Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #4 of Revelation, chapter 15, and we are continuing to look at Revelation 15:2:

And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

We have already seen that the seven messengers are given the seven vials full of the seven last plagues and these seven messengers are God’s elect people and that is why the picture shifted so quickly to describe those that had gotten the victory over Satan’s reign, which had been given to him by God during the Great Tribulation period.  And only the people of God could have gone through the Great Tribulation and come out at the other end and into the Day of Judgment itself.  And that is what is in view here, as it is time to pour out the last plagues of God upon the wicked of the world.  Only God’s elect could be said to have “gotten the victory over the beast,” which was the specific name given to Satan during the 23-year Great Tribulation period.  We talked about that last time and we saw how May 21, 2011, which ended the Great Tribulation and began Judgment Day on the world, was a time of glorious victory for the Lord Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.  Finally, there was triumph over Satan and his kingdom of darkness, the forces of the enemy.  That is what this verse is calling to mind.

Then it says at the end of Revelation 15:2:

… and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

We discussed the “sea of glass.”  It relates to the “molten sea” which had been placed in the temple for the priest to ceremoniously wash in before going about their priestly duties.  Now God has one task for His people that have come through the Great Tribulation and have overcome through the Lord Jesus Christ.  They are to do service God one final time in this world.  Of course, the people of God will serve Him for evermore in the new heaven and new earth, but one final task remains here and that is to pour out the vials of the seven last plagues, so they stand on the “sea of glass.”  That indicates that they have been cleansed from all sin (and not just ceremoniously), as “glass” is used in the Bible to represent purity and holiness.  It is the cleansing from sin of all of God’s royal priesthood, the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation.  They have been “washed” and that is why it is a “sea of glass mingled with fire,” because they have been washed with the baptism that Christ was baptized with and that is “the fire of the wrath of God.”

We should not overlook the word “stand.”  They “stand on the sea of glass,” and “to stand” in the Bible, especially as it concerns the Day of Judgment, is not accidental language.  It has significance, as we read in Luke 21:36:

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

When we contrast this with the unsaved in Judgment Day, we can see what God means.  It says in Revelation 6:17:

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

None of the wicked of the world will be able to stand and endure the wrath of God.  They will be destroyed by it.  God also says in Romans 11:20:

Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:

This is how one is able to stand – it is not by our faith, but by the faith of Christ.  God is able to make us stand and that is exactly what God says, in Romans 14:4:

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

We are living in the time when Babylon has fallen.  The kingdom of Satan has fallen and that means that all that were part of that kingdom are fallen – they cannot stand.  God declares this in Psalm 1:4-5:

The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

They cannot stand, but God’s people are able to stand because He makes us to stand through the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will qualify us and equip us and enable us to endure the severe test and to endure the spiritual fire that has been put to us; we will come through as silver and gold, purified seven times.  We endure to the end.  The people of God “stand” and I think that is the reason that those that had gotten the victory over the beast are said to “stand on the sea of glass.”  It is through the faith of Christ and the fact that none of the elect can fall; they have made it through the Great Tribulation and the judgment that began at the house of God.   

Now they are living on the earth in the Day of Judgment.  God is saying, “Your job is not done yet.  You did evangelize the world and blow the trumpet and warn the people concerning the approaching Day of Judgment, but you must prophesy again.  And the things you will prophesy will be bitter, but it is necessary to declare that Babylon has fallen.”  Only those that “stand” can declare these things and let the world know that the judgment of God is upon them.  At the very same time the elect are feeding the brethren, the great multitude that is scattered among the peoples of the earth.  This is the task that God has for the seven messengers, the elect people of God, which have gotten this victory.

It goes on to say in Revelation 15:3:

And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.

All those that have gotten the victory over Satan during the Great Tribulation “sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.”   We are acquainted with the “song of the Lamb” because it said of the 144,000, in Revelation 14:1-4:

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

So they sing a new song and this would be the song of the Lamb, the song of salvation or the song of the Bible.  The Lamb is Christ and Christ is the Word made flesh, so to “sing the song of the Lamb” is to declare the Word of God and all that the Bible declares and this is what God’s people always do.  It is no surprise that the seven messengers that had gotten the victory over Satan and had come through the Great Tribulation “sing the song of the Lamb.” 

But why does God add that they “sing the son of Moses the servant of God,” in addition to “the song of the Lamb”?  Why at this point in time?  We have been seeing that the context is Judgment Day.  This is what Revelation 15 focuses on, as it is the time to pour out the last plagues of God upon the world and that can only be done in the Day of Judgment.  So, why in the Day of Judgment are the people of God singing “the song of Moses”? 

Moses was said to have sung two songs in the Bible.  One is found in Deuteronomy, chapter 32, and the other is found in Exodus, chapter 15.  Let us go to Deuteronomy 32.  Actually, the last verse of Deuteronomy 31 introduces chapter 32 and it says in Deuteronomy 31:30:

And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.

