Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #31 of Revelation 2, and we are reading Revelation 2:24-29:

But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have already hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

We were looking at verses 24-25 in our last study, and we saw how God was addressing the New Testament congregations as He spoke to Thyatira, which represents all the churches that would exist during the entire church age.  He pointed out that they “had not this doctrine,” because He was talking about the Great Tribulation, the judgment of God that He intended for the churches at the time of the end after the period of space God granted them to repent had elapsed.  Then when their time was up, God would come and cast them into a bed and them that committed adultery with them into great tribulation.  That happened at the end of the church age (1988) when judgment began at the house of God.

But God also noted there would be 1,955 years of the church age.  That was quite a long period of time that impacted a large number of people, so the Lord speaks to them as though He were speaking to His people at the time of the end, and He says, “…as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak.”  That is, Satan would trouble them throughout the entire church age, the whole season of the firstfruits.  However, they would not know the “depths of Satan” because God had reserved the loosing of Satan for the “little season” of the Great Tribulation, and He also kept in reserve the tremendous wickedness and evil that would develop across the face of the earth in those days, as well as the tremendous wickedness in the  churches as they fell away into great apostacy. 

When we talk about the “depths of Satan,” we are not talking about anything good because it refers to depths of wickedness, depths of evil, and depths of rebellion against God.  Certainly those of us who are alive today can testify to this because we have seen wickedness multiply in the world and in the churches to a degree that we really could not have imagined even 30 or 40 years ago.  Back then, we would have had difficulty believing that such things were possible, and that the nations (including our own nation) could fall into such depths of depravity in their rebellion against God, with the constant wickedness we are seeing in our day.  We have to testify that we know what God is saying here about the “depths of Satan” because we have first-hand knowledge of these wicked things.  We see it in the newspapers, on TV, and we see it in our daily lives at our work, in our homes, and in our neighborhoods, and everywhere we go.  There is no place that the “depths of Satan” have not touched since he was loosed at the beginning of the Great Tribulation.

Even in this Day of Judgment when Satan is no longer ruling anywhere in the world, and yet he still exists.  God set things in place with Satan’s loosing, and He loosened His restraint upon the hearts of men in their desperate sinfulness.  These wicked things are not being “reined in” and restraint restored.  No.  The depths of evil continues, and it is growing and multiplying, as man in this Day of Judgment has no intention of repenting from these things.  So we continue to “shake our heads,” and the hearts of God’s people are grieved along with His Spirit, and as we see these things our hearts are vexed in this world that is experiencing the depths of wickedness and evil.  The world is now experiencing such awful things.

But these things were not for those within the churches and congregations during the church age.  They would not know the “depths of Satan.”  They had experience with Satan’s activity, with depravity of men, and with some sinful things of their own doings, and they could testify to that, but, for example, they had no idea that there would come a time when there could be homosexuals installed as bishops, priests, or ministers; or that so many congregations would have women pastors; or that so many congregations could be taking up the tongues movement and falling backwards, and all  the charismatic teachings at the time of the end, and so forth.  The churches had no such knowledge of these things.  Perhaps they had met an individual, or two, in their lifetime who was involved in those kinds of things, like a woman teaching here, or there, but not to the degree we see today.  The “depths of Satan” is certainly showing its ugly face in our time.

Another example of the depths of Satan that the churches did not know. Can you imagine a world where nation after nation is not only legalizing, but they are trying to turn the marriage institution upside-down?  The marriage institution is in a shambles.  It is being destroyed because of mankind’s insistence that there be divorce, especially over the last few decades, and now so many marriage end in divorce.  It is destroying the homes in many nations of the world.  If it were not enough just to destroy the marriage relationship between men and women and to remove the guidelines and commandments God put in place regarding marriage, man in his utter foolishness and hardened heart has the idea that marriage between two men or two women is a good thing.  They are not only allowing it, but they are trying to paint it as though it a good and proper thing when two same-sex people are in love, and they get together in marriage.  What foolishness!  The Bible insists that marriage is only to be between a man and a woman, and never is it to be between two men or two women.  God has nothing good to say about the sin of homosexuality.  He calls it what it is – a sin.  It is an  abomination to God.  It is not to be even thought of, let alone to be done.  God’s people are not to have anything to do with these things.  And yet the world turns that which God calls “evil” and that which He commands against, into something they now say is “good.”

In the history of all nations of this world, things were different.  If people would go back and check the history of their nation, homosexuality was never permitted to the point it is today in which homosexuals could marry.  Mankind today, which is the last generation, feels it has finally developed enough wisdom to say, “In the whole history of the world, man’s teachings regarding this subject has been wrong.”  Of course there has always been the sin of homosexuality throughout history, but no nation dared to legalize it, or to encourage homosexual marriage, and therefore they were saying, in effect, that it was wrong.

