🎵🎵🎵🎵
...
Good evening. Welcome to our
services tonight here at Faith
Florida Baptist Church. If you
would all please find your
take our song books and let's go to hymn number 423 tonight number 423 joy to the
world the Lord is come number 423 we'll start on that first verse all together
let's sing it out tonight 423
joy to the world the Lord is come let earth receive her King
let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing and heaven and
nature sing and the hand and hand and nature sing joy to the world the Savior
let their songs employ
while fields and floods rock, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy repeat the
sounding joy repeat repeat the sounding joy
no more his hands and sorrows grow for the Lord to bless the ground
he comes to make his blessings whole for as the curse is found
for as the curse is found for as for as the curse is found
he rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove
the glory of his righteousness and wonders of his love and wonders of wisdom and wonders and wonders of his love
and that great start to sing this evening I'll ask for the Kevin to open
up a prayer father in heaven thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight I
pray that you fill us with fill us all with your spirit as we sing to you and
please help us to understand and take these words that we sing to heart and
please just bless the services in Christ name I pray amen amen number 420 in
number 420 there's a song in the air number 420
sing out on this verse 420
Oh
We love that star, but he lives in pearl.
And that song from afar, as the builder of the world.
Every heart with the flame and the wind,
if we'll sing in the hope of the nations,
then Jesus is king.
Rejoice in the light, and we echo the song,
that calls out through the night,
from the heavenly flood.
Lightly shout to the heart, we are factually free.
And we breathe in his praise, O our Savior and King.
All right, this time we'll go through our announcements together.
Slip up and be a nice time, we'll be through one.
And inside we have our service time, Sunday morning at 1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six, Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
This week we'll be in Ezekiel chapter number 19.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below,
as well as salvations and baptisms.
And then across the page, congratulations to the Meyer family on the birth of baby Eli,
born on Monday, December 13th.
And be sure to congratulate them with that.
Also, one other announcement before I forget,
apparently the Baldazzari family was in a car accident just now,
15 minutes ago or something, on the way to church.
And they flipped their truck upside down.
But from what I heard, everybody's okay.
So thank God for that, because that's pretty scary when you're in that series of an accident,
where the vehicle flips upside down.
But apparently, what we know so far, everybody's okay.
So let's just pray for them really quickly though, before we go any further.
Lord, we just thank you so much for the fact that it sounds like the Baldazzaris are okay, Lord God.
I just pray that everyone else is okay, and that everything would work out,
that there wouldn't be any injuries that would come up later.
And thank you for your protection on all of us, Lord.
And please just bless their family and help this all to work out ultimately for good.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, back to the announcements.
We've got the annual Christmas caroling coming up.
It's just two days away, so don't forget about it.
Everything moves fast this time of year.
Well, here we are.
It's this Tuesday night, so be here at 5.30 for that.
We've got the cookie bake-off coming on next Sunday, one week from today.
That'll be the Christmas-themed Sunday, so I'll preach a Christmas sermon,
at least in the morning, maybe even both.
And then we'll have the cookies and hot cocoa at 4.30.
So I encourage you to bring a visitor on that day if you can, you know,
maybe somebody who rarely goes to church, but maybe they would just show
up a couple times a year for Christmas and Easter.
You know, this would be a good service to invite them to.
And then below that, we've got the 2021 yearbooks.
So if you didn't get a yearbook yet, they're in the back.
Be sure to grab one on your way out tonight.
And then on the back, we've also got the Christmas CDs.
We've got the ones in the nicer digipack sleeve.
You could mail those to your family or friends.
You know, if you want to be a cheapskate, that could be all they get this year.
Or you could just include it with whatever else you're sending.
And then the ones that are the cardboard sleeves, the thinner ones,
those are the ones we want you to hand out soul winning, which is better
anyway, because you can just kind of grab a handful of them and give them out liberally.
Don't be shy to give them out.
Stick them on doors.
Even if people aren't even home, we just like to kind of get those things out the door.
And then below that, we've got the ostrich farm field trip coming up on Friday,
January 7th.
And then below that, some other soul winning trips that are coming up.
Mexico Monday on the 3rd.
We've got a small town soul winning in Globe on January 8th.
And then, of course, we've got the big Virgin Islands missions trip on January 16th through 22nd.
So if you need more info, if you're on the fence about whether you want to go,
just get with Brother Raymond and talk to him.
And you can get more details from him.
And he can explain to you more about the trip.
There are some videos he could point you to.
He could also explain some stuff to you, answer your questions.
So that is about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up our soul winning from the past few days.
So going back to Thursday, anything from Thursday?
Okay.
Thought I saw something somewhere else?
No.
Don't twitch unless it's soul winning, all right?
What about Friday?
Anything from Friday?
All right.
And then what about Saturday?
Is that a Friday or Saturday?
Okay.
Seven for the San Jose trip.
All right.
Great.
And then another one.
Okay.
Outside the San Jose trip.
All right.
Not talking about the Silicon Valley now.
And what about today, Sunday?
Got one, two.
Brother Scott, how about the main group?
One.
All right.
Got two here, five.
Okay.
We got a one back there.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Anybody else from today?
All right.
There we go.
Anybody I'm missing?
All right.
Very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's go ahead and sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right.
You should find the insert in the front of your hymnals with the two songs.
We'll start with Good Christian, Then Rejoice.
If you don't have one, please raise your hand.
Good Christian, then rejoice.
Good Christian, then rejoice with heart and soul and voice.
Now we hear our bed, let's bless.
Good Christian, then rejoice with heart and soul and voice.
Now we hear our bed, let's bless.
Good Christian, then rejoice with heart and soul and voice.
Now we hear our bed, let's bless.
Good Christian, then rejoice with heart and soul and voice.
Now we hear our bed, let's bless.
Good Christian, then rejoice with heart and soul and voice.
Now we hear our bed, let's bless.
Good Christian, then rejoice with heart and soul and voice.
Now we hear our bed, let's rejoice with heart and soul and voice.
A victor's crown, my Savior won, His work of love and mercy done,
The Father's high-ascended Son, All glory be to Jesus.
And a good singing time.
All right, this time we'll go ahead and pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's go ahead and turn our Bibles to Revelation chapter 14.
Revelation chapter number 14, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads.
Revelation 14, starting in verse number 1.
Revelation 14, the Bible reads,
And I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on the Mount Sion,
and with him in hundred forty and four thousand, having his father's names written in their foreheads.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder.
And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.
And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders.
And no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
These are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins.
These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.
These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
And in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God.
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth,
and every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice,
Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come,
and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city,
because she made all nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice,
If any man worship the beast in his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand,
the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.
And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.
And they have no rest, day nor night, who worship the beast in his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Here is the patience of the saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
And I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Right, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.
And I looked, and behold, a white cloud.
And upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud,
Thrust in thy sickle and reap, for the time is come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
And another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire, and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle,
saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the cluster of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even under the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
Father in heaven, thank you for the Bible, and the blood of your son Jesus Christ, through which the true believer is delivered from your wrath forever.
I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson as he preaches your word, and help us your children grow in the faith and in your word, to give you praise, honor, and glory.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Man, tonight I'm preaching a bit of a follow-up to the couple of sermons that I did last week, where I preached on Daniel's 70th week, and I preached about the 1260 days, etc.
Well, tonight I'm going to be trying to clear up more confusion that people have about end times.
People have a lot of questions or things that they don't quite understand, and so I'm hoping to make these things clear and easy to understand.
And chapter 14 of Revelation, I think, is a great place to go tonight to cover some new territory, because chapter 14 of Revelation is a really interesting chapter,
and it covers a lot of things that I didn't really have time to talk about last Sunday, so I think it's a perfect place to start.
And at the beginning of the chapter, we have talked about the 144,000, which is a big subject in end times Bible prophecy.
You know, who are the 144,000?
Well, let's look at this tonight in verse number 1 of chapter 14. It says,
I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his father's name written in their foreheads.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder.
And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps, and they sung as it were a new song before the throne and before the four beasts and the elders.
And no man could learn that song but the 144,000 which were redeemed from the earth.
These are they which were not defiled with women.
So I want you to pay attention to the description about the 144,000, because it's a very specific group of people.
It says they were not defiled with women, for they are virgins.
So I want to point out here first of all that they are males, they're men.
144,000 men who are virgins.
And this proves that the word virgin can also be applied to men too, by the way.
So it's not just that women need to stay pure until they're married, but men need to stay pure until they're married as well.
And should not have any sex until they're married, okay.
So these were not defiled with women, for they are virgins, okay.
So these guys aren't even married.
These guys are just virgins.
And it says, these are they which follow the lamb whithersoever he goeth.
These were redeemed from among men being the first fruits unto God and to the lamb.
And in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God.
So when we see the 144,000 here, they have the father's name written in their foreheads.
And the thing I really want to point out is that they're males, that they're virgins,
and where is their location here at the beginning of chapter 14?
Well, in verse number 5, it talks about them being before the throne of God.
And in verse number 1, it says a lamb stood on the Mount Zion and with them 144,000.
So they're on that Mount Zion, they are before the throne of God.
Now keep your finger here, and I want you to go back to Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter number 12.
And in Hebrews chapter number 12, we have another reference to the Mount Zion in the New Testament.
It says in verse number 22 of Hebrews chapter 12, it says,
But ye are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to an innumerable company of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.
So what I want you to see there is that we have the Mount Zion in heaven,
the heavenly Jerusalem, the 144,000 are on the Mount Zion with the Lamb of God,
and they're before the throne of God because they're in heaven, okay?
That's what we see in chapter 14.
Now let's go to Revelation chapter 7 because the 144,000 are brought up in only three places.
They're brought up in chapter 7, chapter 9, and chapter 14.
So let's go back to chapter number 7 and let's get more information about the 144,000
than what we've already learned.
It says in verse number 1 of chapter 7,
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth,
holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth,
nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God,
and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God
in their foreheads.
And I heard the number of them which were sealed, and there were sealed a hundred and forty and four thousand
of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
So we get a little more information, right?
Not only are they male, not only are they virgins, but they are also of the tribes of the children of Israel.
And it says in verse number 5,
of the tribe of Judah were sealed 12,000.
So not only are they of the tribes of Israel, but 12,000 come from each specific tribe.
Okay, so we even have tribes like verse 6, the tribe of Asher were sealed 12,000.
Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed 12,000.
Of the tribe of Manasseh were sealed 12,000.
So we're talking about the Old Testament 12 tribes of Israel,
even including the 10 lost tribes of the northern kingdom that went into captivity with the Assyrians,
you know, some 700 some years before Christ.
And yet here, the 144,000 consist of 12,000 from each tribe,
12,000 male virgins who follow Christ.
This is a pretty tough order to come up with.
Have fun finding 144,000 saved Israelis.
Have fun finding that.
I defy you to find that.
You know, that'll be the day.
Okay, but how about that are all male, all virgins, and 12,000 from each tribe,
including tribes that stopped existing many centuries ago.
Okay, so you see the problem here with thinking that these people come from today's so-called Jews
or the so-called nation of Israel today.
Okay, this is a problem.
Now, here's what I want you to pay special attention to.
In chapter 7, the 144,000 are being sealed in their forehead at the beginning of the chapter,
and then what happens right after the 144,000 are sealed is the rapture.
Okay, so as soon as we get done with this list of people that are being sealed,
at the end of verse 8 it says the tribe of Benjamin were sealed 12,000.
After this, I beheld and lo, a great multitude which no man could number
of all nations and kindreds and people in tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb,
clothed with white robes and palms in their hands.
So right after we talk about the 144,000, this giant multitude appears in heaven,
an innumerable multitude from every nation and tongue and people from under heaven.
They appear in heaven, and they're praising God and so forth.
Look at verse 13.
And one of the elders answered, saying to me,
What are these which are arrayed in white robes?
And whence came they?
Now, the word whence is important.
Whence means from where.
So he says, who are these people, and where did they come from?
Now, this shows that they just showed up.
If they'd been there for many years, you wouldn't be like, whoa, who are these people,
and where did they come from?
So one of the elders, because remember the 24 elders are surrounding the throne,
they're asking John, whoa, who are these people?
And then John says unto them in verse 14, Sir, thou knowest,
he's like, what are you asking me for?
You tell me, you're the guy up in heaven, I don't know.
Sir, thou knowest, and he said to me, yeah, just kidding, I did know.
No, I'm just kidding.
He said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation
and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore, they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple,
and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them, they shall hunger no more,
and on and on it goes.
So the great multitude appearing in heaven corresponds to the rapture.
Because what's the timing of the rapture according to Matthew 24?
Sun and moon are darkened, Christ comes in the clouds,
he gathers the elect from the four winds, and so forth.
Well, in chapter 6, at the end of chapter 6, the sun and moon are darkened.
Chapter 7, you have the 144,000 getting sealed, and then you have the rapture.
So it's exactly consistent with what we saw in Matthew 24.
But what I want you to pay attention to is the fact that the 144,000 gets sealed before the rapture.
Everybody see that?
The beginning of the chapter, 144,000 gets sealed, then the rapture takes place.
Now let's go back to chapter 14 with that in mind.
In chapter 14, we had the 144,000 on the Mount Zion in heaven before the throne of God
at the beginning of the chapter.
If we go later in the chapter, look at verse 14.
It says, I looked and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man.
Now who's the Son of Man coming in the clouds?
Jesus.
This is prophesied back in Daniel chapter 7 that the Son of Man is going to come in the clouds.
