All that to say this, if you look at the book of Revelation, the first 11 chapters, they
follow a chronology that makes perfect sense.
You start out around the time of Christ as far as the same century as Christ.
Then you get into the events of the future, the tribulation, then the rapture, then God
pouring out his wrath.
And then when that seventh trumpet sounds in chapter 11, there's kind of a finality
where he says, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of
his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever.
But what's interesting is when you get to the end of chapter 11 and you have that finality
at the end, well then you get into chapter 12 and there's a major gear change in the
book of Revelation here.
Because look at verse number 1 of chapter 12 that we just looked at.
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 pained 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 did 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 pay close attention to verse 5, and 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 obviously that child is Jesus Christ because in the Old Testament and the New Testament,
the Bible talks about Jesus Christ ruling this earth with a rod of iron, and it's referring
to his millennial reign that's coming in the future.
So when we're reading the book of Revelation, we get to the end of chapter 11, there's a
finality there of the seventh trumpet, and it's all over type of a thing.
And then when you get into chapter 12, all of a sudden you're back at the birth of Christ
because this is recording Jesus Christ being born in Revelation 12.5.
And then as you move forward, you start to replay all the same events that we saw in
Revelation 1-11.
Now this has led some misguided souls to actually believe that the events of the tribulation
and God's wrath actually take 14 years, because you know it's a seven year period, roughly
the first half of that is the tribulation, and then after the rapture God pours out his
wrath, all that adds up to seven years according to the Bible.
And so some people, they don't quite understand this, they think that these events are all
happening again.
But it's not the case.
He starts over in chapter 12 and he starts to replay the same events.
Chapter 13, the tribulation.
Chapter 14, the rapture.
Chapters 15 and 16 deal with his wrath.
And you see the same thing playing out again.
So really the best way that I could help you understand the book of Revelation is just
to tell you, just cut it in half.
Right at chapter 1-11 on one half, 12-22 as the other half, and then if you put those
halves side by side, you'll see the same events from two different angles.
You say, why would God do that?
Why would God tell the same story twice in the book of Revelation?
Well why did he tell us the Gospel story four times in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?
Why did he give us the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, but then he also gave us
first and second Chronicles to give us another angle, another perspective.
And we can learn a lot from comparing the book of the Kings with the books of the Chronicles
or comparing Matthew to Mark and Mark to Luke and Luke to John.
And these give us different perspectives.
Well that's the same way that we understand the book of Revelation.
That will help you understand the book of Revelation when you understand that chronology.
Now some people think Revelation is not in chronological order at all.
But the word after this, the term after this or the term after these things occurs ten
times in the book of Revelation.
And so if we see over and over again after this, after these things, God's giving us
an order of events here.
And so if you get the idea that it's chronological but it starts over again in chapter 12, that
will help you understand.
Now when I usually preach about the subject of the tribulation and the rapture, I usually
focus on the first half of Revelation.
And the reason I do that is because the first half I think is a little bit clearer and a
little bit easier to understand.
The second half is a little bit more symbolic.
But I've preached a lot more on the first half so tonight I want to preach a little
bit on the second half and show you some things in the second half because I think it will
help you understand the events that may take place very soon, maybe in our lifetime.
We will see these events begin to come to pass.
And so I want to just go through just a couple of chapters here starting in chapter 12 and
show you the order of events of the end times and what we're going to be seeing here very
shortly.
We may be alive.
It may be beyond our lifetime.
This could happen 100 years from now.
We might all be gone.
But I think it's very likely that it will happen in the near future.
In fact, I would be shocked if these things did not happen at least in my lifetime.
If I live out my normal lifespan.
You know, I'm 31 years old and I'd be shocked if this doesn't happen in the next 40 years.
At the speed at which things are going right now, I'd be surprised if this doesn't happen
in the next 40 years.
And when I start to get into the message tonight, I think you'll understand a little bit why
I say that.
But let's start out in chapter 12 because this is a starting over of the book of Revelation.
We saw in verse 5 the birth of Jesus Christ.
Keep in mind there's a lot of symbolism here because look at the first verse of chapter
12.
There appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun.
That's not really literal is it?
Can a woman really put on clothing?
Can she really have the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of 12 stars?
Obviously this is a little bit symbolic here.
And so this woman gives birth unto a child and we know from verse 5 that child is the
Lord Jesus Christ.
It says she brought forth a man child, verse 5, who was to rule all nations with a rod
of iron and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne.
And the woman fled into the wilderness where she had the place prepared of God that they
should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days.
That comes out to roughly three and a half years.
And 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 them.
I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom
of our God and the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which
accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony and
they loved not their lives unto the death.
Therefore rejoice ye heavens and ye that dwell in them.
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea for the devil is come down unto you
having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
So what do we see here?
There's war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and the dragon fought in his angels
and the Bible teaches that the devil loses this battle, he loses this war in heaven.
And because he loses the battle, he and his angels, which here it shows it's one third
of the angels, they are cast down unto the earth.
Basically this is Satan being cast out of heaven.
Now you say, wait a minute Pastor Anderson, hasn't that already happened?
Many people even teach that this happened even before the Garden of Eden.
They teach that Satan was already cast out of heaven even before the events of the Garden
of Eden took place.
But that's not true at all because if you remember, in the book of Job, the devil comes
and stands before God and has a conversation with God in heaven about his servant Job.
You remember that?
And what does he do?
He begins to accuse Job, remember?
He says well, and I'm just paraphrasing, but he says well the only reason that Job is serving
you is because you've done so much for him, you've blessed him.
As soon as you put forth your hand now and do anything to harm him, you know, if you
were to cause him to lose his wealth or his health, he'll curse you to your face.
And he accused Job before God like that.
And isn't that exactly what the Bible says that the devil does in Revelation chapter
12 here?
It says in verse number 10, toward the end of the verse, for the accuser of our brethren
is cast down which accused them before our God day and night.
So in the days of Job, and even at this time, the devil day and night accuses us before
God.
Isn't that an interesting thought?
I mean the devil's in heaven accusing us and talking bad about us before God.
But thank God the Bible says in 1 John chapter 2, he says, my little children, these things
write I unto you that you sin not.
But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
So it kind of paints an interesting picture here because the accuser, if you go to court,
the accuser would be called what in our day?
The prosecutor, right?
And what would our advocate, if we brought an advocate with us, who would he be?
Like a defense attorney, right?
So isn't that interesting?
It's almost like a courtroom where God's the judge and Satan is the prosecutor, you know,
bringing all of our sins to remembrance and bringing out all the failures of our life
and bringing out all the bad things we've done.
And let's face it, we've all done bad things, we've all failed, we've all sinned, we've
all come short of the glory of God.
And the devil is there as a prosecuting attorney.
