Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #5 of Revelation, chapter 15, and we are going to read Revelation 15:2-4:

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. 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. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study we had moved on to verse 3 and we were discussing the “song of Moses,” as God brought up that those that had gotten the victory over the beast would sing the “song of Moses” and the “song of the Lamb.”  We saw that the “song of the Lamb” is the song of the Gospel of the Bible, but there were two songs of Moses.  One was in Exodus 15 and the other one was in Deuteronomy 32.  In Deuteronomy 32 there was an emphasis on the Great Tribulation and the judgment on the churches, while Exodus 15 had an emphasis on the final judgment that comes at the end of the world; it is the judgment on the kingdom of Satan as typified by Pharaoh and the Egyptians as they were drowned in the Red Sea.  That also was a great cause of thanksgiving for Moses and the people of God as God worked such a wonderful deliverance of His people and, at the same time, He won the victory over the enemy that had enslaved them. 

That is exactly what happened spiritually on May 21, 2011.  God delivered all of spiritual Israel and all the elect that were to become saved did become saved.  A great multitude came out of Great Tribulation and when May 21, 2011 came, God judged Satan and his kingdom and the Lord put him down from all rule that he had been given in the churches and in the world.  This was the judgment of God upon him.  Of course, he still exists at this point and it will at the completion of Judgment Day that Satan will be annihilated and destroyed, but it is a very real judgment which hit Satan where it hurts – in his pride.  He had exalted over taking his seat in the temple and having rule over the churches and congregations, but God has now removed him from that position.  He no longer has any official rule.  He is returned to assaulting the churches just as he did throughout church history, but his dominion over the churches has come to a close.  Christ now rules the churches and the world, but with a “rod of iron,” as all the unsaved are under the wrath of God.

I mentioned last time that we want to backtrack to verse 2, which speaks of the elect that had gotten the victory over the beast.  God spoke of them as standing on a sea of glass and “having the harps of God.”  We did not talk about the “harps” and what it relates to, but there is little doubt that the world’s popular image of “angels floating around on clouds and playing harps” probably comes from these verses.  Of course, when God uses a word we have to look it up and search it out in the Bible to see what it means.  We are not to just take an “image” of someone harping on a harp and think that this is all that God means.  It has a spiritual meaning and the word “harps” in the Bible points to the Word of God as it is declared or prophesied.  It says in 1Chronicles 25:1-3:

Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was: Of the sons of Asaph; Zaccur, and Joseph, and Nethaniah, and Asarelah, the sons of Asaph under the hands of Asaph, which prophesied according to the order of the king. Of Jeduthun: the sons of Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise JEHOVAH.

Historically, they played the harp and when they played it was a form of prophecy, but, spiritually, God chooses His Words very carefully.  He chose the word “prophesy” because He wants us to understand that to play a harp has to do with prophesying the Word of God.  For instance, it says in Proverbs 1:6:

To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

Here, God refers to a proverb and the words of the wise and He links them to “dark sayings” and that is a good way of referring to the Bible because the Bible is full of “sayings,” but they are “dark sayings” in the sense that they can not be seen or heard clearly.  It is just like when God says to “see in a glass darkly” in the New Testament.  If you go to a mirror and the light is out in the room, once your eyes adjust a bit you may be able to make out some things or you may see some reflection in the mirror, but it is not clear.  You are seeing in a glass darkly.  Or, if you pick up a glass and look through it, the light sometimes does not give a clear vision for sight and it is very difficult to see and you cannot see it as perfectly as you would like.  That is how the Bible is until God unsealed the Word.  At this point at the time of the end, He is opening up our eyes of understanding to see things in a much clearer way and, yet, the Bible itself is a “dark saying.”  It says in Psalm 49:3-4:

My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding. I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.

Here, we see some of the same elements we saw in Proverbs 1:6, like “proverb” and “dark sayings,” but God is saying in Psalm 49:4 that He will open His dark saying as He opens up the eyes of His people to the truth written therein.  This is what He is saying in verse 4: “I will incline mine ear to a parable,” and that is what Jesus would often say, “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  So God is opening the “dark sayings” and He is giving understanding and notice it is given “upon the harp.”  It is because we prophesy upon the harp and when the people of God come to the Bible and to the “dark sayings” of the Word of God, the Lord would grant them some degree of understanding and when they would teach it or share it, that was prophesying upon a harp – the harp points to the Word of God as it is being declared.  This is why what God says in Isaiah 24 is so tragic and Isaiah 24 is a chapter devoted to Judgment Day.  You can read the chapter and see the many references to God’s wrath upon the earth.  For instance, it says in Isaiah 24:6-8:

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. The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh. The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth.