Of course, Jesus talks about this in Matthew 24.
The Son of Man come in the clouds.
Jesus comes with clouds at the rapture, the trumpet sounds, the elect are gathered, and so forth.
So in chapter 14, we also have Jesus, the Son of Man, coming in the clouds, having on his head
a crown of gold, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud,
thrust in thy sickle and reap, for the time has come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
So we have Jesus coming in a cloud and reaping the earth.
This is also talking about the rapture.
Because at the end of the world, the Bible talks about how the tares will be gathered together
and bound in bundles to be burned.
And then he tells the reapers, gather the wheat into my barn, and the wheat are the saved.
The wheat are the children of the kingdom.
The tares are the children of the wicked one.
And so the children of God are the wheat that gets gathered into the barn.
So it makes sense that the rapture would be pictured in chapter 14 as Jesus coming in a cloud and reaping the earth.
Now you say, how do you know this isn't a bad reaping?
Well, because right after this comes the bad reaping.
So first we have a good reaping where Jesus comes in the cloud and the earth is reaped.
Okay, that's a reference to the rapture.
But then it says in verse 15, I'm sorry, it says in verse number 17,
And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
So Jesus came with his sharp sickle and he reaped the earth.
The harvest of the earth is ripe.
That doesn't sound like we're pulling weeds, that sounds like a good harvest, right?
It's ripe, the fruit is ripe, let's gather the wheat into the barn.
That is the saved being resurrected slash raptured, okay?
But then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle,
and another angel came out from the altar which had power over fire,
and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle saying,
thrust in thy sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth,
for her grapes are fully ripe.
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth,
and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
This is not a good, you say, well it's also ripe fruit, yeah, but grape juice represents blood.
In the Bible it'll sometimes talk about the blood of the grape just because the color of grape juice
could make you think about blood, right?
So God is using this symbol or picture of a great winepress of the wrath of God.
Basically the wicked are being put into this winepress and crushed until their blood gushes out.
Now again this is not literal, this chapter is highly symbolic.
The first half of Revelation is a lot more literal.
Chapter 12 and onward get a lot more cryptic and use a lot more symbolism.
And so what we have here is the winepress of the wrath of God.
It says in verse 20, and the winepress was trodden without the city,
and blood came out of the winepress even under the horse bridles by the space of 1,600 furlongs.
Now, stop and think about this, okay?
The sequence of events here is that you've got the 144,000 in heaven at the beginning of the chapter,
with the Father's name in their heart for it.
What does that mean?
It means they've already been sealed.
In chapter 7 it was like, let's seal the servants of our God and their foreheads, 12,000 from each tribe.
Here they're in heaven, foreheads are sealed, then later in the chapter,
just shortly thereafter we have the rapture,
and then we have wicked mankind being thrown into the winepress of the wrath of God, figuratively speaking.
Here's the key thing that I want you to see.
In both chapter 7 and in chapter 14, the 144,000 are already in heaven before the rapture.
Does everybody see that?
Chapter 7, chapter 14, the 144,000 are already located in heaven,
already being sealed in their forehead before the rapture.
Now for the longest time, I remember studying this passage,
and I felt like, you know, God had this backwards here.
That, you know, that the 144,000, how can they be in heaven before the rapture?
You know, what's going on with this?
And I fought this for the longest time, and then about 10 years ago,
you know, I just decided, man, I want to get to the bottom of this thing of the 144,000.
I was studying, I was praying every day about it, reading chapter 7, 14 every single day,
and just praying about it, studying it, and thinking about it.
And finally, I just stopped resisting.
I'm just like, they're in heaven before the rapture.
And then it just clicked with me, and I felt like an idiot that I hadn't thought of it before.
Duh, they're in heaven before the rapture because they died.
They're dead. They're dead people, okay?
Now listen to me.
When you die as a believer, guess where you go?
Heaven.
So you want to know why the 144,000 are in heaven before the rapture is because they died.
That's why they went to heaven, because they died.
Now here's why this makes so much sense.
Because of the fact that the only way that you could actually take this passage even halfway literally,
and actually have 12,000 from each tribe, is that you would have to go to the past to do that.
I mean, how can you find 12,000 Reubenites right now?
You can't even find one Reubenite unless you count that flat earth guy in the parking lot this morning as a Reubenite,
because he's some kind of a Hebrew Israelite or whatever.
Unless you count these bozos going around saying that Puerto Ricans are the tribe of Asher or whatever.
Obviously, those tribes have ceased to exist.
There is no tribe of Gad.
There's no tribe of Issachar.
And you can want it to exist.
You can pretend that it exists.
But there's nowhere in this world where you can go and find a community of Isaacarites,
because they were scattered into all nations some 2,700 years ago,
and they have assimilated into nations and just mixed with everybody,
and they've literally mixed with everybody.
I mean everybody.
We all got a little Issachar in us by now 2,700 years later,
because we're all mixed.
All humans are mixed.
We're all of one blood.
And if you don't believe me, watch our film, Marching to Zion,
where I prove that mathematically and with scripture.
So the bottom line is that if you're actually going to have 12,000 Gadites,
they must be from the Old Testament period when those tribes even existed.
Now, can you find 144,000 saved Israelites from these 12 tribes today?
Absolutely not.
But what if we took all of the history of Israel,
say from the time that the children of Israel went down into Egypt,
the 12 tribes went down into Egypt with 70 people,
then they left 400 years later with a couple million people.
So that's 400 years of history of the 12 tribes, you know, being 12 tribes.
Then we got 400 years of the judges,
and during the time of the judges, they were what?
Twelve tribes.
Then when you get into the time of Solomon and David and,
excuse me, Saul, David, and Solomon,
they're still broken into those 12 tribes.
Then when the kingdom splits in the days of Rehoboam,
you have the ten northern tribes and the two southern tribes.
You still have 12 distinct tribes.
And those 12 distinct tribes really remain somewhat intact
until the Assyrian captivity when ten of those tribes get decimated.
Now, you do have some refugees from the northern kingdom
that come down into the southern kingdom.
So you're going to have your token, Asherahite and Simeonite
in the southern kingdom.
But the southern kingdom that survived is primarily made of
the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi.
So that's why throughout the New Testament,
those are going to be the common people in the time of Christ.
There are going to be some people like the Apostle Paul that could say,
hey, I'm of the tribe of Benjamin.
I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
Yeah, you're going to have Judah, you're going to have Benjamin,
you're going to have Levi,
and then you're going to have a token, you know,
woman of Asherah in, what, Luke chapter 2.
You've got one token woman.
Because there were some refugees who came down in the days of Hezekiah
and Josiah and things like that.
But in general, those ten tribes had already been decimated,
not completely wiped out, but decimated, okay?
So they had been really whittled down.
