Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #26 of Revelation 2, and we will read Revelation 2:20-21:

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.

We have been looking at verse 20 during the last few studies, and we saw that God is speaking to the corporate churches.  Since they were speaking from their own minds, spiritually they were cast in the role of a woman where God is indicating that they were allowing Jezebel, a wicked woman, to teach.  And she was teaching deceit, as that is what the word “seduce” means here: “…that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce (deceive) my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.” 

We looked at those sins in the light of Acts 15 where the Lord laid down Laws for the New Testament churches and congregations, and we saw how all the Laws, such as abstaining from things strangled, from blood, from fornication and from offering things to idols, point to maintaining faithfulness to the true teaching of the Word of God, the true Gospel of the Bible.  That is what the churches were required to do.  That was to be their sole purpose.  They were to be zealous to maintain adherence to whatever God said in His Word.

God goes on to say, “Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach,” so they were transgressing God’s Law, and they were breaking the commandments given to the New Testament churches and congregations.  Therefore the Lord goes on to say in Revelation 2:21:

And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.

Now the church that allowed Jezebel to teach is being described by God as “Jezebel.”  He is likening the entire corporate body, the outward representation of the kingdom of God to the world during the church age, to Jezebel.  They had become wicked.  They were doing things wrongly and transgressing the Law of God.

judge them right away.  Instead He determined to give them a period of time, “space to repent,” and “to repent” means “to turn,” and to stop going the way one is going, and to go the right way, and do the good things that are just, and right, and forth.  God gave space for “Jezebel,” the churches of the world, to repent. 

And remember when the Lord concludes this passage of His address to the church at Thyatira, what is He going to say?  He is going to give us that familiar refrain: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”  This was being said to all the churches, not just Thyatira, or just to a church in the first century, but it was to the churches as a whole throughout the church age.  They were commanded to repent and to turn from their wicked ways, and God gave space for this to happen.

The word “space” is the Greek word “khron'-os.”  It is Strong’s #5550, and it is translated often as “time,” and occasionally as “season.”  For instance, it says in 1Thessalonians 5:1:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

This word “khron'-os”  is also used in regard to Satan in Revelation 20:3:

And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

The word “season” is the word “khron'-os,”  and here it is said to be a little time, and that “little season” is a reference to the Great Tribulation, which was, relatively speaking, a little period of time because God had just ended the church age which had lasted for 1,955 years, from 33 A. D. when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost until the day before Pentecost on May 21, 1988.  It was 1,955 years later when the church age came to an end.

We know this information very well because God has opened up the biblical calendar of history, and He has helped us in understanding these things and to lay these things out in a very exact timeline of history.  Not only does the date for the end of the church age fit, but from that date of May 21, 1988, we are given the information of 2,300 evening mornings which followed, which was the first part of the Great Tribulation that fits precisely into the overall timetable. 

Then following that 2,300 evening mornings (days), we come to September 7, 1994 when God began the Latter Rain period, a time in which He would save the great multitude outside of the churches and congregations during that last 6,100 days of the Great Tribulation, which ended May 21, 2011, and that was a complete 23 years from when the church age ended back on May 21, 1988.  And May 21, 2011 was exactly 7,000 years from the flood, with the underlying Hebrew calendar date of “the seventeenth day of the second month,” the day when God indicated that the Great Tribulation would end, and judgment would begin on the world: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven…”  That was in unison with the other information concerning the shutting of the door of heaven, so God was confirming through the biblical calendar of history that May 21, 2011 was the day that happened to be exactly 722,500 days from the time of the cross, and that number breaks down to very significant numbers that relate to God’s salvation plan.  God “put His finger” on that day, and that day (and the whole timeline) fits in with the judgment beginning on the churches when the church age ended on the day before Pentecost back in 1988.

So the “space to repent,” which God gave “Jezebel,” or the churches, was the entire church age, which was almost two thousand years, a very long period of time.  It was just like the Lord did in dealing with national Israel.  He first began to deal with them in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then God grew them into a nation while they were in Egypt.  And for hundreds of years after that, they continuously rebelled and they forsook the Lord and His Law.  They went their own way, and they also involved themselves in spiritual fornication with idols, just as the New Testament churches would do.  And God patiently put up with the sins of national Israel for century, after century.  Why?  It was because He had a timetable.  He had a plan.  He was going to bring forth the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the nation of Israel, and Christ would come in the proper time and season.  And He did come after many centuries. 

Then when Israel had accomplished its purpose of delivering the Lord into the hands of the Roman authorities to be executed as God’s determinate counsel was complete and Christ went to the cross, then the veil of the temple was rent in two, and the space allotted to national Israel was ended.  There would be no more opportunities for them to repent and turn to the Messiah the Saviour.  No – there would be no more salvation there to eternity, as we find with the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, a sin for which God states there is never forgiveness.  And that is what happened to national Israel, corporately, although any individual Israelite could have become saved, such as the Apostle Paul who was zealous in the outward things of the Law, but He became a child of God.  Any of the Jews could have become saved by the grace of God if they were one the Lord wanted to draw,

But this was not so for the nation of Israel, the outward representation of God’s kingdom to mankind.  That came to an end.  Never again would God save an individual through the ministry of national Israel, or through the synagogue system of worship.  He would save people outside of the synagogues through the working of the churches that He had newly formed.

