Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation. Tonight is study #29 of Revelation 2, and we are presently reading a passage in Revelation 2:22-23:
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
We have been looking at these verses for a while, especially verses 20-22, and verse 23 is continuing with that same theme, as the children referred to are the children of “Jezebel.” That is who God was addressing when He said that the church in Thyatira had suffered that woman Jezebel “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.” Then the Lord began to refer to the church at Thyatira (which applies to all the churches during the church age) and the entire church institution as “Jezebel,” who was involved in sinful activity. And the Lord gave space to repent of these things, and she repented not, and that is referring to the 1,955 years of the church age, its entire duration. Since she repented not, God went on to say in Revelation 2:22:
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation…
We saw in several verses that God identifies the “bed” with “sin-sickness” and “death,” which results from our sins. And here Jezebel is being cast into a bed of sin, and God is going to judge her, the corporate church, for rebellion and failure to turn from that rebellious activity.
And God has already done this. It is really something that we are reading information in the Bible, and it has already happened. Of course we are used to reading things that have already taken place when we read in the Old Testament. The Bible is just an incredible book that permits us to read of events that took place at the very beginning of this world’s creation in the Garden of Eden. We can actually read of dialogue that took place in the garden at the very beginning of earth’s history.
Do not think of what the world says about the beginning. They do not have any idea. Just fifty years ago, they said the earth was millions of years old, and now it is suddenly billions. But they do not even have an exact idea of what happened just 100 years ago. They can know some things, but they have no idea what happened at the very beginning. They were not there. They do not believe the Bible. They doubt the Word of God, and God is the only One who was there. He created all things, and He recorded these things, and He is the only One who can tell us the truth of the beginnings of this world. And He does, and then He allows us to read about it. And God tells us of Noah over 7,000 years ago, and the events that took place with the flood. Down through history we can read of things that have long since come to pass, and now we are thousands of years past these things.
Yet when we read in Matthew 24 of the Great Tribulation, or when we read here in the book of Revelation where God is introducing the church age (in some ways) as He addresses the seven churches. He introduces the New Testament church age, and He is typifying all the churches and congregations with these seven churches, and then He is speaking of the sins of the churches and how He would give space for them to repent. And these statements go beyond the boundaries of the Bible in the sense that the book of Revelation would be written before the 1st century ends, and yet God was speaking of things that would happen over almost the next two millenniums.
And now here we are, a much later generation of mankind that has entered into the world, like our forefathers lived and died, and so on. We are living at the point when not only is the church age past, a period of 1,955 years that has come and gone, but the Great Tribulation has also come and gone. That 23 years is gone, and we are presently living in those days after the Tribulation, in the Day of Judgment. And it is just amazing how God is still able to speak to us through His Word of things to come, and to teach us things He wrote about two thousand years ago, and yet we are learning of things that are happening right now in our time.
Again, God said that if “Jezebel,” the churches, did not repent, He would cast her into a bed and those that committed adultery with her into “great tribulation.” And God has done this. He has fulfilled His Word. Then He also said in Revelation 2:23:
And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
The Lord is referring to the children of Jezebel, or the children of the corporate church, and these children are the ones that were to come – they would be spiritual descendants of “Jezebel,” that wicked woman of the corporate body of the churches and congregations throughout the church age. She continued in her wickedness, and she did not repent, and her children are those professed Christians that were in the churches at the end of the church age when God finally came to visit and to pronounce condemnation on the churches. He removed His Holy Spirit. God departed out of the midst of the churches and congregations, and with that action He put out the lights of the Gospel within all churches in the world, and it did not matter what denomination.
And the Lord shut the door to heaven that had been open within the churches, and the people that would hear the Gospel there could no longer be saved. God was no longer saving in any church from the beginning of the Great Tribulation, and this caused Jezebel’s children to be killed with spiritual death, as the removal of the Holy Spirit was a “fatal blow,” a lethal blow to all churches and congregations. It guaranteed “death” to any who stayed in their churches and congregations, and to their children, and any that remained there. They would die. It was guaranteed because there cannot be spiritual life without the presence of God. There cannot be salvation without the Spirit of God.
This was the action of God as He brought His wrath upon the churches. And it was a very real “blow.” It was a very real and definite death blow against the churches, even though they could not see it. It was a spiritual judgment, but it was nonetheless awful and grievous as the Lord forsook His people, leaving them in darkness. He would no longer work among them to bless His Word to their ears that they might hear and become saved. They would remain in their dead condition in their sins. Any coming into the churches from that point on would not be blessed. None could become saved ever again. There would be no more forgiveness to eternity. It was the end of the churches as a representation of the kingdom of God upon earth, and it was a deadly blow to the inhabitants of the churches.
There were almost two billion professed Christians at the time God brought this to pass on May 21, 1988, and throughout the 23 years of the Great Tribulation until May 21, 2011, so it really was the most terrible judgment, and yet those in the churches were not aware of it. They did not “see” the door of heaven when it was open, and they never saw the Son of man as He dwelt in the midst of them because God is Spirit, so they could not see in any tangible way that the presence of God was with them. So when the door shut and the light of the Gospel went out, and the Holy Spirit came out of the midst, they could not see that either. There was no outward indicator that God had left them.
