Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #20 of Revelation, chapter 6.  I am going to read from Revelation 6:12:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

We have been discussing the “great earthquake” in the last couple of studies and we have seen how God ties together a spiritual “great earthquake” with the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the stars.  The “great earthquake” points to the fall of Babylon or the fall of the kingdom of Satan (who was ruling over this world) and the release and deliverance of all the captives or all of God’s elect, the great multitude that God saved, by the time that May 21, 2011 came and Judgment Day began.  By that time God had saved all of His elect, the entire company of those whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life. 

Now I just want to look at one last place before we move on in discussing the other details in our verse and that is in Ezekiel, chapter 37, and I want to look at this passage because it relates to the “great earthquake.”  It says in Ezekiel 37:1-4:

The hand of JEHOVAH was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of JEHOVAH, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord JEHOVAH, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of JEHOVAH.

Now this is a picture God that is giving us as He is giving Ezekiel this vision of a valley full of dry bones.  And if it is a valley full of dry bones, it means it is a valley full of dead people.  This is a good and vivid illustration of the spiritual condition of mankind.  We are dead in trespasses and sins.  We are very dead.  There is no life in us at all, due to our fall into sin.  We have died spiritually.  We have died in our soul existence.  So the Lord has a plan to evangelize the world and to send forth His Word and that would be “prophesying,” as He moves in His people to carry forth the Word of God to the nations of the world, as He did this throughout time and, especially, during the New Testament Church age and the Great Tribulation period. 

The people of God are commanded to prophesy to the “dead,” to the spiritually dead of the world, and among that number of the almost seven billion people in our day, there were God’s elect and it was God’s plan to raise them from the dead, first, through a spiritual resurrection of their souls; no one would see this resurrection because it would take place in their soul existence (in the spiritual realm in that area of man that is invisible). 

So the Lord had His people carry forth the Gospel message, especially in the days leading up to May 21, 2011.  There was a last furious effort as God stirred within His people to proclaim the message of Judgment Day, to proclaim the conclusion of God’s salvation plan and, therefore, there was a desperate urgency to get this message out and to blow the trumpet and warn the people.  By that message, God would have His people prophesy to bring to life those elect that were among the people of the world hearing this news.  This is what is in view here in Ezekiel 37.  Again, the end of verse 4 says: “O ye dry bones, hear the word of JEHOVAH,” and then it says in Ezekiel 37:5-7:

Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am JEHOVAH. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking…

Now I want to stop here and comment on the word “shaking.”  This is Strong’s #7494.  It is a word that is also translated as “earthquake” and Ezekiel is representative of the people of God as God commands His people to prophesy and to carry the message of the Bible to the “dead.”  And, in this case, Ezekiel is carrying the message to dead “dry bones” that God says will live.  In the case of our time, we carry the message to the spiritually dead. 

And there was a “shaking” following the prophesying; that is, the prophesying was proclaimed and soon after there was a “shaking,” an earthquake, and as a result of this prophesying and in conjunction with an earthquake” the “bones came together, bone to his bone.”  Now notice the personal pronoun “his” at the end of verse 7: “bone to his bone.”  Remember what the Bible says, that we are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones.  Well, it does not say that exactly, but God uses this figure when speaking of Christ and His eternal bride, the body of believers or the eternal church, in Ephesians 5:28-30:

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

We become “one flesh” with Christ when He saves us; we become part of His body.  It is salvation, we could say, as God has saved the chosen individuals that He selected and predestinated to receive it from before the world began.  Salvation is the formation of the body of Christ and in Ezekiel 37, the prophesying brings these dead bones together “bone to his bone,” referring to the Lord.  The body of Christ is taking shape. 

Well, let us read Ezekiel 37:9-10:

Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

Now this can only be a reference to the great multitude that God said would be saved and come out of great tribulation.  He mentions that in Revelation, chapter 7, and, here, as a result of Ezekiel prophesying and as a result of an “earthquake” which formed the bones and they came together “bone to his bone,” and they “stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army,” the great multitude.

And then it says in Ezekiel 37:11:

Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel…

This is a picture of the completion of God’s plan to save everyone that He intended to save and we cannot help but notice that an “earthquake” is in view with the final formation of the body of Christ.  That relates to the earthquake in Acts, chapter 16, the miraculous, incredible earthquake that caused no damage that we read about (there could have been other damage in the city, but God does not record it), but only accomplished the opening of the prison doors and the freeing of the prisoners from their shackles and bonds and it points to God freeing His people from the kingdom of Satan, from that dark dungeon of despair where these poor sinners were held captive, ensnared to sin and to Satan, having been taken captive by him at his will. 

But now the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has made them free and they “shall be free indeed.”  They have been delivered, for Babylon has fallen and all of the spiritual Jews, the Israel of God, are set free, as the period of the Great Tribulation identifies with the seventy year period of Jewish captivity.  And now God’s people are free.  The “great earthquake” has released them.  The Day of Judgment has come.  God has won the victory over Satan and over the forces of the enemy.  He is victorious.  The Lord Jesus is exalted now to rule over all that Satan was previously ruling over in this world.  Jesus now rules.  Yes, He rules with a rod of iron, but He rules.  He is the Supreme Ruler over all and Satan has been put down. 

