Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #17 of Revelation, chapter 8, and we are going to be reading Revelation 8:11:

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

We have been discussing this verse and looking at this chapter for several studies.  We realize that when God is describing the sounding of the first four trumpets, each trumpet blast is language that is revealing the wrath of God upon the New Testament churches and congregations.  They are typified by the “third part,” so the “third part” of trees and the “third part of waters, and so on, have been struck by the fiery wrath of God. 

In this verse, a star called Wormwood falls and strikes a third part of the waters so that they become wormwood and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.  This led us back to Numbers, chapter 5, where we found that God had recorded in His Law a strange and unusual Law, whereby a jealous husband could take his wife to the priest and the priest would take holy water, add some dust to it, then give it to the woman to drink.  This was done in order to discover whether, or not, the woman was guilty of fornication or adultery.  We read in Numbers 5:17-18:

And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water: And the priest shall set the woman before JEHOVAH, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:

The chapter goes on to explain that if the woman did go aside to another man, other than her husband, there would be awful consequences.  It says in Numbers 5:20-22:

But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, JEHOVAH make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when JEHOVAH doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.

This is very horrible language.  What a terrible thing it would be for a woman’s thigh to rot and her belly to swell.  Yet, this is what would happen to a woman that was guilty of adultery.  Now why is this the curse?  Why would it affect her belly by swelling and her thigh by rotting? 

The Hebrew word translated as “thigh” is also translated as “loins,” in Genesis 46:26:

All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six;

Here, the word “loin” is the identical word translated as “thighs,” and we can see clearly that this would involve bringing forth children and the seed of Jacob.  Actually, if you remember, in Genesis 24, Abraham was old and Isaac was born, but then later on, Isaac had no wife, so Abraham commissioned his servant to go and find a wife for his son Isaac.  It says in Genesis 24:2-4:

And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by JEHOVAH, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.

Why did Abraham make his servant put his hand under his thigh?  If we read a little further, it says in Genesis 24:6:

JEHOVAH God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying,

We see that Abraham was concerned about God’s promise of the seed – that God would make his seed as the stars of the sky for multitude.  Then it says in Genesis 24:7-9:

Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence. And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath: only bring not my son thither again. And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning that matter.

The rest of the chapter describes Abraham’s servant going to Laban’s household and he does find Rebecca as a wife for Isaac.  It really is a spiritual picture of the Gospel going forth, as Abraham (who would typify God the Father) is looking for a bride for his son Isaac (his only son whom he had offered up and was ready to bring down the knife to slay him as a sacrifice), so Isaac represents the Lord Jesus Christ.  Abraham very much wants a bride for his son, just as God the Father desired a bride for the Lord Jesus Christ, so Abraham sent his trusted servant into Haran in order to find this bride.  Abraham has his servant place his hand under his thigh (or his loins) because it involves the “seed.”  It is really a wonderful picture of the servant who typifies the believers as they are sent into the world; the believers are also the bride, but they also make the bride “ready,” as we read in the Book of Revelation.  They find all of the elect that make up that body of Christ, which is the bride.  Once they have found all the elect, they bring the bride to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we see in Genesis 24 a glorious Gospel portrait that covers, spiritually, the formation of the entire bride of Christ – the sending forth of the believers to recover that bride; and, finally, the bringing of the bride to Him.  It all involves an oath by putting his hand under Abraham’s thigh, or under his loins.

And that is why it is such an awful and horrible thing when we read in Numbers 5 of the woman who drinks the “bitter” water; the dust was added to the holy water, representing men and their “works” or false doctrines, as they pollute the Gospel of God and turn it “bitter.”  That is what has happened in all churches and congregations in the world, once the Great Tribulation got under way; God left, leaving the “holy water” in the hands of men, under the power of Satan as he took his seat as the man of sin.  Therefore, all the water in all the churches in all the world became polluted – it became “bitter” water and now all were made to drink: “Drink the water.  This is a test.”   It was designed and established by God to see if they had been faithful or unfaithful and to see if they had committed (spiritual) adultery, or not. 

And, remember, God is a jealous God, whose name is “Jealous,” and the spirit of jealousy came upon Him; He waited unto the proper time at the end of the church age to exercised His Biblical right as the Law of God allowed a jealous husband to put his wife to the test.  So God chose that point in time and He gave the “bitter” water that causes the curse to all within the churches and congregations.  We read in Numbers 5:27-28:

And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.

Now we see that the language of the thigh rotting and the belly swelling points to the fact that she will be childless.  She will not be able to bear children.  She will no longer bring forth “fruit” or “seed.”  She will be incapable of having a child.

On the other hand, “if the woman be not defiled,” then she shall conceive seed and she shall bear “fruit.”  We can see how, spiritually, this identifies with what God did with the churches.  When the churches drank of the “bitter” water (after the Holy Spirit left the congregations), if they were guilty, they would no longer be fruitful and they would no longer bear spiritual offspring.  That would mean that no one would become saved any longer, and that is exactly what did happen to the churches and the congregations.  They were unfaithful; that is how God speaks of them in Revelation 2 when He was speaking to the church in Thyatira (which has application to all churches), as it says in Revelation 2:20-22:

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

This is the jealous husband, who in the day of vengeance, is taking vengeance upon an adulteress wife (for the spiritual fornication which the churches and congregations had committed) and He “cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation.”  So judgment began at the house of God and the period of the end began back in May 1988.

