Good evening, everyone, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #38 of Revelation 2, and we are continuing to look at Revelation 2:27:

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.

We have been looking at this verse for several studies, and we are in the middle of the verse, which says, “as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers,”  We have already seen that the Bible likens God to a potter, and mankind to vessels created by the potter.  It says in Romans 9:19-23:

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

In this passage, God is referring to mankind, and He has divided them up between “saved” and “unsaved,” as He does elsewhere in the Bible.  Here, there are vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, and there are vessels of mercy, which are God’s elect.  So God had a plan to spare some of His creatures, the men who were created in His image, and He would recreate them by giving them a new heart, or new spirit.  Finally, He will give them a new resurrected body, making them entirely new creatures.  But the vast majority of mankind will not be recreated anew, and He will simply destroy their vessels, the vessels fitted for destruction.  They will never experience salvation, and they will be annihilated forever.

That is why the question was asked: “Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?”  God is addressing the critique that some people have concerning His salvation plan being unfair.  Why does He save certain ones, and not others?  And God answers by using the analogy, “Hath not the potter power over the clay?”

Of course He does.  Who can argue with that?  If you go some place where a potter is making his vessels, who would deny that the potter has the power over the clay to make one lump unto honor, and the other lump that He is not pleased with, He simply tosses it away and destroys it?  The simple potter has that right, and no one would argue that he does not, and yet people dare to argue against God: “You have no right to save only some.  You have no right to elect a people for yourself, and not to do the same for everyone.”

Actually, if people want fairness and justice, what would be fair?  It would be fair for God to take all the vessels that have rebelled against him as they rose up and shook their fists at God to destroy them all.  That would be very right and very fair.  But God, out of His goodness, mercy, and kindness, determined to save some, and He had to decide which ones He would save, and He did so.  He selected certain individuals, and He made that choice before the world was created.  Before the foundation of the world, He predestinated these souls to become saved.  He did this because choice had to be made, and He knew everything that would take place, so He made the choice at that point, which would demonstrate beyond any doubt that His choice was not made based on man’s works because none had done any work – good or evil - before the foundation of the world.  He was making choice only according to His good pleasure.  So He did choose by electing a people for Himself that He would save and spare and allow to continue to live.  These would be vessels of honor that the Potter determined would become good creations.  He would remake them in His own image, and the rest would be destroyed.  This is the right of a potter to do with his pottery of vessels of clay, and it is the right of God to do with the creatures He has created.

In Revelation 2 it said, “as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers,” and this would be explain the wrath and judgment of God in the day of His wrath, Judgment Day.  It is His intention to destroy these vessels.  This is similar language to Psalm 2:9:

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Here, God’s intention was spoken in this Psalm many hundreds of years before Christ came, and He was looking ahead to the final day of Judgment Day, the time when He would be finished with the unsaved.  He would no longer be longsuffering because all the vessels unto honor would have been found.  They would already have heard the Gospel, and God would have saved everyone He desired to save.  Following that, the door to heaven would shut, and now God turns His intention to destroying all the rest of mankind.  He is doing so presently, as we are now in the time of the Day of Judgment, and the Day of Judgment can also be said to be a day of “breaking with a rod of iron,” and a day of “dashing them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”  And this word “dash” is Strong’s #5310 and it is found in a couple of interesting places.  One is in Psalm 137:8-9:

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Here, the word “dasheth” is the same word we find in Psalm 2:9.  It is interesting that here it is in the context of “Babylon,” who is to be destroyed.  Notice that it says in verse 8: “…happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.”  This is a very similar statement to Revelation 18:6:

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

We now realize that when God says, “Babylon is fallen,” and when judgment comes upon it, it is pointing to judgment on the world.  Historically, Babylon fell after the seventy years of captivity that the Jews experienced at their hand, and that seventy-year captivity was a type and figure of the Great Tribulation.  Therefore at the end of the seventy years when Babylon historically fell, it was pointing to the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of Judgment Day.  It so happened that the Great Tribulation worked out to be exactly 23 years, from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011, or 8,400 days of judgment on the churches.  And then the Great Tribulation ended and the judgment transitioned from the churches, and it was expanded to all the world.  All the world began to be judged in a similar way to the judgment on the churches.

How did God judge the churches?  The cup of His wrath was given first to the churches, and Satan and his kingdom, as represented by Babylon, were instrumental in the churches drinking of that cup.  God used Satan as a destroying instrument to wreak havoc and destruction upon the New Testament churches and congregations of the world.  And that is why God says in Revelation 18:6: “Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.”  That is, God used Babylon to destroy Judah, historically, and God used Satan and his kingdom to destroy the churches, and the churches are typified in the Bible as the figure of “one-third.”  The cup that was given to the “one-third” to drink from was now to be given to the “two-thirds,” the rest of mankind.  The number “666” is the number that identifies with “two-thirds.”  It is the number of man, the unsaved inhabitants of the earth that were part of the kingdom of Satan, or Babylon.  The judgment that had been on the “one-third” was to be given to Babylon, and she would drink “double” because “two-thirds” is double the number of “one-third.”   An that is why God makes that statement in Revelation 18.  It is now time for all the world, or all mankind, typified by the number “666,” or the figure of “two-thirds,” to experience the wrath of God by drinking of the same cup that the churches drank. 