And why does the “joy of the harp” cease?  Since the harp has to do with prophesying the truth of the Word of God, what was normally expected all through history during the day of salvation?  You could expect that as the Word of God was prophesied and the truth of the Scriptures was declared to people, here and there God’s people would hear and become saved.  There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, the Bible tells us.  But, in Isaiah 24, the inhabitants of the world are burned because the spiritual fire has been lit and they are under the wrath of God.  It is Judgment Day.  There are “few men left” and they are God’s elect that remain living on the earth in the Day of Judgment (“Many are called but few are chosen.”) and these are the elect and they are still living in the world and going through the fire, also, until the conclusion of Judgment Day and then God will lift them up.  As they come through the fire, it will be as though they “resurrected” just as Christ went through the wrath of God from the foundation of the world and then He rose from the dead.  That will be the beautiful situation that God will complete as all the elect will have been made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ in the Day of Judgment.  Then they will come forth and be exalted and lifted up at the completion of all things, so it is a wonderful and beautiful thing that God is doing as the elect follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But, in the earth during the time of judgment, “the mirth of tabrets ceaseth.”  Musical instruments relate to the declaration of the Gospel.  “The noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth,” and this is because no sinners are being granted repentance by God.  Repentance is a gift of God.   God must first turn the sinner in order for the sinner to “turn and repent,” and if God is not granting repentance, no one will repent.  It must be the repentance of the heart of stone; sin flows from the unregenerate heart.  God must change the heart and give the person a new heart in order for there to be genuine repentance unto salvation, but that is no longer taking place, so the joy over a sinner repenting is not happening and “the joy of the harp ceaseth.”

God makes another statement about “harps” in Revelation, chapter 18, a chapter that describes Babylon’s judgment in the Day of Judgment.  It says in Revelation 18:21-23:

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. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee…

We have to be careful how we read this because it does not say that there is no “harping” being done or that the voice of the bridegroom or the bride is not speaking.  It simply says that the “voice of harpers…shall be heard no more at all in thee,” which means that harpers could be harping.  I think when we look at the situation God has set up in Revelation 15 of the great multitude that have gotten the victory over the beast and they are standing on the sea of glass “having the harps of God,” then they are prophesying the Word of God.  That is exactly what we find the Lord’s people doing today – they continue to do what they have always done.  They go to the Bible, they read and study it and they pray for wisdom and as God opens up information to them, the people of God share it.

This is especially the case because God is encouraging us to share when He said, “Feed my sheep” three times in John, chapter 21, and when He told us to “Publish, and conceal not,” in Jeremiah 50.  To put it in the figure that Revelation 15 is using, we are to prophesy and harp on our harps, but we should realize that as we prophesy and declare the Word of God, it will not affect the eternal condition of someone still dead in their sins; God is not going to open up anyone’s ears to hear in that way, so the “harping” will have no effect on a dead sinner insofar as they would hear and come to life – that will not happen.  Remember, God did that to the churches.  He told us in Amos, chapter 8, that there was a famine in the land and it was not a famine of bread or water, but “a famine of hearing the words of the Lord,” and we understood (and we continue to understand) exactly what God meant.  Once the Holy Spirit came out of the churches and they were under the wrath of God as judgment began at the house of God, the preachers did not stop preaching and the churches continued to have Bibles in their pews.  The preachers could even have preached some things faithfully and the Scriptures could have been read by the people in the pews; and even though the Bible says the Word of God is “quick and powerful,” there was a “famine of hearing” in the churches and they could not “hear” the Word of God during the entire 23-year Great Tribulation period because the Holy Spirit was not there to apply it to their hearts and open up their ears so they could hear unto salvation.  They could not hear with spiritual ears. 

This is the idea God is stating in Revelation, chapter 18.  The harpers are not heard.  There is no effectual hearing taking place in the entire world now, just as the congregations could not hear when there was a “famine of hearing.”  Now the Holy Spirit is no longer working salvation in the world.  He worked a great and marvelous work during the Latter Rain period, the last 6,100 days of the Great Tribulation, when He applied the Word of God to the hearts and minds and opened the ears of the great multitude.  Yet, once the last day came and the “rain” ceased to fall and God completed His salvation program, then the Holy Spirit ceased to work and there is no more “hearing” the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride or the harpers that are harping with their harps.