And yet this last generation dares to say, “We know better than every nation and civilization that has ever existed on the face of the earth, and we declare that what was always called evil (homosexuality) is good.  And if you do not want to accept it, that is what is bad and evil.”  We do not want to get into politics (and we will not), but this is a subject that touches on the Word of God, the Bible, because God speaks of this sin.  And God’s people are not fooled by the foolishness of man.  We are not fooled by the deceitfulness of man’s heart.  Man can deceive himself and deceive others.  Yes, they can “spin” facts, and they can make something evil sound good.  Just look at what they say about abortion being a woman’s right, and yet it is murder – it is killing an innocent person. 

This is the nature of the world today.  We are witnessing the “depths of Satan,” as these things have never dominated as they do today.  Never in history would two people of the same sex have dared to marry.  It did not happen in the beginning.  It did not happen 10,000 years ago, or 5,000 years ago, or 2,000 years ago, or even 500 years ago.  It is only recently, and should that not make us wonder, “What is going on?  What is happening to the world?” 

If we had some sort of “scale of evil” that could track and measure the wickedness of man throughout history, it would always be great, and yet in our day, it would “shoot off the scale.”  The tremendous evil and wickedness of men have multiplied to such an unheard of degree.  Why is it that this growth in wickedness has developed in conjunction with what the Bible teaches about the end of the church age, the loosing of Satan, and Judgment Day upon the world?  Is that a coincidence? 

If we were teaching these things today in a world that had the same morals and character as it had seventy or eighty years ago, people would look at us strangely because back then God was restraining the hearts of man and holding back their sinful tendencies to a high degree.  Man could think very well of himself, and it may have been thought,  “Mankind is evolving and developing to the point where we are getting better and better.  Civilization is evolving.  Technology is evolving, and man is learning to stop the warfare and evil he has been involved in.”  Yes, there would have been a positive outlook back in those days, but look what has happened.  No matter where we look – whether in the churches or in the world – it matches perfectly with what the Bible says.  God is so incredibly wise and detailed in His description of our modern age in these last days.  For instance, here is what He says in Romans 1:24-32:

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

What a detailed description of our time!  It is as though God is a “seer,” and He is, in a sense, in that He knows the end from the beginning, so it is nothing for Him to record events that would take place thousands of years in the future.  He recorded it in the Bible, and He told us that there would be an increase of wickedness when we got to the time of the end, as it says in Matthew 24 that there would be an increase in wickedness in the churches and in the world.  It says in Matthew 24:11:

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

There is a description of every church service over the last twenty-plus years, as many false prophets with their false gospel have arisen to deceive about two billion professed Christians.  Then it says in Matthew 24:12:

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

It is because “iniquity shall abound,” and that is a very gentle way of putting it, since we can look around and see what is happening.  We will not discuss some of the awful atrocities and evils that are done on a daily basis all around us.  And because of this increase in iniquity, “the love of many shall wax cold.”  And what is love, according to the Bible?  Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  Therefore, at the time of the end the love of many will wax cold.  That is, there would be a failure to keep the commandments of God concerning things like the Sunday Sabbath.  Just look at what has happens on the Lord’s day at this time.  It is now a day for shopping, a ballgame, or a day for work, or whatever you like.  It is like any other day.  The churches have trampled all over it as Satan and his emissaries were instrumental in this change.  The world has eagerly allowed it to happen, and they have also loosened the “blue law,” and they look back on it as if it is hard to believe such laws were actually in place because that is the nature of our world today.  It is a “waxing cold” of the hearts of men regarding the commandments and Laws of God.  Then God says in Matthew 24:13-14:

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 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.

These things were fulfilled right before our eyes!  That is the reason.  There is no other explanation.  How can the evil we see around us exist in such an unprecedented manner?  That means that what we see all around us has become so “common” in our time, and it is unprecedented because the world has never seen evil to this degree.  There is just no comparison with any other period of history.  Yes, there was the situation in Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of that plain, but that was just an isolated area, and it was not the whole world that was given to homosexuality.  Yes, there was the world of Noah’s day when God said that the hearts of men were only evil continuously.  But I tell you that if we were to go back to the world of Noah’s day before the flood, and if we could interact with those people, we would think we had found some sort of eutopia!  “What wonderful people! How considerate and kind!”  But God was talking about the hearts of men, and in an unsaved state all men are deceitful and desperately wicked, but the people would certainly have not been comparable to the people of today because our generation is a generation that thinks highly of itself.  But the truth is that we are a generation that has been given up to filthy deeds of sins, and there is no comparable generation in the history of the world to what mankind has wrought, and the depths of sin to which mankind has sunk, in this present time.