Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #13 of Revelation, chapter 6, and we are going to be reading Revelation 6:11:

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.

Now this verse is referring to the souls of them that were seen “under the altar” back in verse 9 and we discussed this and we saw how that is really a reference to God’s elect that were saved throughout the church age period, especially.  Here, in verse 11, it speaks of these souls “under the altar” resting “for a little season, until their fellowservants… should be killed as they.”  We also discussed that – how God brought in the firstfruits, typified by the 144,000, and then He saved a great multitude during the period of the Great Tribulation.  The Great Tribulation is identified by God, here, as a “little season,” and it really was when we compare it to the period of the church age and the gathering of the firstfruits; that period went from 33 A.D. until 1988 A.D. and it lasted for 1,955 years.  Then began the Great Tribulation and for the first 2,300 evening mornings virtually no one was being saved anywhere in the world (and no one at all was saved in the churches and congregations because God had abandoned the churches and turned them over to Satan).  If anyone was being saved outside of the churches, it would have been very few, maybe a handful of individuals, at most.  That is all the language of the Bible allows. 

Then in September of 1994 the LORD began to evangelize the world again, a second time, and He stretched forth His hand to gather the remnant of His people; it was a second Jubilee period and a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  It was the period of the “latter rain” and God would bring in much fruit – much more fruit than had been brought in previously throughout almost 2,000 years of the church age.  This would all be accomplished in “a little season” of only about 17 years out of the entire 23 year Great Tribulation period.  So we can see why God would refer to it as a “little season.” 

He also calls it a “little season” in Revelation 20:1-3:

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

(And this “thousand years” is representing the entire church age which, as mentioned earlier, actually lasted for 1,955 years.)

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.

This is describing Satan’s loosing at the end of the church age.  It was at that point, in the year 1988, that he ascended out of the bottomless pit, as we read in Revelation 11, and the “two witnesses” were slain.  Satan was victorious over the churches and congregations of the world.  The entire period of time (the 23 years from May 21, 1988 until May 21, 2011) which was a full 8,400 days was the Great Tribulation, also known as a “little season.”  This phrase identifies the Great Tribulation, as well as the two Greek words “megas” and “thlipsis,” identifies the Great Tribulation. 

By the way, the Greek words, here, for “little season” are Strong’s #3398 (mikros) and #5550 (khronos).  From “khronos” we get our word “chronology” and, of course, from “mikros” we get our word “micro” for “very little.”  So this is a “little season,” as “khronos” is also translated as “time” or “while” in the Greek New Testament and “mikros” is often translated as “little.”  We actually find these two words “micros” and “khronos” in John, chapter 7, and let us turn over there and this is interesting because that chapter happens to discuss the Feast of Tabernacles.  For instance, it is in chapter 7 where it says concerning this feast in John 7:6:

Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.

That is not just a casual use of words when the Lord says, “my time is not yet full come,” but it is a reference to the spiritual fulfillment of what will take place in the future concerning the Feast of Tabernacles.  For instance, God fulfilled the Passover Feast when Christ went to the cross at the time of the Passover, and that spiritually fulfilled what the Passover had pointed to.  God fulfilled the Feast of Pentecost (or Firstfruits) by pouring out the Holy Spirit and so Acts 2 says, “when the feast of Pentecost was fully come.”  At that point, God poured out the Holy Spirit and about 3,000 were saved and that initiated the church age and God began to send forth His word into the nations to gather the “firstfruits” unto God.  That was the fulfillment of what the Feast of Pentecost had always pointed to.

And, here, Jesus is speaking of the Feast of Tabernacles and He says, “My time is not yet full come” because Tabernacles, which is held along with ingathering, is the feast that is said to come in the end of the year and it points to the end of the world when God gathers all of His precious fruit – all of the elect – and then He will destroy the world.  We fully expect that God will do this in observance, or in connection with, the Feast of Tabernacles in the Hebrew calendar, as He also fulfilled the other feast days at the time of those feasts according to the Biblical calendar. 