Now, of course, the book of James says, oh, you know,
to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
So that shows that in the first century A.D., yeah,
you're still going to have some pockets of Reuben or Issachar or Gad
that are kind of hanging on.
But guess what?
That was 2,000 years ago.
So you can't point to James 1-1 as proof that those tribes exist today
because guess what?
Reality check, they don't.
And if so, tell me, where do they live?
Do they live in the United States?
Are they in Israel?
Are they in Brazil?
Where do we find them?
Nicaragua?
You know, do we go to Korea to find them?
Folks, they don't exist.
They do not exist.
Now, people, when they're preaching on end times prophecy,
you want to know what they typically will misquote this as?
144,000 Jews.
Is that what the Bible says?
In fact, we didn't read the word Jew at all, did we?
The word Jew is only found in the book of Revelation twice.
Chapter 2, synagogue of Satan.
They say they're Jews and they're not.
They're the synagogue of Satan.
Chapter 3.
Oh yeah, you know those people that say they're Jews and they're not but they're the synagogue
of Satan?
Only mention of Jews in the entire book of Revelation.
But I'm supposed to believe that, oh, Daniel's 70th week is all about the Jews and the tribulation
is all about the Jews and the end times.
God's going to go back to dealing with the Jews.
That's kind of funny because he wrote a whole book called Revelation and the only two times
he even says the word Jews is to say they're fake Jews.
They're fake Jews.
They're not real Jews.
They're fake.
They're white people who renounce Jesus Christ.
They have red hair and freckles.
They have blonde hair and blue eyes.
They left brown and came back white in 1948.
And the bottom line is that Jews are not what we're talking about.
We're talking about 12 tribes of Israel, 12,000 from each tribe.
Not just a bunch of Jews get saved in the end times and 12,000 of them are virgins times 12.
Yeah, good luck with that.
It's bizarre.
It's far-fetched.
It doesn't make any sense.
But you know what makes a lot of sense?
What makes a lot of sense is that God basically takes 12,000 from each tribe from the historical Israel.
They could be from the period of the Egyptian slavery.
They could be from the period of the judges.
They could be from the period of the monarchy.
12,000 from each literal tribe who were just godly men who basically lived for God and died.
And over history, over 1,000 years, you can find that.
You're not going to find that today living all at once.
You're not going to find any of that.
What about people who died as a child?
Some of these guys maybe even could have died as a child, died as an infant, died as a child,
died as a teenager, died as a young man, or just didn't get married for whatever reason.
Some people, they go through their life and they just stay single.
And marriage isn't for everybody.
It's for 99% of people.
But some people just don't want to get married, and that's OK.
And so these guys, they kind of got to miss out on that.
Because we all like being married and we like having a family.
And we don't want to be perennially single unless you're one of those special people that wants to.
But most of us don't want to live that lifestyle.
So these guys kind of missed out on something in life, didn't they?
But now they get to do something else super cool.
They get to be part of this group of the 144,000.
So what we've established is they're in heaven before the rapture.
The only way that you're in heaven before the rapture means that you're not a guy living on earth.
You're a guy from the Old Testament who died.
You've been in heaven for thousands of years, and now you're getting sealed and sent down to earth.
Now, it makes perfect sense, the timing of sealing the 144,000 and getting them ready to roll
right before the rapture, because if you think about it,
the only people that can get someone saved are other saved Christians.
It takes a saved person to get someone saved.
So, when all of the Christians are removed from this earth,
you know, how would anyone have any hope of being saved thereafter?
So you've got to replace, basically, Christians that are being removed with someone who can evangelize on this earth.
That's what I believe is the purpose of the 144,000.
Because if you're there in chapter 14, shortly after the 144,000 are talked about,
at the end of verse 5 it says, they're without fault before the throne of God.
And again, the only way to really be totally without fault is to be glorified and in heaven.
You know, you're not, you know, when I die and go to heaven, I'm not going to have the same faults that I have right now.
Because the faults I have right now are because I live in the flesh.
So the moment I die, even before the resurrection when just my soul is up in heaven, I'm going to be faultless at that point.
Okay, thank God.
But verse 6, look at the next verse, right after the 144,000 it says,
I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth,
and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
Let me ask you this, is God done giving people the gospel at the rapture?
No, because right, right at the moment that the rapture is about to happen a few verses later,
there's an angel that has the everlasting gospel for the express purpose of it being preached on the earth.
Who's going to preach it? The 144,000.
Now another thing that starts around the same time,
shortly before this actually, is the ministry of the two witnesses, right?
And so we've got the two witnesses.
A lot of people believe that it's Moses and Elijah.
It's possible that it's Moses and Elijah.
I would tend to lean toward that belief as well.
It could just be two other people.
But the two witnesses, if you're familiar with them from Revelation chapter 11,
they prophesy for 1,203 score days.
So they preach for three and a half years, second half of Daniel's 70th week,
most of which we're going to be gone for.
And so therefore, it makes sense that when we're removed,
the witness of the gospel continues through the two witnesses and the 144,000.
Now here's the thing about the two witnesses.
There's only two of them.
You know, and how much evangelizing can you really do with two people?
You're pretty limited, right?
Now the two witnesses seem to have a public ministry.
They have a very public ministry because the Bible says
they're tormenting everybody on the face of the earth.
Now why is everybody so tormented?
You know, I thought sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words can't hurt me.
Well, you know what?
To the godless, atheists, and the reprobates, you know,
Bible preaching is like nails on a chalkboard under them.
And so the two witnesses are going to be preaching for three and a half years,
and this hard preaching that they're going to be doing
is going to be very public.
It's obviously going to be going over the airwaves.
I don't know if it's going to be on TV, internet, or the metaverse or whatever,
but, you know, their preaching is going to go out in a very public way.
But let me tell you something.
Having two guys preaching publicly over the airwaves
is not going to get the job done to get the gospel out.
Let me ask you this.
Is that going to get the job done in 2021 to get the gospel out?
Is it enough to just put the sermon on YouTube
and we all just kind of go home and let it cook?
No.
No, what do we do?
We need to go one-on-one and preach the gospel to every creature.
Look, I've been soul winning since around my 17th birthday.
I'm 40 years old now, so I've been soul winning for, like,
23 years every week, okay?
And I've done both.
I've preached the gospel from the pulpit.
I've preached in nursing homes.
I've preached, you know, in public places to just groups of strangers,
like preaching to a group.
I've gone into, like, a school, right?
And, you know, Brother Raymond, right?
You know, going into, like, a school and preaching to a big crowd
of teenagers and adults.
And I've also done one-on-one soul winning.
And let me tell you something.
Talking to someone one-on-one is way more effective for getting people saved, period.
Period.
Hey, you know what?
Yeah, we can get people saved over the internet, preaching in a school,
preaching, you know, in a nursing home.
I believe that.
I believe that people come to church, they hear preaching, get saved.
I get it.
I'm for it.