The Lord did establish the New Testament churches, and He gave them space of almost two thousand years to serve Him, obey Him, and turn from their wicked ways and go the way the Lord had laid out in His Word.  But they did not: “And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.”  Of course God knows the end from the beginning.  It is nothing for Him to look into the future, and see what would happen in two thousand years, and that is exactly what the Lord did.

Let us turn to Jeremiah 8 and read of Israel of old in a passage that is speaking to what the New Testament churches also did when God gave them space to repent.  It says in Jeremiah 8:6-7:

I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of JEHOVAH.

That is a very damning statement that God makes.  Notice that He first said, “No man repented him of his wickedness,” and that is exactly what God was looking for, and which He required of national Israel and what He required of the churches.  Israel thought, “If we keep certain sacrifices and we are circumcised, then all is well.  God will not forsake the children of Abraham.”  But they were completely off course.  They did not know that the children of Abraham, spiritually, are those God counts as the “seed” in Christ, which is spiritual Israel, and not the physical descendants of Abraham.  God was not looking for that, but they trusted in their outward physical connection to Father Abraham.  So when God came in judgment against Israel in the North or Judah in the South, or when He came in the days of Christ to forever separate Himself from them, they were not ready to receive it.  They had no idea of “times and seasons.”  They did not know the judgment of JEHOVAH. 

Likewise, that is exactly what happened to the churches.  In their ignorance and extreme pride and haughtiness, they thought, “Yes, we have some sin, and we are not perfect, and we have certain problems, but we stand by grace, and God forgives our sins.  Is that not wonderful?”  Even though they would never admit this, it is as if they are saying, “Is it not wonderful that we can sin as much as we wish, and we can do whatever we please, and we can teach whatever we like from the Bible, and we can proclaim to people whatever is our fancy, and nothing will happen to us?”  And, of course, that is ridiculous.  It is foolish.  God would never allow that.

And God had warned the churches not to be highminded, but to fear, and He also gave national Israel as an example to the New Testament churches and congregations, and that they should take note of what happened to them.  For instance, it says in 1Corinthians 10:6-8:

Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

Notice how God is pointing to Israel and saying, “Let us not be idolaters.  Let us not be fornicators as were some of them.”  Then He pointed out the judgments that fell upon Israel.  What is God teaching?  What is the clear statement that God was giving to the churches?  “Look out!  Beware.  Be admonished by these things.  Do not think you are above reproach.  Do not think you are above the wrath of God.  If I did it to Israel, you can be sure I will do it to you!”  Then it goes on to say in 1Corinthians 10:9-12:

Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

Unfortunately, the churches did not take heed.  They did not hearken to God’s warnings, and they did not take to heart the example that God had put forth regarding national Israel, or Judah.  They did not read it carefully enough.  Oh, yes, they read it, and they would shake their heads: “Look at how rebellious those people were!  No wonder that God put them away.  No wonder God forsook them and left them.”  And yet with each shake of their head, the churches were condemning themselves because they did far worse “than their sister,” to borrow the language of the Bible regarding their sister Judah.  They have done far worse.  Just look at the condition of the New Testament churches at the time of the end.  Just about every point of doctrine is contested.  Every point of doctrine is twisted and turned to each individual church’s own desire and their own gospel. 

And God took note, and He gave space to the churches (to repent), and when that period of time was ended and season of the firstfruits was complete, the church age was over because the time had expired, and the Lord came immediately in judgment.  He came and began the judgment process on this world as judgment began at the house of God.  The Lord speaks of this judgment upon the churches in Matthew 24, and He uses the image of there being not “one stone left upon another” in Jerusalem, a picture of the churches and congregations of the world.  We read in Luke 19:44:

And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

It is identical language to what we read in Jeremiah 8, but this is not referring to national Israel, but it is language that we read in Matthew 24 where Christ is looking at the temple, but He is really referring to the New Testament era – to things that were still to come.  The disciples asked Him, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”  In that context, He said, “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”  Then Christ came after giving them the period of time that was referenced in Revelation 2 with the warning to Jezebel: “And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.”  They did not repent, just as Israel did not repent, and so the Lord ended the church age.  He removed His Holy Spirit from the midst, and He loosed Satan to enter into the congregations to rule, just like God raised up King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to destroy Judah. 

And all this was done in the churches in an invisible way.  It was a spiritual judgment, and there was no outward evidence that God had forsaken the churches.  The churches could not see Christ when He dwelt in the “midst of the candlestick,” and His presence was with them, so they just continued to assume, “God is with us, and the Lord has not forsaken us.  He is still with us.”  They made that assumption, just as Israel assumed (up to this very day) that God was still with them.  They still believe they are the holy and divine people.  So too, those in the church world today assume God remains with them, and yet God has forsaken them.  It was the time of their visitation, and God had come to see if they had repented, but they had not.  Therefore there was nothing more for the Lord to do.  He had given them space, and then we read in Revelation 2:22:

Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

The judgment on the churches had commenced, and the church age had ended, and the Great Tribulation had gotten under way.  We will discuss that, Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, and we will also look at this language in Revelation 2:22 where God said, “I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation.”  We wonder why God is casting Jezebel into a bed, or casting the churches in to a bed.  That is strange language.  Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to look at that when we get together in our next study.