And in this verse, God is speaking about the Feast of Tabernacles and there will come a time when He will go up to that feast and that is at the time it is fully come.

Then a little further on, it says in John 7:32-33:

The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him. Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.

Now let me stop just to explain that the English words “a little while” are the same two Greek words as “a little season” that we have in Revelation 6:11 and Revelation 20:3.  They are the same two words.  “Little” is “mikros” and “while” is “khronos.”  It could read here just as easily as, “Yet a little season am I with you and then I go unto him that sent me.”  Now this is very significant.  God uses words very carefully.  Remember when He uses the two words “megas” and “thlipsis,” Great Tribulation, in Matthew 24 and He uses those two words again in Revelation 2 and Revelation 7 and they are discussing, of course, that period of time right at the end of the world which we have just gone through, the Great Tribulation.  Then the Lord uses the same two words in the Book of Acts to describe the “great dearth” that came upon the land in the days of Joseph: “megas” and “thlipsis.” 

You know, someone that does not understand how God wrote the Bible would just conclude this has nothing to do with the Great Tribulation, as it does in the other verses, and they would be completely wrong.  God did that intentionally and when we check out that famine that occurred in the days of Joseph we see how perfectly that historic occurrence matches up with the spiritual teaching of the Bible concerning the characteristics of the Great Tribulation.  So, here, we find the same two words that are in Revelation 6:11 and Revelation 20 and there they are translated as “little season” and here it is using a different English word, but that does not matter, because we are concerned with the original Greek language and it is the same two words: “Yet a little season I am with you and then I go to him that sent me.” 

Let us keep reading in John 7:34-37:

Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come. Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come? In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

Now this is really very interesting how God has used these two words, “little season” in this particular passage in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles because the Feast of Tabernacles is said to some day be “full come” (as Christ said, “my time has not yet full come,” referring to Tabernacles) and we understand it to be that feast that must be fulfilled at the time of the end. 

And in this context Jesus is having a dialogue with the Pharisees when they sent officers to take him and Jesus says, in verse 33: “Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.”  Now let us think about that.  Jesus is saying that He is only with them for a “little season” and then, following this, He goes to God.  And now notice what happens once He goes to God after the “little season” that He is present with them.   It says in John 7:34:

Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.

Again, let us keep in mind that “little season” is a phrase that identifies with the Great Tribulation and after the “little season,” Christ is saying that those that seek Him cannot find him and where He is, they cannot come. 

That reminds us of what we read in Revelation 9 which is describing the last “three woes.”  Revelation 8 spoke of the first four trumpets: the judgment on the third part, the churches and congregations, that took place during the Great Tribulation.  And then there is a transition made in Revelation 13:8: “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth.”  Just as we read in Jeremiah 25 where God speaks of giving the cup first to the city called by His name and then He turns to the inhabiters of the earth and tells them that they will not go unpunished (and the implication is that they most definitely will be punished).

And, here, God judges the third part first with the first four trumpet blasts and the final three that identify with each one of the woes is the judgment on the world.  So Revelation 9 is describing the day of transition from judgment on the churches until the judgment on the world and that day was May 21, 2011.  Notice, as the Lords speaks of the locusts that are bringing torment following the five months of torment described there, that it says in Revelation 9:6:

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

We are not going to get into this, as we will discuss this in a short time when we get to Revelation 9, but the death that is in view in Revelation 9:6 is the death that Romans, chapter 6, describes – of dying in Christ – and that is done when God saves a sinner.  We are “dead in Him.”  This is the “death” that men will seek in the Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011 and thereafter, in those days after the Tribulation) and they shall not find it; they will desire to “die” that particular death and “death shall flee from them.”  That “death” will flee because it is no longer available; men will seek it and not find it, just as Christ is saying, in John 7:34, that after this period He is with them, “Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.”  There is an inability and there is no possibility that anyone can find Christ any longer.  The Jews wondered about this and God uses their bewilderment to add emphasis to what is being said, as they say in John 7:35:

Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?