God revealed the fact that He had done this in His Word, the Bible, as He opened the Scriptures at this same time during the Great Tribulation, and it was some time after the Tribulation had begun that the people of God began to learn about these things and “see” what the Lord had done. We began to understand the Scriptures that the Lord had previously sealed.
And this was the beginning of the judgment process because Judgment Day began at the house of God on the churches and congregations, and it was completely spiritual in nature. It was the giving of the cup of wrath first to the city called by His name, the New Testament churches. Then the Lord took that same cup of His wrath and gave it to the nations of the world, as He transitioned His judgment to Judgment Day on the world, which we more commonly refer to as the final judgment because it is the judgment of all unsaved people, not just those in the churches. So God’s judgment expanded to include all the unsaved inhabitants of the world. What have we learned about that? We learned that God did an identical thing to the world as He did to the churches. The world could never see the door of heaven when it was open. The world could never see the bright shining light of the Gospel as it went forth, carried by the people of God. The world could not see the working of the Holy Spirit as He saved His people and gathered them to Himself. When God shut the door to the entire earth and put out the Gospel lights all over the world, and the Holy Ghost ceased His saving work everywhere in the earth, the world did not “see” anything.
The world does not notice anything is different. They do not think that judgment has come upon them, exactly like the churches never thought they were judged. So this is really just a continuation of a longstanding pattern by God. God had also judged national Israel in a similar way when He rent the veil of the temple, and they ceased to be His holy people. And yet today if you would speak to devout Jews, they would insist they are still God’s holy people. This is the pattern of God in judgment.
Maybe we would do things differently. Maybe we would make a point of allowing man to see the wrath and anger upon them, but that is not according to God’s wisdom, and we have to acknowledge that His ways are higher than our ways, and His ways are far better than our ways, and He is far wiser than we are, and He is doing things according to His perfect wisdom.
Now we find ourselves living in the Day of Judgment, in a time where we are beyond the Great Tribulation, but we are learning in Revelation 2:23 what God did to the churches during that time of the Great Tribulation when He said, “And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts…”
I want to look at the statement, “And I will kill her children with death.” It is a grievous thing to think of young children dying spiritually when they are going to a church. A church is a place where people had traditionally brought their family in order to experience blessing. It is a place where they hoped to receive eternal life. And yet, here God Himself is speaking to the churches and He is telling them that when the Great Tribulation comes, there would be no blessing, and no eternal life, but death would be the condition in the churches. God comments on this in Matthew 24:19-22:
And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
See how the Lord is pronouncing “Woe,” unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days of the Great Tribulation. What a sorrowful time for parents! What a sorrowful time for mothers and fathers and for all that are in the churches and congregations. Even though God says He shortened the days for the elect’s sake, or else no flesh would be saved, He is referring to the character of the Great Tribulation time out in the world outside of the churches – that is where God shortened the days. He brought the Latter Rain to pass as He began to send forth the Gospel in a mighty and glorious way that the world had never seen before, and all the earth heard the news of Judgment Day coming May 21, 2011. Through this unprecedented proclamation of the Gospel to the inhabitants of the earth, God saved a great multitude of people. Yet at the same time, it was so tragic that those in the churches and congregations were hardened by their pride, hardened by the deceitful teachings of their leaders, and hardened by their position that “no man can know the day or the hour,” and so hardened in their belief that being part their church was all that was necessary to be blessed of God. They were not understanding the Word of God at all.
How terrible and tragic it was that during the time that God was saving the great multitude all over the earth and concluding His great salvation plan to save millions and millions of people, the people in the churches insisted God was still with them, and they refused to leave. They remained in that place where they were being killed with spiritual death, and there was no Latter Rain for them. Not a single individual who continued to stay in the churches to the Day of Judgment on May 21, 2011 would ever experience the salvation that had been so plentiful and abundant all over the earth outside of the churches. What a terrible thing! No wonder God said, “And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!” No wonder He said, “And I will kill her children with death.” And He certainly did.
And all the churches will know, it says in Revelation 2:23:
and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
God is not mocked. He cannot be fooled or deceived. He knows what is in man, and when men take upon themselves the name of Christ, and when men intermeddle with all wisdom by involving themselves in spiritual activities like baptism, or partaking of the Lord’s Table, and so forth, it does not fool God at all. It does not fool Him one bit when people “sign up” by accepting Christ; when people say the Sinner’s Prayer; or when they try to become a child of God by deciding when they will be born again. They can add all sorts of good works, like going on mission trips, building houses for Habitat for Humanity, giving their funds, and so forth, but none of it can make even one individual born again. That work and that action can only be done by God Himself, and He says, “I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy,” and no one can make God save him and have mercy upon him.
So of the two billion professing Christians, God knows each and every one of them in an intimate way because He knows their hearts. It says in Jeremiah 17:9-10:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I JEHOVAH search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
God looked upon each person within the churches and congregations during the church age and at the time of the end of the church age, and He knew those who were truly His people. He knew who Christ had died for, and who had received a new born-again soul, and He drew those people out of the churches and congregations while there was still time in the process of His opening Scriptures to reveal the command to depart out of the midst of the churches. In so doing, He separated the wheat and the tares that had long been growing together in the churches of the world. God took all of His people out from the midst, and He also saw the “works” of them that remained. He was not deceived by it, and He knew that these people did not have a Saviour when He came to visit. Therefore those people fell under the judgment of God.