Men, this morning I started out preaching an overview of the book of Revelation and
we pretty much took it all the way up to about chapter 7 and so I'm pretty much going to
pick up where I left off and continue giving this overview because sometimes it's important
to step back and get the big picture of what's going on with the book of Revelation and I'm
also just hoping that this kind of basic crash course just flying through it provides sort
of a structure or a skeleton for further study on your own part so that when you approach
the book of Revelation maybe some of these ideas will stick with you and it will make
it a little bit easier for you to understand because let's face it, some of these things
can be a little bit tough.
End times prophecy can be a complicated subject and that's part of the reason why we should
have grace with other people who are wrong on these things and who have wrong doctrines
about end times Bible prophecy.
Let me just be real clear on this.
I will not break fellowship with people based on their views on end times prophecy.
I think it's ridiculous when many churches will ostracize preachers and other churches
because they have a different view on end times.
We all believe that the Bible is the word of God.
We're all doing the best we can to figure these things out.
Obviously we're right.
Other people are wrong.
I mean that kind of goes without saying but the point is though that it is a complicated
subject so I can understand why people can get a little sideways on this subject and
so I'm just teaching the Bible as I see it and I believe that this is the truth and I'm
extremely confident about it because I've been studying it for years, teaching it for
years and I've sought the Lord and I believe that he has revealed the truth to me in my
Bible study and I've been blessed with the opportunity to make that revelation series
with brother Paul Wittenberger years ago and everything like that.
So getting back into it, Revelation chapter number one, just a super quick review.
Revelation one was just an introduction of John on the Isle of Patmos.
He's writing to seven churches.
In chapters two and three we had personalized letters to the seven churches.
Chapters four and five are just sort of the scene in heaven getting ready to see the future
events but we don't actually get into future events and the meat and potatoes of the book
of Revelation until chapter six.
Now we spent a lot of time on chapter six this morning which was the seven seals, right?
Really the first six seals and we made a big deal about the fact that the first five seals
match up with the things that we see over in Matthew 24, what Jesus Christ calls the
great tribulation, right?
Tribulation such as the world has never seen and then it stated that after the tribulation
the sun and moon would be darkened.
Of course when the sixth seal was opened in chapter six the sun and moon were darkened.
At that point people are saying the great day of God's wrath has come and who shall
be able to stand?
So you've got the tribulation, then you have sun and moon darkened, then God's about to
pour out his wrath but before he does pour out his wrath of course two things happen.
The 144,000 are sealed and then a great multitude of all nations, kindreds, families, tongues
appears in heaven and of course when we cross reference that with Matthew 24 we saw that
that is the rapture because of the fact that in Matthew 24 it is the sun and moon being
darkened that signals the fact that Christ is coming in the clouds, the trumpet sounds,
he gathers his elect, there's a great multitude that appears in heaven and so forth and that's
about where we got to this morning.
Now from that point on starting in chapter eight we have God beginning to pour out his
wrath upon this earth.
Now in chapter eight we start out with the trumpet judgments.
Now before the trumpet judgments I want to show you this in verse number one of chapter
eight first of all.
It says, when he had opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven about the space
of half an hour and I saw the seven angels which stood before God and two of them were
given seven trumpets.
Now look these two verses when you read them together it's really clear, don't let anybody
fool you on this okay, the seven seals precede the seven trumpets.
First the seven seals happen then the seven trumpets.
In fact what is the opening of the seventh seal?
The opening of the seventh seal happens, there's silence and then it's like okay the trumpets
are handed out.
So what's the big deal about the seventh seal is that it is basically introducing the seven
trumpets.
Does everybody understand that?
Because there are some wrong views of this that try to claim that the sixth seal and
the seventh trumpet are happening at the same time, wrong.
The plain reading of the text as we go through the book of Revelation is that first the seals
happen and then we roll into the trumpets.
The seventh seal is introducing the first trumpet.
I think everybody can see that crystal clear right in front of you verses one and two of
chapter eight that's the plain reading of the text.
So then of course fire and brimstone is rained down upon the earth in these first few verses
and then we get into the seven trumpets.
Let's just quickly blow through these.
Verse number seven says the first angels sounded, there followed hail and fire mingled
with blood.
They were cast upon the earth and the third part of trees was burnt up and all green grass
was burnt up.
Okay, now stop and think about this.
If the Bible is saying all green grass is burnt up and a third part of the trees are
burned up, how does that work?
Well the thing about trees is that they're a lot more robust than grass, right?
And so if he's saying that all the grass is burned up then what we're talking about
is fire and brimstone literally worldwide because if all the grass is burned up then
we're talking about this happening all over the world.
It's not restricted to a certain geography and the only reason why only one third of
the trees are burnt up is simply because the trees are more robust and they are surviving
this natural disaster.
Okay that's what's going on with that.
Now later people have pointed out that, you know, there's some kind of a contradiction
because a little bit later grass is mentioned again.
Well here's the thing about grass is that it grows back and it's going to grow back
pretty fast so there's no contradiction there.
It's just that we need to understand that these things are not happening all in a matter
of days or weeks but that rather there's time for the grass to regrow and everything because
God is pouring out his wrath during these trumpet judgments over the course of literally
years.
So it literally is going to take years to go through these trumpet judgments.
One of the trumpets alone explicitly states that it lasts for five months and so we're
talking about extended periods of time here.
So when the first trumpet sounds you have all the green grass burnt up.
Now keep your finger here and go to 2 Peter chapter number 3.
Now the event that we talked about this morning and really emphasized as being so important
about the sun and moon being darkened is referred to throughout scripture.
It's prophesied in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and it is known as the day
of the Lord.
The day of the Lord, you can look up all the references to sun and moon being darkened
on the day of the Lord.
You're going to find them in the Old Testament, you're going to find them in the New Testament.
This is a big thing.
When Christ comes in the clouds, when the trumpet sounds, when the rapture takes place,
when the dead in Christ rise first, when the day of his great wrath is come, this is
known as the day of the Lord.
Look at 2 Peter chapter number 3 and look at verse number 10, 2 Peter 3.10, but the
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night and of course people will often reference
the fact that Christ is going to return as a thief in the night and sometimes those who
are pre-trib will actually use this as some kind of a proof that he could come at any
moment because he's coming as a thief in the night.
Of course we know he's coming after the tribulation but he will come as a thief in the night only
upon those who are not saved and not prepared.
Those of us who are saved when we see these things begin to come to pass, the Bible says
in Luke 21, we will look up and know that our redemption draweth nigh.
The Bible says the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night but you, brethren,
are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief, 1 Thessalonians 5.
Ye are all the children of the light and the children of the day.
We are not of the night nor of darkness, therefore let us not sleep as do others but let us watch
and be sober.
So it's deceptive to say, oh Christ is coming as a thief in the night so that means we don't
know when.
Well guess what, speak for yourself because if you're a child of darkness, you're not
going to see these things happening but as one who is a child of light, one who is saved,
when we see these things happening, we're going to know, hey, wow, it's close, it's
at hand, it's about to happen.
We're going to look up and know that our redemption draweth nigh.
But back to the passage that we're looking at in 2 Peter 3, the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night in the which, okay, now here's the thing about the day of
the Lord, the day of the Lord is a literal day as in it's a day on your calendar, nobody
knows what day it is but it's an actual day, okay.
The day of the Lord will come as the thief in the night in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also
and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Here's what we need to understand, okay, the same day that the rapture takes place, the
day of the Lord, the same day that that great multitude appeared in heaven in Revelation
chapter 7, the same day that Christ came in the clouds with the sun and moon being darkened,
the Bible is saying that the same day it rains fire and brimstone upon the earth.
That's why it makes a point at the beginning of chapter 8 to say a half hour went by to
let us know we're on the same calendar day, it's the same day.
So is this consistent with the day of the Lord as we see it in Matthew 24 and Revelation
6, Revelation 7 and 8?
Yes because it says, what will happen on the day of the Lord?
The heavens will pass away with a great noise.
Well we saw that in chapter 6 when the sun and moon are darkened, it said the heaven
departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.
So we have an atmospheric disturbance of some kind that we could call the heaven departing
or the heaven rolling back as a scroll or the heaven passing away with a great noise,
some kind of a cosmic disturbance in the atmosphere, right?
Revelation 6, check, okay?
And the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Folks, all the green grass is burnt up the same day that the rapture takes place.
That's a fulfillment of 2 Peter chapter 3.
Now the problem is that a lot of people will exaggerate the meaning of verse number 10
here because they are anachronistically taking the word element and thinking somehow, oh
periodic table of elements.
The elements are going to melt like they're going to stop being their usual elements like
some kind of a breaking down at the atomic level or something.
Folks, that is not what this is talking about.
The word element simply just means the components that stuff is made out of.
That's what it means, right?
If we talked about, you know, the elements of a good music program, right?
The elements of whatever.
It's just components, parts, things like that.
And also it doesn't say the elements are going to split apart as a nuclear.
It just says the elements are going to melt.
Stuff is going to melt, folks.
When all the green grass on the whole planet is burned up, when one third of the trees
are burned, is stuff melting or not?
And so also when the Bible says the earth also and the works that are therein shall
be burned up, that doesn't mean that the entire earth burns up and then there's no more earth.
It's gone.
Where's the earth?
Oh, it burned up.
It's gone.
That's not what they're saying.
But that's how a lot of people read this.
A lot of people read this and they think that this is the earth ceasing to exist.
Elements breaking down at the atomic level.
And it's just the fact that their mind kind of goes there when they hear that word element
And that's anachronistic because this was translated in 1611.
No periodic table of elements in 1611, my friend.
And so you don't want to mistake this or over exaggerate this.
This is a perfect description of what we see with just the events of the 6th and 7th seal.
The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
It's just talking about the world being on fire, my friend, and the world is going to
be on fire.
And so this is a fulfillment of that.
Now I'm not going to have you turn there for the sake of time, but in Luke 17, this
is the main thing that Christ is teaching.
He says that, look, the same day that Noah got on the ark, the flood came and destroyed
them all.
Same day.
Not only that, he said, as it was in the days of Lot.
The same day that Lot went out of Sodom and Gomorrah, it rained fire and brimstone.
So shall it be also in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.
And so when Jesus Christ returns, just like it rained the day Noah got on the ark, just
like it rained the day that Lot left Sodom and Gomorrah, it is going to rain fire and
brimstone the same day of the rapture.
The same day that we are removed, just like Noah was taken out of harm's way, just like
Lot was taken out of harm's way.
The same day the judgment is poured out, and that's what we see here.
The day of the Lord is associated with the rapture, but the day of the Lord is also associated
with burning, fire, judgment, because the judgment comes immediately after the rapture
takes place.
The same day.
Now, is this how this is popularly portrayed in your little Hollywood Left Behind movies?
No, because it's just like, everybody disappears, it's like, where is everybody, right?
But nothing is burning up.
You don't see all the grass burning up, you don't see all the trees burning up, because
those movies are totally unbiblical.
They're not actually following the teachings of scripture.
Luke 17 is clear, 2 Peter 3, study all the day of the Lord passages, it all fits together
like a glove.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye
to be in all holy conversation and godliness?
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being
on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Again, this is all consistent with the type of judgments that are going to be poured out.
And look, let me just say this, this world is going to be here forever.
This earth, this planet, the earth is always going to exist.
It will never stop existing.
I could show you plenty of verses on that that say, the earth abideth forever, and so
forth.
Now, you say, well, didn't the Bible say heaven and earth will pass away?
Yes, my friend, but here's the thing.
You and I are going to pass away as well, aren't we?
Are we going to pass away someday?
But guess what's going to happen?
We are going to be changed.
We are going to have a new body.
Now, when the Bible talks about us having a new body, is that a new body from scratch?
No.
The Bible says he will change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious
body.
So when the earth passes away, it will be changed.
And when the Bible talks about a new heaven and a new earth, it's basically a renewed
heaven and a renewed earth, just like the new body is a renewed body.
It's sort of like if I said I'm getting a new kitchen, you know, it's not like you just
take out the old kitchen completely, like a crane comes and just lifts out the old kitchen,
the foundation, the walls, the roof, and just puts in a new kitchen.
No.
You're saying that it's remodeled to the point where it doesn't resemble the old kitchen.
It looks totally different, right?
It's a new kitchen, a new body, new earth.
That's what we're talking about, my friend.
And so don't think when you read this that the elements being dissolved, elements melting,
the earth being burned up, that it's somehow ceasing to exist or something like that because
it isn't.
Okay?
It's just the surface is on fire.
That's what we see.
Now, that was a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I think that that's important.
Go back, if you would, to Revelation because of the fact that we need to see that the Bible's
teachings are consistent on the sun and moon being darkened, the day of the Lord, and by
the way, day of the Lord, day of Christ, day of God are the same day because you'll have
some people that will try to separate this.
Oh, there's the day of Christ is this, day of the Lord is this, day of God is this.
It's just all talking about the same day, my friend.
Okay.
Now, that's the first trumpet.
I'm not going to spend as much time on the other trumpets.
That's the most important point right there.
Okay.
Second trumpet, look at verse number eight.
It says, a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea.
The third part of the sea became blood.
