Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #5 of Revelation, chapter 7, and we are going to continue to look at the first three verses. It says in Revelation 7:1-3:
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
I will stop reading there. We know that the “sealing” of God’s servants points to salvation and God is telling us that His judgment will not come until He has saved all His elect people which He had planned to save; this was true of all those to be saved during the church age. God did not bring about the end of the church age until all the “firstfruits” were gathered and once that was completed, then judgment began at the house of God. Likewise, God would not bring judgment on the world until all the elect had been saved whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, as God elected these people to be recipients of His grace and salvation. But not until each and every one of these elect heard the Gospel and had the Word of God applied to him or her in a redemptive way (until God would save them by creating a new heart and spirit) could judgment begin on the world.
May 21, 2011 was the day of transition from the judgment which had been upon the churches for twenty three years to judgment upon all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth. This statement is true of both judgments: the judgment on the churches and the judgment on the world. But, first, the elect had to be found and “sealed” with God’s Spirit, the “earnest of their inheritance,” the down payment of God’s salvation program which guaranteed that He would complete it and that He will finally give them a new resurrected body and He will fulfill the promise of their eternal habitation in the Kingdom of Heaven.
We know that this is true; this teaching is confirmed elsewhere in the Bible. For instance, the Epistle of James confirms it, with the language that the husbandman (who is God the Father) has long patience until He receives the early and the latter rain. The early rain identifies with the outpouring of the Gospel during the church age, in which the “firstfruits” were gathered in. The latter rain identifies with the outpouring of the Gospel a “second time” during the little season of the Great Tribulation, in which a great multitude became saved from every nation of the world. Then the implication is that the husbandman (the Father) will no longer be patient and longsuffering in putting up with the sins of man. And that is exactly what happened, as God shut the door of Heaven, in anger – in an outpouring of wrath – upon the unsaved people of the world on the Day of Judgment, the very day that He proclaimed to the world that He would do this.
Now we want to look at the language regarding what is to be “hurt,” as we read here that the four angels are “holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.” Then verse 3 re-emphasizes that: “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” What is in view? We understand what this “sealing” of the servants of God means, but what is in view with the language of “the earth, the sea and the trees”?
Let us look into each one of these words and, as we do, we will see a consistent pattern emerge, as each of these terms is pointing to the same thing. Let us start with the word “earth.” Back in Genesis 6, in the days before the flood, we read in Genesis 6:11-13:
The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Notice that, God, in verse 11, says the earth was corrupt before him and filled with violence. Maybe we have not slowed down enough in the past to consider and think about what God is saying, but it is almost as if God is saying that the earth itself (the literal, physical earth) is corrupt. We know that is true to some degree because when mankind fell into sin, God also cursed the creation and, therefore, it is seeing corruption.
But that is not what God has in view here. It is as though He is looking down upon the world and He sees the corruption (because men are consistently doing evil in the earth and that is why it says the earth is filled with violence) and “God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt,” and then He explains why in this phrase in verse 12: “for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” That tells us that God is identifying “earth” with mankind. God is identifying the sins of mankind as if the earth itself had committed those sins and, finally, He pronounces the judgment upon both, at the end of verse 13: “behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” So the earth also experiences the judgment and this is a consistent teaching of the Scripture as we go through the Bible, for instance, in Isaiah 34, which is a chapter which also describes Judgment Day. We read in Isaiah 34:1-2:
Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of JEHOVAH is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies…
Now, notice again, verse 1: “Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear.” How can God say, “Let the earth hear”? The “earth” cannot hear. It does not have life, like people have life, and it does not have understanding, like people have understanding. It is obvious what God is doing: He is making nations, people and “earth” synonymous. They are all saying the same thing: “Come near, ye nations” (all the political nations); and “hearken, ye people” (all people of the world that inhabit the earth); and “Let the earth hear.” This is a worldwide universal command; it includes every individual upon the face of the earth, but God is just referring to them as the “earth” itself, yet, He is speaking to the people of the earth. Only the people of the earth can hear with any kind of understanding of what He is saying and that is important for us to understand because God says, in 1st Chronicles 16:32:
Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof: let the fields rejoice, and all that is therein. Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the LORD, because he cometh to judge the earth.
Is God coming to judge the ground? Is He coming to judge the mountains? Is He coming to judge the rocks and the seas and the things of the earth? Well, that would really be only a “side effect.” It will happen that God will finally destroy this earth at the very end because it was necessary to bring it into corruption – you cannot have a perfect earth with imperfect, sinful men dwelling in it and ruling over it. So God had to create “equality” between them, so both man and the “earth” became corrupt, but when God says, “he cometh to judge the earth,” what do we immediately think of? We think that He is coming to judge people and that is exactly what He means. We read in Isaiah 11:4:
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
This is an example of Hebrew parallelism: the first part of the statement (“he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth”) is equal to the next part of the statement (“and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked”). The “rod of his mouth” and the “breath of his lips” both point to the Word of God; and the smiting of the earth points to slaying the wicked. They are one and the same – they are synonymous statements that help us understand how God often refers to the “earth.”
