Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #37 of Revelation, chapter 21.  In our last study we were continuing our discussion about the Bible’s teaching of two nations.  Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, wondered why the twins in her womb were struggling together and God told her it was because there were “two nations” in her womb.  It was Jacob and Esau, representing the saved and the unsaved or those that are elect and those that are not elect.  And this has always been the case.  That is why it says in Revelation 21:24:

And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it…

There are the “nations of them which are saved,” typified by Jacob and there are the “nations of the world,” as we saw in Luke 12:3, typified by Esau.

In the New Testament the word “nations” is “ethnos” and it is a word that can be translated as “Gentiles,” “heathen,” “people” or “nations.”

In our last study, we went to Matthew, chapter 28 and I just want to clarify something before we move on.  In Matthew 28 the Great Commission was given by the Lord Jesus Christ and it says in Matthew 28:19-20:

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Here, Christ issued the Great Commission, as it has been called, and rightly so because it is a great commission or task the Lord gave to His people that encompassed the entire New Testament era.  They were to go and teach all nations.  But now when we see this reference to “all nations,” we have to ask the question: “Does it mean all the nations of the world or the nations of the elect?”

The answer comes in the last part of that verse in Matthew 28:19:

… baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

All nations are to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, but that was never possible for the nations of the world because, for the most part, they had no interest in the Gospel of the Bible and they never got to the point of entering into the churches during the church age or were baptized.

But we need to understand that the “baptism” being referred to is not water baptism, but it is the baptism of the Holy Ghost at the point of salvation.  When God says that we must be baptized, He is speaking of the “baptism” that washes away sin, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.  That “baptism” comes through the hearing of the Word of God for the elect.  It comes when the Word of God is taught, as the Bible says: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” 

Therefore, the dictate is to go to all nations, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”  What this means is that as you carry the Gospel into the world, you will come into contact with the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the elect, and they will be “baptized” through the Word you bring from the Bible.  They will experience the baptism of the Holy Ghost and have their sins washed away.  And furthermore, it says, in Matthew 28:20:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

This continues to refer to all nations that are baptized and, again, that would be through the spiritual baptism in salvation.  Then the verse makes perfect sense and it fits and harmonizes with all the things we have learned in the Bible.  It is the “nations of them that are saved” that we were sent to find.

That is an important distinction.  The Great Commission was not to go into the nations so everybody in the world could hear.  You know, some people say today, “Not everyone has heard,” even though from God’s perspective the Gospel has gone out to all the world.  It says in Matthew 24:14:

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

Prior to May 21, 2011 the Word of God was declared to the world as a witness to all nations and God used it to accomplish a dual purpose of baptizing the nations of them that would be saved and to testify against the nations of the world, the unsaved, who are the greatest percentage of the people that are out there in the world.  God accomplished both and then came the end, as Judgment Day started on May 21, 2011 and continues to this day.  We are at the end right now and we are just waiting for the completion of Judgment Day and the finality of all things, but we are in the end time right now.  When we understand that we are in the Day of Judgment, we also know that Judgment Day comes at the end of the world, so we are living at the end of the world.

Once God saved the last one whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, it was the last of the nations of them which are saved.  Let us just say that this last individual was saved at the stroke of “midnight” as the Great Tribulation turned into Judgment Day on May 21, 2011.  God saved that last individual and that portion of the Great Commission was fulfilled.  The people of God had accomplished the task of going into the world and teaching all nations of the elect, baptizing them as they heard the Word of God that would wash away their sins. 

But notice what it says in Matthew 28:20:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

Who were we to teach?  We were to teach the elect and it was a commandment.  Christ said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  Whatever Christ has commanded is what His people do.  It is almost like “additional information,” because in the previous verse the Great Commission gets a lot of attention, but verse 20 is very significant and also very important.  Verse 20 is sort of a follow-up statement to the previous verse.  God’s people and the churches, especially, loved the idea of making disciples and bringing the Gospel so people could hear and be saved, but there is follow-up toward those that were saved and Christ is following up on those that were baptized (saved).  So verse 20 has to do with what happens once all nations of them which are saved have actually become saved.  Now we are to teach them “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” 

Do you see the relationship to what we learned in John, chapter 21 in regard to the great catch of fish?  It was a great catch because it typified the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation and completed God’s salvation program by saving the last of God’s elect.  Then they brought the fish to the Lord Jesus Christ, a picture of everyone that was saved being safely delivered to the Lord.  After that, Peter (who is a portrait of the believers that will live after the Great Tribulation) was asked by Christ, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” Peter had faltered in weakness earlier when Christ was taken by the authorities.  He responded, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”  Christ asked him three times and three times Peter responded in like manner and then Christ said, “Feed my sheep.”  What did feeding sheep have to do with anything?  Spiritually, to “feed sheep” means to teach.  It is exactly what we are reading in Matthew 28:20, where it says, “teaching them.”  We are to teach all nations that we went forth and baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  They are the nations that had their sins washed away, the nations of them which are saved.  We are to teach them to observe all things that Christ has commanded.  We can almost hear God say, “You have done well,” as He did say in Hebrews 10:36:

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

God is saying, “You have done well when you accomplished the Great Commission by baptizing the nations of them that are saved, but there is a second commandment.”  We could say there is a second “Great Commission.”  Did not God tell us that we must prophesy again unto all nations in Revelation, chapter 10?  It says in Revelation 10:11:

And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.

