Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #2 of Revelation, chapter 8, and we are going to continue looking at Revelation 8:1:
And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
We were discussing this in our last study and we saw how the Great Tribulation is likened to “one hour,” in the Bible. God speaks of the “hour” of judgment. The “one hour” points to the time of the Great Tribulation and, therefore, when Revelation 8:1 speaks of there being “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour,” it is letting us know something about a “portion” of the Great Tribulation – it is not speaking of the entire Great Tribulation period, but just something that applies to a portion of it. It is not even speaking of “half” of it, or else God would have said “a half hour,” but it says “about half an hour.” We wonder what God could have to say about this. We know from the chapter in which this verse is found, as the Lord will go on to speak about the judgment on the “third part,” that we are correct that this is referring to the Great Tribulation and, yet, it has to do only with a portion of the Great Tribulation.
Well, this led us to Matthew 24:21-22:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
We are very much interested in this and we can see how it relates to the “about an half hour” of silence because, as we saw in our last study, when God would send forth His Gospel and repentance would be granted to His elect people and they became saved, there was “joy in heaven.” And following this period of joy, God speaks of this “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour;” and if there is silence in heaven, then no joy is taking place and no making merry and, therefore, it is because no sinners are repenting and no one is becoming saved. That is why Matthew 24, verses 21 and 22 are so interesting because, first of all, it is talking about the Great Tribulation, which means it is talking about that “one hour” the Bible speaks of and, secondly, it says, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.” Therefore, God shortened the days for the elect’s sake.
We can understand this, as we lay out these verses and we ponder what God has done, we realize that the first part of the Great Tribulation was an extremely grievous period wherein virtually no one at all was being saved; and no one at all was being saved within the churches and congregations. And, yet, the language of the Bible (as we learned in our last study) does allow for the slightest bit of “noise” and, therefore, we have to make a little allowance for a handful of individuals that may have been saved during that first part of the Great Tribulation.
As we search the Bible, we find that a period of 2,300 “evening mornings” fits very well into that first part of the Great Tribulation. Actually, if any of you have been around long enough, you might recall that before the year 1994, Mr. Camping wrote a book titled “1994?” and he discussed these verses in Matthew 24. In that book, Mr. Camping had said that 1988 began the Great Tribulation and we would expect it to last for 23 years and it would go to 2011, but the Lord had “shortened” those days and, therefore, it was shortened from 23 years to 2,300 days (which worked out to six years and four months), starting from May 1988 to September 1994. That was one of the big reasons that Mr. Camping thought that Christ might return in that year and, yet, that was not the case. There was a misunderstanding of what God was saying when He said, “except those days be shortened.” God was not talking of shortening the Great Tribulation period itself, because that would continue for the full 23 years, from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011.
But the “shortening” had to do with the characteristic of the first part of that Great Tribulation wherein there was “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour,” in which virtually no one was being saved. God, necessarily, had to change the characteristic of that in order to bring in the “great multitude” that He intended to save from all the nations of the world during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation. Yet, the Great Tribulation’s 23-year period continued and judgment continued on the churches throughout that time, and no one at all was saved within any church in the world. The character of “silence in heaven” for the churches did continue for all of the 23 years.
But after the 2,300 “evening mornings,” God shortened those days outside of the churches and He began to send forth the “latter rain.” He began to pour out His Spirit once again and to stretch forth his hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people. He began the outpouring of the Second Jubilee, to deliver that great multitude; and that is where the 2,300 days fits into the picture and locks into place, because from the day before Pentecost in 1988 until September 7, 1994, was the 2,300 “evening mornings,” and on that day was “the first day of the seventh month” in the Hebrew calendar, a day that would signal the Jubilee period, and 1994 happened to be a Jubilee year. It was the 40th Jubilee since 7 B.C. when Christ was born.
Well, let us go back to a verse in the Book of Joel, in order to get an overview of God’s entire salvation program for the world. It will include His “times and seasons,” His periods of “rain” and periods of “famine,” which the “silence in heaven” is referring to. We read in Joel 2:23:
Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in JEHOVAH your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.
(That word “moderately” is a word that should be translated “righteously.”) Here, we actually have three periods of “rain” that are in view. First, there is the “former, righteous rain,” and this period of rain can identify with the entire Old Testament era, especially the nation of Israel’s history, but it actually can apply to the entire Old Testament from the very beginning, up until the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was this “rain” that produced the Lord Jesus. Israel, in particular, was instrumental in bringing forth the Messiah, so that is why this rain could, perhaps, be limited to the timeline of the nation of Israel going back to Abraham. But the Old Testament also could be in view, as God was bringing events and circumstances to pass in order to achieve this one “fruit,” and that would be Christ, as He would enter into the human race. So it was as though the “rain” fell and produced the crop of the Messiah. This was Israel’s purpose, primarily. They were not called upon to bring the Gospel to the world, but God was bringing forth the Lord Jesus Christ through the line of the tribe of Judah in Israel, and Christ did finally come. He was born of the Virgin Mary in 7 B.C., which was a Jubilee year, yet the Lord did not begin his ministry until 29 A.D. and then He went about ministering the Word of God for three and one half years. These three and one half years actually can be likened to a “spiritual famine,” because we do not read of many people becoming saved. We read of the Lord doing mighty and tremendous miracles and of people being in awe of those things. Yet, after the Lord Jesus went to the cross, there were just a few in the upper room and there were a hundred or so; we only read of a scarce number of people that were saved. This followed a pattern that God established with the rain. The “early righteous rain” fell and produced the Lord Jesus Christ, and then there came a period of famine, the three and one half years of the Lord’s ministry.
