Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #11 of Revelation, chapter 8, and we are going to be reading Revelation 8:7-8:

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.  And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

We have been discussing verse 7 for a few studies now and we are at the last part of the verse where it says, in Revelation 8:7: “and the third part of trees was burnt up.”   We saw how God uses “trees” to typify the churches and the fact that they are burnt up is an indicator of His wrath upon the congregations.  Then it says: “and all green grass was burnt up.”  And this is a little surprising that God would say all green grass, because, after all, this is a chapter where the emphasis was on the “third part;” the “third part” of trees and the third part of the sea, and the third part of the creatures in the sea, and so on.  So we wonder why God says, “All green grass was burnt up.”  It does not seem to fit the focus of the chapter.  There could be a couple of reasons for this and we could understand this in a couple of different ways, but, finally, it will just indicate that God’s wrath is on the churches.

But the Greek word translated as “all” is “pas,” Strong’s #3956, and it is translated as “all” or “often,” or “oftentimes” or “everywhere.”  It is also translated as “any.”  Actually, it says in Revelation 9:4:

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

In both of these places where the English word “any” is used, it is the same Greek word, “pas.”  We can see the similarity of the topic of the verse, here, in Revelation 9:4.  God is describing Judgment Day and He is saying to the locusts, a picture of the true believers as God is utilizing them as a means of Judgment, that they “should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.”  That implies that the “grass of the earth” and “green thing” and “tree” are pointing to God’s elect.  But, in Revelation 8:7, “all green grass was burnt up.”  Again, just as the “third part” in the Old Testament would typically point to the elect of God, yet, in this chapter it is not (it is pointing to the corporate body or the unsaved in the congregations) so, too, would “green grass” normally identify with the elect, but here, it does not. 

Why does it say “all” (or even if it said “any”) green grass?  One way of understanding this is that it is referring to all that are within the churches and congregations of the world – all green grass within that limit and within the boundaries of the New Testament corporate body – is burned up.  That would fit the context of chapter 8 and it would fit what God is describing here.

Another possibility is that since judgment began at the house of God and it began with a grievous 2,300 evening mornings in which virtually no one was being saved anywhere in the world, God may be using the word “pas” or “all” green grass as a way of expressing that the judgment which began at the house of God is not only grievous within the corporate church, but also outside of the churches for that first 2,300 days, or six years and (about) four months, from 1988 to September 1994.  That is also a possibility, but I think the first way of understanding this is the correct way; it is simply referring to the churches themselves and the confines of the corporate church. 

Let us move on to Revelation 8:8:

And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

In the Bible, mountains represent “kingdoms.”  We have actually gone to many verses that show this in past studies, but let us go to one right now in Revelation 17:9-10:

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

These verses are describing Satan’s rule over this world throughout time.  First of all, God says it is like “seven mountains” and notice how quickly He switches to “kings” in verse 10; after telling us that there are seven mountains, then he tells us there are seven kings.  Why does He make that transition?  It is because a King reigns over a kingdom and, basically, He is saying there are seven kingdoms and “five are fallen.”  By the time that Revelation was being written and by the time God moved the Apostle John to write these things in the first century A.D., five of Satan’s kingdoms, it could be said, had already come and gone and, therefore, “five are fallen, and one is,” which refers to the present period of his kingdom from the time of the cross until the time of the end. 

And what would happen at the time of the end?  Well, that was the kingdom that was “yet to come,” when Satan was loosed and he took on great authority as God allowed him to enter into the churches as the “man of sin” and to rule as the “beast” in a supreme way within the churches and the world for a “little season.”  That is why Revelation 17 says that “the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space;” that is, the “little season” of the Great Tribulation is the seventh kingdom and the seventh king and the seventh mountain.  So we can see from these verses how God connects the two ideas of “mountains” and “kingdoms.”

Also, we find in Matthew 21 that the Lord makes a connection with the “fig tree” and a “mountain.”  It says in Matthew 21:18-20:

Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!

And we know that God likened Israel to a “fig tree” and we also know that Israel is a type and figure of the New Testament churches.  It also happened that God cursed national Israel when the veil of the temple was “rent in twain,” He removed them from being His representative of the kingdom of God upon the earth.  Israel was God’s representative to the nations of the world during many centuries that God had association with them, but in 33 A.D., at the renting of that veil, that relationship ended and, therefore, they no longer were God’s representatives of the kingdom of heaven to the people of the world.

Likewise, the New Testament church, at the time that Israel ceased to be God’s representatives, became God’s representatives to the world – the churches and congregations became the outward representation of the kingdom of heaven to the people of the earth, and that would continue until the Great Tribulation (when judgment would begin at the house of God) and God would abandon the New Testament churches, just as He had abandoned national Israel.  He would judge them and forsake them and end that relationship; they would no longer be His representatives; they would no longer represent His kingdom to the people of the world.