The third part of the creatures, which were in the sea and had life, died, and the third
part of the ships were destroyed.
Third angel sounded.
There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third
part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters.
And again, we talked about this when the Bible talks about a star falling, we're not talking
about what science in 2024 would label as stars.
The stars up in the sky, twinkle, twinkle, little star, those are very far away and they
are huge.
And if one of those hit earth, it's so much bigger than earth, it would just consume earth
and swallow earth.
Okay.
When the Bible talks about the stars falling, we're talking about what we would call in
our modern vernacular meteors, right, like an asteroid or something, right, because those
are called shooting stars when they enter the atmosphere.
And so when it says a star fell onto the earth, this is probably a meteor collision with the
earth.
Okay.
So obviously, a meteor crashing into the earth will have major, major effects, okay.
Even a relatively small one and, you know, we could look throughout history at times
when meteors have crashed into the earth.
Thankfully in the 20th century when this happened and in the 21st century, I believe, it happened
once early on, is that this usually tends to happen in an uninhabited place because,
you know, just statistically chances are if a big meteor comes crashing down, it's going
to be in the middle of nowhere or in the ocean or something like that.
But you've probably read about a few times that meteors have crashed into Siberia, for
example.
And it's like a nuke going off or something.
I mean, you know, and these are relatively small meteors, much smaller than the ones
that say made the craters on the moon or something like that, much smaller than the one that
made the crater in Arizona, for example.
And even these relatively smaller meteors, they're coming at such speed and with such
force.
Of course, we all know that force equals mass times acceleration, amen?
And so they come crashing down and they decelerate as soon as they hit the earth and just an
incredible amount of energy is released.
I mean, trees are just leveled for like 20 miles and I remember in one town in Siberia,
like over 1,000 people, you know, I think, you know, received injuries from broken glass
or something because just like every window in the town is just shattered out and everything.
But there weren't fatalities or mass casualties because of the fact that it happened in the
middle of nowhere.
I mean, if a meteor like that were to hit a city, I mean, it would just completely level
that city and it would be like a nuclear bomb going off.
It would be like that magnitude of force.
Now it says here that this star falls from the sky burning as it were a lamp and it fell
upon, in verse 10, the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters.
So this is damaging the fresh water supply is what the Bible is saying.
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.
So drinking water is contaminated as a result of this star that falls and damages the fresh
water supply.
Now this is one of those interesting things and look, I am not one of these people that
just believes everything I hear.
You know, I love to fact check things and get to the bottom of things and this is one
of those things that sounds so wild that you might be tempted to think it isn't true.
But actually I did fact check this and to my surprise, it actually turned out to be
true that the word Chernobyl literally means wormwood, you know, in Ukrainian or whatever,
you know.
So I actually fact checked that.
That's kind of interesting.
When you think about the fact that Chernobyl is kind of a quintessential nuclear disaster,
you know, when we think of a nuclear disaster, you know, what's the first word that comes
to your mind?
You know, maybe you might say Fukushima but very likely you're going to say Chernobyl,
right?
And if you stop and think about the Fukushima disaster, for example, what was it that caused
that Fukushima meltdown?
You know, it was a tsunami caused by an earthquake, right, because a tsunami is a seismic sea
wave.
The earthquake causes that tidal wave and of course that damaged that nuclear facility
and of course there are nuclear facilities like this all over the world that have all
kinds of nuclear waste and spent fuel rods that have to be kept cooled all the time.
And if those facilities break down, then it can release toxic radioactive kind of materials
into the environment.
And so you can see how if there were some kind of a major meteor collision on the earth
that's just really shaking things up causing major earthquakes and or tidal waves, you
could see how this could create Chernobyl-type episodes and I'm not saying that that's for
sure what's going to happen but you can see how that could be a very likely interpretation
of this, why the water is being contaminated.
It could be contaminated from radioactive garbage coming from nuclear power plants.
That being said, I'm for nuclear power.
I'm not against nuclear power.
Of course, we're going to be gone before this happens anyway, number one.
But number two is every single method that you use to generate power is going to have
its pros and cons and unless we all want to go back to the Stone Age which none of us
do, we've got to generate our power somewhere and nuclear is probably the best way.
And so in my opinion, nuclear power is the future and so if I'm right and nuclear power
is the future and we're going to see more and more nuclear power which I think is as
it should be, it makes the most sense, well then you could see how though when God starts
just messing up the planet, then all of a sudden nuclear power is going to cause some
problems because you've got all that toxic waste and all those spent fuel rods.
Anyway, so water being contaminated, water being poisoned, people are dying from drinking
the contaminated water.
Then when the fourth angel sounds, it says the third part of the sun was smitten, the
third part of the moon, 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 and I beheld
and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, whoa,
whoa, whoa to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet
of the three angels which are yet to sound.
He's saying look, look at this destruction, look at what has already happened.
Can you believe that this is only four trumpets and there's three more to go?
He's saying oh man, you do not want to be on earth right now because you think it's
bad right now, well guess what, it's about to get way, way worse.
Now you can see that as serious as the events of the tribulation were, this is way more
serious.
Now of course the pre-tribbers are confused and so they have this kind of stuff mixed
in with the tribulation but we very clearly saw that after the tribulation the angels
are saying we're not going to hurt the earth, we're not going to hurt the seas, we're
not going to hurt the trees until we've sealed the servants of God and then of course
until that multitude appears in heaven and so no, no, the tribulation is all man-made
stuff, it's wars, it's famine, it's pestilence, it's basically just like World War II
except just worse than World War II, just like a worse version of World War II.
More serious, more global, more casualties, more problems, it's worse than any world
war but it's going to be similar to that man-made stuff, okay.
Whereas this is some serious, serious cataclysmic stuff that is totally in a different category,
it's of a totally different order of magnitude when we're talking about just fire burning
all over the earth and we're talking about all the, you know, water, one-third of the
water being contaminated and everything, you know, one-third of the sea life dying and
all these different things, I mean, you know, just the cycles of day and night, I mean just
everything's just so messed up and this is very extreme and we still have three more
trumpets to go, okay.
And so we need to make sure that we understand the drastic difference between the events
of the seven seals and the events of the seven trumpets, okay.
So then, you know, as we move forward here, we get into the fifth trumpet in chapter nine.
Chapter nine covers trumpets five and six.
It says, the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth.
To him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
He opened the bottomless pit and here a star is referring to some kind of an angel or something,
some kind of a being that comes down, but again, he makes his entrance looking like
a shooting star.
That's why he's probably called that and he opened the bottomless pit and there arose
a smoke out of the pit and the smoke as the smoke of a great furnace and the sun and the
air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit and there came out of the smoke locust
upon the earth and unto them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power and
it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, again, there's
your grass.
