Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #19 of Revelation, chapter 18, and we are continuing to look at Revelation 18:7-8:
How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
Revelation 18, verse 7, led us back to Isaiah, chapter 47, and we spent a little time looking at some of the language there, especially the phrase, “in a moment, in one day,” as God speaks of the judgment that takes place upon Babylon. We have seen that both of these phrases are speaking of Judgment Day and both apply to the prolonged period of time, the very likely 1,600 days of judgment. God refers to the prolonged period of Judgment Day as either “a day” or as “a moment.” We were looking at Isaiah 26 last time and let us start there, again, in Isaiah 26:20-21:
Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, JEHOVAH cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
This is the reason for God’s indignation; He is punishing the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, but the people of God are hidden “for a little moment.” We went to Colossians 3, verse 3, to show that to be “hidden” means to have your life hidden in God through Christ; you are saved and, therefore, your life is hidden in the Lord Jesus Christ and you have eternal life. This is what it means to “hide thyself as it were for a little moment.” God’s elect are living on the earth and going through this period of judgment, but they are not harmed by it because they are “hidden.”
Also, in Isaiah, chapter 54, God speaks of a widow and in the early verses of this chapter it refers to the elect. The Lord says, “For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife.” When we go through these verses we find that God is speaking of those He saved during the church age and likening them to the children of the married wife because the churches are typified by Israel and Israel was “married to God.” Then the children of the “desolate” are the children of the “little season” of Great Tribulation when God had ended the church age and turned the churches into a desolate wilderness and commanded His people to come out of the churches. It was outside of the churches during the time of desolation within the churches that God saved a great multitude from the nations of the world, so it is said, “More are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith JEHOVAH.”
Then God goes on to say in Isaiah 54:4-6:
Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; JEHOVAH of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For JEHOVAH hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
God is again speaking of the widow, but she will not remember the reproach of her widowhood because God is the Husband, just as Christ is the bridegroom and the elect are the bride, Then we read in Isaiah 54:7:
For a small moment have I forsaken thee…
This can only apply to the elect. God had been speaking of the widow woman and saying, “For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife,” and it so happens that God saved her children, that great multitude, in the second part of the Great Tribulation, which led right into the final Day of Judgment. Judgment Day began at the end of the Great Tribulation on May 21, 2011 and Judgment Day is likened to “a moment.” We saw this in Isaiah 26, verses 20 and 21, in Psalm 73, verses 17 through 19, and in Isaiah 47, verses 8 and 9, and in many other places. God often likens Judgment Day to “a moment,” and in Isaiah 54, God is speaking of His people and then He mysteriously adds, in Isaiah 54:7-8:
For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith JEHOVAH thy Redeemer.
God says the word “moment” twice; He mentioned a “small moment” in verse 7 and He said, “I had my face from thee for a moment,” in verse 8. He is speaking of Judgment Day. God is speaking to His people: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment.” We are amazed and frightened. How can this be? Does not God tell His people, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee”? Yes, He does and that is a faithful promise of God – He will never leave or forsake His people. Then how can we understand this? He is saying, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee,” and that phrase relates to Judgment Day and we find ourselves living on the earth in the Day of Judgment. Has God forsaken us for the period of Judgment Day? No, He has not because Hebrews, chapter 13, says God will never leave us or forsake us. In one way, His Spirit would never leave us because God indwells us, but in a different way, He has “forsaken” us.
We can understand in what sense God has forsaken us when we look at the Hebrew word translated as “forsaken.” It is Strong’s #5800 and it is found in 2Chronicles, chapter 32. It is important to note that this is being said in regard to Hezekiah, who was a true believer, so there is no question that the fact that God never leaves nor forsakes His elect would apply to Hezekiah and, yet, listen to what God says, in 2Chronicles 32:31:
Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.