And you know, I've been to court and the prosecutor kind of reminded me of the devil a little
bit, but anyway, I kind of looked at him that way, but anyway the prosecutor is like the
devil, you know, he's accusing us, he's bringing all these crimes against us, and then our
defense attorney, Jesus Christ, he steps in to defend us.
He steps in to plead for us, like a courtroom, isn't that amazing?
And of course you say, well good night, what kind of evidence is he going to bring to the
table?
It's his blood, it's his substitutionary death that will basically shut the mouth of Satan
because we're justified freely by his grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus.
It's almost like, you know, if we were in court and the defense attorney filed a motion
and said, you know, your honor, the prosecutor is bringing all these charges, but your honor,
these crimes have already been punished.
We have a thing in our country called double jeopardy where you can't be tried for the
same crime twice, once it's been tried it can't be tried again, you can't be punished
again for the crime that you've already been punished for.
You know, Jesus basically files a motion for us in that courtroom and says, hey, I've already
paid the price, I've already been punished, I've already taken the blame.
So that's just an interesting dynamic here about Satan accusing the brethren before God
day and night, and the reason that I know this hasn't happened yet, first of all it
definitely hadn't happened in Job's day, because he was still doing it in Job's day.
But you say, well how do you know it still hasn't happened?
Well because the Bible is clear that when the devil is cast out of heaven that he knows
that he has just a short time, and he's very angry, he's cast out and he has great wrath
because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Now people might say, oh this happened at the time of Christ, at the time of Christ
that's when Satan was cast down.
Well that's not a very short time, because that was already almost 2,000 years ago.
That's not a very short time, number one.
But number two, the Bible gives us some numbers about what he means by that, a short time.
He says here in verse 13, when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted
the woman which brought forth the man child, and to the woman were given two wings of a
great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness into her place.
Again very symbolic here.
Where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the face of the serpent.
Now you say time and times and half a time, how long is that?
Well if you compare that a little bit earlier, remember we read in verse 6 where it said
that they should feed her there 1,203 score days?
Well that adds up to three and a half years.
So if you take a time, times and a half a time, isn't that three and a half?
Because the time would be one, times would be two more, that makes three and a half a
time, that's three and a half.
And so this time period that is coming up is three and a half years, or 1,260 days.
So we're not talking about thousands of years, are we?
No, we're talking about finite short amounts of time here.
And that's why it says he has great wrath, because he knows that he hath a short time.
Now you say, what's going on where the serpent is persecuting this woman, and he's trying
to attack this woman, and she's fleeing into the wilderness, what is this about serpent
and the woman?
Go back to Genesis 3, keep your finger here in Revelation chapter 12.
And go back to Genesis 3, because in the question on your mind, who is this woman?
Who is this woman?
Now remember, it's very symbolic.
She was clothed with the sun, she had the moon under her feet, and she had a crown of
twelve stars.
She's a sign that's appearing in heaven.
She's shown basically giving birth to Christ, and Christ ascends up to the throne of God
and so forth.
But look at Genesis 3, this might help you to understand a little bit.
The Bible says in verse 14, this is of course in the Garden of Eden, the Lord God said unto
the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days
of thy life, and I will put enmity, what does enmity mean?
Enmity comes from the same root word as our word enemy.
He says I'll put enmity between thee and who?
Now isn't that kind of what we see in Revelation 12?
Basically the serpent persecuting the woman, the serpent seeking to destroy the woman.
And it says here he would put enmity between thee, between who?
The serpent and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.
Now let me ask you this, does the devil have seed?
It says here that he'll put enmity between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed.
So does the devil have seed?
Absolutely.
Doesn't the Bible tell us about the children of the wicked one?
The children of the devil?
Remember what Jesus said in John chapter 8, year of your father the devil?
So are there people on this earth whose father is the devil?
Remember the parable of the tares in Matthew chapter 13 when the householder, he sowed
good seed in the field, but while men slept an enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat.
Tares are weeds.
Can you imagine someone having a field and they have an enemy and their enemy wants to
get retaliation against them, wants to retaliate and wants to take vengeance.
So they say you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to go to his nice wheat field and I'm going to sow a bunch of weeds in that
field just to ruin his crop, just to destroy his harvest.
Isn't that what the parable of the tares is about?
When Jesus interpreted that parable, and I'm going to read it for you because this is going
to be significant just a little bit later in the sermon, in Matthew chapter 13, you
don't have to turn there, but when Jesus interpreted that parable of the tares, he said in verse
38, the field is the world.
That field where the man sowed good wheat, that's the world.
He said in verse 38, the good seed are the children of the kingdom.
That's those who are saved, the children of God.
But the tares are the children of the wicked one.
So we do see the seed of the serpent there, the children of the wicked one, the sons of
the devil.
He says, the enemy that sowed them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.
So in Genesis chapter 3, we see that there is enmity between the woman and the serpent,
and between the woman's seed and the serpent's seed.
Who are the serpent's seed according to the Bible?
The children of the wicked one, the children of the devil, the children of the saved.
You say, is that every unsaved person?
No, no.
It's not every unsaved person, but it is those who the Bible teaches have become reprobate.
It is those who have completely gotten on board with Satan.
They have completely and finally rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, because the Bible talks
about how the Jews were of their father, the devil, and he told them that they would never
be saved.
He told them that they had no forgiveness in this world or in the world to come, and
their hearts had been blinded, their hearts had been hardened, it was too late for them,
and that's in John chapter 12, I don't have time to turn there.
But those that are reprobate, and if you remember he talked about them come passing sea and
land and making proselytes, and he said when they've made them, they've made them twofold
more the child of hell as yourselves.
So they not only were preaching a gospel that couldn't save, but they're actually bringing
damnation by making people twofold more a child of hell.
And I've done whole sermons where I go into, you know, the children of the devil, and you
know, here's another term that's used for this, the sons of Belial, do you remember
that term?
Belial, think about the word Belial, Baal, Beelzebub, do you see how these words are
all from the same root?
Satan is Baal or Belial or Beelzebub in the Bible, and I'm here to tell you that there
are sons of Belial on this earth, just like all throughout the Old Testament, you know,
these certain sons of Belial, and if you remember the Sodomites in Judges chapter 19, they were
called sons of Belial, okay?
And on and on throughout the Bible we see the concept of these reprobates, these sons
of Belial, these children of Satan, these children of the devil, they are the children
of the wicked one.
The reason that they are the tares amongst the wheat also is because the Bible talks
about how they'll creep in many times, as of Judas Iscariot, who was called the son
of perdition, similar terminology.
So look down, are you still there in Genesis 3?
It says, I'll put enmity, verse 15, between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed, it shall bruise thy head.
Now what's the it there?
That's the seed of the woman.
It, because he's talking about the two seeds, it shall bruise thy head, and who's he talking
to?
He's saying that basically the seed of the woman will bruise the head of Satan, and then
it says, and thou, talking to the serpent, shall bruise his heel.