But it's not the most effective way.
The most effective way is for you to walk up to somebody with your Bible
and actually have a conversation, actually have a dialogue with that person.
I can't even count how many times I've stood up in front of a group of strangers
and preached the gospel crystal clear.
I mean, just hammering it.
Just beating it, you know, into the ground as far as being thorough and clear
and then walking up to people after that sermon and saying, you know,
hey, do you know for sure you're going to heaven?
Yeah, I think I would.
I'm a pretty good person.
Where have you been for the last half hour?
Where were you?
Because I'm telling you there's something about having a conversation with someone
that's a little more effective at getting them saved.
And so, yeah, it's great that, you know,
the gospel's going to be going forth from the two witnesses.
They're probably also just going to be ripping a lot of face too,
not necessarily just the gospel.
You know, when I've typically been given the chance to do a live interview on TV
or a live interview on the radio,
I typically didn't have an opportunity to kind of go through the Romans road systematically.
You end up just kind of ripping some face because they want to basically
get you talking about certain subjects.
So, again, it's not the most effective format.
I'll try to slip in the gospel and John 3.16 is not works and Faith alone.
You know, you kind of plug it in, but typically it'll plant a seed.
It's typically not a clear enough gospel for somebody to really get all the way to the finish line
as far as salvation.
So I believe that that's where the 144,000 come in because there's 144,000 of them.
And not only that, right after the 144,000 are talked about,
it says, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth
to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
Now, every kindred, nation, tongue and people, you know,
you're going to need a lot of people speaking a lot of different languages.
And even going to the villages, because I mean some places you got to go to the village,
you got to go to small towns, because there are places like Papua New Guinea or something
where you've got a bunch of primitive people speaking very strange languages
and, you know, they're not necessarily plugged into the metaverse or whatever.
Okay.
They're not necessarily jacked into high speed internet and satellite TV in some of these places.
So I believe that the 144,000 are going to actually be able to talk to people one on one
and preach the gospel to them in all languages.
Sort of like at the day of Pentecost, you have the 12 apostles and the rest of the early church
and they're basically preaching the gospel to all nations in different tongues,
different languages in Acts chapter 2 to get the gospel out.
I believe that these 144,000 will replace us.
So you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you know, you preach on end times and, you know, it's all fine and dandy,
but what does this have to do with my life right now?
What do I do with this this week?
Well, here's what I take from this.
I take from this that, you know, it's going to take 144,000 red hot soul winners to evangelize this world.
It's not going to be done by one guy.
It's not going to be done by 20 people.
It's not even going to be done by 1,000 people.
To really do a thorough job, you need 144,000 red hot soul winners.
That's what God dishes up in the end times to evangelize this thing.
And so we need to be out there in numbers.
We need to be out there en masse winning people to Christ.
And so I hope that clears up a little bit about the 144,000.
And the reason that I love this subject of the 144,000 is it's kind of the last thing
that the dispensationalists and the Zionists are kind of hanging on to.
Like when you tell them, you know, game over for Israel.
It's game over for the Jews.
Insert shekel because it's game over.
Okay.
And then they're kind of like, well, no, I still think God's got something for them.
God's still got a plan for them.
And you're like, okay, well then how come the only time it says Jews
is to call them the synagogue of Satan?
Well, but it says Israel.
Okay, where?
Well, the 144,000.
You know, once you prove from the Bible that the 144,000 is Old Testament saints
because they come from the 12 tribes, now the so-called Israelis over there,
you know what they're like?
They're like Esau.
They're like, don't you have a blessing for me, my father?
Isn't anything else left?
And God's like, no, I already gave all the blessing to your brother, Christianity.
You know, your brother Jacob, your brother Christianity came in here
and he took all the blessings.
And Esau's like, bless me, my father, bless me.
And it's like, sorry, it's all gone.
There's nothing left.
And then what's Esau's reaction?
Let's kill Jacob.
You know, yeah, exactly.
That's why in the Book of Acts, what do we see happening?
The Jews want to kill the Christians.
I mean, I was just reading the Book of Acts over the last couple days
and it's like, man, the Jews want to kill Paul so bad.
And there's just, my favorite part of the Book of Acts is this huge group of guys.
I forget the number off the top of my head.
It was like 40 guys or 30 guys or something.
They're like, we're not going to eat or drink until we kill Paul.
And I'm just wondering, like, when did those guys actually finally eat and drink?
You know, so now they're bringing wrath on themselves by breaking their vow
because they make this stupid vow.
And then all of a sudden, you know, Paul's surrounded by 200 Roman troops.
So good luck killing him now.
We're not going to eat or drink until we kill Paul.
And then Paul gets guarded by 200 troops.
What now?
And it's like, he lives for years after that.
So that part always gives me a smile.
But anyway, that's why I love this doctrine because it just, it takes away that last.
And people are like, are you sure God doesn't have a plan for Israel in the end?
Yeah, he has a plan to punish them.
Yeah, they get their rear ends kicked at the midpoint of Daniel's 70th week.
They get desolated.
They, you know, the Antichrist turns on them and they get laid desolate.
They get wiped out.
They get killed.
They get punished.
Folks, they hate the Lord.
You know, if any man loved not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.
So that's what's going on in the end times.
So don't try to make revelation about Israel or the Jews
because guess what it's about?
It's about Christians.
And the only mention of the Jews is to warn you about them.
And the only mention of Israel is about Old Testament saints of Israel.
So if you're going to claim it's all about Israel,
you're just basically ignoring the book of Revelation, what it actually says,
where it's talking about all nations, all tongues, all kindreds, all tribes.
That's not Israel.
That's everybody.
And Christians are part of those groups of all nations, kindreds, tongues, tribes
because there are saved people in every nation under heaven.
So let me clear up another little bit of confusion from this chapter, okay?
So I hope we've settled things with the 144,000.
We have a grasp of that.
It makes sense.
Let's move forward.
Right after, I just mentioned this in verse 6,
I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach.
Now here's the thing about the everlasting gospel.
It's everlasting.
Believe it or not, it's everlasting.
Now why is that significant?
The everlasting gospel, it's always around.
Isn't that what that means?
So is this a temporary gospel for this period of time,
for this incident, or is this just kind of the everlasting gospel,
the one that's always around?
Now let me tell you something.
There's only one true gospel, one true gospel of Jesus Christ.
And the Bible says if anybody preaches another gospel, let him be accursed.
Though we are an angel from heaven, angel from heaven.
Preach any other gospel unto you, let him be accursed.
But yet the dispensationalists preach that this angel is preaching a different gospel
than the gospel we have.
He's preaching a different gospel, the gospel that's called the everlasting gospel.
Can I tell you something about the everlasting gospel?
It's the same gospel that we have right now, which is everlasting.
So it doesn't change over time.
If this angel is preaching another gospel, throw him into hell where he belongs.