The words “left him” are a translation of the same Hebrew word translated as “forsaken.” God forsook him to “try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.” This is exactly what God has done to all His people at this time in the Day of Judgment. He has “left us” only in the sense of “trying” our faith in the spiritual fire of Judgment Day. He has put the faith of each one of us through a fiery trial, to try us in order to see if we are “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay, stubble.” We have been “forsaken” or “left” by God in the spiritual flames of this testing period and God is allowing us to be severely tried during this period of time. In that way, He has forsaken us. Has He taken His Holy Spirit from any of the elect that remain on the earth? No, He has not and they still have the Spirit of God indwelling them and, therefore, God has not forsaken them. Yet, God has “left” them for the purpose of their trial of faith and that is what He is saying here: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee.” This fits perfectly with other information we have learned from the Bible concerning this time period, the 1,600 days, which is a testimony to the idea that God is trying His people, because the number “1,600” breaks down to “40 x 40,” or forty periods of forty days each, from May 21, 2011 until October 7, 2015. This is one way of looking at this “small moment.” Every forty days is a period of testing. When one forty-day period has expired, then another forty-day period comes because there are 40 forty-day periods and October 7, 2015 is the 40th forty-day period. On that day it will be the 40th “forty,” as well as the 10,000th day of overall Judgment. It would be a very excellent choice of a day to end the test.
God caused Israel to wander in the Israel exactly 40 years and no longer. God caused Moses to go up into the Mount for 40 days. God caused Christ to be tempted in the desert of the devil for 40 days and no longer. So if we are looking for a trial of faith to conclude, we would expect it to conclude on the 40th day, but since this period of time is longer than a single 40-day period, the idea of it concluding on the 40th “forty” is an outstanding probability when we consider all the Biblical information in regard to the testing God is allowing at this time.
Again, it says in Isaiah 54:7:
For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.
God is causing His people to go about the business of “reaping” and “gathering” the precious fruit of the earth at this time of harvest. We are approaching October 7, 2015, which is the last day of harvest and the feast of harvest is the time when the offerings are made unto God from the bounty of the harvest. This would be another perfect time for the elect to be “gathered unto Him” and October 7, 2015 would actually be the “travel day” at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles and the end of the feast of harvest, the time when all the Israelites would return home after having presented themselves before God with their fruits. Likewise, it would be a wonderful time for God’s elect to go home for ever into the new heaven and new earth.
Then it goes on to say in Isaiah 54:8:
In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith JEHOVAH thy Redeemer.
It is almost as if God is saying, “I understand and I realize that things have been very difficult and trying. There has been much great tribulation and affliction and this is my plan for you to go through the fiery trial for a moment.” But God is reminding us not to forget about His “everlasting kindness” and the eternity that is to follow this “moment.” This is just a temporal thing. It is really a very short period of time and soon there will be that wonderful eternal future.
Then it says in Isaiah 54:9:
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.
What is interesting about this is that we understand that the phrase “in a moment” identifies with Judgment Day, which began on May 21, 2011, exactly 7,000 years from the flood or the “waters of Noah.” It was the equivalent day of the flood on May 21, 2011 because the underlying Hebrew calendar date was the seventeenth day of the second month, the day God shut the door of the ark and the flood waters began to fall. So when God speaks of forsaking His people for “a moment,” but then gathering them with “everlasting kindness” and He ties in these ideas to the “waters of Noah,” it is very encouraging to us that we have understood the period of Judgment Day correctly. We have understood correctly the beginning date of May 21, 2011 and the prolonged period of time that is likened to “a moment,” because it is likened to the “waters of Noah.”
God’s promise that He would never destroy the world again with a flood relates to the new heaven and new earth. He will never again bring judgment and never again will it be necessary to go through something the way we have gone through time in this world, with all the troubles of sin and death and the things that made life so grievous. It will never happen again, as it says in Isaiah 54:10:
For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.
This is some of the wonderful language of the Bible that gives us hope and comfort as we look expectantly to that future that God says will come and it will be a glorious future for His people, when the things of this life will be past and we will begin to experience the tremendous blessings of things to come.