So he's saying that the seed of the woman will bruise Satan's head, and that Satan would
bruise the heel, but notice it says shall bruise his heel.
So here the seed of the woman is singular, his, his is a singular word isn't it?
And it says in verse 16, unto the woman he said, I'll greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception and on and on, talks about her bringing forth children.
So with that in mind, go back to Revelation 12.
Who is the seed of Satan?
That's the children of the devil, the sons of Belial, the children of the wicked one.
Who is the seed of the woman?
Well if we remember, the woman brought forth a man-child in chapter 5.
That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the Lord Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman.
He's the son of man, he was born of a woman, was he not?
And again this woman is symbolic, not a literal woman wearing the sun as clothing.
This woman is symbolic, this woman brought forth Jesus Christ, and this is all tied in
with what we saw in Genesis 3.
Go to verse 17, and remember the devil has come down to the earth, he's been cast out
of heaven, he has great wrath, that means great anger, because he knoweth that he hath
but a short time.
Look at verse 17, and the dragon was wroth, wroth is related to the word wrath, it means
angry.
The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed.
Now who is this remnant of the seed of the woman?
Which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Now this remnant of the seed of the woman, and who are we talking about when we're talking
the seed of the woman?
I mean basically we're talking about human beings obviously that are born of women.
Remember among them that are born of a woman?
There has not risen a greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least
in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
But here he says that these are the remnant of the woman's seed, not all the woman's seed,
the remnant of the woman's seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony
of Jesus Christ.
You want to know how to make the devil really mad?
You want to know how to make the devil angry with you and hate you?
Have the testimony of Jesus Christ and then keep God's commandments.
If you do those two things, the devil is going to attack you more than anyone else.
Do you see that?
It's not just those that have the testimony of Jesus Christ that he hates, he hates the
ones that keep the commandments of God also.
And if you do those two things, if you're saved, that's the testimony of Jesus Christ,
and you keep the commandments of God, boy the devil hates you, he's angry at you, he
wants to destroy you, he wants to attack you, and that's what we see here.
Now many people will try to say, the woman here is the nation of Israel, the Jewish people.
Now here's the problem with that.
Were the Jewish people in the Garden of Eden?
Had the man Israel even been born?
He wasn't going to be born for thousands of years.
This is a struggle that predates the nation of Israel and the Jewish people, does it not?
This is a struggle between the serpent and the woman that goes back to the Garden of
Eden.
So this struggle is far greater than just the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, and
so forth.
No, it's about the people who believe in Christ and keep God's commandments.
Now, just a quick review, and I'm going to tie this in.
The devil, what we started out in this chapter is the birth of Christ.
Then we saw that after that there was a war in heaven where the devil was cast out of
heaven and when he gets to the earth he knows he only has a short time so he's very angry
and he has great wrath.
He goes to persecute and to make war with, the Bible used the word to make war with in
verse 17, the remnant of the woman's seed which keep the commandments of God and have
the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Everybody follow that?
Look at chapter 13.
Here's where that war begins because in verse 17 he's going out to make war.
How's he going to do it?
How is the devil going to make war with the believers?
Look at chapter 13 verse 1, I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out
of the sea having seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten crowns and upon his
heads the name of blasphemy and the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard and his
feet were as the feet of a bear and his mouth as the mouth of a lion and the dragon gave
him his power and his seat and great authority.
So this beast that's described, the Bible says the dragon is the one who gave him his
power and gave him his seat and gave him his authority.
Look at verse 3, and I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death and his deadly
wound was healed and all the world wondered after the beast and they worshiped the dragon
which gave power unto the beast and they worshiped the beast saying, who is like unto the beast?
Who is able to make war with him?
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies and power was
given unto him to continue forty and two months.
Now does forty and two months kind of ring a bell with time and times and half a time
and twelve hundred and sixty days?
See how these things all kind of tie in?
He says in verse 6, and he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his
name and his tabernacle and then the dwell in heaven.
Watch this, verse 7, here's the key, and it was given unto him to make war with the saints.
Now didn't we see in chapter 12 verse 17, the dragon's goal was to make war with those
who believe in Christ and keep the commandments of God.
Here he says it was given unto him to make war with the saints.
Watch this, to overcome them.
Who's going to win in this war between the saints and the devil on this earth?
The devil.
He said he's going to make war with the saints and overcome them.
You say, well that's depressing.
Well, just read to the end of the book and you'll see what happens, you'll see who wins
in the end.
This is just a temporary setback in chapter 13.
But he says in verse 7, it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome
them and power was given unto him over all kindreds and tongues and nations and all that
dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life
of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
So this man that's called the beast, this man who has power over all nations, all kindreds,
all tongues, his goal is to make war with the saints and the Bible says that everyone
on the earth will worship him.
Wait a minute, no it doesn't.
It says everyone on the earth will worship him whose names are not written in the book
of life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
So let me ask you this, are those whose names in the book of life, are they worshipping
him?
No.
So is there somebody who's not worshipping him?
Oh yeah.
Guess who it is?
The saints.
The saints are not worshipping him.
The saints are who he's making war with.
This man, because he is called a man, he is called the man of sin, he is called by these
personal pronouns in this chapter, he, him, his, okay?
This man will have power over all tongues and kindreds and nations.
So let me just tie it all together for you quickly and we'll move forward.
Satan is cast out of heaven.
He knows he has a short time.
He goes to make war against the believers and the saints and what does he do?
He does it by putting a man in power, doesn't he?
The dragon gave him his power.
He puts a man in power over the entire world, over every kindred and every tongue, and this
man will carry out the devil's war against the saints.
Everybody understand so far?
He'll do it through this man.
This man is obviously in the Bible known as the Antichrist.
You say where's that term found?
Well the term Antichrist is only found in the books of 1 John and 2 John.
But it's talking about the same teaching here.
He's also called the man of sin, the son of perdition, the beast of the sea.
He's called all these different things.
But this man will have power over all of the world, every country, every nation.
You say how can that be?
Because just because the United States maybe agrees to put this guy in power, is Iran going
to agree with it?
Is China going to agree with that?
Is Russia going to agree with that?
Well wait a minute.
In order for this man to take power, there's going to have to be a government that's a
global government.
It's a world government, right?
In order to give all the power to one man, there's going to be a global government, a
world government.
So you say Pastor Anderson, what's the first thing that's going to happen?
You know, and people say it's going to happen in our lifetime or it's going to happen, okay
let's say it did happen in our lifetime.
What's the first thing that's going to happen?
Well the first thing that's going to happen is the devil's going to be cast out of heaven.
That's the first thing.
That's what starts this whole process.
You say, what's the starting point?
Where does the seven years begin?
What is the point at which these things begin to come to pass?
Well it's the devil being cast out of heaven, but wait a minute.
We're not going to know that.
We're not in heaven to see the war in heaven.
We're not going to know when that takes place, but that's the first thing.