Sometimes, mysteriously, there are a few verses (especially those dealing with the end of time and Judgment Day, the time we are now living in), which theologians or any Bible students that were studying the Bible in depth would have had to “scratch their heads” at what God was saying. It is only once we understand that Christ spoke in parables (and Christ is the Word and, therefore, the whole Bible is a parable) that we realize the possibility that the Lord is saying something spiritual, but then we have to look and try to discover what spiritual meaning there could be. Even in looking for a spiritual meaning, we would have had difficulty, until now (in our present day); and now we can understand that as we are looking at the word “earth,” that it can simply be a way of referring to the people of the earth. And if God is speaking of judging the “earth,” of course, He is speaking of judging the unsaved people of the earth.
In Isaiah, chapter 13, in a chapter that clearly outlines Judgment Day, we read in Isaiah 13:11-12:
And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
Now verse 11 is plainly stating that God is punishing the world and in verse 12, where He says, “I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir,” He is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ who will not be found at that time and, therefore, will be as rare to find as fine gold, because salvation is no longer able to be found.
Now let us look at Isaiah 13:13-14:
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of JEHOVAH of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.
Now, do you see what the Lord did here in verse 13? He speaks of “shaking the heavens,” and we spent some time on this as we went through Revelation, chapter 6, where we realized that God’s Word, the Bible, established the spiritual heavens – the lights of the Gospel – typified by the “sun, moon and stars,” so we can understand very well what it means by “shaking the heavens,” but then He says, “and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of JEHOVAH of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.” We wonder: what does the “earth” represent? We have a very excellent idea what the heavens represent, but the “earth removing out of her place” is a bit more difficult to gain a proper understanding of, until now. Now we are seeing that the “earth” was corrupt before Him in the time before the flood and now we are seeing that this has to do with the “people” of the earth – the wicked of the earth. So, the “earth shall remove out of her place,” then notice verse 13 of Isaiah 13: “And it (referring back to the earth) shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they (referring, again, back to the earth) shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.”
Now we can see that the “earth” refers to the unsaved inhabitants of the earth – the wicked people. They will “remove” in the sense of a “chased roe.” And the word “chased” is sometimes translated as “outcast,” or that which is discarded. And the earth will be “as a sheep that no man taketh up.” Who would take up a sheep but a shepherd? This is telling us that those that are left in the world that have not been gathered (the word “taketh up” is also translated as “gathered), have not been saved by their Good Shepherd and brought into the fold and placed under His protection. He is the Shepherd that did not gather them or did not “take them up.” That is the condition of the “earth” and, as a result, “they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.” As Revelation 22 says, “He which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.”
Now the spiritual condition of every man, every woman and every child is established. If you are saved, you will be saved still. Of course, we can never lose salvation. If you are unsaved, you will remain unsaved still. There can be no further change in one’s spiritual condition; everyone goes to their own people and their own land – to their own kingdom, whether you are in the kingdom of darkness or in the Kingdom of God’s dear Son.
This is what God is describing here as a “chased roe” and a “sheep that no man taketh up,” as the earth removes “out of her place.” Of course, that would also help us in Revelation 6, as we read in verse 14:
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
We had looked at the word “mountain” as a reference to kingdom (and it is), spiritually. But “island,” which would typify the continents (as each continent is an island) and, therefore, the earth itself we had a bit more difficulty with, but now we have a better understanding due to this language where the “earth” represents the people of the earth.
Let us just look at one last place in Jeremiah 50. We are continuing to look at the word “earth” to see what the Bible has to say about the spiritual meaning for this world. It says in Jeremiah 50:46:
At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and the cry is heard among the nations.
Again, we have that Hebrew parallelism. When it says, “At the noise of the taking of Babylon” points to the fall of Babylon which occurred after the seventy year period, which typified the Great Tribulation and, therefore, it points to the end of the Great Tribulation period and May 21, 2011, was the end of the Great Tribulation – an exact twenty three years in duration. The “noise” or the “report” of the taking of Babylon went into all the world; it was broadcast far and wide. At the “noise” of the taking of Babylon (the kingdom of Satan and this world), the “earth is moved.” What does that mean? Was there a great earthquake? Was there a tremendous shaking of the ground? No, there was not. You see, that was our mistake in thinking that, rather than letting the Bible define this term, as it does in the next part of this verse: “and the cry (or the noise or report) is heard among the nations.” Again, “At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved,” and that is identical to, or parallel to, “the cry is heard among the nations,” as the people heard the witness of the Word of God and the declaration that May 21, 2011 would be the Day of Judgment. This is what “shook” the people of the world.
You know, we said that. We recognized that and we said, “The whole world is shaken by the news of May 21, 2011.” They had never heard anything like that ever before in history, to such a degree. It went worldwide and billions of people heard this news. No one could do what man normally does and “ignore it” or “dismiss it” or “get away from it,” because everywhere they turned (as men scurried away from the light into their darkness), there it was again. And, at that “report,” or at that “cry,” and at the sound of the trumpet, as the watchmen blew the trumpet to warn the people, truly (the Bible teaches) the “earth was moved.” The nations heard this report and they were troubled by it. That is exactly what the Bible teaches.
Well, now we can understand the first part of what God is saying in Revelation 7:3: “Hurt not the earth.” He is not, in the first instance, talking about the physical earth, but He is referring to the unsaved inhabitants of the earth, which is exactly our understanding of God’s Gospel program. God will not bring about that Day of Judgment until He saves all of His elect and that is what He is saying here: “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will look at the next word that God says is not to be hurt: “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea.”