Then the song starts in Deuteronomy, chapter 32, and this is part of the song, in Deuteronomy 32:28:

For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

He is referring to Israel.  Then it says in Deuteronomy 32:31-36:

For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. For JEHOVAH shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.

The song goes on, but I think the key statement is in verse 36, where it says, “For JEHOVAH shall judge his people,” as the song of Moses, in Deuteronomy 32, directs our attention to the judgment of God upon His people – judgment begins at the house of God. 

It says in Deuteronomy 32:42:

I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

It is the “beginning of revenges,” or the beginning of judgment.  We know that judgment began at the house of God.  So when God says, “They sang the song of Moses,” it partially has to do with continuing the declaration that God has judged the churches and the churches are no longer the representation of the kingdom of God to the inhabitants of the earth.  The churches are under the judgment of God.

But Moses sang another song and we read of that song in Exodus, chapter 15.  To set the context, this is the time when Israel has come out of Egypt.  Every Israelite was delivered by God from Egypt and, spiritually, that relates to what took place on May 21, 2011, when God ended His salvation program because He had saved the last one of His elect.  That means that He had delivered out of Satan’s kingdom of darkness and bondage to sin the last individual to become saved and, therefore, “all Israel” was saved at that point.  This is a big connection between the exodus and deliverance of Israel from Egypt and the deliverance of all spiritual Israel by the time that God ended salvation for the world on May 21, 2011. 

The Israelites came out of Egypt and soon after that the Egyptians, led by Pharaoh, pursued them and came against them.  As the Israelites came to the Red Sea, things looked hopeless; they had their backs up against the sea and the mightiest army in the world at that time was coming quickly toward them.  But God stopped them while He parted the sea and then His people crossed the Red Sea “as on dry ground.”  God made a path for them and they followed and they made it safely and securely to the other side.  God had been holding back the Egyptian army with the “pillar of fire” and then He let them pass by removing the “pillar of fire” and then they pursued after Israel into the sea.  They tried to follow the same path that Israel had followed.  Spiritually, the Bible tells us the “way” to heaven and the opening up of the Red Sea illustrates that the “way” is the Lord Jesus Christ,” but Christ is only the “way” to heaven for those whose sins He has paid for and anyone else attempting to go “that way” will be destroyed.  And that is what God did; He collapsed the sea upon Pharaoh and the Egyptian army and He drowned them in the Red Sea.  So Moses sings this song at the point of this dramatic event they had just witnessed.  They could see the waters of the Red Sea enfolding upon the Egyptians and it says in Exodus 15:1-6:

Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto JEHOVAH, and spake, saying, I will sing unto JEHOVAH, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. JEHOVAH is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him. JEHOVAH is a man of war: JEHOVAH is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand, O JEHOVAH, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O JEHOVAH, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.

What a tremendous day that was.  What a tremendous moment for Moses and the people of God as they exult and lift up the name of God, praising Him for their deliverance and for the destruction of their enemy in the Red Sea.  Again, all these things relate to May 21, 2011.  Remember, in the previous verse in Revelation 15:2, God emphasized that those standing on the sea of glass had “gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.”  We saw that God would not have His people “cast down” and to have “feeble knees,” but to lift themselves up and, truly, we ought to lift up our heads “for our redemption draweth nigh.”  All the information in the Bible indicates that and we should be praising God for the great deliverance!

Imagine being an Israelite standing on the banks of the Red Sea and you had just been delivered from awful bondage and you saw your enemy pursuing and you knew that you might certainly be killed.  Then you saw the hand of God strike them down and destroy them all by His incredible might and the waters drowned Pharaoh and the captains of his host and all his army and horses and chariots.  The threat was completely gone and the battle was won.  God showed Himself a “man of war” and fought the battle for you.  Of course, you would lift up your voice and you would exult and glorify God: “What a great God!”  Even for the unsaved Jews (as we know only a handful of them were truly born again), in their physical deliverance and in the physical destruction of their enemy, there must have been cheering, rejoicing and praising God for the great deliverance He had wrought.

Yet, what is a physical deliverance?  What is a physical destruction of the enemy?  Of course, it was a tremendous thing and God often refers to what He did for Israel and what He did to the Egyptians.  In many places the Bible He constantly reminded Israel that He was the God that delivered them from Egypt.  Yet, a physical deliverance is not worthy to be compared to spiritual deliverance because it is a far greater thing that God has delivered spiritual “Israel.”  It is a far greater thing that God has put down Satan (who Pharaoh typified) and all of Satan’s army that had overcome the camp of the saints.   The beast and the false prophet were cast into the lake of fire, beginning on May 21, 2011.  The judgment of God is upon them and God has won the battle.  He has gotten the victory and this is the “song of Moses” that the people of God who have come through the Great Tribulation are singing.  The great multitude is declaring, “We have won the war.  The battle is over.”  The battle for the souls of men is complete and this is part of the song that they will sing and which they will play upon their harps.  We did not look at the “harps,” but maybe in our next study we will look at the “harps of God.”   Then it goes on to say, “They sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.”  So we will backtrack a little bit next time to discuss the harps in our next study in Revelation, chapter 15.