What we're going to see is the events in Revelation 13 starting to unfold.
And of course Jesus tells us in Matthew 24 when we see the abomination of desolation,
that's when we know it's real.
That's when we know for sure beyond a shadow of a doubt.
So the first thing that we're going to, the first thing that happens is that the devil's
cast out of heaven.
The first thing we're going to see happen is we're going to see, in regard to this passage,
you know we're going to see this world government basically forming and we're going to see this
man that's going to have this power over all the world and over all the earth.
Now again, I'm focusing on the latter half of Revelation.
You know, we could at this point turn to Matthew 24 and we could turn to Revelation 6.
Those two places would give us a little more detail about this phase known as the Tribulation.
And if we turn to them, which we're not going to for the sake of time, we'd see wars, we'd
see famine, we'd see pestilence or disease, and we would see great inflation.
The Bible teaches there will be hyperinflation because the Bible tells us that a measure
of wheat will be sold for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny.
And the Bible teaches that a penny in those days was a day's wages.
You worked all day for a penny, if you remember in the book of Matthew.
And so buying a bag of wheat and it took 200 bucks or a whole day's wages, 100 bucks,
it took that much just to buy that bag of wheat, a measure of wheat, obviously that's
an extremely high price.
I mean, would you want to go to the store and buy a bag of wheat and shell out a 12
hour day's wages?
Think about right now in your mind how much you make when you work 12 hours.
Would you want to shell that out, to buy one measure of wheat or to buy three measures
of barley?
No way, that's expensive, right?
But we see here in chapter 13, this man come to power and he's making war with the saints.
You say, how's he going to make war with the saints?
Okay, well the Bible says in verse 11, I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth,
and he had two horns like a lamb and he spake as a dragon, and he exercised with all the
power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein
to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.
So here, this man is demanding worship.
It says in verse 13, he doeth great wonders, wonders or miracles, so that he maketh fire
come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast,
saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which
had the wound by a sword and did live.
Look at verse 15, and he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the
image of the beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image
of the beast should be killed.
And you say, what in the world is that image of the beast that is given life?
Now as we get closer and closer to this, I think that we can kind of understand the technology
a little more, and if you think about it, back in the days when the book of Revelation
was first written, people were probably thinking, how do you get, you know, you give life to
an image so it can speak, and you know, but really, and I'm not saying that's what this
is, but what I would say is this, I mean images talk all the time now that we live in 2012,
don't they?
Holograms, and I'm not saying it's a hologram, I don't believe it is, because the Bible talks
about this image being a physical object that's set up in the holy place, and you know,
it is going to be a physical thing, but I'm saying like, what about an image on a TV screen?
Does it speak?
Do things come to life on the screen?
Absolutely.
So I don't really know exactly what kind of an image this is going to be, but it's some
kind of an image of the beast that can speak and cause that as many as will not worship
or kill.
Now this kind of reminds me of Daniel chapter 3.
Remember when Nebuchadnezzar, who was king over the civilized world at that time, do
you remember how he made a great image, and they had to worship that image, and what would
happen if they didn't worship the image?
They're killed, right?
Isn't that similar to what we see here?
That's a picture of the antichrist, because here, this man, they're going to make an image
to this man that will speak, which is not hard for us to believe at all, because you
know, Nebuchadnezzar didn't have that kind of technology, you know, he makes an image
out of gold.
Now they can make an image out of gold that would talk and do all this stuff, and so I
don't want to speculate about this image, but it's going to be something that can talk
and that can cause people to be killed.
Look at verse 16.
Here's the key.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a
mark in their right hand or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he
that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom.
Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number
of a man, and his number is six hundred threescore and six, or six six six.
Now the mark of the beast here, this is one of the tools that Satan is using to persecute
the believers.
The mark of the beast is a tool that he's using to make war with the saints, because
of the fact that if you can't buy or sell, it's pretty hard to function in today's world,
isn't it?
Or in any world.
So not only does he make a law that says if you don't worship the antichrist you're going
to be killed, that's a persecution right there.
That's making war with the saints.
But not only that, he also makes it impossible for the saints to buy or sell, because they
don't have the mark of the beast, and the mark of the beast is only going to be given
to those who worship the beast.
So those that are saved, those that are the saints, they're not going to worship the beast.
The Bible is clear on that in Matthew 24 and elsewhere.
So they're not going to be able to buy or sell, and they're going to have a death warrant
on them.
Now imagine yourself right now in a world, and I didn't say in a nation, I didn't say
in a country, I said in a world where you can't buy or sell and where there's a warrant
out for you to be put to death.
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to survive in a world like that?
Not only that, what about all the surveillance cameras that are going in?
What about the license plate reading cameras?
What about the naked body scanners?
What about the showing your ID at checkpoints?
What about showing your ID to get on a bus, showing your ID to get on a train, showing
your ID to get on an airplane, showing your ID at checkpoints as you're driving in your
car?
And you know what?
Pretty soon you're going to have to show something else.
Okay, let's see your right hand.
Okay, you're good to go.
Have a nice day.
This is not far-fetched at all.
This is not something that is unrealistic at all.
I mean, maybe when people read this a few hundred years ago, they didn't look at it
the same way as we look at it.
When we look at it, it has a little bit of flesh on it, doesn't it?
That's why I think that this may be close, I don't know.
But you better listen tonight.
You say, oh I don't like this stuff, this isn't something I like to hear preaching on.
Well, you know what?
You need to hear preaching on this.
Because you know what?
You're going to thank God one day for every sermon you heard on this.
If this begins to happen in our lifetime, you're going to say, oh man, I don't know
why Pastor Anderson is always preaching on Bible prophecy.
You're going to thank God for every sermon that you heard like this.
You're going to be racking your brain.
What was Revelation 12 about?
What was chapter 13 about?
What was chapter 14 about?
Trying to understand and come to grips with what's going on around you.
And this information I'm preaching you tonight straight from the Word of God is going to
be gold someday.
See while it might not happen in our lifetime, but you know what though, I'd rather just
have you warned anyway and to know about it anyway, just in case.
And maybe you can pass this knowledge on to your children, because if it's not in our
lifetime, it'll be in their lifetime or their children.
You know, we need to just preach the Word of God and keep passing down the teachings
to the next generation.
That's why this is an important sermon.
That's why.
You say, how does this affect my daily life?
Well it doesn't today, but it will tomorrow, so you better pay attention.
You say, how is it possible to cause people not to be able to buy or sell?
Well the Bible says, he'll make it so that you can't buy or sell.
It's really simple to explain how that is.
See, I've got here some money in my hand, actually I don't have money in my hand, but
this is what people think is money, don't they?
It's cash, but you know what it really is?
It's a Federal Reserve note.
Now this paper has no intrinsic value.
I could make a paper airplane out of it.
I could use it as kindling to start a fire, then I'd get a little value out of it, right?
