The part of the chapter that I want to focus on was looking at verse number 35 where the
Bible read, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, I will open
my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation
of the world.
Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house and the disciples came unto
him saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the son of man.
The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares
are the children of the wicked one.
The enemy that sowed them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels, as therefore the tares
are gathered and burned in the fire.
So shall it be in the end of the world, of this world.
And the title of the sermon this morning is the end of this world, the end of this world.
What I want to do is I want to talk through the book of Revelation and I've made a print
out of a lot of the things that are going on in Revelation.
And the book of Revelation I think to a lot of people seems kind of intimidating at first.
Maybe because it's a strong meat of the word, because it uses a lot of imagery or symbolism
and a lot of things that if you don't really, haven't read it through multiple times or
you haven't studied other parts of the chapter or you have false doctrine or you have false
conceived ideas, it makes it difficult to understand this portion of scripture.
And so, let's go if we would into Revelation chapter number one, