of the churches, as they raised up their “high places” of confessions, creeds and the writings of their particular favorite theologians(s).   They would hold them in the highest esteem and, yet, when someone might come with a Scripture from the Bible that put in question something in their confession or in their creed or the doctrinal position of a favorite theologian, the response would be: “Oh, no, this is our church’s position.  If you do not agree with it, you have to go to another church.”  Thereby they revealed their authority to be, not the Bible alone, but the Bible plus their confessions and creeds and particular theologians.  Sometimes it was the writings of the Reformers and those writings were given greater authority than the Bible and the Bible was not listened to on certain points. 

So, theologians could write in such convincing fashion that God would take His people out of the world and they will not have to go through the Day of Judgment, just like they wrote that there was a place called “Hell,” where God would pour out fire and brimstone and the unsaved would suffer for evermore.  They wrote in very definite statements and they were very convinced, but they were definitely wrong.  The Bible shows us today that God’s people are left on the earth to go through the period of Judgment Day.  So, here we are, presented with the Bible’s teaching.  Do we believe it or are we too uncomfortable to go against this ingrained doctrinal belief that has been held for so long?  If we do, that is a serious matter for us, individually.  We have to allow God’s Word, the Bible, to be our only authority.