So the “fig tree” is able to represent both Israel and the New Testament churches.  Here, Christ curses the “fig tree” that it withers away.  If something “withers away,” it normally means there is no water or nourishment coming to that tree and it dries up.  Christ is the “root” and Christ is the One that all must be connected to, or else they will be like a withered branch that will be cast away.  So God had left Israel of old and, recently in our day, He left the New Testament churches and congregations and they also have “withered away.”

After the disciples marveled, saying, “How soon is the fig tree withered away,” then notice what Jesus says, in Matthew 21:21:

Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

We cannot help but notice how the cursing of the fig tree is tied to the casting of a mountain into the sea.  After all, Revelation 8:8 tells us:

And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea&hellip

So we quickly see the link.  We see the identification God is making with the cursing of the “fig tree” and its withering away and a “mountain” being “cast into the sea.”  The “mountain” is the New Testament churches that are no longer God’s representation; they are no longer speaking for God or representing Him to the inhabitants of the world; they no longer have that close relationship with God.  As a result, it is as though that corporate kingdom is destroyed; it is “removed and cast into the sea.”  That is what our verse in stating in Revelation 8:8.  The “great mountain” typifies the corporate New Testament church, 100% of it.  It once gloriously represented God’s kingdom and now no longer does.  No churches have God-given authority any longer to operate.  They have no authority to feed the sheep.  Remember in Ezekiel 34, God said He would cause them to cease from feeding the flock. 

So He has ended the church age and removed all authority from them and has taken away their status as His representatives to the world.  In a “figure,” He has set the mountain on fire because the churches are under His wrath and fire pictures the fury and anger of God against sin, so God’s wrath is upon the churches and congregations of the world for their unfaithfulness and for their failure to adhere to His Word and to obey to His commandments.  Therefore, He has cast them, like a burning mountain, into the sea. 

That raises our next question as we study this verse.  What does the sea represent?  We know what the “great mountain” that is burning typifies, but why was the mountain cast into the sea?  The sea, in the Bible, can be used to represent God’s wrath itself, as the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea; they were destroyed in the sea.  Yet, it also can picture unsaved people.  It says in Isaiah 57:20:

But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

The unsaved people are likened to a “troubled sea.”  Is it possible that God is saying He has taken those that once identified with Him (those in the churches) and He has given them to the wicked of the world?  It is very possible that this is exactly what is in view: God has turned the churches over to Satan; we know that is a fact and what the Bible teaches.  Satan has his emissaries and, basically, the churches today are run by the “tares,” by the wicked of the world that are unsaved individuals.  All the true believers were commanded to come out and they did obey God and get out, leaving the tares behind.  It is as though God took that great kingdom (which once represented the kingdom of heaven) and He lit it on fire to indicate His wrath was upon it, and then He simply turned it over into the hands of wicked men.  This is what Revelation 8:8 is describing as it speaks of the “great mountain burning with fire” cast into the sea.

There are a couple of other bits of evidence which I think will confirm that.  In Revelation, chapter 17, where we read of “mystery Babylon,” we read in Revealtion17:1:

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

Notice that she is sitting upon “many waters.”

It continues in Revelation 17:2-5:

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

So the woman – the great whore – that “sitteth upon many waters” is called “MYSTERY, BABYLON,” and so forth.  This is picturing the time when the churches were overrun and given over into the hands of Satan and became a part of his kingdom of Babylon, the kingdom of darkness, and now the entire corporate church that once represented God no longer does; it now becomes an image to the beast. 

Let us look a little later in the chapter and there it tells us about the “waters” that the woman was sitting up.  It says in Revelation 17:15:

And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

Again, the number “four” is in view because it is referring to the entire corporate church throughout the whole world; it involves all four points of the compass; it is a universal handing over of the corporate church to Satan, in order to bring about the judgment and destruction of the churches.  The waters are where the whore sits (and “to sit” means to “rule”) are identified as “are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.”  That is the “waters” or the “sea” which Revelation 8:8 is describing when the “great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;” the sea, here, is again identified and defined by “the third part.”  It is referring to that wherein there was once identification with God’s elect and where God’s elect were to be found for almost 2,000 years: in the local churches and congregations of the world.  Their “water” or their “sea” or their “people” became “blood” and “blood” identifies with judgment and the wrath of God.  When God turned the waters of Egypt to blood it was no good thing.  It was an awful thing that they could not drink of the waters.  And, here in our verse, “the third part of the sea became blood.” God’s wrath is upon the churches. 

This really is unmistakable language, as we follow the Bible’s guidelines in comparing Scripture with Scripture and searching out these words, it is clearly revealing that God will judge the New Testament churches and congregations.  Of course, we know that it has already occurred.  We are living in the time when the judgment on the churches is past and now God is judging the entire world, including those within the churches and congregations, because He is judging all the unsaved individuals in all the earth.