How can we have grass?
Because time has gone by, right.
This is happening over the course of years.
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 forts.
To them it was given that they should not kill them but that they should be tormented
five months and their torment was as a torment of a scorpion when he strikeeth a man and
in those days shall man seek death and shall not find it and shall desire to die and death
shall flee from them.
And again, this is not saying it's going to be impossible for people to die.
This isn't like that old black and white movie, Death Takes a Holiday or something.
Obviously people can die.
It's just saying people are going to wish they would die and they're not dying.
It doesn't mean that they couldn't theoretically commit suicide.
I'm sure that some people will do that.
But it's just saying it's going to be so bad that even though the locusts aren't killing
people, it's going to be so bad they kind of wish that they did, type of thing.
And so you might, as you read this, think to yourself, well maybe if all of this cataclysm
is happening, you know, aren't people just going to automatically just start believing
in Christ and saying, hey it's all true, this is all prophesied in the book of Revelation,
you know, we screwed up, we're sorry, we want to get saved right now?
Right?
I mean if all this stuff is happening and they're seeing all this stuff, why aren't
they just all getting saved en masse?
Well there are a few reasons for that.
Number one is that people believe what they want to believe.
And if people wanted to believe in Christ, they would believe in Christ right now.
And they're not saved because they received not the love of the truth that they might
be saved.
And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie that
they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure and unrighteousness.
And so the Bible talks about that in the end times when these events are taking place,
because that's the context of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, is that in the end times people
will have a strong delusion, they will believe a lie so that they will not be getting saved
en masse during this time.
You know, so it's not like, oh well now that it's happening I changed my mind I'm going
to get saved.
I'm sure there will be some people getting saved but this is not going to be a time of
mass conversion of people getting saved because of the fact that there are going to be people
just attributing this to other things.
People will say, we warned you about the environment.
I mean think about it, when all this stuff is happening they're going to say, hey we
tried to tell, Greta tried to tell you and you didn't listen.
You just had to have a gas lawn mower instead of just getting an electric one.
And look at what's happening now.
You know they're just going to blame the environment and they're just going to blame other things.
They're just going to have other explanations.
And whatever these locusts are they'll just say, hey you know these things mutated because
of the nuclear radiation from the wormwood and now they've just evolved and now they're
these monster locusts slash scorpions from hell.
Then we get into the sixth, and that's pretty bad, then we get into the sixth angel sounding.
It says in verse 14, and it says loose the four angels which are bound in the great river
Euphrates and the four angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day
and a month and a year for to slay the third part of men.
Now the Bible is saying here that one third of people are going to be killed connected
here to the events of the sixth trumpet.
Now the thing I want to point out here is that everybody's not going to be killed.
If one, you know I'm just kind of a glass is half full kind of a guy.
If one third of people are getting killed that means two thirds of people aren't getting
killed.
You know why don't we talk about that?
But the reason I bring that up is because a lot of people have a wrong idea that basically
everyone dies during the outpouring of God's wrath.
Well here's the thing, the sixth trumpet we're getting pretty close to the end of God pouring
out his wrath because there's seven trumpets and that's the end at that point.
We're getting pretty close to the end and in the kind of coup de grace here one third
of people die.
So if you think about it let's say the population of the world at that time is nine billion
people then we're talking about three billion people dying, we're talking about six billion
people surviving.
If the population is twelve billion then maybe we have four billion people dying and
eight billion people surviving.
Who knows?
The population of the earth is probably not going to go much higher than that no matter
how long it takes for Jesus to return because the population of the world is statistically
leveling off is what experts say that it might only get to twelve, thirteen billion, maybe
fifteen billion max and it's going to level off because that's another sermon, that's
another topic.
But the point is that one third of people die, two thirds of people live so don't get
the wrong idea that everybody's going to get killed because they're not.
And this is kind of a big one.
You know there's this army of horsemen, it says two hundred thousand thousand aka two
hundred million and I saw the horses in the vision, verse seventeen, and them that sat
on them having breastplates of fire and of jacinth and brimstone and the heads of the
horses were as the heads of lions and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and
brimstone.
Now here's the thing, some people theorize that when we talk about horses and horsemen
and the descriptions here of fire and smoke coming out of their mouths and so forth that
this is actually a reference to machines and that the apostle John obviously has never
seen any machines, he's never seen any tanks or helicopters or robots or you know he hasn't
seen these kind of things and so he's kind of just describing them in the terms that
he's familiar with and so you know these kind of horsemen and horses is just basically just
military machinery that could be something that's not necessarily biological, it could
be machines.
And I think that it's very likely that that's what's probably going on here.
But again we don't really know for sure because obviously all we have is the text in front
of us and we're probably going to always kind of judge it by the time we're living in.
Like somebody reading this in the 1700s is going to interpret this differently than somebody
reading it in 2024.
Well by the same token let's say the Lord does not return in our century, somebody reading
this in 2124 is probably going to interpret this a lot differently than somebody who's
reading it in 2024 just like someone in 1924 might have seen this differently.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
So you know we can't really know for sure these things because we don't know what generation
it's going to happen in but I think it's very likely that this is referring to technology
but again it's not something that we can be dogmatic about.
Their power is in their mouths and in their tails for their tails were like unto serpents
and had heads and with them they do hurt and the rest of the men which were not killed
by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship
devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood which can neither see
nor hear nor walk.
So Hinduism is going to be alive and well during the end times, right?
They're still going to be worshiping a bunch of false gods, they're going to be bowing
out of little idols.
I think Roman Catholicism is going to be alive and well, right?
They're going to go, oh hail Mary, full of grace, swing those beads all over the place
and they're going to be looking at it, they're going to have their little statues of Saint
Christopher and Saint whatever, Saint Bernard or I don't know, that's a dog breed, Saint
Louis and you know whatever.
So they're going to have all that idolatry, they're still going to be worshiping false
gods, they're still going to be worshiping idols, they're still going to be bowing down
to graven images, molten images, they're not going to be repenting of their murderers,
their sorceries, fornication, theft, you know they're not getting it, my friend, right?
Because they're going to be under a strong delusion and they're going to be believing
lies.
Okay, so everything's pretty clear I think so far.
We see God pouring out his wrath in a magnificent way in chapters 8 and 9.
Chapter 10 doesn't necessarily move the story forward, it's a little bit of an aside.
There are seven thunders that utter their voices but John does not write it down because
he's told that it's not to be revealed.
Now why would God tell him not to write these things?
Look at chapter 10 verse 4, when the seven thunders had uttered their voices I was about
to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, seal up those things which the seven
thunders uttered and write them not.