I could maybe stuff a mattress full of it just to get a little bit of padding and get
a posture pete at night's rest, but honestly this paper doesn't really have any intrinsic
value at all.
It's worthless.
The only reason that this piece of paper in my hand has any value is because someone believes
that it has value, right?
Everybody in this nation believes that this paper has value, therefore they're willing
to exchange things with me that really do have value for this piece of paper.
For example, a glass of milk has value to me because milk does a body good, and if I
were to give this piece of paper unto someone, they'll give me a glass of milk.
I could take this paper and exchange it for a bag of potatoes, that has value.
I could exchange it for a measure of wheat.
I could exchange it for all kinds of tools.
I can exchange it for traveling.
I can exchange it for all kinds of valuable goods and services because the people of our
nation believe that what I have in my hand has value, therefore it does have value because
it gets me the things that I need, food, clothing, transportation, right?
But what if somebody some day says, that doesn't have any value anymore?
Does it have value anymore?
If people decide it doesn't have value?
No.
Let me give you an example.
The Confederate States of America.
The Confederate States of America printed money like this, paper money, and guess what
happened when the Confederate States of America was defeated by the United States of America?
Guess what happened to the Confederate money?
It wasn't worth anything anymore.
And it was not worth anything because it's just paper.
Now think about this.
What if you were living in the Confederate States of America and you had some silver
dollars?
And all of a sudden the Confederate States of America ceases to exist, are those silver
dollars worth something?
Oh yeah, because silver has intrinsic value.
First of all, silver is a magnificent conductor of electricity.
Did you know that silver, you know the wiring in your house is copper, isn't it?
But you know what's a better conductor of electricity than copper?
Silver.
And did you know that gold also conducts electricity?
And gold and silver have a lot of uses.
Did you know that computer chips have gold in them?
Because it has an intrinsic value.
It's a metal that has special properties.
And also, people have decided that gold and silver have had value for thousands of years
now.
Paper, not so much.
And there's a lot more paper on this earth than there is gold and silver.
The scarcity of gold and silver is part of why it's worth a lot.
Whereas paper, you know, just chop down another tree and trees keep growing back.
You know, people say money doesn't grow on trees.
Well this kind of money does.
I mean this is growing on a tree.
I mean this is paper.
Paper came from trees.
So what I'm saying is coins have real value.
Now the coins that we use, quarters, dimes, nickels, they're not really precious metals.
They're just stupid little pieces of junk metal that don't really worth anything.
But if you have a gold coin, a one ounce gold coin, a tiny little one ounce gold coin is
worth over $1700.
Did you know that?
A silver coin, one ounce, is worth about 35 bucks.
So that will always have value.
But guess what?
Most people don't go to the store and spend gold and silver, do they?
When was the last time you went to the store and bought something and you measured out
some gold and silver?
Never?
So everybody uses this, don't they?
Well one day, I'm telling you the truth, one day this piece of paper will not be worth
anything.
One day this piece of paper will have no value, I can promise you that.
Because they will say, this will not work anymore, you must use this.
And it's going to be a mark in your right hand or in your forehead.
You say, why the forehead?
Well think about this, you go to the store, you run all your groceries under the belt,
instead of pulling out this, here's what you do.
Scan your hand.
You say, what?
For example, I don't know if you know this, but you know the UPC symbols, the barcodes?
I know this sounds crazy, but if you look at it you'll see that I'm telling the truth.
On the UPC barcodes that everything has, you know you scan everything at the checkout with
that barcode, each of those patterns of lines, you know those patterns of lines?
Each of those patterns of lines represents a different number.
Now somebody told me this and I was skeptical, I didn't really believe them.
So I went to the grocery store and I looked at about 10 barcodes to see if they were telling
the truth and it really was true what they said.
That when you looked at the barcodes, the different patterns of bars, they each represented
a number.
It's sort of like Morse code, you know it goes long, short, short, or short, long, short,
and it represents a number or a letter.
Well if you look at the barcodes you'll see that there's a certain pattern of lines that
makes a 5, a certain pattern that makes a 4, a certain pattern that makes a 3, and 2,
and 1, and so on and so forth.
And that UPC symbol will have all those lines, but then if you notice that it also has the
number printed out at the bottom, like a 10-digit number, who knows what I'm talking
about?
Who's got a barcode with them?
Does anybody have something with a, does your Bible have like a barcode on it or something?
You still have the price tag on it?
Somebody find me a barcode, I guess we don't have it, thank God we don't have this evil
symbol in our church, no I'm just kidding.
There we go.
Isn't it funny, the New American Standard's got a barcode on the back, isn't that convenient?
Okay look, it's got a barcode here, and there's a 12-digit number underneath the barcode.
Well if you look at the number, if you look at the lines above the number, for example
there's a 2 here and a 2 here, the same pattern of lines is above each of those 2s.
The same pattern of lines and spaces and there's like a thick line, a thin line, and spaces.
And you know, the 1s look the same, the 8s are the same, and they kind of, it's kind
of jammed together but it's hard to see.
But if you study these things long enough, and I looked at like 10 of them, the 6, if
you want to find the 6, it's two thin lines right next to each other, that's the 6.
But if you look at every single barcode, this one included, there are two thin lines on
the left, two thin lines in the center, and two thin lines on the right.
And those thin lines are not part of the 12-digit number.
So these lines, it has the lines that make the 12-digit number, and then there's two
thin lines, two thin lines, two thin lines, 666.
And you might not believe me, go to the store, start taking stuff off the shelf, or find
in your house items that have barcodes.
And you will see that every single UPC symbol has a 12-digit code that identifies that product,
and it also has a 666 on it.
Every single one.
Look at barcodes, look at the 6, it's these two thin lines.
Now sometimes those two thin lines will be jammed against the next number so closely
that it'll form a thicker line, but look at enough of them and you'll see what I'm saying.
The two thin lines represent the 6.
And people will tell you, oh those three symbols there?
That's just to kind of show the scanner where to scan, you know, show it the left edge and
the right edge and the middle.
But isn't it funny that they made that the 6?
So every UPC symbol says 666.
But this is all just a conspiracy theory, this is all just fairy tales, the Bible's
just written by men.
Nobody's taken it pretty seriously, like the people who designed the UPC symbol?
Who do you think designed the UPC symbol?
Some crackpot somewhere in a basement?
Or do you think it was probably someone in very high authority in government?
Because did you know that the UPC symbol is not optional?
It's not voluntary?
I mean did you know that every item in the store has this?
That's why it's called the universal product code?
I hope that's what it stands for since I'm saying it with such vehemence.
But anyway, that's right.
You know, the universal product code, the UPC symbol, it's mandated by law.
And somebody said, put a 6 here, a 6 here, and a 6 here.
But that's just a coincidence, so let's go on with the sermon.