Again, was the judgment on the churches physical?  Was there a literal pulling down of church buildings so that there would not be left one stone upon another?  And the answer is, “No, it was spiritual.”  The judgment on the churches was spiritual, and we could not point to anything outwardly and say, “Now there you can see the judgment of God.”  Of course we have learned in the Bible the reason for the judgment on the churches was because of the apostacy that was going on in the churches, but as far as what we could physically see with our eyes, there was no outer destruction of church buildings; there was no blood letting of the professed Christians within the churches.  It was all a spiritual judgment.

And that same cup has now been given to the world, and they will drink “double,” as the figure of “two-thirds” is twice the figure of “one-third.”  They will drink of the wrath of God, and it is the same judgment.  The door (to heaven) is now shut on the world as it was in the churches; the light of the Gospel is put out in the world as it was in the churches; the Spirit of Christ is not saving in the world as He did not save in the churches.  It is the identical cup of wrath, so God says in Psalm 137:8-9:

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Why does God say, “Happy shall he be?”  We know He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.  The Bible is clear about that.  Of course God is just, and He must punish the sinners, and He is doing so, and He will destroy them as His Word says, but does this mean that there will be some sort of happiness as a result?  We have to understand that this word translated as “happy” is a word that is also translated as “blessed.”  So it is saying, “Blessed shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Blessed shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” 

But what does that mean that blessed is he that dashes thy little ones against the stones?  Let us turn to Jeremiah 51, and maybe we will be able to understand this a little bit better.  In Jeremiah 51, the word translated as “dash to pieces” is also used in the context of God’s judgment upon Babylon.  We know that as a Potter, it is His plan to dash the vessels of dishonor to pieces in the Day of Judgment, so we are not surprised to find the same language in regard to Babylon because God judges Babylon during the Day of Judgment.  It says in Jeremiah 51:19:

The portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things…

The word “former” is the word “potter,” or “maker.”  It is Strong’s #3335, and it is the same word “potter” used in Jeremiah 18 and Jeremiah 19, which we have been reading.  So He is the “potter,” or “maker,” of all things.  Then it says in Jeremiah 51:19:

… and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: JEHOVAH of hosts is his name.

That word “rod” is the same word “rod” that we saw in Psalm 2:9:

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

It lets us know that the “rod of iron” will be a weapon used to dash them in pieces.  And again, it says in Jeremiah 51:19:

The portion of Jacob is not like them…

Who is the portion of Jacob?  It is God.  The Lord Jesus Christ is our inheritance, and He is our portion.  Again, it says in Jeremiah 51:19:

The portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former (potter) of all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: JEHOVAH of hosts is his name.

The word “Israel” is in italics, but it is correct that Israel is what is being spoken of, and the word “rod” is often translated as “tribe,” so it could be said that Israel is the tribe of His inheritance, or the rod of His inheritance.  Then it says in Jeremiah 51:20:

Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war…

This would seem to be pointing to Jacob, or Israel, as Israel is another name for Jacob.

Again, it says in Jeremiah 51:20:

Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;

There is the phrase “break in pieces,” and that is exactly what Psalm 2 is talking about, as well as our verse in Revelation 2:27.  Here, it is Judgment Day, and God is using Jacob as a weapon, or battle axe, and with him will God break in pieces the nation and destroy kingdoms.  Then it says in Jeremiah 51:21-22:

And with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider; With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young…

And we read in Psalm 137:9: “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” And the “little ones” would be the “young.”  It goes on to say in Jeremiah 51:22-23:

… and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid; I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers.

God says this ten times, pointing to completeness in the Bible.  With His weapon of war, Jacob, will God break in pieces these various groups of people.  We wonder, “How can God use Jacob as a weapon?”

Remember that it said in Psalm 137:8-9:

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy (blessed) shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy (blessed) shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

That is, blessed is the one that dashes the little ones against the stones because God commanded the believers in Revelation 18:6: “Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.”   So it is Jacob, representing the elect of God, that God uses as His weapon to bring about the final destruction of the unsaved people of the earth, as typified by these ten different groups that are mentioned in Jeremiah 51.  They are all broken in pieces by this “battle axe,” which are the elect. 

And that is why it says that blessed are the ones who will do this.  It is the elect that are blessed with eternal life.  But how does God use the true believers as His weapon in the Day of Judgment?  The weapon, or rod, that God is using to dash the vessels of pottery to pieces is the fact that He has saved everyone whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  All those predestinated to become saved have been saved.  All the lost sheep have been found.  And there are other figures that also describe that God’s salvation plan has now been completed. 

So what does that mean?  It means that in this time in the Day of Judgment, God was able to shut the door of heaven because all His elect had been found and saved.  Because all the elect have been saved, God can put out the Light of the Gospel to the world.  Because all the elect have been saved, God can remove the work of His holy Spirit from saving people in the world, and so forth.  The primary judgment of God is the ending of His salvation plan for this world, and this is all as a result of God having saved His people, and therefore He is able to do these things to the rest of the people. 

Remember it said in Romans 9 that God was longsuffering until He would find all the vessels chosen unto honor, and then He would deal with the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.

God gives us a glimpse spiritually of the Day of Judgment in Revelation 20:11-12:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

God opens up the Book of Life in the Day of Judgment.  The Lamb’s Book of Life is open, and He searches it.  He is looking at all the people of the earth, and He finds no more names of elect still to be found, and no names to be sought out in order that the Word of God reach them and convert them, making them born again.  All the names to be saved have been saved.  And now that this book is open, God can confidently and assuredly bring His wrath.  There are no more individuals preventing Him from destroying the other vessels.  The only reason God waited so patiently and was so longsuffering was in order to bring in the precious fruit of the earth, the elect of God.  This is how Jacob, the elect, can be said to be the “battle axe” of God in the Day of Judgment.