And then he just moves on and glosses it over.
I would say that almost certainly the reason why this is not to be written down is because
it's something that would reveal too much, it's too specific.
And there's what's called a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know we're not supposed to know
too much about the future and so therefore those things are probably left out for that
reason.
The same reason why God told Daniel to seal up the things that he received in chapter
11 because that prophecy in Daniel chapter 11 was super specific and so he's telling
him hey seal this up, it's for many centuries from now.
I'm paraphrasing of course.
And so chapter 10 we have that little commercial break about the seven thunders and so forth.
When we get to chapter 11 we're going to get the seventh trumpet.
So everything's making sense so far, seven seals rolled into seven trumpets, seven seals
were focused on the tribulation, seven trumpets were focused on God's wrath being poured out.
And then when we get to chapter 11 we have another kind of little rabbit trail here.
And this is a part that could be a little tricky so I want to stop and explain this
briefly.
It says in verse 1 of chapter 11, there was given me a reed like unto a rod and the angels
stood saying rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and them that worship therein.
But the court which is without the temple leave out and measure it not for it is given
unto the Gentiles and the holy city shall they tread underfoot forty and two months.
Now so far we haven't had a lot of time references in the book of Revelation.
We did have that one point about how the locusts that are like scorpions are going to punish
people for five months.
So we had that five month figure but we haven't really had a whole lot of numeric time figures
up to this point.
But starting in chapter 11 we're going to get a lot of those.
And what's going to become apparent as we start seeing these numbers starting with this
one and as we see many more is that you're going to see that there are a lot of numbers
that add up to three and a half years.
This theme just keeps coming up of three and a half years whether it's 42 months, three
and a half years, a time, times, half a time, right, time, times, half a time, three and
a half, or 1260 days, 1290 days, right, those type of numbers are going to be coming at
us because once we study the whole book of Revelation it becomes clear that we're dealing
with a period that is seven years long and that there's a significant event at the middle
that divides it into two three and a half year periods.
So this is something that's going to come up a lot.
So whenever we come to a mention of 42 months, three and a half years, 1260 days, here's
what we want to figure out.
Are we talking about the first half or are we talking about the second half?
Does that make sense?
Now again we haven't been given a lot of time frame yet so far but let me just kind of give
you the answer and then we'll prove it from scripture.
Just to kind of give you the answer, okay, from the time the first seal is opened and
we start out with those events at the end time, starting with the Antichrist, coming
on the scene, world war, famine, pestilence and so forth, right, from the time that that
happens at the beginning, okay, those first four seals, right, remember the first four
seals from this morning, okay, that covers that first half.
That covers a period of three and a half years, okay.
Then at the midpoint of this period that is often known as Daniel's 70th week, this seven
year period in the end times, at the midpoint is when we have a special event called the
abomination of desolation.
We glossed over it this morning but in Matthew 24, Mark 13, it brought up the fact that before
the rapture there's this event called the abomination of desolation because he said,
you know, when you see the abomination of desolation and then on and on, then the rapture
comes later, okay.
So basically the first three and a half years gets us to that abomination of desolation,
that's your first four seals.
Remember what the fifth seal was?
All the martyrdom, all the people dying for the cause of Christ.
Well that happens at that midpoint, abomination of desolation, that's when the intense persecution
of Christians begins.
The first three and a half years, it's not a persecution of Christians, it's just that
the whole world's at war.
So the first three and a half years is going to be warfare, famine, pestilence, the Antichrist
has taken over, at the midpoint the Antichrist takes over and then you have martyrdom happening,
okay.
Shortly after that midpoint, shortly after that midpoint is when Christ returns, the
rapture happens.
So you have the entire tribulation up until the rapture lasting a little more than three
and a half years.
So it goes a little past that midpoint.
Now when the midpoint happens that's when the persecution intensifies, fifth seal, right,
and then the sixth seal, Christ comes in the clouds and we are rescued out of that because
the Bible says, you know, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh
be saved, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
So for our sake as Christians, God's not going to allow the Antichrist to persecute us for
the full three and a half years of the second half of the week because we'd all get smoked.
And so it's much, much shorter than that.
It ends up being a period of approximately like 75 days, right.
So it ends up just being a period of just a few months where Christians are going to
go through some persecution and so forth and a lot of Christians are going to be martyred
and that's going to take place in a short period of time.
It's going to be cut short by all of the cataclysm that comes along with Christ coming in the
clouds, fire and brimstone from heaven, sun and moon darkened, all of those things are
going to kind of put that on the back burner and especially because Christians that are
actually saved will be removed from this world.
I hope that that is understandable the way I just explained that, but that's just to
kind of help you get your bearings that basically you have a little more than three and a half
years of tribulation and you have a little less than three and a half years of God pouring
out his wrath.
And at the end of that seven year period you start what's known as the millennial reign
of Christ, thousand year reign of Christ.
Okay.
So with that in mind we get to this period of 42 months and we want to ask ourselves
what are we talking about?
Are we talking about the first half or are we talking about the second half?
Well common sense should sort of tell us since we're moving chronologically, we're moving
through the seals, we're moving through the trumpets that we're way into the second half.
Am I right?
Because we're already at the sixth trumpet, the seventh trumpet is the end of it.
That's when it's over.
That's when the millennium starts as I'm going to show you in a moment.
So right away our gut instinct should tell us we're probably talking about the second
half because of the fact that, you know, we're to the very end of things.
And so we're just kind of backing up a little and kind of getting an overview of the second
half in general here.
How the gentiles will trod the holy city underfoot for 42 months and I will give power unto my
two witnesses and they shall prophesy, verse three, a thousand two hundred and three score
days clothed in sacwas.
So notice the two witnesses are prophesying for a thousand two hundred and sixty days.
It's the same 42 month period that Jerusalem is trodden down of the gentiles.
These are the two olive trees the Bible says in verse four.
Now look at verse five.
And if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies
and if any man will hurt them he must in this manner be killed.
These have power to shut heaven that it rain not in the days of their prophecy and they
have power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as
often as they will.
That would be totally out of place in the first half of Daniel 70 because remember nothing
supernatural was happening in the first half.
No water was being destroyed.
Trees and land were not being destroyed whereas these guys are smiting the earth with plagues.
They're turning water into blood.
They're causing more supernatural cataclysm than what's already happening.
All the other crazy things that are going on.
They're exacerbating that.
And so it's very clear where they fit in all of this.
Everybody follow that?
Okay that's important so remember that.
For sake of time let's jump down to verse number 7.
So they're going to prophesy for three and a half years.
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 that great city which spiritually is called Sodom and
Egypt where also our Lord was crucified.
What is that city?
Jerusalem.
