Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #15 of Revelation, chapter 6, and we are going to continue in 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, here, God is indicating that the souls under the altar (the elect people of God that were saved during the church age) “should rest yet for a little season,” and we learned that the “little season” identifies with the Great Tribulation.
What are they waiting for? They are waiting until “their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled;” that is, the great multitude that the Bible describes as coming out of great tribulation that will be “killed as they were.” And why will they be killed? They will be killed for “the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.”
When the Bible speaks of the Lord’s people being killed, it can have in view a physical death, as Abel was physically killed and Zechariah the Prophet, the son of Jehoiada, was also physically killed and, yet, those physical deaths point to a spiritual killing or death that is much more common, especially in our time at the end of the world, when the Lord’s people have been driven out of the churches and congregations. Let us look at a couple of verses that show that, for instance, in John 16:1-2:
These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
This is another example of Hebrew parallelism, where a statement is made in the first part of the verse and then the follow up statement is really rephrasing and reiterating the thing that was said at first. So being “put out of the synagogues” is really synonymous with being “killed.” The synagogues are a figure of the churches.
We can see that, historically, as the Jews would drive individuals out of their system of worship (the synagogue system) when the individuals would follow “that way” of Jesus Christ. We see that in John 9 with the blind man that was healed and given sight by the Lord. The Jewish authorities held a counsel, questioning and examining him regarding the miracle that was done and due to his testimony that Christ had done this miracle (and, obviously, only God can do miracles) and, therefore, Christ was of God; the Jews did not like to hear that and they drove him out of the synagogue. It was a common threat to the Jews of that day. To the Jewish mind, this was about as bad as it could get (if you were driven out of the synagogues) and they may have been told that they would not enter into the kingdom of heaven; that they were not saved. For instance, we read in John 12:42-43:
Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
The threat was hanging over everyone – if you confess Christ (and, yes, we see these miracles and we see the blind are given sight and the lame walk and the dead are raised), you will be put out of the synagogue. This was a fearful thing to the Jews and, therefore, they did not confess him and God tells us the reason why: “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” Their lives would have become much more difficult; they could have become an outcast in their city, in their society, among their friends or family. So it was just too much trouble and too difficult to confess Christ, so they kept it to themselves. However, remember what Jesus said: “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” So that was a test that the Lord put to the Jewish nation and many, many of them failed the test.
Likewise, God had put a test to the New Testament churches and congregations, a test at the end of time when Christ would open up His word and remember that the Word of God is like Christ because He is “the Word made flesh” and He is “the truth, the way, and the life.” So, if God opens up truth from His word, the Bible, that is akin to confessing Christ when you confess those truths and denying those truths is just like denying Christ.
For instance, God opened up information concerning the end of the church age. What a severe test to put the church members and to those professing Christianity through “the fire,” to find out whose praise they desired more: the praise of men or the praise of God. Whose favor did they want more? Did they want God’s favor or the favor of their pastor or priest or their denomination? Whose “good side” did they want to be on? Did they want to be on God’s side by following His word faithfully or did they want to be on their churches’ side by adhering to their confessions, creeds and denominational positions? Many loved the praise of men more than the praise of God – that is the only thing we can say.
It is the reason that so many cannot “see” the spiritual desolation of today’s churches and congregations. They cannot “see” the destruction, on a spiritual level, in the sense that God’s Word is denied on just about every point; and they still hold to the fact that the church age continues and they deny the teaching that God kindly and graciously opened up to us for our benefit, that we might flee and escape to a place where there could be blessings outside of the churches and congregations, to a place where God was still saving a great multitude. But many failed that test.
And many were driven out of the churches due to their faithfulness to the things that God was opening up at the time of the Great Tribulation (at the time of the end when He unsealed His Word). The churches did not “see” these things; they did not understand them or accept them, so due to their steadfast holding to the traditions and teachings of their churches, they were, in effect, driving out the true believers.