Why?  It is because that is where the great multitude was and it was where the sheep were found. They were amongst the nations or the Gentiles of the world.  They are the nations of them which are saved.  They are scattered and we do not know who they are, so this is the reason we have to go and share the Bible with everyone.  We cannot look at people and know who is saved and who is not saved.  We cannot tell a “Jacob” from an “Esau,” so we must prophesy again to all people, “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” It is “all things” because the Holy Spirit will come and guide us into all truth, as Jesus said in John, chapter 16.  But we know from the Bible that all truth was not opened to the understanding of God’s people until the time of the end, as it was said to Daniel that the Word would be sealed to the time of the end or until the time of the Great Tribulation.  Then knowledge would be increased.  The people of God would learn many truths as the Holy Spirit guided them in the Scriptures.

So the “Great Commission” was twofold.  In Matthew 28, we were told to “Go and baptize,” and that command was to bring the Gospel that the elect would be saved and it applied to the day of salvation.  But what about the days after the Great Tribulation when the “work day” of salvation has concluded and it is now a period of spiritual darkness that covers the earth, as far as salvation is concerned?  Now the second part of the Great Commission takes effect: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”  And notice how Christ ties it to the end when He adds, “and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”  He is with us to the end of the world or the end of the age and what is our task at this time?  We are to “feed the sheep” and we are to instruct them regarding all information God has opened up in His Word the Bible.  All the things we have learned are to be shared with them.  We are to teach them about judgment on the churches and the end of the church age.  We are to teach them the doctrine of annihilation rather than eternal hell.  We are to teach them that Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011, and so on.  We are teaching the “nations of them which are saved,” the elect that God has already saved.  Notice there is no mention of “baptism” in verse 20 that would apply to the time after the great multitude has been brought in because it is now time to “feed the sheep.”

I wanted to make sure we understand how that fit in God’s overall scheme of things, but let us stay in the Gospel of Matthew and go to Matthew, chapter 25.  We are going to read something that also identifies with this present time.  It is a parable that Christ gave which illustrates Judgment Day and the process that God would put into motion at that time.  It says in Matthew 25:31-32:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations…

There is the reference to “nations” and all nations are gathered before Him.  It is the same Greek word “ethnos” that we have seen in various places and we know it could be the “nations of them that are saved” or the “nations of the world,” and in this case it is both.  It goes on to say, in Matthew 25:32-33:

… and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

Wow!  This is interesting, is it not?  Lord willing, when we get together in our next study we are going to look more closely into the things that Christ is telling us in this parable.  First of all, we see that He mentions the Son of man coming in His glory with the holy angels.  Then He sits upon the throne of His glory and, of course, that reminds us of the great white throne of God’s judgment. Here is Christ and the Father has committed unto Him all judgment.  He is coming with angels and we know that Christ comes with “ten thousands of his saints.”  He is seated on the throne of glory and before Him is gathered all nations, so it can only mean both nations: “the nations of them that are saved,” and the “nations of the world.”  They are all together.  It is just like in the church age when the wheat and the tares were together in the congregations. Now it is Judgment Day and we know that Judgment Day came at the end of the Great Tribulation and Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011.  It was at that point that the things we read about in this parable would begin to take effect. 

During the second part of the Great Tribulation period, Christ had been sowing the seed abundantly in the world in the “nations.” And now comes Judgment Day and it appears that God is following the same pattern that He established with the churches.  Over the course of the church age, He sowed the seed in the midst of the congregations and at the end of the church age He went about the business of dividing the wheat from the tares during the 23-year judgment period on the churches and He completed the separation of the saved and unsaved on the last day, May 21, 2011, the end of the judgment upon the churches.  At that point God began a second separation process that we are reading about here in Matthew, chapter 25.  He is separating the “sheep” and the “goats.”  He does not speak of “wheat” and “tares” and one reason would be so as not to confuse the two time periods.  The “sheep” and “goats” are also the saved and the unsaved, the “nations of them that are saved” and the “nations of the world.”  All nations come before the Lord Jesus and then He separates them, “one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”  It is a final separation of the saved and the unsaved and it is not the same separation as the “wheat” and the “tares.”  It cannot be and that is because the separation of the wheat and tares happened during the judgment upon the churches.  First of all, the information that God was judging the churches and was commanding His people to come out was the mechanism by which God performed that separation process.  It was being done during the Great Tribulation and was finalized when Judgment Day began.

What has been the process for separating the sheep and the goats?  It is an interesting question for us to think about.  What is the mechanism God has put into motion to bring about the separation of the “sheep” and the “goats”?  Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we will look at this passage more carefully.  We will look at what the Bible has to say about Christ coming in His glory and how we can understand that phrase.  We will look at how it is that the sheep are appearing before His throne.  Consider that. It is another reference that indicates that the elect are present at the time of judgment before the throne of Christ.