I'm not saying it's going to be a barcode, but it's going to be something like, it's
going to be something awfully a lot like a barcode, isn't it, that you just scan?
Now I'm not saying it's wrong to have a barcode on a box of Cheerios that you buy because
you know what, you've got to eat your Cheerios or whatever, but what I'm saying is I wouldn't
want that barcode to be on my hand or my forehead.
But here's the thing, this isn't just going to be a barcode, this is going to be a barcode
or an implantable microchip or whatever that you get by worshiping the Antichrist.
That's why you and I aren't going to get it, because we're not going to worship the Antichrist.
We're not going to be deceived by the Antichrist.
And the Bible is clear on that.
So that kind of brings things to life, doesn't it?
So you go to the store and you go brrr and you just pay for your groceries.
You go to the ATM, or you don't need an ATM because there's no more cash, sorry about
that.
But anyway, you go to pay someone and you pull out a little scanner.
How about a smart phone?
Don't smart phones, Brother Segura, our technology guy here, don't they all have a scanner now
that scans codes like the, what's that one called, that square one?
The Q code?
What is it called?
Here we go, here's my technology guy.
The QR code.
You know, cell phones are starting to have a scanner.
So it could be basically, let's say there's an exchange of goods and services between
two people, right?
Okay, that's going to be $10.50, go ahead and give me your right hand so I can just
scan it with my smart phone.
Okay, now I just took the money from his account.
Oh, you just gave my son a piano lesson.
Let me go ahead and get the payment for that, or let me get you paid.
Think about it now.
The smart phone can be used to scan the mark of the beast, okay?
And you can't buy or sell without it.
Don't leave home without it.
But it's on your hand, so you never will.
But not only that, you say why the right hand or the forehead, because not everybody has
a right hand, do they?
But everybody has a head.
I've seen some pretty handicapped people, but everybody has a head.
So you're either going to have a right hand or a forehead.
So then it'll be more like this at the checkout.
So you'll have to bend at the waist a little bit.
And so this is very real, my friend.
This is not a joke.
This is not a game.
Look if you would at chapter 14.
So that's chapter 13, isn't it?
We see the cashless society.
We see a one world government.
And look, that's why no Christian should support the United Nations.
It's of the devil.
It's of Satan.
It's his world government that's going to install the antichrist, okay?
But look down.
And by the way, the United Nations is based in the United States, I don't know if you
know that.
But everything about the United States, everything our government has is always good, always
good.
God bless the USA.
I'm proud to be an American.
And don't let me confuse you with the facts, but the United Nations is based in New York
City.
Don't let me confuse you with the facts, but the United States funds and created the United
Nations.
Don't let me confuse you with the facts, Mr. Patriotic apple pie eating one that thinks
that the government of the United States can do no wrong, and anybody who criticized the
government is not patriotic.
I will criticize a government that's fulfilling Satan's plan with their checkpoints and all
their ID and UPC and all this horrible tracking that's going on today.
I will criticize it.
And you know what?
I do love America.
I love the America of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
I love the America of Samuel Adams and George Washington.
I love the concept of America.
I thank God I was born in America, but does that mean I love what our government is doing
today though?
No.
But let's look down at Revelation chapter 14 here.
So we got that, didn't we?
Satan, he goes to make war with the saints, he's been cast out of heaven.
He knows he has a short time.
What's he do?
He installs his guy over the whole world, the anti-Christ.
Then he puts a few laws in place.
Number one, worship the anti-Christ or die.
Number two, you can't buy or sell unless you take the mark of the anti-Christ in your
right hand or in your forehead.
You can't buy or sell.
What's the next thing we see?
In chapter 14, he says in verse 1, I looked and lo, a lamb stood on the Mount Zion and
with him 144,000 having his father's name written in their foreheads.
And on and on, I'm not going to go through this whole chapter for the sake of time outside
the scope of the sermon, but he talks about the 144,000.
And I'll explain why that's significant in a few moments.
But jump down if you would to verse 9 for the sake of time.
The Bible says, and the third angel followed him saying with a loud voice, if any man worship
the beast and his image, because that's what we just covered, and receive his mark in his
forehead or in his hand, notice it doesn't say or, it says and.
Worship him 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 forever and ever and they have no rest day
nor night who worship the beast in his image and whosoever receive it the mark of his name.
Now, first of all, no saved person will take the mark of the beast.
We know that from Matthew 24, there are a lot of other scriptures, I'm not going to
go into that for the sake of time.
I did a whole sermon on that called The Mark of the Beast where I covered that in great
detail.
So no believers are taking the mark, but here's the thing.
When an unsaved person takes the mark of the beast, they become reprobate at that moment.
Do you get that?
When they receive the mark of the beast, they have just sealed their faith.
They have just cast in their lot with Satan.
It's too late for them.
I do not believe that every single person who is unsaved will take the mark of the beast.
I don't believe that.
And again, I could go into a lot of evidence for that and I've done it in other sermons,
but don't you know people who aren't saved who you know are not going to take the mark
of the beast?
Think about all the people that are just scared of stuff.
They don't like this stuff.
I know people who live off the grid and they're not even saved and they're not going to be
taking the mark of the beast.
And there are a lot of people who are people who are just aware of a lot of the abuses
of government, libertarian type people that aren't saved, they're not Christians, but
they're not taking the mark of the beast either.
And not everybody is going to worship the Antichrist, but those who do, those who do
take the mark and those who do worship the Antichrist, they will be damned.
The Bible is clear.
They have sealed their faith.
It's done.
Just as when you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, you're sealed unto the day
of redemption.
You can never lose your salvation.
Well these people who are sealed with the mark of the beast, they can never lose their
damnation.
I mean, they're done.
So that's clear from these verses.
Look if you would at verse 13.
So right after a discussion of the beast and the mark of the beast, he says in verse 13,
I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord from henceforth, meaning from here on out, yea set 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 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.
Now what you just read there is a very significant event.
This is the rapture.
Now it's crystal clear, isn't it?
You say is it crystal clear?
Quickly, and I'm hurrying, but go to 1 Thessalonians 4.
This is the most famous rapture passage.
Anybody who believes in the rapture is going to agree that 1 Thessalonians 4 is the most
clear passage that teaches the rapture.
And I've never met anybody who is a Bible believing Christian who said 1 Thessalonians
4 is not the rapture.
It's the quintessential rapture passage.
Let's compare it to what we saw in Revelation 14, keeping in mind also the parable of the
tares.
Look at 1 Thessalonians 4, 13, For I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning
them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with Him.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
That's the rapture.
Jesus Christ comes in the clouds.
There's the trump of God, there's the voice of the archangel, then the dead in Christ
rise first, because they have another six feet to travel than we do, and then we which
are alive and remain are caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air.
So shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
The comfort there is referring to seeing your loved ones again.
Get the context from verse 13 and onward.
So we see a few elements here.
