Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #12 from Revelation, chapter 6, and we are going to be reading Revelation 6:9-11:
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
Once again, we know that the souls “under the altar” are true believers. They are God’s elect that have been covered by the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. God, here, is using this picture of these souls crying out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” They have been slain and they have died for the sake of the Word of God and for the testimony which they held. They are a picture of those that have died physically, having given their lives for the Gospel, or they can be a picture of those that have died spiritually for the same reason, as they had been driven out of the churches and congregations.
So they are crying out and they are asking the question, “How long will it be? How long is it, O God, until the time when you judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth?” Now it just so happens that from our present vantage point of living in the time after the Great Tribulation (we are in those days after that tribulation) and we can answer this question that the souls under the altar are asking; we know that the judgment on the churches began May 21, 1988, the day before Pentecost, and would continue for 23 full years (8,400 days) until May 21, 2011 and then judgment would transition and expand to include all the world. May 21, 2011 began Judgment Day on the world and this entire period of time (from the beginning of the judgment on the churches up until now, and continuing until the last day of Judgment Day) is a response from God to the shed blood of His servants, the prophets: from Abel, the very first to die, unto Zacharias, who typified the last which occurred after 13,000 years of history and everyone in between – the entire company of God’s elect – that has died, physically or spiritually, for the sake of the Gospel. Their blood calls out to God, in a figure that God uses; that is, justice is required. There is a demand that justice be served as a result of their deaths at the hands of the wicked of the world and the wicked in the churches within the world.
So God, here, is indicating that the time will come when He will judge and avenge their blood on those that dwell on the earth. Now we read in Deuteronomy 32:41-43:
If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
Notice how God is referring to the blood of the wicked and how He will make His arrows drunk with the “blood of the slain” because the Bible says that whoever sheds men’s blood will have his blood shed. They have shed the blood of God’s servants. They have taken the life of God’s people and God will, in turn, require that their lives be given, as it says in Isaiah 34, which is a chapter that discusses the final judgment of God that comes at the end of time. It says in Isaiah 34: 3-6:
Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of JEHOVAH is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for JEHOVAH hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.
The LORD is picturing Judgment Day as a time of great blood letting and, actually, He uses this figure to describe the judgment on the churches as well; in Psalm 79 we see that picture. The blood of God’s people has been shed and when God brings judgment, He will shed blood. It is also the picture in Revelation 14 when the Lord Jesus is coming on Judgment Day as the reaper, to put in His sickle and He casts the vine of the earth into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the blood overflows and comes out of the winepress for the space of 1,600 furlongs, which we understand to be a reference to 1,600 days – that is the time of the shedding of blood and the “days of vengeance” when God is exacting revenge and avenging His servants upon all the unsaved that dwell upon the face of the earth.
Now in Revelation 2 we read of Jezebel and the Lord is giving one of the addresses to one of the seven churches (to the church at Thyatira) and He says in Revelation 2:20-22:
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. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
Now we can know from this language that Jezebel is being used as a figure of a fallen and apostate church at the time of the end when judgment comes upon the churches in the Great Tribulation. Here at the end of this address, God will say, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” So we know, without any question, God is addressing the New Testament churches and congregations and calling them “Jezebel.” He does this because, historically, Ahab was married to Jezebel and Jezebel was a very wicked woman that killed the prophets of the LORD. She had them slain; she shed their blood. We read in 2nd Kings 9 that God had one of His prophets annoint Jehu. I am going to read a few verses and we will see how this fits in with the vengeance of God. It says in 2nd Kings 9:4-8:
So the young man, even the young man the prophet, went to Ramothgilead. And when he came, behold, the captains of the host were sitting; and he said, I have an errand to thee, O captain. And Jehu said, Unto which of all us? And he said, To thee, O captain. And he arose, and went into the house; and he poured the oil on his head, and said unto him, Thus saith JEHOVAH God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of JEHOVAH, even over Israel. And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of JEHOVAH, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel:
Here, we really have an historical parable. This is true history. These things occurred just as we read of them. Jehu did proceed to very zealously slay the house of Ahab and Jezebel. He did an excellent job in performing the Word of the LORD in doing the task that God had assigned him to do. The task that God had Jehu perform was extremely destructive. It was a job for a captain, a military man, because it involved killing and this is pointing to a deeper spiritual event when God would “loose Satan” and God would appoint Satan the task of destroying “Jezebel.” Jezebel (whom the LORD likened to the New Testament churches and congregations in Revelation 2) has killed the prophets of God through her fornication and her seductive ways. We can understand that to be a reference to those that teach things that are not true and faithful, to those that come with other kinds of gospels; and these things spiritually kill, so God is determined to avenge the blood of His servants at the hand of “Jezebel,” the New Testament churches and congregations that have been unfaithful. And after giving them “space to repent” over the entire church age, which worked out to be 1,955 years, He “cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation.” (Revelation 2:22) The judgment commenced upon the “house of God” and the Great Tribulation began.
So Jehu is a type of Satan, as Satan also very zealously went about doing the will of God in destroying the churches (in destroying this “Jezebel”). This is something Satan can do in an excellent way because he is the essence of “destruction.” He is very, very good at bringing death and destruction, so God gave him this task; God was destroying the churches because they had dared to drive out His people, using their false doctrines and false gospels – these spiritual fornications against the Word of God. This drove God’s people from the congregations and, thereby, spiritually killing them. Now God, in bringing judgment upon the churches by the loosing of Satan, is bringing vengeance and avenging the blood of all His servants that were killed at the hands of “Jezebel” throughout the entire church age.
