Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #31 of Revelation chapter 18 and we are going to read Revelation 18:21-22:

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;

I will stop reading there.  I just want to look at the final statement of verse 21, where it says, “Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.”  There are a few similar statements in the Bible and let us just take a look at three of them.  One of them is in Exodus, chapter 14, before God destroyed Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea.  The Lord said in Exodus 14:13:

And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of JEHOVAH, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.

Here, God is using the same phrase “no more,” as He spoke in our verse of Babylon being thrown down and found “no more” at all.   So, too, it was with the Egyptians.  They were a fearful army that terrorized the Israelites and they were a huge threat to the people of God and it just seemed hopeless.  That mighty army was right behind the Israelites and they had no where they could go.  They were trapped with the sea behind them, but then God told them not to fear and the Bible does tell us to be “anxious for nothing.”  Sometimes we think that there are certain situations where we might believe this does not apply, but if you can think of a situation where it would be appropriate to fear, this would be it – Pharaoh and his mighty army with chariots are approaching near and you are part of a company of freed slaves that have no army.  It would seem they could easily destroy Israel, if God would permit it, but God says, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of JEHOVAH.”  Then God opens up the sea while holding the Egyptian army at bay.  After bringing Israel through the sea on dry ground, God allows the Egyptians to follow and they are destroyed in the depths of the sea, just as Babylon was likened to a great millstone that is cast into the sea and will be seen “no more at all.”  So, too, Israel did see the Egyptians that day with their eyes and they were a tremendous threat to them, but God said to Israel of old, “For the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” 

God has essentially said the same thing to His people at other times and throughout the generations.  Satan, the enemy (as typified by Pharaoh) of God’s people, has afflicted you and caused you great trouble and pursued after you day after day as you sojourn through the wilderness of this world, but God says there will come a day when you will “see them again no more for ever.”  That will be the last day of Judgment Day, the end of the world, when God will destroy all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.

We are very far removed from that day long ago in 1447 BC when God said this to Moses and the Israelites.  If we add 1447 and 2015, we are about 3,461 years past that historical event, but here we are and it is past the church age and past the Great Tribulation and we are living in the Day of Judgment.  We are right at the point when God will bring His people into the glorious new heaven and new earth of the kingdom of heaven where we will dwell with Him for evermore.  Once that happens, this world and all its inhabitants that never became saved will be destroyed and gone for ever.  The language of “Ye shall see them again no more for ever,” relates to God’s judgment of annihilation; they will be utterly destroyed.  It says in Psalm 104:35:

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou JEHOVAH, O my soul. Praise ye JEHOVAH.

Let the wicked be no more.  Now we do not desire injury or death to the unsaved people.  These are some of the people we know and love and some of them are our family members and we do not want them to suffer or to be hurt in any way.  Yet, we are God’s people.  God has saved us and He has given us an ongoing desire to do the will of God and He has placed within us a desire to see His Word fulfilled and to see the promises He has made come to fruition and be completed.  So our desire is toward those things that God has said, such as receiving a new resurrected body and an eternal kingdom that cannot be shaken or moved in the new heaven and new earth.  Our desire is to enter into a world where there will be truth and righteousness and holiness and justice and goodness. 

It will not be an occasional occurrence when someone does a holy or righteous thing and it will not be just an “expected behavior,” but this will be the permanent state of the world we will dwell in.  Everyone in the new heaven and new earth will conduct themselves, both inwardly and outwardly, in their actions and thoughts in goodness, purity and perfection.  We will be like Christ.  We will be like God.  There will no be sin of any kind, in any shape or form, that will contaminate and ruin God’s eternal kingdom. 

Can you imagine the glory of such a place?  First of all, we will be with the Lord Jesus Christ, the fountain of all wisdom and power and the source of all blessing.  There will be tremendous and abundant riches and blessings flowing forth from Him for us to enjoy for evermore.  We will also be with the entire company of elect, which may number as many as 200 million and we are all children of God that have been bought with the price of the blood of the Lamb.  We will all be of one mind in our desire to glorify, praise, and exalt God for ever and to lift Him up with our words, our actions and our thoughts.  All the people will be united and none will try to obtain their own glory.  None will try to usurp God’s authority.  None will try to exalt themselves in pride.  None will try to be like God.  None will try to be the king or ruler, even though God has made us “prophets, priests and kings.”  We will look to Him in perfect submission and we will bow the knee for evermore.  All God’s elect will worship Him gladly and we will honor Him because He is worthy and deserving of glory.  Can you just get a glimpse of this?  That is all we can really get in this life of the unity and holiness of that place.  No lie is able to enter in.  Remember that wonderful verse in Revelation 22:14:

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

None that maketh a lie are able to enter in.  It is said they are “without,” as if they are outside the gates because it has in view this prolonged period of Judgment Day when God has already brought all His people into His kingdom by granting us that heavenly citizenship in Christ Jesus.  So, presently, outside the gates, there are sinners that do these sinful things.   But soon those outside will be “no more.”  There will be no world in which God is actively judging the unsaved.  This world will be “no more.”  But what will last and endure for evermore are the kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth, and that perfect existence in righteousness and purity.  Just think of it this way: we only know one thing in this entire world that is holy.  The only thing we know that is holy, pure and perfect is the Bible.  In the original Hebrew and Greek, the Bible is perfect, but not in the various translations.  What has happened to the various translations like English, Portuguese and Spanish, and so forth?  There are errors; the typical corruption of the world has entered in to some degree, even though it is translated fairly well for the most part.  But there is a perfect and pure and holy Word of God, without error, in the original manuscripts.  There is not a jot or tittle in the wrong place, so we have that wonderful and beautiful example of what is holy and righteous and pure.  And do we not love it?  The child of God loves the Bible.  Why do we love the Bible?  I remember a man that used to work with me and I would read the Bible every day at lunch.  He was a Catholic man and we would have some discussions, but one time he looked at me with a look of disgust and he said, “You know, there are other books out there,” implying that I was reading the Bible too much.  Of course, that cannot be – you can never read the Bible too much and God’s people understand that. 

Why do we love the Bible and why do we keep going back to it?  Why do we not go to all these other books?  Libraries have tens of thousands of books.  “Of making many books, there is no end,” it says in Ecclesiastes.  There are enormous numbers of books in the world, but we do not care for any of them.  We have care and love and desire only for the Bible.  It draws us and we will study anywhere within it and we look at each word carefully and we go the concordance and we compare Scripture with Scripture; or, we can go to the Psalms, where God will speak words of great comfort to us or we go to Revelation where God says there will be no more tears, nor crying and no more death in that new heaven and new earth.  We stand in awe at the prospect of this wonderful eternal future that God has in store for us. 

There is just no comparison.  The Bible cannot be compared to anything in this world because everything else is contaminated and polluted and tainted with sin and we have certainly had enough of all these things.  On one level, there is no difference between those thousands of writings because they all have contamination in common; they all have perversion and sin mixed in with whatever positive information might be included.  The Bible does not.  It is that holiness we love.  This is a small taste of our future.  It is sort of like the new heaven and new earth will be like the Bible coming to life.  The Bible will be under our feet as we walk.  The Bible will be up in the sky as we look about. The Bible will be in whatever kind of creation that God creates and in whatever kind of creatures that fill that creation; we will see the holiness and perfection of God in all things, as God had originally created this world to be “good.”  And after He created this earth originally, He pronounced it “good,” and Adam and Eve were “good.”  Mankind was created in His image and they were originally “good,” so there was for a very short period of time a wonderful, but fleeting, period of being in harmony with God and creation when all things were “good.”  That will be restored in a very little while.  In a short period of time, it will be restored.

God makes a statement that the world does not believe, for the most part, and the churches do not believe, but this is what God says in Proverbs 23:17-18:

Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of JEHOVAH all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.

It says, “For surely there is an end.”  Does the world believe it?  No, they do not, but what does that matter?  Do the churches believe it?  No, they do not, but what does that matter?  God, who is true and faithful in everything He says and whose Word does not change, says, “For surely there is an end.”  The world will pass away.  It will melt with fiery heat as it is burned up and destroyed.  There will be a new heaven and new earth.  Let me read God’s affirmation and His declaration of these things in Revelation 21:3-5:

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

They are “true and faithful.”  You can not find a true and faithful word that is like the Bible – not in religious writing; not in philosophical writings or any writings that come out of the minds of men.  Only in this holy Bible can we read the very Word of God, who declares the end from the beginning because He knows the end from the beginning; He knows there is “an end” and He knows there will be a new heaven and a new earth and He has set to His seal that God is true and you can count on the promises of God.