Following this came another period of rain on the Day of Pentecost in 33 A.D., when God sent forth His Spirit. The work of Christ, which was the essence of the Jubilee, would now get under way in a very definite manner because God was sending forth the Gospel into all the world and the church age would bring the Word of God to the nations of the earth. Three thousand were saved on the Day of Pentecost. As it says in this verse in Joel 2:3, the “former rain” or the “early rain” would begin to fall and produce the harvest of “firstfruits,” and Revelation speaks of “144,000” that are sealed, twelve thousand from the twelve tribes of Israel, and they typify all of God’s elect that were saved throughout the long period of “early rain” as the Gospel went into the world via the churches for 1,955 years.
Again, just as the “season” of “early righteous rain” produced the Lord Jesus and then came a period of famine, so, too, after the falling of the “early rain” and the bringing in of the firstfruits, then came the end of the church age, which is also known as judgment beginning at the house of God, which is also known as the Great Tribulation period, and which also can be identified as “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Actually, it did work out to be 2,300 days, the period of time in which virtually no one was being saved (six years and almost four months). God likens that period of time, in Revelation 11, to when the “two witnesses” are killed, as it says in Revelation 11:7-9:
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
Here, the Bible draws a connection and ties in to the “three and a half” figure, as the Lord Jesus ministered for three and a half years during that period that identified with a famine and ended the season of the “early, righteous rain.” So, too, once the church age came to an end and the season of the “early rain” concludes, then there is another famine that is 2,300 days in length, but God likens it to “three and one half days” in which the dead bodies of the “two witnesses” are lying in the streets. That is referring to the churches and congregations. The “two witnesses” are those which represent “the Law and the Prophets,” the ministry of the Word of God. God had used the “two witnesses” to minister in the churches during the church age and He blessed their ministry to produce the “firstfruits.” But now that period had come to an end and now was another famine following a “season” of rain.
Yet, it was not finished. God’s program was not done. He had another period of rain – the “latter rain,” and another final season of harvest. We know that the season of harvest involved “firstfruits” and then the final fruits that would come in at the end of the year during the Feast of Ingathering. So after the 2,300 “evening mornings,” which is likened to the “three and one half days” in which the two witnesses were lying dead, then God caused them to stand on their feet, as it says in Revelation 11:11:
And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
This is pointing to the power and the blessing of the Word of God, typified by the “Law and the prophets,” which represents the Bible itself; the power of God’s Word was restored because now the “season” had arrived and it was the first day of the Hebrew seventh month and the proclamation of the Jubilee, and now it was time to “proclaim liberty to the captives” across the face of the earth, which were located outside of the churches and the congregations. God began to save the “great multitude” for about the last 17 years of this Great Tribulation period – until the “hour” had been completed.
So, the “about half an hour” of “silence in heaven” ended, once the two witnesses stood upon their feet. “To stand upon their feet” is language indicating that God was sending forth His Word once again and the rain was falling – it was the Second Jubilee, another “season” of blessing and another time of bringing in the “precious fruit of the earth.” This is the wonderful and glorious way that God finished His salvation program, as He saved more in those (approximate) 17 years than He had saved in all the previous history of the world and all the previous periods of “rain” in sending forth His Word to bless the earth. Now God had saved the tens, upon tens, of millions that were all over the face of the earth. The “silence in heaven” had ended.
Then the Great Tribulation finished. It concluded and God’s “seasons of rain” also concluded; and the time for gathering the fruit by saving the elect, which He had predestinated to salvation, was all complete. And now is the period of Judgment Day and it appears very likely that God has a final program of judgment that will continue for a total of 1,600 days and will bring the sum total of His wrath upon the unsaved people of the world to 10,000 days. Then there is a likelihood that this world will end on the last day of that period of time – the 10,000th day – and the 1,600th day from May 21, 2011, which would also be the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
When we get together again in our next Bible study, we will continue in Revelation, chapter 8, and we will see how God pictures and describes the judgment that came from heaven upon the churches of the world during that “season” in which there was “silence in heaven,” and even afterwards, as the judgment continued throughout the 23-year Great Tribulation period.