But God also made provision that if a woman be not defiled, then the “bitter” water would not harm her and she would be free and conceive seed.  This would refer to the elect within the congregations; when God began to strike the water with “wormwood” and all the water within the churches and congregations became “bitter,” where were the true believers?  Where were the elect?  Well, for the most part, they were still in the churches and congregations of the world and they were, therefore, subject to the same water as the unsaved within the congregations.  God had not yet opened up the Scriptures regarding the command for His people to “come out.”  That would not happen for many years, so this is a very important truth that God is telling us in this Law in Numbers, chapter 5, which states “if the woman be not defiled, but be clean,” then she is not guilty (if she is one of God’s elect); of course, God’s elect are guilty of sin like anybody else, but the difference that our sins are paid for and that leaves us washed and leaves us clean in the sight of God.

So, one woman would refer to the “woman” of the corporate church – all those that are tares, which identify with God outwardly, but are still in her sins.  The churches have no answer for their sin; they have no Saviour to take away their sin.  That is the plight of the outward, visible corporate church.

But, within the churches, was another “woman,” the invisible church, the invisible bride of Christ.  When God gave all the “bitter” water to the churches, God made provision for her; since she was not defiled and she was not guilty, the “bitter” water would not harm her.  She would conceive “seed,” but only later on as it relates to the “latter rain” period when God intended to save a great multitude of people from all the nations of the world outside of the churches and congregations.  You see, “within” was the bitter water, but God would call His people out and He would use the Gospel that was going forth outside of the churches to save a great multitude, so that the eternal bride of Christ would conceive seed.  The “bitter” water did not harm her; it did not destroy her, as it had destroyed the corporate body of the church.

Now this reminds us of what we read in Mark 16, where we see language in which God is describing the case for any individual child of God when they hear a “false gospel.” (And, remember, that when you add “dust” to the holy water, it becomes another kind of gospel and is no longer the true Gospel.)  We read in Mark 16:17-18:

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

We are focusing on the statement: “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.”  You can have two individuals, like Jacob and Esau, and maybe they are children in the same household where the parents brought “another gospel,” or maybe, at first, they were in a church that was “another gospel,” like a tongues church or a church that added to the Bible – and this would all be poisonous water.  Both individuals (using the example of Jacob and Esau, where one was elect and one was not elect) drank of the water and one was destroyed by the poisonous water – he stayed in the corporate church and never left the congregation.  The other was “brought out” and found the true Gospel outside the churches and God saved that individual.  So, both drank, but only one was harmed and the other was not, and that is what God is indicating with the “bitter” water that causes the curse, when He turns the third part of the waters to wormwood, as we read in Revelation 8:11. 

When all within the churches began drinking the “bitter” water, notice that God says, “And many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”  Notice that “many” died, but not all died.  It is because, as the Bible says, “For many are called, but few are chosen.”  So the “many” that are called by the Gospel are they which hear the Gospel call and they respond and take the name of Christ and they call themselves Christians, but they were not elect and they never were truly saved.  They are the ones that die of the waters that became “bitter.”

But the “few” that were also called, but were chosen by God, are not harmed by these “bitter” waters and, finally, they come out of the corporate church and they conceive a “great multitude” of seed, as God completed His salvation program outside of the churches, in every nation and tribe and tongue. 

Let us just read Revelation 8:12:

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

What a strong emphasis there is upon the “third part.”  The “third part” of the sun, moon and stars were darkened, “and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.”

We have discussed the “sun, moon and stars” many times, over the course of our studies at EBible Fellowship.  The “sun” typifies God Himself.  The “moon” typifies the Law of God or the Word of God, the Bible, and the “stars” typify the elect of God or those that identify with the elect of God. 

Literally, they are the celestial bodies which God, in creation, placed in the heavens above to lighten the earth: the sun to lighten the day sky and the moon and stars to lighten the night sky.  They typify the light of the Gospel and the light of the Word of God, the light that shines in the darkness of this world.  The world is dark because of sin and mankind’s rebellion against God and his sinful transgression of the Law of God, which has brought the condemnation of God upon man.  It was the light shining into the darkness which was able to translate certain individuals out of that darkness and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, turning them from serving sin and Satan to serving the Lord Jesus Christ.  God typifies this by the language of the “sun, moon and stars.”

But, here, He does not want us to miss it and He mentions the “third part” five times in this verse, in order to stress it:  “Do not miss this.  It is the third part of the sun, the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars.  The third part relates to the churches.  I have not smitten the entire sun.  I have not smitten the entire moon and I have not smitten the entire stars.  And the ‘day’ was not smitten entirely, but only part of it.” 

This indicates that the Gospel light in the churches is extinguished.  It is no more and when we find this language of the “third part,” it indicates something that exclusively applies to the churches of this world.  And, of course, this is a big thing because professed Christians number about two billion out of a world of seven billion people.  It is quite a big thing that God has put out the light of the Gospel, impacting about two billion people – men, women and children.  But it is not language describing a darkness that comes over all the earth.  But that will happen when the judgment is complete upon the churches, and that is what we read about in Matthew 24:29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven.”  The sun and the moon and the stars are darkened, and then it is not just the “third part,” but it is the complete entire sun, the complete entire moon and the complete entire stars.  That would relate to the expansion of God’s judgment from the “third part” to the entire world.

But that is not the focus of Revelation 8:12, where it says the judgment is on the “third part” and that darkness is on the “third part.”  So on May 21, 1988, in the 13,000 year of earth’s history, after the 1,955 years of the church age, God put out the light of the Gospel.  The candlestick was removed.  The Light of Christ left the congregations.  He departed out and Satan entered in, so darkness overwhelmed the churches everywhere in the world.  This is a very grievous thing that begins that grievous period of the Great Tribulation (which we have now already gone through) and, here, God is emphasizing that this is the nature of what is in view in Revelation 8:12.