So God speaks of the judgment on the churches as a time of “vengeance” in Luke 21:20-22:
And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
Not only is the judgment on the churches the “day of vengeance,” but the judgment on the world as well and that is where Babylon comes in, as Babylon is used as a figure for the kingdom of Satan and the King of Babylon as a type of Satan. Just as Jehu went about (in a very eager way) to destroy the house of Ahab and Jezebel, which would corporately identified as the people of God, so, too, did King Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, his kingdom; they also were commissioned and God said of Nebuchadnezzar, “He is my servant,” because God utilized him to destroy Judah and Jerusalem and, again, to destroy the professed people of God that, in turn, had destroyed God’s prophets and drove them out. We see this in the way they mishandled and did evilly to Jeremiah the Prophet and that was not the first instance; they had done that throughout the centuries. They had slain the LORD’S people and, in response, God raised up the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar to slay them. They had shed the blood of God’s prophets, so God had their blood shed at the hands of the Babylonians.
However, the LORD also will bring Babylon into judgment for daring to put forth their hand against the LORD’S annointed, to those who professed to be the people of God – for the church that was called the church of Christ. We read concerning the judgment that came upon the world on May 21, 2011, in Revelation 18:20:
Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
This is Babylon. Babylon came into judgment after the seventy year period in which God used them to bring judgment on His people of Judah. Then the LORD raised up the Medes and the Persians, historically, and they conquered Babylon. Likewise, that seventy year period typified the Great Tribulation and following the LORD’S use of Satan over the twenty three year judgment on the churches (as God allowed him to enter in as the man of sin and take his seat in the temple) and when that judgment was complete, then God immediately judged Satan and his kingdom of “Babylon” and took vengeance upon them because in Babylon, as it says in Revelation 18:24, “ was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”
This is looking at it from the perspective of throughout time. Satan became the king over the churches and now the churches are part of Babylon and God now views Satan and his kingdom as one kingdom of Babylon. And now it is time to bring the final and complete judgment upon them. It says in Isaiah 34:8:
For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.
Here, God is indicating that the whole judgment – the complete judgment of God – upon sinful mankind has to do with “Zion.” It is the “controversy of Zion.” When we look at it, this is how it worked out: God judged the churches and congregations because they shed the blood of His people and He raised up Satan and his emissaries to do that. Then God judged Satan and his emissaries because they shed the blood of the corporate people of God. It worked out to be a two-stage judgment: judgment begins “at the house of God,” we read in 1st Peter 4:17, and then transitions onto the world. We have noticed how God’s judgment on the churches was over a period of twenty three years, which worked out to an exact 8,400 days. Now we have learned that there is a good possibility that the judgment on the world will be of a total duration of 1,600 days. That fits very well because 8,400 plus 1,600 equals 10,000 days of judgment or vengeance upon the unsaved of the world, both within the churches and outside of the churches. And 10,000 points to the “completeness” of whatever is in view and what is in view here is the complete vengeance of God upon those that shed the blood of His people. That is why this verse in Isaiah 34:8 is so interesting when it says:
For it is the day of JEHOVAH’S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.
Recompence is responding “in kind;” that is, “You have shed the blood of my people and in response, I will shed your blood.” That is the recompence of the judgment of God. It says in 2nd Thessalonians 1:6-8:
Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Here, we see the recompensing of tribulation and the taking vengeance. It is language of Judgment Day and Isaiah 34:8 is describing “the day of JEHOVAH’S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.” Now we understand why it says “the day of JEHOVAH’S vengeance,” because God often speaks of Judgment Day as singular, even though, in actuality, Judgment Day is a prolonged period of time. We have discussed this before; we know that God reserves the privilege to speak of “a day” and yet assign a longer period of time to it. We saw that in Hebrews 3 when He referred to the “day of temptation” in the wilderness and then He immediately says it was “forty years” long. So there is no problem with our understanding that, but why does God also call it “the year of recompences”? Recompences is a synonym for “vengeance,” so it would be basically “the year of vengeance.” Why a year as well as a “day of JEHOVAH?”
Well, we can understand this when we realize that God’s judgment is two stages: the judgment is first at the house of God against the churches and then the expansion of the judgment from the churches exclusively to include the whole world and all the unsaved people in it. And that is why the 1,600 and the 8,400 fits so well – it is the complete judgment of God. It is complete on all the unsaved and complete in duration.
Well, we also find that God likens the Great Tribulation to a period of “seven months.” You can read about that in the Book of 1st Samuel when the ark was taken captive by the Philistines and kept in the land of the Philistines for seven months. And God also likens the period of Judgment Day on the world to “five months,” from May 21, 2011 to the last day of this time period. It is spiritually, or figuratively, referred to as “five months,” and now we understand why God speaks of “the year of recompences,” the day of vengeance and the year of recompences. Remember Luke 21:22 said “these be the days of vengeance.” Vengeance began at the house of God; then vengeance transitioned to all the world. Seven months was the “figure” for the Great Tribulation and five months was the “figure” for the judgment on the world, totaling twelve months of judgment; twelve months of vengeance; twelve months or one year of recompences.
So we can answer the question that the souls under the altar raised: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood?” The answer is that there will come a “year of vengeance” and that year is well under way. We have almost come to the completion of God’s “year of wrath.”