We see Jesus in the clouds, trumpet sounds, voice of the archangel, believers caught up.
We see the dead in Christ rise first, right?
Let's see how that compares with Revelation 14, shall we?
Says in Revelation 14, verse 14, I looked and behold a white cloud.
So do we have the cloud?
Coming in the clouds, right?
And upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man.
So who's in the cloud?
Jesus Christ.
Because the Son of Man is the Lord Jesus Christ.
In chapter 14 we see the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, sitting on the cloud.
And it says that he had on his head a golden crown, of course Jesus Christ, the King of
kings and Lord of lords, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
What is a sickle used for?
Reaping.
Okay?
Look at verse 15, and another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice to
him that sat on the cloud.
Let me ask you this, do we have the voice of the archangel?
Absolutely.
So we have Jesus come in the cloud, and then we have an angel crying out with a loud voice.
That's the shout.
That's the voice of the archangel.
He says, thrust in thy sickle, and who's he talking 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.
Let's quickly go back, don't turn there, but let's go back to the parable of the tares
for a moment.
Remember the wheat?
What did the wheat represent?
The children of God, the children of the kingdom.
And what did the tares or the weeds represent?
The children of the wicked one, right?
So what did the parable of the tares say?
He said, gather ye together first the tares, listen now, gather ye together first the tares
and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.
Now think about this.
The wheat being gathered into the barn at the time of harvest, we know that that's the
believers being gathered.
The Bible says in Matthew 24, he'll gather together his elect from the four winds.
Think about this now.
The wheat is being gathered into God's barn.
Well let me tell you where God's barn is, it's in heaven.
You never thought you were going to God's barn, but that's where you're going someday.
And obviously he's figuratively speaking, he's saying, gathered into my barn.
So we see that at the harvest, the Bible says the harvest is the end of the world,
the reapers are the angels, and he talks about the fact that the tares will be gathered together
first and bound in bundles to burn.
Now he didn't say burn the tares first, he didn't say burn the tares and then gather
the wheat.
No, he said gather together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, to
be burned later.
And what we see in the tribulation and in this period where the antichrist is ruling,
the tares are being identified.
The tares are being singled out.
The tares are being gathered together also because we see all nations of the world gathering
together, all religions of the world gathering together.
They're all being united, they're all being bound together in their allegiance unto the
antichrist and they're all being identified for later destruction.
Because look, when people got the mark of the beast, does God just say, oh you just
got the mark of the beast?
Fire and brimstone on you right now!
Five minutes after they got the mark of the beast, did they get burned five minutes later?
No.
But do they eventually get?
Oh yeah, because look at chapter 16.
Are you in Revelation 14?
Look at chapter 16.
What's the first plague God brings when he pours out his wrath?
It says the first went, this is the vials of God's wrath, verse 2, the first went and
poured out his vial upon the earth and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the
men which had the mark of the beast and upon them which worshipped his image.
And so right away when God begins to pour out his wrath and he begins to rain fire and
brimstone from heaven, the men who have the mark of the beast, all of a sudden they start
getting these horrible sores all over their body.
And not only that, fire and brimstone has rained upon them.
Not only that, they're destroyed.
Fire is going to devour them later on in the story.
But what we see in the parable of the tares is that they are first sorted, separated out.
He separates first the tares from the wheat.
He waits until the time of the harvest.
He gathers together first the tares and binds them in bottles to burn them.
He gathers the wheat into his barn.
And who were the reapers?
The Bible says the reapers are the angels.
The harvest is the end of the world.
The good seed or the wheat are the children of the kingdom.
The tares are the children of the wicked one.
What we see in chapter 14 here are two reaping.
The first reaping is in verse 15 when he says,
"'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."
So let me ask you this, if Jesus is in the cloud, and there's the voice of the archangel,
and he comes in the cloud, and it's time for the harvest, and he reaps the earth, who's
he reaping?
The saved, the good seed, the children of the kingdom, the saved.
So he reaps the believers to go where?
Into his barn.
To go to his house.
He said, I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you, he said, I will come again and receive you unto
myself that where I am, there ye may be also.
And so shall we ever be with the Lord, the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4.
But look what happens next.
It says, after the earth is reaped, after Jesus comes, look, the son of man is Jesus,
he comes in the cloud, he reaps the earth.
He's reaping in the wheat, but look what happens next.
And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
So this isn't the son of man, this is an angel coming with a sickle.
First Jesus came with a sickle, now this other angel's coming with a sickle, and it says
in verse 18, another angel came out from the altar which had power over fire.
What's going to happen to the tares?
They're going to be what?
Burned.
This angel has power over fire and cried with a loud voice 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.
Here he used a different illustration.
Or he used the illustration about weed and tares in Matthew 13.
Here he used a different illustration about clusters of grapes.
Now don't clusters of grapes sort of remind you of bundles of tares?
Think about this now.
And obviously tares are completely different from grapes.
It's two different illustrations, but what do clusters and bundles have in common?
I mean isn't a cluster and a bundle almost the same thing?
It's more than one thing that have been connected.
So you see how even though the parable of the tares is a little different than what
we see in Revelation 14, we can see the correlation.
He says here that he said, 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.
And remember there's a lot of symbolism in this part of Revelation, remember I told you
that in the beginning.
And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress
even unto the horse bridles by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
That's a serious bloodbath.
Think about how high a horse bridle is.
Now if I had a bridle, this is where it would be, but you know, think about a horse bridle.
Horses are taller than men.
And obviously it would depend on the horse, but think about this.
Picture a horse if you would, and picture where the bridle is.
The Bible says that there will be blood flowing on this earth someday like a river, and that
it will be so deep that if a horse were to walk through that river of blood, it would
have blood up to its bridle.
You've ever seen horses cross a river?
You know, somebody's riding a horse and they go across a river, right, and the water maybe
rides up and it might reach up to the bridle.
Imagine a river of blood that a horse could cross and the blood will reach up to the horse
bridle.
That is a lot of blood, and you know what?
That blood is coming from human beings according to this.
There are going to be mass casualties when God pours out his wrath on this earth.
So quickly, Revelation 14, we saw first a reaping of the saved by Jesus in the cloud
with the voice of the archangel.
What followed?
The unsaved and especially the reprobate, the children of the devil, being cast into
the winepress of God's wrath.
What is that winepress of God's wrath?
I believe that the winepress of God's wrath is basically a term that's being used to symbolize
the whole period of God pouring out his wrath.
Because right after he says, you know, we're going to take all the unsaved and the wicked,
we're going to cast them into the winepress of God's wrath, the next thing we read, look
at verse 1 of chapter 15.
You know, you can't just turn off at each, you know, if you only read one chapter of
the Bible a day, you know, you're not going to get the context.
You got to read more than one chapter because, you know, if you just stop reading at chapter
14, you don't get the whole story.
Chapter 14 leads into chapter 15 because at the end of chapter 14 he says, we're casting
them into the winepress of God's wrath.
