Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #21 of Revelation, chapter 6.  We are continuing to look at Revelation 6:12-13:

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; 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.

This has caused us to look deeper into the Bible to try to understand the language of “sun, moon and stars” and we saw in our last study how God created the “sun, moon and stars” as time keepers and light bearers.  I should probably have mentioned that God had already created light, so let us read from Genesis 1:1-5:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Now it was not until the fourth day that God created the sun, moon and stars, as we read in our last study and let me read it again in Genesis 1:14-19:

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. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

This was on the fourth day, three days after He had already created “light” and how are we to understand this?  Well, God simply spoke and created “light” and the world was enlightened as the Bible says.  There is no hindrance to God and it is no difficulty for God to do this; He could create “light” and just make light to enlighten the earth and He could have kept it that way. 

But He also determined to create “light bearers” and on the fourth day when He created the sun, moon and stars, He attached the “light” that He had already created to these celestial bodies, to these heavenly creations.  He put the “light” in the sky so the inhabitants of the earth would have to look up and they would see these lights.  They would, of course, see the bright shining light of the sun during the day and at night they would see the glowing moon and the light of the stars. 

God did this in order to appoint them for “times and seasons” to give mankind a system for keeping track of time and it would also be a system that God would follow in His Word, the Bible, and He would also hide within the Scriptures a Biblical calendar of history that would be bound to these time keepers, as well as the systems of time keeping that men would develop with their calendars.  Of course, God’s calendar would be the most accurate and would be the supreme calendar, to be considered over all other calendars; the calendars of man are not perfect as God’s calendar is perfect.  So God created the sun, moon and stars for time keepers and as a vivid illustration of things that He wanted to teach mankind.  The Lord says in Isaiah 45:7:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I JEHOVAH do all these things.

God forms the light and God creates darkness.  He is the Creator of all things and now He has created a new creation and He has inhabited the earth with many creatures that He has formed and fashioned.  He has made the animals, the insects, the plant life and He has, especially, made one creature after His own image – mankind.  He has told man to multiply and to fill the earth and the creatures also multiply and these creatures are bound to the earth and every day they look up and lift up their heads and they see this bright, shining object that lightens their world around them.  Then that object “goes down” and darkness overtakes the earth, but, even in the darkness, they can look up and see the shining of the moon and the shining of the stars.  Man wonders as he views these things (sometimes lying on the grass with his hands behind his head, gazing up at these heavens) and he is in awe and wonder that these things can exist; there are these lights just up there in the sky.  How did they get there?  Well, God placed them there, of course. 

God tells us that another reason for their creation is to give testimony of His very being, of His existence and of His person.  It says in Psalm 19:1:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Now that is a very important statement: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”  This means that any man that looks up into the heavens is receiving a declaration of the glory of God and it is a testimony and illustration of the handiwork of God, that God formed the lights that we see above us.

It goes on to say in Psalm 19:2:

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

What “speech” are they uttering?  Do they literally talk to us?  No – it is the “speech” and it is the witness of their very being, of their creation.  There had to be a Creator to place the sun exactly where He placed it.  Now we learned this relatively recently in time, but past generations would not have known that if the sun were positioned any further away, the earth would have been too cold to be inhabited; or, if it were positioned any closer, the earth would be too hot and could burn up.  It was positioned perfectly where it is, as God stationed it and established it and placed it precisely in the one place that it could perform its functions: it could keep time and it could shed light upon the earth and this light would be necessary for the existence of life itself.  Mankind could not survive without the light of the sun and God created this great light to “rule the day,” in order to teach man, “speaking”  through its shining light to all of the people of the earth and testifying to each one of His existence. 

It goes on to say in Psalm 19:3:

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

You know, the Bible tells us that mankind “knows” deep down in their souls or deep down in their consciences that there is a God.  One big way that they know is because they have seen the sun and they have seen the moon and the stars.  And these things have “spoken” every single day that mankind has been alive upon the earth.  It does not matter what language the person speaks – whether it is Chinese or Spanish or English or Hindi.  This is a declaration that is made understandable to every person, regardless of the language they speak.  It transcends spoken language and it is a declaration to that person’s heart that there is a God.

Now, sadly, mankind in his desperate rebellion against God denies this “speech.”  He denies hearing this declarative language – this testimony – from the heavens.  He denies there is a God, as it says in Romans 1:17-18:

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Then it says in Romans 1:19-20:

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

The creation of the sun, moon and stars are a declaration of “his eternal power and Godhead,” and it leaves mankind “without excuse.”  It speaks to every human being, no matter what language they happen to know and understand.  This is something that speaks directly to their inner being and it goes on to say in Psalm 19:4-6:

Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

That is interesting.  God is directing our attention in this Psalm to the heavens and to the creation of the light bearers, the time keepers: the sun, moon and stars.  And then He suddenly changes course and speaks of the sun as a bridegroom that is coming out of his chamber as a strong man to run a race.  And we wonder why He does this.  God has created the physical and literal sun, moon and stars that we can see with our physical eyes and, yet, He did so….yes, as physical light bearers to shine light on this world (or else the world would be in complete darkness) and He did so as a means to keep time, but there is also another reason that God created the sun, moon and stars…and that is for a spiritual reason; they are representative of “spiritual things.”  And, here, we begin to get a glimpse of what the sun represents, as the sun is likened to a “bridegroom.” 