Where was Jesus crucified?
Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is spiritually known as Sodom and Egypt.
I wonder why.
Maybe because it's filled with fags.
Even in 2024 it's an ungodly, wicked place filled with sodomites and God hating reprobates.
They of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three
days and a half and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
And the reason I say that is because Israel is the most queer place in the entire Middle
East.
That's just a fact.
So their dead bodies, these two preachers, these two prophets, they're going to preach
for three and a half years and everybody hates them.
They're causing even more plagues.
They're preaching the word of God.
Nobody wants to hear the word of God.
Nobody wants to hear the truth because these are all the wicked people that have hardened
their hearts and so forth.
And so when they die their dead bodies are laying in the street for three days and a
half.
And it says that in verse nine, this is really interesting, they of the people and kindreds
and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half and shall not
suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
Now can you imagine reading this two hundred years ago and wondering how could all the
kindreds and tongues and nations of people see them laying in the streets of Jerusalem?
How are people in South America seeing these people laying in the street in Jerusalem?
How are people in Timbuktu seeing this?
How are people in America seeing this?
But man, in 2024 do we have any question about how they're seeing this?
No.
Because obviously we have the technology to send messages all over the world and people
could be tuned in to any kind of a radio broadcast, satellite broadcast, television broadcast,
and hear the news about things and even see images of things like this all over the world.
You can understand why during the Protestant Reformation most of your Protestant reformers
did not take the book of Revelation literally.
And they thought it's all allegorical, they thought it's all metaphorical, that it's all
historical and that it's not describing literal future events.
But now where we stand in 2024, we're looking at it now and saying like, no, this is probably
going to happen literally the way it happens.
So you can forgive the Protestants for being wrong about this four hundred years ago, but
hey, Protestants of today, time to wake up and smell the coffee because these things
are actually happening around us.
You can see the stage being set for a one world government, one world religion, one
world currency.
You can easily see how no man might buy or sell without the mark of the beast being literal
with easily just electronic currency and so forth.
So that's the problem with having an outdated theology that's just frozen in time, locked
in to the sixteenth, seventeenth century.
You've got to listen to the preachers that are spirit-filled preachers today preaching
to us the word of God, not just these old dead preachers that you pour over, Puritans
or whatever, and they were too Catholic anyway, amen?
So what we see here is that these guys, at the end of their testimony, their bodies are
laying there because everybody's just watching their dead bodies on a webcam because they're
just like, yay, they're dead.
But then, and it says they're sending gifts to each other in verse ten and they're just
kind of celebrating the death of these guys.
But then it says in verse eleven, after three days and a 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.
Yeah, that's going to freak people out, right?
These guys are dead for three and a half days and all of a sudden they just wake up.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, come up hither, and they ascended
up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies beheld them.
The same hour was there a great earthquake and the tenth part of the city fell and in
the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory
to the God of heaven.
Let me just emphasize about this again that if the tenth part of the city fell, that means
nine parts of it didn't fall.
And if seven thousand people died, that means way more people survived.
So we don't want to, even though, yes, these are cataclysmic events, a lot of people are
dying, even one third of people died as a result of those armies, it's not the whole
planet being wiped out.
We want to make sure that we don't get confused about that.
Okay, once this is over, it says in verse fifteen, the seventh angel sounded.
So now we're getting to that seventh trumpet that we left off with the sixth trumpet back
in chapter nine, right?
The seventh angel sounded and there were great voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever
and ever.
Now this is a very key verse to understanding the timeline here, okay?
Because remember, the seventh trumpet doesn't sound until after the two witnesses are dead
and risen again.
Now that clearly happened at the end of Daniel's seventieth week because remember we decided
that that forty-two month period that they're preaching is clearly situated in the second
half.
At the end of their testimony, the seventh trumpet sounds and what does the seventh trumpet
say?
It says the kingdoms of this world are become, it doesn't say they're going to become, right
now they are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever
and ever.
So this is when now we are at the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is about to begin to reign here which makes perfect sense because we're at
the end of the seven years, boom, ready to start the millennium.
Everybody see that?
So there's a finality here of the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of his Christ, he shall reign forever and ever.
Verse eighteen, the nations were angry, thy wrath has come and the time of the dead that
they should be judged and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets
and so forth.
And then at the end of verse nineteen there are lightnings, voices, thunderings, an earthquake
and great hail.
So it pretty much feels like the wrath of God's over at that point, I mean you made
it through the seventh trumpets, Jesus is now in charge, right?
Christ is reigning and the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord
and of his Christ is how we would say that in our modern vernacular.
But then all of a sudden we get to chapter twelve because it's sort of like, you know,
it's starting to feel like it's over but it's like we still have half the book left.
So you're kind of confused, right?
It's like whoa, we're only eleven chapters in and how did we already get to the millennium?
Like it all happened pretty fast, right?
But yet that's how it sure seems.
It seems like we got through the whole thing.
We got through the tribulation, we got through the wrath, first half of the week, second
half of the week, we've seen it all folks and then it's like boom, millennium.
But then we get to chapter twelve and something strange happens, right?
Chapter twelve verse one it says, there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed
with the sun and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars and
she being with child cried travailing in birth and pain to be delivered and there appeared
another wonder in heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns
and seven crowns upon his heads and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven
and it cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to
be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
Now the first thing I want to point out here is that this is extremely metaphorical, figurative
language, clearly not literal, these first four verses because what we've seen, everything
we've seen so far in the book of Revelation was kind of making sense, it was pretty literal,
it was all kind of stuff that you can imagine happening and stuff that's being described
as happening on the earth.
Now all of a sudden we get super figurative so there's kind of a shift here because now
we're talking about a woman clothed with the sun.
That's impossible, right?
Obviously this is a metaphor, obviously this is figurative because you know I'm not one
of these people that just says oh everything in the Bible is figurative but when you come
to something like this it's kind of a no brainer.
We should always start with trying to interpret things literally but in a situation like this,
come on, she's clothed with the sun, she has the moon under her feet, upon her head a crown
of twelve stars.
This is obviously poetic, figurative language, not literal.
She's with child, she's pained to be delivered, then there's this great red dragon so you
have this woman and she's about to give birth, she's in labor, she's in pain and then you
have this big red dragon, right?
Ten heads and ten horns that's just ready to eat the baby as soon as it's born, right?
Just to devour her child as soon as it's born.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, did cast them to the earth and
so forth.
And then look at verse five, she brought forth a man child who was to rule all nations with
a rod of iron and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne.
Now stop and think about that.
Who is this man child, the devil wants to devour him as soon as he's born and she gives
birth, he's going to rule all nations with a rod of iron and he's caught up to God and
his throne.
