Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #20 of Revelation, chapter 18, and we are going to be reading Revelation 18:8-10:

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. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

I will stop reading there.  Once again, we have “one day” mentioned in verse 8, as it speaks of Babylon’s plagues: “Therefore shall her plagues come in one day.”  We have discussed this in our last few studies.  God uses the figure of “one day” when He gives us information about Judgment Day, but, in actuality, it is a prolonged period of time.

This is nothing new and it is not a change from our pre-May 21, 2011 position.  We had thought previously that Judgment Day would be a literal “five months,” from May 21, 2011 until October 21, 2011.  Mr. Camping and Family Radio taught that Judgment Day would be a prolonged period of time covering “five months.”  We thought that would be the actual timeline for the Day of Judgment upon the world. 

We were incorrect about the literal nature of the “five months.”  When God speaks of “five months” of Judgment in Revelation, chapter 9, or 150 days, which worked out to be five months in the flood account in the Book of Genesis, it is a type and figure of the entire duration of Judgment Day, whatever that maybe be.  Then we learn in other Scriptures, like Revelation 14, verse 20, that God is using furlongs to represent days and we have a probable timeline for the prolonged period of judgment.  So the 1,600 days, in all likelihood, is Judgment Day and “her plagues come in one day,” beginning May 21, 2011 and all throughout this period of judgment.  If we are correct, it will conclude on October 7, 2015.  Then God speaks of what the plagues entail in verse 8: “death, and mourning, and famine.”  The word “mourning” is the same word for “sorrow” that we saw in verse 7: “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.”  We saw there that the word “sorrow” would be better translated as “mourning,” as it is the sorrow of a widow over the loss of her husband, but Babylon denied that she would experience that kind of sorrow.  Yet, God said, “Yes, you will,” as we saw in Isaiah 47, where God said she would be a widow and know the loss of children and we saw that this meant to be “desolate” because there is no more salvation.

The plagues God is bringing upon Babylon (or the unsaved inhabitants of the earth) is “death, and mourning, and famine,” or death, desolation and famine.  They all relate to the same thing because when God shut the door to heaven it caused this condition.  On May 21, 2011 God shut the door of heaven to the world and, for all intents and purposes, He brought “death” to all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth, because it guaranteed their death; anyone that had not been saved by that time was thereby placed in a position where it was guaranteed that he or she would never become saved.  God was no longer doing the work of salvation, so whether they died that day or a week later or during any time since then, they would die unsaved.  If they live up until the very last day of Judgment Day when God destroys the world, they will die unsaved.  God sealed their fate.  This is why God speaks, in Revelation, chapter 22, of the “filthy” being “filthy still” and the “righteous” being “righteous still,” because one’s spiritual condition would not change from that date.  God established and fixed the spiritual condition of all mankind on that day and the elect that God saved remained “righteous still” and all those that were not elect remained in that unrighteous condition and no one has moved from one kingdom to the other.  Of course, never in history has anyone ever become saved and then became “unsaved,” but during the day of salvation, it was possible for sinners to be translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son through salvation, but that is no longer possible.  Therefore, “death” and “mourning” (desolation) and “famine” prevail.  The condition of “famine” relates to a lack of hearing the word of God.  Remember this was the spiritual definition God gives in the Book of Amos and this was true of the judgment on the churches and it is also true of the judgment on the world.  It says in Amos 8:9-11:

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of JEHOVAH:

The nature of the famine is a famine of “hearing the words of JEHOVAH.”  This is the definition of a spiritual famine.  In a literal, physical famine, you would not have bread or water, but with a spiritual famine it is a famine of “hearing the words of JEHOVAH,” because the Bible says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing, by the word of God.”  For faith to be activated, it takes two things: 1) it takes the Word of God and 2) it takes the Spirit of God to apply the Word, spiritually.  The Word of God needs to be heard on a different level, not just physically, but inwardly in the “heart” and “soul” of man which was dead within him.  It takes the Spirit of God to create a new heart and a new spirit and in that newly created heart, God gives “ears” to hear.  Now they hear the Words of Christ, as Jesus said in John, chapter 10, “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.” 

This is not the case with the unsaved because they are inwardly dead in spirit.  So when God removed the Holy Spirit from the midst of the congregations when He began judgment on the house of God in the churches of the world, they still had Bibles, so they still had that important ingredient; the preachers preached from the Bible and the members of the congregation were under the hearing of the literal words, but they did not no longer had the most important second ingredient and that was the Spirit of God to give them “ears to hear,” so there was a famine in the churches, “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of JEHOVAH.”  If you cannot “hear” in your soul, faith can only come by hearing and hearing by the word of God.  If you lack hearing, you will lack faith and faith is the faith of Christ, so you will lack salvation.  The absence of salvation is a result of a spiritual famine that impacts the hearing and since there is no hearing, therefore, there is no “faith of Christ” and there is no salvation.  This is what has happened to the world because God left the churches during the entire Great Tribulation, but during the second part of that Great Tribulation, the Holy Spirit was working in the nations of the world as the Word of God was broadcast primarily through the electronic medium, like radio and computer.  It was being broadcast in a faithful way and God used the sending forth of the Gospel to seek and to find His elect, the great multitude scattered among the nations and God used His Word to save them.  They experienced salvation outside of the churches.  God had determined not to use the churches and this was no problem at all because it is the Word, the Bible, that is instrumental in salvation and it is God’s Spirit that “sparks” the hearing of the Word within the soul of man.  Both of those things were still in operation in the nations of the world as God saved tens of millions of people all around the world. 

By the way, God says that whoever sows the Word of God sparingly will also reap sparingly, but whoever sows the Word bountifully also reaps bountifully.  This is good for us to keep in mind as the Word of God was sown bountifully.  Of course, many people have left their labor and others of God’s people have entered into their labor and we have a good expectation to reap that bountiful harvest as we approach unto the last day of harvest, October 7, 2015.

But, anyway, God did save outside of the churches and there was much spiritual water and bread.  There was a tremendous blessing of the Word of God upon the great multitude, like never before in the history of the world.  God saved more people in the second part of the “little season” of the Great Tribulation than He had done in all the previous history of the world.  What an incredible display of the power of God for Him to do this without the two billion in the churches.  In effect, God was saying, “I do not need these two billion in the churches, with their big buildings and big budgets.  I do not need any of them.  I will do my work over the electronic medium I raised up in the proper time and I will use the faithful few I have banded together to get the Gospel out to all the world.” 

What an incredible thing that God raised up the electronic medium that had never before been possible and He moved in His people to will and to do of His good pleasure, as they made a worldwide declaration.  The peoples of the world heard about Judgment Day, May 21, 2011, and it was placed in the forefront of their eyes.  It was a declaration the scope of which had never been seen regarding how it was broadcast so widely to the unsaved people of the world.  God did that to save His elect because it was the final time of the outpouring of the Gospel in the Latter Rain, the final evangelization of the earth to save sinners.  Soon the night would come in which “no man can work.”  Much “water” was sent forth and much “bread” was sent forth to find the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but, as in a moment, the water ceased and the bread was gone.  As soon as God saved the last of His elect and shut the door of heaven, immediately there was a “famine of hearing the word of God” all over the face of the earth because God had ended His salvation program. 

And now you can have a Bible, just as they do in the churches, and you can have people that are utterly convinced that God is still saving, just as they do in the churches; and you can have the previously faithful ministry of Family Radio assuring you that salvation is still possible, just as they do in the churches, but when God determines that He is finished with salvation, it ends for all the world, just as it did in the churches.  When the church age ended, never again was a sinner saved.  There was a famine in the churches and the famine never lifted.  As soon as God ended His salvation program and saved the last one of His people whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, the Great Tribulation ended and the Latter Rain ceased to fall – that was it and never again would God save anyone.  God’s Spirit is no longer working in the world, just as He no longer worked within the churches.  This is the nature of the cup of the wrath of God that He first gave to the city called by His name; they drank of the cup, long and deep, for 23 years or 8,400 days.  Then on May 21, 2011 God transitioned judgment to the world and gave them the same cup of wrath.  Just as there was no salvation within the churches because the Spirit was not operating there, there is now no salvation in the world because the Spirit is not operating there.  There is only “death, and mourning, and famine.”  This is the sorrowful situation we find in the world.  This reminds us of what we studied earlier in Revelation 6:7:

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

Notice the use of the number “four.”  It mentions both “fourth” seal and “fourth” beast or “living creature that represents God.  Then it says in Revelation 6:8:

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The word “hunger” is the same word as “famine.”  Here, for God’s purposes, He lists four things: sword, famine death and beasts of the earth.  The emphasis is on the number “four” which points to the furthest extent of whatever is in view or “universality.”  It applies to the four points of the compass – North, South, East and West.  The four living creatures are introducing the fourth horse that pictures the final judgment of mankind.  The first horse was the white horse that typified Christ going forth with the Gospel to conquer; the second horse was the red horse that typified Satan going forth to oppose Him; the third horse was the black horse that typified the judgment on the churches during the Great Tribulation; and the fourth horse is the pale horse that typifies the judgment on the world.  God emphasizes that point with the emphasis on the number “four,” and He mentions fourth seal, fourth beast, fourth part and He lists four plagues that come upon them.  Keep in mind that “1,600 days” also has the number “four” in view because it is four years, four months and sixteen days and the number “16” is “4 x 4.”  Also, October 7, 2015 is a Wednesday, which is the fourth day of the week.  Why the number “four”?  It is to emphasize judgment upon the entire world – no part of it is left out.  All the kingdoms and all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth are under the wrath of God.  Judgment is upon all of them. 

We find the similarity in the language of killing with the sword, hunger (famine) and death.   The pale horse relates to this time period, the time when God has brought the world into the condition of death.  What does death identify with?  It identifies with the grave and in the Bible the word “hell” is also translated as “grave” because “hell” identifies with death and the grave.  So the world has been brought into the condition of “hell,” but not a literal place, although we could say that this earth is the place of “hell” at this time. 

It has been the condition of “hell” since May 21, 2011 and that is why God’s people are going through this period of time and they are being brought before the judgment seat of Christ for it to be made manifest that they have already been judged in Him.  The entire world is in the condition of “hell” and we are living in the world at this time and going through the flames of the spiritual fire that has been kindled in God’s anger.  God’s people will endure to the end.  They are “judged” because judgment is the process of finding one “guilty” or “innocent.”  In judgment, your works are found to be either evil or righteous.  God will judge His people as innocent in Christ because their works are righteous in Christ and they will endure to the end and they will be taken out of this world and rise up in the rapture and resurrection in a very real way; it will be as if they are coming up out of the condition of “hell,” following the example of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ died from the foundation of the world and, therefore, He was in the condition of “hell,” but He rose again and came up out of the depths in that glorious resurrection; He came out of “hell” or the grave.  God’s plan is to resurrect His people in the last day.  God says He will raise us up and it will be as if we are coming out of the “grave” or out of “hell.”