Another way to look at this is in Revelation 13:14-15:
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Here, in this chapter we read of the beast that comes up out of the sea and a beast that rises from the earth and they are both describing Satan’s activities during the “little season,” the time of the Great Tribulation. God has loosed him from the bottomless pit and he has ascended up and overcome the saints (as we read in Revelation11) and he has taken his seat as the man of sin in the temple, showing himself that he is God. He is the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place where he ought not to be. God has permitted the devil to create an “image” to himself, an image to the beast. The “image” has the ability to speak: “that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Now what kind of “image” could Satan develop that could speak? It cannot be a statue. It cannot be any inanimate object and, yet, that is what we normally think of when we think of an image. We think of King Nebuchadnezzar setting up the golden image in the Book of Daniel and he also commanded that all people, nations and tongues bow down when they heard the music play and worship the image that he had set up. Now that is an historical example of what God is saying in Revelation, chapter 13, reflecting the spiritual meaning of what happened long ago in Babylon and it is being elaborated on here in Revelation 13. They are both teaching the same thing, as the King of Babylon is a type of Satan and the beast is also a type of Satan, a name that God gives Satan during the Great Tribulation.
And what is the “image?” The image is the churches and congregations. They ought to have been after the “image of God,” but since God has given them up and sent them a strong delusion and they are now under the control and authority of the beast, the things they are teaching and preaching and speaking are not coming forth from God – they are not faithful and true to the world of God – but they are full of lies and deceit and, therefore, they are speaking things that give honor unto the beast.
They themselves have become as the image of the beast and they “cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed;” that is, “If you will not come to church and if you will not agree that God is still here and if you will not admit that God is in our presence and blessing us, then why do you not just get out. And these other doctrines that you say God has opened up at the time of the end – we do not agree with any of them. We do not agree that Christ was slain from the foundation of the world. No – He was slain in 33 A.D. and we do not agree that “hell” is annihilation. No – there is a place called Hell. And we do not agree that you can know the day or hour: ‘No man knows the day or hour.’ And, not only that, but we do not agree that a man is saved by the faith of Christ. No – a man can exercise his own faith and accept Christ.”
It goes on and on; it saddens the heart of the righteous. They promise sinners life and there is no life. They promise peace and there is no peace. These are the things that the churches have done and it has driven out the people of God and, of course, it is all according to God’s purpose. He desired His people to come out of the churches and, therefore, He made the church unbearable for the true believer that has the Spirit of Christ within; they had no nourishment; they had no spiritual feeding; it was a barren wasteland, spiritually, and a desolation. So, perhaps without even knowing this intellectually or understanding exactly what was happening, they began to leave this church and that church and they just could not find a faithful congregation. In this way they were being killed spiritually as they were driven out of the churches, just as the Jews drove out those that confessed Christ in the days of His ministry. So this is what Revelation 6:11 is referring to, where it speaks of “their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”
Now one other thing we should mention about this is that the souls “under the altar” were not killed all at one time; they were killed all throughout the New Testament church age – they were driven out in the 1st century A.D. or the 10th century or maybe at the time of the Reformation when God’s people were stirred up to hold to the Bible only and the declaration of “justified by faith” and they no longer accepted the perverted teaching that a church was over the Word of God and in control of the salvation of men. So there was a Reformation and during that time many saints were killed physically and spiritually and driven out of the church of that day, as decrees were written and posted against them; the cry was that they were heretics and they no longer had the blessing of the church, and so on. So the souls “under the altar” were killed over the course of centuries and their brethren and “fellowservants,” the great multitude that would come out of great tribulation, were killed over the period of the twenty three year Great Tribulation. They were not killed all at once either; some could have been driven out early on and some were driven out a little later.
And then, finally, God opened up the information from His Word and commanded His people to “depart out” of the midst and “flee to the mountains,” so there is not a single point when the souls under the altar were “killed” or a single point when God’s people during the Great Tribulation were “killed,” but it took place over each of those particular seasons of time.