This is clearly talking about Jesus, it has to be talking about Jesus.
Well what's interesting about that though is that we pretty much just glossed over the
entire life and ministry of Jesus and his whole lifetime in one verse because it's just
highly metaphorical, figurative, just the woman gives birth to Jesus and then it's like,
you know, he's going to rule all nations with a rod of iron, he's caught up to God and to
his throne, right?
And so we're talking about the birth of Jesus.
Now let me ask you something, do you think maybe we're a little out of chronological
order if we're talking about the birth of Christ?
Okay so you don't have to be a theologian to figure out that when you get to Revelation
12, something squirrelly just happened because when you're reading chapters 1 through 11
everything just flows, it's just flowing, just you got seals rolling into trumpets,
you got A followed by B followed by C, very logical, it's going well, it's chronological
and then all of a sudden you get to chapter 11 and there's like this kind of finality
at the end of chapter 11 and then all of a sudden we're talking about the birth of Jesus.
That's a clue to the reader that we have gone back in time, we're out of the chronology.
And so the best way to understand the book of Revelation is to realize that chapters
1 through 11 are basically in chronological order.
You start out in the first century A.D. with John on the Isle of Patmos and the seven churches
in Asia, then you jump ahead to the events of the end times, you have the first half
of Daniel's 70th week, you have the second half of Daniel's 70th week ending up culminating
with that seventh trumpet and the kingdoms of the world belonging to Jesus at the end
of chapter 11.
You have a nice smooth chronology up to that point.
But then starting in chapter 12 we've gone back to the first century A.D. again with
the birth of Jesus Christ and then where did we go next the first time around?
We were in the first century with John and the seven churches and then it was like boom
we jump to the end times, right?
We're going to do the same thing here.
We're going to be at the birth of Christ and we're going to at first century jump forward
ahead.
Now the thing that makes it easy to remember this is also the fact that it's really just
cutting the book of Revelation exactly in half because the first 11 chapters are chronological
and then the second 11 chapters are chronological.
Some preacher who didn't like what I preached about this, he said, show me one other book
of the Bible that does that.
The book of Daniel which is also the most significant prophecy book of the Old Testament
when it comes to the end times.
So the most significant New Testament book about the end times is Revelation.
The most significant Old Testament book about end times is Daniel and isn't it funny that
they both have this in common because if you read the book of Daniel chapters 1-6 are in
chronological order and then at the beginning of chapter 7 he flat out tells you oh we're
going back to this other king's reign and then chapters 7-12 are in chronological order
as far as when Daniel received the prophecies and so this is not even unique to the book
of Revelation.
Daniel is the same way.
First six chapters are chronological, second six chapters are chronological and remember
what is the major theme of all Hebrew poetry, parallelism, saying things twice, right?
This is a major theme in the Bible and so we have now the same story is going to be
told from another perspective, different than the way we saw it the first time.
Now the first telling of the story was in a more straightforward manner in chapters
1-11, much easier to understand.
Now we're getting into the second half and things become a lot more figurative and metaphorical
and it's a little bit more challenging but when you compare the first half to the second
half then it all comes together especially when you're looking at what Jesus said over
here and what Paul said over here, it all fits together.
Again I'm not saying that this is a super easy subject but it is doable, it is understandable.
So when we get to chapter 12 God's not trying to confuse us, he's making it crystal clear
to us that we've gone back in time because we have a reference to the birth of Christ.
That should tell us we've gone back to the beginning again of the story.
And so we have of course the woman caught up to God and his throne.
Now just like in the first half of the book we jumped from the first century A.D. to the
end times, we're making that jump again.
This shouldn't really shock us because remember we just crammed the entire life of Christ
into one verse.
He's born, he's going to rule all nations with a rod of iron, he ascends up to heaven.
Well you left out a lot there buddy, that wasn't much.
So it shouldn't really shock us that we're kind of fast forwarding the tape here.
And so when we get to verse 6 we are now to the end times and we're going to start seeing
how these things match up with the events that we saw in the first half of the book.
It says the woman fled into the wilderness where she had the place prepared of God that
they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and three score days.
Now our instinct should tell us which half are we talking about.
Are we talking about the first half or are we talking about the second half?
It's the first half.
Why?
Because we started at the beginning again.
We started over so we're now back at the beginning.
So the dragon is after this woman.
She flees into the wilderness.
She has a place prepared of God a thousand two hundred and three score days.
There was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought in his angels
and prevailed not.
Neither was their place found any more in heaven and the great dragon was cast out.
That old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast
out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.
So now we see that Satan is cast out of heaven at the very beginning.
It's kind of the first thing that we see when we get into the end time section here of the
second half of Revelation.
Satan is being cast out of heaven.
Now this makes perfect sense.
What did things start with back in chapter six?
The antichrist going forth conquering and to conquer, war, famine, pests, all these
horrible man-made things.
Well guess what?
The devil causes all that stuff.
The devil gets cast down out of heaven and he's mad and he's angry and he knows that
he only has a short time so he goes around raising hell and that's what even triggers
the events of the tribulation in the first place.
Satan being cast out of heaven.
Now a lot of people think Satan was already cast out of heaven.
Nope.
He has access to heaven right now in 2024.
Satan goes back and forth.
Remember he went there and talked about Job and said, you know, hey well, you know, Job
is only serving you because you do so much for him.
The devil accuses the brethren day and night in heaven and he has access to heaven right
now.
He has not been kicked out of heaven yet.
He will be and that is what will trigger the events of the tribulation, Daniel's 70th week.
He's the one who empowers the antichrist.
He's the one who gives because remember at the beginning of the sermon this morning we
talked about how a crown was given unto him.
Who is it that gives him that authority?
God?
No.
The devil is the one who empowers the antichrist who gives him that ability in the first place
and so it's Satan being cast out that triggers all of these things in the first place.
Look at verse 13.
When the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth he persecuted the woman which brought
forth the man child and the woman were given two wings of a great eagle that she might
fly into the wilderness into her place, obviously highly metaphorical, not literal, right?
Where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, that's three and a half if
you're counting, from the face of the serpent.
Notice that we are no longer calling him the dragon, now we're calling him the serpent
but we just heard that the serpent and the dragon are the same entity, Satan the devil.
The serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman that he might cause
her to be carried away of the flood and the earth helped the woman and the earth opened
her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth and the dragon
was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed which keep
the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Now look, chapter 12 is the hardest chapter in the book of Revelation.
Chapter 12 is the hardest chapter in the book of Revelation, okay?
So I just want that to sink in a little bit.
It's a challenging, difficult chapter because it's just very metaphorical, very figurative,
not very literal at all, that's what's hard about it, okay?
I'm out of time so I'm just going to just give it to you in a nutshell what this chapter
is all about because what we have to understand is that when we get into chapter 13, boom!
We're talking about the events of the second half of Daniel's 70th week.
So really the only chapter that's devoted to the first half in this section is chapter
12 and then everything else because then we're going to really in chapter 13 we go into big
detail on the antichrist, the false prophet, the mark of the beast, that stuff's all in
chapter 13 and we know that happens at the midpoint, okay?
And then we get into all the pouring out of God.
First of course we're going to see the rapture happen in chapter 14 and then after the rapture
happens then we're going to see all of the wrath being poured out in chapter 16 described
instead of as seven trumpets, as seven vials, but I will prove to you beyond any shadow
of a doubt that the trumpets and vials are overlapping, they're just two angles of the
same story.
But how do we understand chapter 12 on the back of a postage stamp because I've only
got a couple minutes, I have to just give this to you in a nutshell, but you know what?
I don't mind giving it to you in a nutshell because I don't think it's that hard to understand
once I explain it to you I think it's going to click with you.
It took me many weeks and months to figure this out because I'm stupid, but I'm going
to explain it to you and it's going to be easy because I'm just explaining it to you
after I did all the heavy lifting of figuring it out.
But here's the thing, we're talking about the first half of Daniel's 70 week.
Now stop and think about it, based on what we learned this morning, are Christians being
targeted during that first half?
During the first four seals is anything targeted toward Christians or is just everybody suffering?
I mean look, if the world's at war, that doesn't just affect Christians, that affects everybody.
If there's a famine, everybody's paying high prices.
If there's a pestilence, everybody's getting sick and getting diseased and dying.
There's nothing targeted toward Christians in that first half of Daniel's 70th week.
It is targeted toward humanity in general.
Everybody on earth is suffering.
And so for that 1260 days, 42 months, three and a half years of the first half of Daniel's
70th week, what the Bible is describing here in chapter 12 is the serpent persecuting the
woman.
Who is the woman?
People have all kinds of theories about this.
They say it's the Virgin Mary.
They say it's Israel.
But again, let me ask you this, did we see anything targeted toward Israel specifically
about that first half of Daniel's 70th week, or even the second half?
It's all global.
Anything targeted toward the Virgin Mary?
Nope.
Virgin Mary's not a thing anymore.
Virgin Mary's a nice person who's up in heaven and if you pray to her, well, you're not saved
because you're a Catholic.
But anyway, here's the deal.
The woman represents humanity.
The woman is Eve and this should be clear to you if you've read Genesis chapter three
because what does God tell Eve in Genesis chapter three?
What does he tell the serpent?
He says, I am going to put enmity between the serpent and the woman.
Do you see how the Bible's coming full circle?
So the Bible starts out in Genesis three saying there's going to be enmity between the serpent
and the woman.
There's a battle between the serpent and the woman and then there's going to be a battle
between the woman's seed and the serpent's seed.
This enmity is culminating in Revelation chapter 12.
We have the serpent versus the woman.
Now think about this woman.
The woman's clothed in the sun.
Think about this now.
The earth is bathed in the sunlight.
The earth has the moon under its feet because of course the earth dominates the moon.
The moon is controlled by the earth, right?
It's controlled by the gravitational pull of the earth.
Also by the way, the fact that the woman is clothed with the sun and she has the moon
under her feet is also proof that we actually did land on the moon in 1969 because humanity
has the moon under their feet, my friend.
The footprint is real.
And then upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
These are the twelve signs of the zodiac.
These are the twelve star constellations that the sun moves through in the cycle of the
year.
So it's pointing us to the fact that the woman is earth.
It is humanity.
Eve is the mother of all living.
There's enmity between Eve and the serpent.
Does this fit the context?
Absolutely.
If you actually look at the events of the first half of Daniel's 70th week, it's all
of humanity that's suffering, not Israel, not Catholics, not Christians.
It's just everybody that's getting put through the wringer.
But then at the end of that 1260 days, at the end of that three and a half years, look
what it says in verse 17 and I'll be done after I explain this last part.
The dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed which
keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So after he fails to destroy humanity in the first half of Daniel's 70th week, now he's
going to target specifically the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God
and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So the first half is all humanity.
I remember when I first was figuring this out, I heard Alex Jones' voice in my head.
I'm not an Alex Jones fan but we all went through that Alex Jones phase.
It was a long drive.
I needed something to listen to.
In the New World Order's war against humanity, Barack Obama is the tip of the spear.
The trailer for the Obama deception, who knows what I'm talking about?
God bless you.
I see that hand.
In the New World Order's war against humanity, Barack Obama is the tip of the spear.
Well, let me tell you something.
The devil is literally in a war against humanity.
The devil hates everybody.
Do you think that the devil loves little Satan worshippers down at Hot Topic or Spencer's
or whatever?
Do you think the devil is just like, oh, I love you so much, thank you for worshipping
me?
No, these weird goth out satanic freaks, he doesn't love them, he wants them dead just
like he wants you dead.
He wants everybody dead.
He wants to kill all humanity and that's what he's going to seek to do in the first
half of Daniel 70.
He's just going to be killing everybody.
When he fails, when God prevents him from destroying all of humanity, he then in the
second half targets his attack specifically on God's people, specifically on Christians.
This is why in verse 17 he makes war against those who have the testimony of Jesus.
And then look at chapter 13 verse 7 about the antichrist.
It was given unto him to make war with the saints.
So who is the antichrist making war with?
The saints.
The devil puts him in power to make war with the saints because he's now in the second
half making war on God's people.
Of course, this is cut very short but this is the events of the fifth seal.
This is what happens at the midpoint where the shift happens from the war on humanity
to the war on Christianity.
But make no mistake about it, the devil hates everybody.
Now I know I had to go fast and I hope that that helps.
We got further.
We didn't finish but I feel like one more installment and we're going to be done.
One more installment because honestly I know it doesn't feel like we covered as much ground
tonight 8 through 12 but 8 through 12 is a tough section.
And so we had some things that we needed to work on there.
13 through the end I think is a little bit easier to understand.
Chapter 12 is the hardest chapter.
And so let's bow our heads in heaven with a prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word Lord.
I pray that we would all study to show ourselves approved.
Lord God help no one to think that these things are not relevant because Lord everything in
your word is for our edification.
And if nothing else what we can learn is that you are not a God who does not punish.
Because we see you poured out your wrath in such a magnificent way Lord in these pages
and we know that this is really coming upon planet earth someday Lord.
Help us to understand your holiness and your wrath and indignation so that we would fear
and tremble and understand that our God is a consuming fire.
And in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.