Now where have we heard the language of a “bridegroom” before?  Well, we heard that in John, chapter 3, from John the Baptist.  It says in John 3:29-30:

He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.

Now this is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ.  John is speaking of Him as the “bridegroom” and we quickly understand that this is a reference to the spiritual marriage between the Lord Jesus and those that He came to save, all of the elect; they are the bride and He is the “bridegroom.”  He is the “husband” and God has entered into a spiritual marriage with them.  Well, that would mean the reference to “bridegroom” in Psalm 19 identifies with Christ and, yet, the sun is spoken of as a “bridegroom.”  Therefore, the sun (s-u-n) is a picture of Christ and we can gather that from just the reference to the bridegroom. 

But let us look at the “sun, moon and stars” and we will begin with the sun and now we are going to look for the deeper, spiritual meaning of each of these things.  God created the literal world.  He created the sun, the moon and the stars and this entire universe.  He spoke and these things literally came into being.  These are physical objects that have substance; they do exist; they can be seen and observed and analyzed, and so forth.

But God is also the Creator of the “spiritual heavens” and the Bible, the Word of God, is that which unfolds the “spiritual heavens.”  The light of the literal sun and literal moon and literal stars is good and fine to shed light upon a literal world and all the people of the world can see these things, if they are not blind.  They can see the sun and see the moon and see the stars.  They realize when the light of the sun is shining; they can tell when the sun has “gone down” and when the moon and stars then begin to shine during the night.  They are aware of these things and they can see them and have knowledge of them.

But there is another celestial body.  There is another “heavenly host” the Bible refers to and it is a “spiritual heavens.”  It is God creating in the Scriptures a “spiritual host of heavenly lights” that shed light upon the darkness of the world in the spiritual realm.  First of all, the world does not recognize (for the most part) that it is in darkness spiritually.  They do not admit to this very well and, yet, the Bible tells us that the world lies in darkness.  We read in John 1:4:

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

This is speaking of Christ.  Then it says in John 1:5-10:

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name wasJohn. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. that was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.   He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

This is an apt description of the darkness of mankind when the Light, God Himself who is the essence of light and life, enters into the world and they comprehended it not.  They did not see this glorious, brilliant spiritual Light that entered into the world.  They thought evil of Him.  They thought He had “Beelzebub.”  They thought He cast out devils by the power of the prince of devils.  Can you imagine the blindness and darkness of man to “miss” the things that Christ had done and to “miss” the things that Christ had said and to not understand that He is the Light of the world?  And, yet, they did not understand.  So, you see, the world lieth in darkness and it is a very gross darkness that mankind is in, spiritually. 

God established a “spiritual heavens” to enlighten the darkness of the world in the spiritual realm.  He created the physical heavens to enlighten the physical earth and He created the “spiritual heavens” to enlighten the darkness that was upon the earth within mankind, due to their fall into sin.  The Bible, the Word of God, is what spread out these “spiritual lights,” these Gospel lights.  The Bible, in a sense, spread out the “sun, the moon and the stars” to enlighten the earth because, without the Bible, these lights could not be known.  Without the Bible the darkness of man would remain and this is why God said to carry His Word into all the world as a testimony unto all men; wherever the Bible went, the light came.  The spiritual lights of the Bible were established and where the Bible did not go, they remained in spiritual darkness. 

So, the Lord, through His Word, unfolded the Gospel lights to mankind and He used the “sun, moon and stars” to typify (and to figure) these Gospel lights.  It says in Psalm 84:11:

For JEHOVAH God is a sun and shield: JEHOVAH will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

“JEHOVAH God is a sun.”  Now when we come to the Bible and we are trying to understand what God has said, we look up words and we look every where the word “sun” is found, for instance, in order to understand the spiritual significance of that word.  And while we are searching every place that God gives us the word “sun,” we are looking for God to give a spiritual definition to define that word spiritually and in Psalm 84:11 He does that: “For JEHOVAH Godis a sun and shield.”  God is “a sun,” and it is the same word that is in Genesis 1 when He created the sun: “the greater light to rule the day.” 

It is the same word that is found often in the Bible and used in regard to the physical sun and that is because it is a “great light” and God is the greatest of lights.  There are no physical lights that are greater than our sun (that we can see).  Of course, there are bigger stars and their suns, but they are at such a distance that they do not give the earth much light at all.  It is the sun that is the greatest light and it lightens the day for mankind so that we can see and go about our daily business.  And that “great light” typifies the Light of God – the Lord Jesus Christ.  The light that enlightens this earth is a type and a figure of Eternal God.