Well, let us go back to Revelation 6:12: 

… there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

Then it says in Revelation 6:13:

And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

We are getting to a point in the study of the Book of Revelation where God is going to go into depth in a detailed discussion concerning Judgment Day.   We are going to find much discussion of this in the following chapters and this verse is telling us about the Day of Judgment and what we can expect will be the spiritual condition of the world throughout the prolonged period of Judgment Day, which we have come to learn (and we have an expectation) will be 1,600 days.  During this time it can be said that it is a time of “darkness.”  It is a time when the lights of the Gospel are out.

But before we just quickly give the spiritual meaning of this and move on, let us take our time in going to the Bible and showing how God uses the “sun, moon and stars” in the Scriptures to finally teach us (as we have come to learn) that they represent the complete removal of the Gospel.  But let us just back up right to the very beginning to see how God speaks of the “sun, moon and stars” as He created them, back in Genesis 1:14-18:

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

We see here that the sun, the moon and the stars were created with a purpose: “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.”  They were created as time keepers and they perform their tasks very well, even now at this late date (we could say) and over this long period of time from the very beginning of creation.  We know that the world was created in 11,013 B.C. and we know we are living presently in the year 2013 A.D., and we know this because the time keepers are very precise and they perform the operation that God created them to perform; they do it very well.  God has established “the times and the seasons.”  For instance, the length of a year is 365.2422 days because this can be measured and known due to the precise movements of the celestial bodies, which God speaks about here, that were given “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.”  The day has twenty four hours and the length of a lunar month can be exactly calculated and this allows for man to keep track of time and it allows for God to place within the Bible a Biblical calendar of history that could be linked with the movement of the sun, moon and stars in order to develop seasons, as God speaks of “the times and the seasons,” for instance, in 1^st Thessalonians 5:1-2:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.  For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

“The times and the seasons” have been controlled by God.  They have been kept in the Father’s hand, as it says in Acts 1:7:

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

Some people like to refer to this verse to prove (they think) that no one is to know the day or hour and they say, “You see, it is ‘not for you to know the times or the seasons,’ so you should not look and you should not even look into the Bible for that.  You are doing wrong.  You must stop because you can never know.”  And all of that is completely wrong.  It really reveals their carelessness with the Scriptures because they are reading just the English translation and they are not going deeper into the original Greek.  If you go to the Greek, it does not say, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons.”  That is a wrong translation.  Literally, this is a Greek genitive case and it reads: “It is not of you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.”  God is basically stating a very true principal, that “the times and seasons” of the Bible are not of man.  Man does not know them of himself; he can never figure them out on his own, but it is of God.  It is under His power and authority and, yet, God is not saying that we can never know.  He is just indicating that the source of “times and seasons” is not of man, but of Himself. 

We know from many other Scriptures in the Bible that God reveals “times and seasons” at the appropriate point in time.  For instance, there was a “time and a season” when the Messiah was to come – when the Lord Jesus Christ was to be born.  The Lord’s people longed for that day for thousands of years and they did not know the timing of the event until the time came and then we read in Luke 2:25-30:

And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,

And Joseph and Mary marveled at those things that were spoken of Him.  This is letting us know that man, of himself, has no idea and could never know when Christ would be born the first time or when He would come the last time to end the world – when He would come in judgment.  But God revealed it unto Simeon.  God reveals it unto His servants, the prophets, as He says in Amos 3:7:

Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

And this was the case with the birth of the Lord Jesus – with the birth of the Messiah – and with the revelation at the proper “time and season” for that grand event.  While we are discussing that, also remember Matthew 2:1-5:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

Then it goes on to say in Matthew 2:9-10:

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

Can you imagine that there are some that say it is not for you to know “the times or the seasons?”  Well, if it is not for us to know when Christ is to return the second time, then we would understand that it would also not be of the people of that day to have known the coming of the Lord Jesus the first time.  And, yet, we find that Simeon had foreknowledge.  God had revealed to him that he would not die without seeing the Lord’s Anointed and the wise men were given a very dramatic and glorious indicator from God, as a miraculous star showed itself and they followed that star right to the Messiah’s house.   How could these things be?  And there were others, also, like Anna and, certainly, the shepherds that were tending their flocks by night.  How is it that God revealed the “time and season” of the birth of the Lord Jesus to His people?

Of course, there were also individuals like Herod and the chief priests and scribes that knew the Scriptures and, yet, they did not follow the wise men to worship the Messiah.  They were not “true men” at all.  They did not want the Messiah to come the first time.  They probably would have had many things to say against it and we see later during the life and ministry of Christ that they did speak against Him and they did not accept the fact that He had come in the proper “time and season.”  They denied the proper “time and season” of the Messiah’s coming.  They denied it even when He stood right before them. 

So it is no wonder that history, in a sense, is repeating itself at the time of the end when God opens the Scriptures and reveals, once again, (following the pattern He had established in His Word the Bible), the proper “time and season” for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and Judgment Day.  God revealed the judgment time upon the churches and the judgment time upon the world and the end of the world.  The scribes and Pharisees of our day (not the Jews of that day, but who they represent: the rulers of the churches and congregations) deny these things vehemently: “No – you cannot know the day or the hour.”  And, really, they are just following in the traditions of their spiritual fathers (blind scribes and Pharisees), as Christ condemned them in Matthew, chapter 23.