Because the Bible says if anybody preaches another gospel, let him be accursed.
As I said before, so say I now again.
If any man preach any other gospel unto you, then that which we have preached unto you,
let him be accursed.
There is but one gospel.
Now here's how they're twisting this passage.
The Bible says that this angel has the everlasting gospel
to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, right?
Do you see that in verse 6?
The angel is flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel.
That's the gospel that's the same, it doesn't change, it lasts forever.
To preach to them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
Now, what is the angel saying in verse 7?
The angel is saying with a loud voice,
fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come
and worship him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters.
Let me explain to you what this verse does not say.
You know what it does not say in verses 6 and 7?
That what he said in verse 7, that's the everlasting gospel.
Is that what the verse says?
Does the verse say he had the everlasting gospel, which is?
No, it just says he has the everlasting gospel and here's what he says.
And guess what, those are not the same thing.
Because guess what, it's not good news that God's going to come kick the backside of the whole earth
and put everybody into a winepress of the wrath of God.
That's not exactly good news, which is what gospel means.
This guy has the everlasting gospel to preach to them,
but then he also makes an announcement of doom.
Now, typically when we go out soul winning,
we typically make some announcements of doom ourselves, don't we?
Because typically the first thing that we go over with people when we give them the gospel
is how we're all sinners and we all deserve to go to hell.
But is that the gospel?
So I tell somebody, hey, we're all sinners, we all deserve to go to hell,
and if you don't get saved, you're going to burn.
I have not delivered the gospel.
Because there's nothing good news about that, okay.
Now here's where people make the mistake.
People make the mistake of thinking that the gospel only consists of
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now, is the death, burial, and resurrection the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Amen.
The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
but it is not only the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That's why in Mark chapter 1, verse 1, guess what it says in Mark chapter 1, verse 1?
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Now, does Jesus get crucified in chapter 1?
So if Mark 1, 1 is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
apparently the gospel consists of a little more than just his death, burial, and resurrection.
It sounds like the whole book of Mark is called the gospel.
In fact, I have an idea.
Why don't we start calling the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
why don't we start calling the four gospels?
Oh, somebody already thought of that.
In fact, that's what they've been called our whole lives.
In fact, that's what they've been called for the last 2,000 years, the four gospels.
You know why they're called the four gospels?
Because the whole book of Matthew is the gospel.
The whole book of Mark is a gospel.
The whole book of Luke is the gospel, okay.
It's not just the death, burial, and resurrection.
Now, the crux of it, the key thing is that Jesus died for our sins according to the scripture
and he was buried and he rose again the third day according to the scripture
and was seen of witnesses afterward.
That's the crux, right?
Jesus died for us, he was buried, he rose again, and he was seen of all these resurrection witnesses.
You know, those components need to be there to call it the gospel.
If you leave that out, you haven't really given a complete gospel message.
But you know what?
What about when I talk about the birth of Christ?
Is that the gospel?
Yes, absolutely.
I mean, if I'm talking about the birth of Christ, I'm talking about the gospel.
I mean, think about how when the angels show up,
and don't say I don't preach about Christmas this time of year because I do.
Think about when the angels show up, what do they say?
I bring you good tidings.
Good tidings means gospel.
If you look up Isaiah 61.1, right, and see how it calls good tidings,
and then when Jesus quotes that, he says the gospel.
So the Bible uses interchangeably, you know,
how beautiful are the feet of them that preach glad tidings of good things,
how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel.
So the gospel is good news, glad tidings.
When the angels show up, they're preaching the gospel.
They're preaching glad tidings.
They're saying that unto you is born this day in the city of David,
a savior which is Christ the Lord.
They're preaching the gospel.
Now obviously that's not the whole message because obviously the death,
burial, and resurrection is the key component,
but of course that's not being revealed yet.
You know, that's revealed later.
Okay, that's not all being revealed in Luke chapter 1 and 2.
It's being alluded to but not in great detail.
Okay.
So we don't want to make the mistake of saying that the gospel
is only just the death, burial, and resurrection.
If we're talking about anything else, it's not the gospel.
Because then you start getting this wicked doctrine that says,
oh, there's multiple gospels and a different gospel for a different era.
That's what dispensationalism teaches.
You know, well, back then that was their gospel.
And listen to this wicked blasphemous statement
that fundamental Baptists who are dispensationalists
will often say this wicked blasphemous statement.
Well, the gospel Jesus preached is different than the gospel Paul preached.
Whoa, buddy.
That's so blasphemous and wrong.
Like I don't even know where to start with that.
You know what?
If that's true, then that would make Paul a false prophet.
If he's preaching a different gospel than what Jesus is preaching.
Now obviously he's using different words.
He's emphasizing different things.
He's approaching it from a different angle.
But at the end of the day, it's the everlasting gospel.
The gospel is the gospel, okay?
And you want to know what kind of a gospel that angel and the 144,000
and the two witnesses, I'll tell you what they're going to be preaching,
salvation by faith in Jesus.
I mean, if people are going to get saved during the end times,
they're going to get saved through faith in Jesus.
They're going to get saved by believing in Jesus.
And you know, the message is going to be, hey, Jesus died for his sins
according to the scriptures.
It's not going to be fear God and give glory to him for the time of his wrath has come.
Until next time, kids, that's not the whole thing.
That's not what they're going to be preaching.
They're going to be preaching the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ,
salvation by faith.
You know, they're going to be preaching that it's not of works,
lest any man should boast.
They're going to be preaching about Christ.
Look, the birth of Christ is part of the gospel, okay?
The fact that Jesus went about doing good is part of the gospel.
The fact that Jesus is the sinless son of God is part of the gospel, okay?
Jesus at the Last Supper, that's part of the gospel, you know?
The death, burial, and resurrection is obviously the crux of the gospel
and the resurrection witnesses.
But at the end of the day, the entire story of Jesus is the gospel.
All of it.
It's all good news, right?
When Jesus is born, that's good news.
You know, the Savior is born.
It's exciting and it's good news.
It's the gospel.
It's not a different gospel.
It's just a different angle or aspect or component of the gospel.
So don't let them twist scripture here that,
well, this angel, he's just making this one statement.
He just says this one sentence and that's this new gospel
called the everlasting gospel.
It's bogus.
How in the world could that statement, just everybody,
just pay attention real quick for one second.
If you don't get anything else tonight, get this.
How can the everlasting gospel be the hour of his judgment is come?
That sounds like he's going to stop being relevant at some point,
that particular statement.
Am I right?
The everlasting gospel is the hour of his judgment is come.
You know, that's a short-lived message.
So are you telling me you're going to pull that out 500 years
into the millennium?
Hey, let me give you the everlasting gospel.
This statement has an expiration date on it big time.
So guess what it's not.
You want to know what it's not?
It's not the everlasting gospel.