Chapter 15 verse 1, we get into that wrath.
Look at it.
I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous.
Seven angels having the seven last plagues for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
So the wrath of God from chapter 14 verse 19 and 20 is the same wrath of God of chapter
15 verse 1.
It's the seven last plagues in them is filled up the wrath of God.
Those plagues are described in chapter 16.
We saw the first plague, the first vial, that was the sore on those that had the mark of
the beast.
Verse 3 of chapter 16, jump down there if you would, the second angel poured out his
vial upon the sea, became as the blood of a dead man.
He's turning water into blood.
Verse 8, the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun and power was given unto him
to scorch men with fire.
We see darkness in verse 10.
We see this war coming that's the battle of Armageddon and on and on.
I don't want to go into all the wrath tonight, but we see clearly the winepress of God's
wrath is this series of plagues, seven in number, that are described throughout chapter
16.
Now let me point out one last thing because we kind of blew past 15.
I got excited and I just kind of blew past something in 15.
In Revelation 14, 19, and 20 we saw the winepress of God's wrath.
Next verse he says that wrath is the seven last plagues, the seven vials.
But look at something else in verse 2, I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire
and them that had gotten the victory over the beast and over his image and over his
mark and over the number of his name stand on the sea of glass having the harps of God
and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God.
So what I want to say is this.
Right after the earth was reaped by Jesus in the cloud, who do we see appear in heaven
on the sea of glass?
Because the sea of glass, according to chapter 4, is in heaven.
Who do we see appearing on the sea of glass?
Those that got the victory over the beast.
Those are some of the people who were raptured in chapter 14.
They're there, they're singing, they're playing harps, they're praising God, they're rejoicing.
These are the ones who were believers who lived at this time.
And obviously we know that in heaven we'll be the believers of all time, but specifically
we're dealing with these particular believers that got the victory over.
So let me just, I'm done with what I wanted to say, but let me just quickly just put it
together for you.
These are the sequence of events that we just read about and I broke it down to you.
But in chapters 12-16, here's what we read about.
Satan's cast out of heaven.
He's mad.
He goes to make war with the seed, the righteous seed, the saved children of God amongst men
that are keeping his commandments also.
So we see him angry, he wants to attack the saints.
How does he do that?
He creates global government.
He creates a world government.
He puts his man at the top, the anti-Christ.
Then he makes a law that says you must worship the image of the beast and the beast himself
and you can't buy or sell unless you take a mark in your right hand or in your forehead.
Then we see the Lord Jesus Christ come in the clouds and remove the saved, reap the
harvest of the earth.
Then we see another angel who has power over fire commanding and ordaining that the children
of the wicked one be cast into the wine press of the wrath of God.
Then we see those plagues unfold in chapter 15 and 16, the seven plagues of God's wrath.
So isn't that interesting, the timeline?
We've got the tribulation, which is what the Bible calls earlier in the book, he calls
it the tribulation in chapter 7, he calls it the tribulation in Matthew 24, the period
where there's persecution, where the anti-Christ is there with the mark of the beast.
We have the tribulation in chapter 13 described, do we not?
Chapter 13, the tribulation, chapter 14, we saw the rapture, chapters 15 and 16, God's
wrath, it's always in that order.
Matthew 24, tribulation, then Jesus comes in the clouds.
Mark 13, tribulation, then Christ comes in the clouds together.
Revelation 6, tribulation.
Revelation 7, rapture.
Revelation 8 and 9, wrath of God.
Go to the latter half of Revelation, you know, you've got tribulation, you've got rapture,
you've got wrath of God.
It's not that complicated, it's not that hard to understand.
And I hope that tonight's sermon shed a little light on the second half of Revelation for
you, gave you a little bit more information.
You know, study to show thyself approved unto God.
You can't always just rely on the pastor.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth.
But I'll tell you this, the information that you heard tonight, remember it, because it
may come into play later on in your life.
There may come a time when you thank God that you heard this sermon.
When you see these things begin to come to pass, you'll thank God that you understand
what's happening.
You say, why is that so important to understand what's happening?
How's that going to help?
How's that going to buy me a loaf of bread, you know, to understand what's happening?
Because you know what?
When you don't see it coming, you're not prepared for it.
Have you ever been caught off guard?
Think about this, what if I had to walk out that door and fight someone?
What if there was somebody outside that door waiting to fight me?
And this person is just dead bent, they want, they're spoiling for a fight, and they're
not going to let me get out of here without a fight.
And if I walk out that door, they're going to jump me and attack me and beat the living
fire out of me.
Do you think I'd rather know that before I walked out that door?
Think about that.
Or would I rather get a little warmed up, stretch out, think about, I've got a strategy,
I've got a game plan, first I'm going to fake with the left, I'm going to have a plan, I'm
going to be prepared, I'm going to have my guard up, I'm going to be ready to fight.
But you know what, Christians today are not ready for this at all.
They're not ready for it at all.
And I'm not saying, oh we need to stockpile this and stockpile that.
You know what you need to do?
You need to prepare yourself spiritually and be ready so that you're like, oh what's happening?
Just spazzing out because you don't even know what's happening.
You need to be ready, you need to be prepared.
That's why God warns us and warns us and warns us and warns us.
That's why Paul even warned the people of his day, obviously they weren't living in
the days of the great tribulation, but they went through their own tribulations like every
believer does.
He said, we warned you, verily when we were with you, we told you before that we should
suffer tribulation even as it came to pass, as you know.
And so we need to be warned and to understand that this is coming so that we can handle
it.
And people who aren't ready for this and who are shocked by it, it's going to hit them
the hardest.
I mean, they're going to be disillusioned.
Think about it.
I would much rather be prepared spiritually for what's coming than for it to come upon
me unawares because I was too ignorant of the Word of God to see it coming.
Not our church.
Oh, there are a lot of Baptist churches that are of great, godly, saved people.
You know what?
They're going to be caught completely off guard by this, but you know what?
Not a faithful word Baptist church.
Well, this isn't going to surprise me at all.
This isn't going to surprise you at all.
You're going to be ready for it and you're going to be the one that's going to provide
stability.
You know, other people will be flipping out.
Your Christian friend, I don't understand, where's the preacher of rapture, this is nothing
like that left behind book, I don't know what to do, I've been playing that left behind
board game and I thought it would prepare me.
I thought left behind the video game was preparing me.
And you're going to be like, just shut up for a second, let me tell you what's really
going on.
Turn to Revelation 12.
Let me explain this to you real quick.
I'd rather know it's coming.
And I do know it's coming and that's why I'm ready.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you so much for the warning.
Boy, I'm glad this isn't just going to hit us unawares.
Thank you for warning us and telling us about it.
And God, help us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
Help us to use our minds and use our brains to get through this difficult time that we
live in.
And Jesus needs to be a good man.