And, again, it is an added emphasis to what Christ had said and notice how it leads into verse 37:

In the last day, that great day of the feast…

It is referring to the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles and it so happens that this is the day that we have an expectation that Christ will come and conclude this period of judgment in this time after the Great Tribulation.  This actually seems to fit very well, as Jesus says, “yet a little season.”  And let us look at that as if He is referring to the Great Tribulation: “Yet a little season of the Great Tribulation, am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.”  Following the “little season” of the Great Tribulation, Christ leaves the world (and that is why the sun is darkened and the moon is not giving its light; that is why the door is now shut, because He is the door.)  Obviously, He is still omnipresent and is everywhere and He knows everything, but as far as the Gospel of the Bible is concerned, it is as though He has left.  And following the Great Tribulation on May 21, 2011, then John 7:34 takes effect:

Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.

The characteristic of these dark days of judgment continues until the last day, as we have learned, and there is a good possibility that God has assigned a 1,600 day period for the duration of Judgment Day, beginning on May 21, 2011 and concluding on October 7, 2015, or 1,600 days later.  That date happens to be the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles – the ninth day or the “travel day” – and an excellent date for God to select in order that His people might “travel” home after having spiritually observed and fulfilled the Feast as the Feast has fully come; now Christ would have gathered in the fruit, as ingathering is held in conjunction with Tabernacles.  The Lord’s people, figuratively, dwelled in booths or tabernacles for the entire 1,600 days, as they had no sure dwelling place in this world.

The Feast of Tabernacles was a feast that was to commemorate the sojourning of Israel in the wilderness for forty years, a severe testing time for Israel.  Since May 21, 2011 when God delivered all of the elect from captivity to sin and Satan, it was as though they “came forth.”  And even though there was an expectation of entering into the kingdom of heaven immediately, it did not work out that way, just as (I am sure) the Israelites could have been disappointed that once they left Egypt and entered into the desert and they were under the hot sun; it certainly would not have been what they had expected, as God caused them to sojourn for forty years in that condition, without any place they could make a home.  They went from place to place and that is where Israel dwelt in “booths,” and, likewise, when all of God’s elect came out of Babylon through the work of Christ in delivering and saving them, they have also entered into a period of extreme testing – 1,600 days is 40 x 40, and it leads right up to the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, wherein we would expect the Lord to finally come.  It is our hope.  It is a great expectation and it is a good possibility, so we are excited that God has given this hope. 

Now the same two words, a “little season,” are found another time in the Book of John.  I will just read them during this study and we can all think about it before our next study, as we will continue looking at this the next time we get together.  Let us go to John 12:34-36:

The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man? Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you.

Now, again, “little while” are the same two Greek words: “mikros” and “khronos.”

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.

Now, once again, we find a “little season” in view and Christ is saying that for this “little season” the light is with you.  And, of course, He is the Light of the world, so this identifies very much with the previous statement in John 7.  He is saying that during the “little season” there will be light and that agrees with our understanding of what happened during the Great Tribulation; there was a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Christ, the Light of the world, was shining brightly all over the face of the world, as God brought the news of Judgment Day to the ears of practically everyone.  All heard of the coming Day of Judgment on May 21, 2011.  It was a bright shining of the Gospel light and, so, yet a “little season” of the Great Tribulation is the light with you, so “walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.”

Now the implication is that following the “little season” of Great Tribulation comes “darkness” and that matches very well with Matthew 24:29:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened…

The “sun” is the light; the “sun” is pointing to the Lord Jesus.  He is the Light of the world.  Immediately after the tribulation, it is darkened and that indicates that during the Great Tribulation it was shining – the Light of the world was brilliantly lighting the earth.