The angel has the everlasting gospel and it makes a statement.
That is a different separate statement.
The Bible doesn't just decide to just repeat the gospel.
You know, I guess John could have just inserted 1 Corinthians 15 here
or something or insert the book of Mark here.
But he didn't.
He just assumes you know what the gospel is and says, hey, you know,
there's going to be gospel preaching going on to every nation and kindred.
Even after the rapture, the gospel is being preached on the earth.
144,000 people are going to be on this earth to do it.
It doesn't feel the need to sit there, okay, insert the gospel of John here.
You know, he already wrote that.
It's like, it's just a footnote.
You know, see John chapter 1 through chapter 21, okay.
So don't let anybody twist that scripture.
So let's move on.
So in verse 6, we see the everlasting gospel.
Verse 7, we have this warning.
Verse 8, it says, there followed another angel saying, Babylon has fallen,
has fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine
of the wrath for fornication.
And the third angel followed them saying with a loud voice,
if any man worship the beast in his image and receive his mark and his forerunner
and his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, etc.
Let's come back to that.
So we have these three announcements.
Fear God and give glory to him for the time of his wrath has come.
Another announcement says Babylon has fallen, has fallen, that great city,
she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of fornication.
And then the last statement is, you know, warning, hey,
if you take the mark of the beast, you're going to burn in hell forever.
And the smoke of the torments ended up day and night and have no rest and all that.
Now, a lot of people will mistakenly believe that this is the point in the timeline
when Babylon actually gets destroyed.
Now, the problem with that is that we have two entire chapters
devoted to the destruction of Babylon in chapters 17 and 18.
And those verses make it very clear that it happens
after the seventh vial of God's wrath is poured out at the very end.
Because when the seventh vial is poured out,
great Babylon comes in remembrance before God
to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Okay.
What we're seeing in chapter 14 is simply an overview
of everything that is going to happen during the wrath being poured out.
Okay.
One of those things is that Babylon's going to be destroyed.
It doesn't happen in this moment.
This is just one verse, and I'm going to explain the wording of the verse in a moment.
But I want you to see that basically these are the things that are going to happen
after the rapture is that Babylon's going to get destroyed,
but that's at the very end.
That's the last thing.
It's literally the last thing before Armageddon.
But also you have this winepress of the wrath of God.
Now, what is this winepress of the wrath of God?
I believe that this is a reference to the entire period of God's wrath.
It's just symbolically the earth is being punished.
So wicked people are being thrown into the winepress of the wrath of God.
Now, here's how a winepress works.
Basically, people step on grapes.
So you put a bunch of grapes into a container,
and people are just, you know, going like,
going like, Father Abraham had many sons.
And they're basically treading the grapes.
And, you know, they still do this in certain parts of the world.
There are traditional winemakers in countries like Georgia and Armenia,
and, you know, they will step on grapes the old-fashioned way
and make wine in that way.
So that's what it means when it talks about the winepress
or treading the winepress.
But you know who treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God?
Jesus.
Okay, so basically, you know, the winepress of the wrath of God,
it's the wrath of the Lamb.
Okay, so basically what you have is just this idea of
the entire world's going into a period of wrath.
We get the details on that wrath in chapters 15 and 16,
and then we deal with Babylon in 17 and 18.
But this is the overview saying the world's heading toward a period of wrath.
Now, this is obviously not literal.
There's not a literal winepress.
God's not literally depositing humans into a winepress
and someone's stepping on them until their blood comes out.
But it's symbolic of the fact that they're being crushed by God.
Okay.
But then there's actually a quantity that's put on this.
And, man, I remember when I was a kid,
preachers used to really talk about this.
You don't really hear preachers talk about it that much these days, it seems like.
When I was a kid, man, people liked to preach on this verse, 1420.
The winepress was trodden without the city and blood came out of the winepress
even unto the horse bridles by the space of 1,600 furlongs.
Now, what is a furlong?
A furlong is an eighth of a mile.
So in Phoenix, Arizona, if we go from Central Avenue to 48th Street,
our church is on 48th Street here,
Central Avenue to 48th Street is 48 furlongs.
Because each block in Phoenix is an eighth of a mile.
So, you know, sometimes I'll be measuring distances that way in Phoenix.
Like, what avenue are we on?
Go into what street?
Do the math.
How many furlongs?
Eight furlongs in a mile.
Okay.
So when the Bible says here that there are 1,600 furlongs,
you take 1,600 furlongs and divide it by eight and you get 200 miles.
Now, imagine a river of blood.
Think about this now.
A river of blood 200 miles long that goes up to the horse bridles.
So think about how tall a horse is.
Okay.
How high is the bridle of the horse off the ground?
Now, I'm not really a horse guy.
I'm not really an expert on horses.
But, I mean, somebody helped me out who's a horse person.
Aren't you kind of pretty much looking face to face at horses?
Am I right about that or are they way taller than us or something?
Kind of face.
You know, I mean, just roughly am I way off base with that or am I okay with that?
To say, hey, horses are kind of like right up at my face level approximately.
Does that sound about right?
So wouldn't it be fair to say up to the horse bridle we're talking five,
six feet off the ground or something?
Okay.
So imagine a river of blood 200 miles long, five or six feet deep.
Meaning that if you cross this river of blood, because why use a horse bridle?
Why not tell us in cubits?
The idea is that if you brought a horse into this river,
because think about when you cross rivers on a horse,
you've seen videos or maybe you've experienced crossing a river on a horse
and they'll be up to a certain point and let's say their bridle is right in the water.
That's the magnitude of river that we're talking about, a river of blood.
Does everybody get what we're saying?
200 miles long.
Now, this is not a literal river.
This river does not exist.
This river will never exist.
Okay.
Just like there's no literal wine press of the wrath of God
and Jesus is not literally stepping on people and blood's not literally coming out.
But the Bible is not just blowing smoke at you either, is it?
The reason the Bible says that blood flowed out of the wine press in a river 200 miles long
where if a horse crossed that river, its bridle would be dipping in the blood.
So we're talking about water that's maybe five feet deep
or even maybe even a little deeper than that but something like five feet deep
is to give you an idea of the quantity of people that will die when God's wrath is poured out.
How many people's blood will be spilled?
Well, if you were to quantify the number of people whose blood will be spilled
and you were to put it in a river, this is what that river would be like.
Does everybody understand that?
Because you think God's just making things up here like 1,600 furlongs.
Depth, horse bridle.
No, no, no.
You know, God is the great mathematician up in heaven.
Amen.
God is the expert physicist.
He's the expert mathematician.
He has calculated this and he knows exactly how many people are going to be destroyed
in the end times, how much bloodshed there's going to be
and he looks at that and he does a quick math calculation
because, you know, he did it in eternity.
It's such a fast processor that basically he just quantifies.
You want to know the magnitude of the death that's going to happen
during the pouring out of God's wrath?
