Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #15 of Revelation, chapter 7, and we are going to be looking, again, at Revelation 7:15-17:

Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

We have been looking at this passage for the last several studies and we have seen that this is the “great multitude” that God saved “out of great tribulation” and, really, it is as though we are looking in a mirror because this language is describing our present circumstances.  The “great multitude” is those that God saved during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation which ended on May 21, 2011.  Therefore, we have “come out of great tribulation.”  We are “before the throne of God,” as the earth is His footstool.  We “serve him day and night” during this time period of Judgment Day, which very well could continue for 1,600 days.  We serve God, “in his temple,” the completed body of Christ. 

As we saw in our last study, speaking of this “great multitude,” speaking of all God’s elect and speaking of all of us (if we have become saved), it says in Revelation 7:16:

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

Again, the verse that really helps us to understand what it means, spiritually, to “hunger” or “thirst” is found in Matthew 5:6:

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Now the great multitude has obtained the salvation of God, by His grace, and they have been filled with righteousness.  They no longer hunger and thirst after righteousness because God has granted it to them.  That is why it says here: “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;” and we saw in our last study how this verse relates to Revelation 22:11:

He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

Now, here, the word “righteous,” as well as the word “filthy” is indicating a set spiritual condition; there will be no change in those that are “filthy;” and that would refer to the wicked.  And there is no change in those that are “righteous.”  If you are righteous, you will remain righteous and if you are filthy, you will remain filthy.  That is the condition of every individual today; the eternal state has been established for each person and it will no longer change. 

In time past, during the day of salvation, there could have been a change from one station to the next because God translated His elect (once He applied the redemptive work of Christ to them) out of the kingdom of darkness – out of that filthy condition – and into the kingdom of His dear son – into a “righteous” condition.  But that is no longer the case.  If you are filthy and unjust, you will remain filthy and unjust.  If you are righteous and holy, you will remain righteous and holy.  There will be no translating from one into the other.  Of course, there never could be someone going from true righteousness (or salvation) to filthiness, because when we receive eternal life, we cannot “lose” eternal life, but God’s salvation program has ended and, therefore, there is no more coming out of darkness and into the Light; no more leaving our wretched and filthy spiritual condition and obtaining the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One interesting thing here is the word “still,” in Revelation 22:11: “and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.”  That is the same Greek word (even though we do not see it in this verse) that is in Revelation 7:16.  The Greek word “eti” is found there and it is translated as “still” several times in Revelation 22:11.  Again, in the English, it says in Revelation 7:16:

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more…

But, literally, according to Jay Green’s Interlinear Bible, this verse in Revelation 7:16 should read: They shall not hunger still, nor will they thirst still.  This is because it is that same Greek word.  And what does that mean?  It is referring to hungering and thirsting after righteousness, so when we read “They shall not hunger still, nor will they thirst still,” it could just as easily be read as (if we were to use what “hunger” and “thirst” mean in the spiritual realm) that they will be “righteous still.”  That is really what it is saying.  They will not “hunger” or “thirst” after righteousness.  They will not hunger “still,” nor will they thirst “still.”  It really is saying what Revelation 22:11 is saying, and that is because it is describing the same period of time, our own time period of Judgment Day – that prolonged period of time that God refers to as a single day.

Let us continue on in Revelation 7:16.  I know we looked at this last time, but this whole passage and these verses are very important to our situation today, so it is important for us to carefully go over them.  It says in the last part of Revelation 7:16:

…neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

We saw that the word “light on” is only translated that way here.  It is normally translated as “fall” or “fell.”  When the Bible speaks of the “sun” not falling on them or “heat” not falling on them, it really is language describing that the wrath of God will not fall on them.  Back in Isaiah 49:10, it said that the sun will not “smite” them and our verse appears to be a quote from that verse.  So it has to do with the anger of God being poured out upon the wicked in the Day of Judgment and, yet, God’s people will not experience that wrath.  They will not feel the heat of the “sun.”  From here, we went to Revelation 16 (if you remember), where God is speaking of the Day of Judgment and He is using the picture of the sun bringing scorching heat upon the wicked.  It says in Revelation 16:8:

And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

Here, again, this is describing the wrath of God falling down upon the unsaved inhabitants of the earth and God likens it to scorching men with “great heat.”  We also went to two other places, because the word translated as “scorch” is only found four times in the New Testament.  Twice it is found here in Revelation 16, and once in Matthew 13 and once in Mark 4, in the parable of the sower; they are parallel Gospel accounts of the same parable.  I want to go back to Mark 4 to consider a few more things about this before we move on.  It says in Mark 4:3-6:

Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

Then the parable goes on to speak of some other “seed” that fell in various places.  In the explanation of the parable, which comes along a little further on in the same chapter, we read in Mark 4:16-17:

And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves…

The word “root” is pointing to Christ – He is the “root of Jesse.”  He is the one that enables an individual to endure the scorching heat.  If Christ is in us, we will be able to endure to the end.  If we have no root in ourselves, then it goes on to say in Mark 4:16:

And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.

We can see how this relates to our present day, as Revelation 16 is using this word “scorched” twice (in Revelation 16:8 and 16:9) in the context of Judgment Day.  And as we follow the Bible’s guidelines to compare Scripture with Scripture and as we search out the meaning of that word, what do we find?  We find that the word “scorch” has to do with a spiritual setting in which people have heard the Gospel and they have “received it with gladness,” in a very immediate way, yet, some had “no root in themselves.”  And since they had “no root” and Christ was not within them, they only endured for a time, but, afterwards, as soon as “affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.” 

We can relate this very well to the time of the Great Tribulation when the “latter rain” was falling and God had opened up the Scriptures to reveal much truth, when a great number of people received this information with gladness.  They were joyful.  They were excited.  They responded, “Oh, alright, this is it!  We have insight into the time of the end of the world – the Bible has revealed to us the very Day of Judgment!”  And there were many other things that were revealed: the end of the church age; the fact that there is no place called Hell, but that God will just annihilate mankind at the end; and all sorts of truths came forth from the Word of God that were immediately received with gladness by a good number of people, but the problem was that, of this number, there were some that had “no root.”  Christ was not within them. 

It was God’s plan to bring about the Day of Judgment on the world and, at the same time, leave His people on the earth to go through this Judgment Day.  But God did not reveal anything concerning the fact that the elect would not be taken out of the world; they would not be raptured, but they would remain on the earth.  He just did not reveal it.  He could have opened up our understanding – that is how we know anything, is it not?  That is how we come to truth, by God opening up our eyes and our understanding to these things. 

We have to say that God’s people had followed the same methodology in studying the Word of God on these passages as we did with other passages: for example, as we learned that we are saved by the faith of Christ and not by our own faith.   It was just by careful examination of the Scripture and, yet, that (doctrine) was not known until relatively recently during the period of the “latter rain.”  Why was that?   It was because God did not previously open up our eyes.  It was according to His good pleasure that at this time period we learned the true nature of salvation: we are saved by the faith of Christ and never by our own faith.  That is how it is with all truth.  The Lord Jesus must open up our understanding that we might understand the Scriptures.  If He does not, we will lack understanding to whatever degree things are not revealed to us.

Some people think it is just an “excuse” to say that we did not know and the reason is that God held it back from us, but that is fact.  This is the case with all Biblical truth and all the information we did learn at the time of the Great Tribulation, as the Word of God was unsealed.  While the world was sealed, that means that God held the information back and no one could know it until it was the proper time; then He opened our eyes.

And, likewise, this is true of God’s elect having to go through Judgment Day – to have to stay on the earth and not be taken out of it.  God held that information back and He had an excellent reason for doing so.  It was so that it would appear that we were “all wrong.”  Why would God want that?  Why would He want His people to sound the trumpet to all the world and to proclaim boldly to all the people of the world?  God opened up the door for this to happen.  I do not know how anyone can look at how widespread the message of May 21, 2011, Judgment Day, was and then think that the hand of God was not in it.  Never before in history has a message from the Bible containing a message of judgment reached so many people of the world.  Nothing has even come close; and who could do that, but God?  Who could open the doors and multiply His Word to that degree, but God? 