This is the amount of blood that we're talking about.
Just to give you an idea.
Now why is that important?
Well, you know, there goes preterism out the window
because you think this amount of blood was spilled in the first century A.D.?
Oh, you know, that was all fulfilled back in the first century.
The Romans destroyed Jerusalem and, you know, revelation happened back then.
You know, that's what the partial preterists or full preterists would say.
But let me tell you something.
This kind of quantity of bloodshed just simply didn't happen.
I'm telling you in the end times there is going to be an unprecedented pouring out of God's wrath on this earth.
Unlike anything the world has ever seen.
And this quantity of blood will be spilled.
It's not going to be all in one place forming a literal river.
But if you were to gather it all into a river, this is what that river would be like.
So the picture of the wrath that's going to be poured out over roughly the course of about three and a half years,
a little less than three and a half years.
Here's the magnitude we're talking about.
Does that give you a little bit of a ballpark of what we're talking about?
A 200 mile river of blood that horses could cross up to their horse bridles?
That's incredible.
That's amazing.
And so we don't want to miss that powerful verse.
So that is the pouring out of God's wrath.
Let's just quickly look at one last thing and then I'll be done.
Just to kind of round out this chapter.
We jumped around a little bit in this chapter, but we pretty much covered the main points of this chapter tonight.
Verse 9, it says, and the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if any man...
I'm sorry.
We're going to skip that point.
And here's why.
Because I'm running out of time and we need to talk about Babylon has fallen.
That's going to take priority.
Because we need some other hell sermon where we can just really go to town on verses 10 and 11 anyway, right?
Amen?
So that'll be a hell sermon coming to a pulpit near you.
But let's talk about Babylon has fallen.
Because people, let's close out with this.
This will be the final point.
You know, people get confused, right?
Like, why does it say Babylon has fallen in chapter 14 if Babylon doesn't actually fall until chapter 18 at the end of God's wrath being poured out?
It's clearly after the seventh vial.
Because in chapter 16, the seventh vial is poured out and then great Babylon comes in remembrance before God to give under her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
So God basically says, like, oh, you know, here I have been pouring out wrath.
There's one more thing I need to do.
Babylon.
Let's not forget about Babylon.
I'll tell you why.
Chapter 14 is simply predicting the downfall of Babylon.
Now, let me prove this to you from scripture.
Go back, if you would, to Jeremiah chapter 51.
Because what you have to understand is that this quote, Babylon is fallen, is actually a quote from the Old Testament.
And it's a quote from Isaiah and it's also a quote from Jeremiah.
Now, if you want to know about the destruction of Babylon, the best verses to read about it in the Old Testament are Jeremiah chapters 50 and 51.
They're all about Babylon.
Jeremiah 50 and 51.
And then you've got some stuff in Isaiah, Isaiah 13, and elsewhere.
But I want to read for you a verse from Isaiah.
And what you have to understand is that the book of Isaiah is written long before the fall of Babylon.
Okay?
It's nowhere near the fall of Babylon in history.
Okay?
And this is from Isaiah 21 verse 9.
It says, he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen.
It's an exact quote.
Even the two is fallen.
Babylon is fallen, is fallen.
And all the graven images of her gods he had broken under the ground.
Let me ask you something.
When Isaiah preached that in chapter 21, had Babylon been destroyed yet?
Or is he predicting the destruction?
But he's still using the present tense, you know, Babylon the great is fallen.
That's a pronouncement of future doom in its original use in Isaiah 21.
Now let's look at Jeremiah, which is also long before the fall of Babylon.
Okay?
As far as when this prophecy was preached.
If we go to chapter 51 of Jeremiah and look at say verse 8, what does it say?
Babylon is suddenly fallen.
Now again, same wording, Babylon is fallen.
You know, in Isaiah it was the exact wording.
Babylon is fallen, is fallen.
Here we have Babylon is suddenly fallen.
And again, this is not after it had happened or during it.
This is long before.
To get the context, we can go to the end of Jeremiah and get the context.
It says in verse 60 of Jeremiah 51, so Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come
upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.
So Jeremiah wrote down everything in chapter 50 and chapter 51.
He wrote it all down on a scroll in verse 60.
Jeremiah said to Sariah, when thou comest to Babylon and shalt see and shalt read all
these words, then shalt thou say, oh Lord, thou spokest against this place, to cut it
off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate
forever.
And it shall be when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind
a stone to it and cast it into the river Euphrates, and thou shalt say, thus shall Babylon sink
and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her.
And they shall be weary, thus far are the words of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah chapter 52
is not written by Jeremiah, that's why it says thus far are the words of Jeremiah, and
then it basically imports a chapter from 2 Kings, giving you the downfall of Jerusalem
again, other than the earlier Jeremiah description.
So, what do we see here?
The context is that chapters 50 and 51 are written on a scroll that's read out loud by
this guy, Sariah.
Verse 59 says that he went with Zedekiah to Babylon, so this is toward the beginning
of the Babylonian captivity, at least early in the 70 years of captivity, Zedekiah and
this guy, oh you're going to Babylon?
Well here, let me write down some preaching for you to do while you're there.
Jeremiah sends it with him, Sariah publicly reads a pronouncement that says Babylon is
fallen, and the whole two chapters, 50 and 51, then he ties it to a rock and throws it
in the river and somebody yells, you know, wait, I wanted to read that again, and it
says nope, goes to the river and he says, hey, thus shall Babylon sink and shall not
rise again.
So again, the statement Babylon is fallen is fallen, if we compare scripture with scripture,
doesn't have to say that it's happening right now, it can also be a prediction of the
doom, and in chapter 14 we're getting an overview, hey, the whole world's heading
into the winepress of the wrath of God, it's going to be blood like a river, and by the
way, Babylon is fallen as well, you know, you that put your hope or trust in Babylon
to save you, well guess what, Babylon's going down too.
That's what we're talking about here.
So anyway, I hope that tonight's sermon cleared up a few things about chapter 14,
wonderful chapter, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you that we are not appointed
to wrath, and that we've been saved from the wrath to come, Lord, we thank you for
salvation through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and Lord, I pray that we would get
as many people saved as we can so that they will not experience the unparalleled wrath
of the Lamb during these end times, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen, take your hymnals please, we'll be dismissed in singing number 421.
4, 2, 1, the first snow well, number 421.
421.
The first snow well the angels did say,
Lots of certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay,
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel,
And by the light of that same star,
We wise men came from country far,
To see for a King was there in sight,
And to follow the star wherever it went,
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel,
This star to nigh till the North West,
O Bethlehem it took its rest,
And there it did close up and stay,
Right over the place where Jesus lay,
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel,
And in turning those wise men free,
Old Reverend here upon their knee,
And over there in his presence,
Their gold and her and frankincense,
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.
Thank you for watching!