So, God did that and He utilized a ministry that He raised up for over 50 years, the ministry of Family Radio.  He utilized his faithful servant, Mr. Camping, whom He carefully guided into much truth over the course of those same 50 years.  God utilized the funds and resources of His people which had gathered together to send forth this Word to the nations of the world.  They had pooled their limited funds and God allowed the vast majority of those funds to be expended and to be used in the proclamation of this message of Judgment Day.  There is no other group of people that can be identified with the truth like these people were because the churches had “fallen away.”  Therefore, all that identify with the churches have no grounds for truth and all other ministries outside of the churches add to the Bible or take away from the Bible; they do not understand the true salvation of the Bible. 

They do not diligently and studiously approach the Bible, like this particular group of elect did, which identify with the truth, unlike the “professed” Christians in the world; and God blessed them in proclaiming this message to the world and God then allowed it to “appear” as if they were all wrong.  Then May 21, 2011 came and there was no outward devastation or earthquake and there was no change from one day to the next, physically.  Nothing which the human eye could see had occurred in the world.  It was as though God had just led His people (and I say that due to the information that has come forth from the Bible) right up to the point of sharing these things and then it was almost as if He had abandoned us. Then there was nothing. 

Afterwards we did not know what had happened and there was great confusion and all of this was “set up” by God.  It was His doing and His brilliant workings in controlling these circumstances, in order to accomplish His purposes of bringing Judgment Day “as a snare” upon all the inhabitants of the earth, at the very time they were rejoicing and proclaiming that nothing happened; the atheists said, “See, there is no God,” and the people in the churches said, “See, we told you that you cannot know the day or hour.”  All were rejoicing.  All were confident that they were right and they had won the victory.  And, at that very time, God brought awful grievous judgment upon every one of them by shutting the door to heaven in a spiritual judgment which has been in effect ever since.  That door will never open again, as God is pouring out His wrath upon these same people in a spiritual way and they cannot even discern it is happening, just as He did to the churches when they thought all was well with them, while God was judging them for twenty three years (and they went ignorantly through that judgment).  Now, likewise, the world itself is going ignorantly through the Day of Judgment upon them. 

That was one purpose that was accomplished, but God had another purpose: to test His people, as they would go back to the Bible…well, some would (go back to the Bible), but some would be “immediately offended,” as we read of these individuals in the parable that, for a time, received the word “with gladness.”  But, as it said, they only endured for a time, but “when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.”  We can say this because we saw it unfold and we have seen these things take place with individuals that were once “hand in hand” with us, but, immediately…within a day (with some individuals), within a week (for some) or within a month (for some others)…immediately they began to turn on the teachings that God had so graciously opened up and to deny them and to turn on their fellow believers that they once stood with and to speak evil against them.  This all happened quickly.  Why?  It was because they were “offended.”  They were offended by holding onto the Word of God and by adhering to these things and they were embarrassed in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of their friends and families.  They were embarrassed.

That was much of God’s purpose: When the Word of God becomes an offense, would they turn back to the Bible?  If they would have continued to search the Scriptures and check out the information they once publicly proclaimed, they would have discovered that they could not make correction on the timeline because it is still correct – there was no error.  We cannot say that May 21, 2011 was not Judgment Day because the Bible still points to that date and continues to insist that it was (Judgment Day).  They would have seen that the “test” was to hold on, to endure and to continue steadfastly in the Word of God, in the face of ridicule and mockery, in the face of our own “eyes” testifying against it; and the eyes of all the world that would confidently declare, “Nothing happened,” because they saw nothing take place with their eyes.

This was the test.  Will you stand fast and continue to hold onto the Word of God?  It is as if God is saying, “You heard my voice.  Christ’s sheep hear His voice.  You know it was my voice.  It is why you declared, ‘The Bible guarantees it,’ and now will you deny that it was my voice?  Will you now turn back and turn away from these things, based on being offended at the world’s mockery and the churches mockery and their idea that they were correct?” 

Well, you see, this is what God has done, and we will have to look at this more in our next Bible study.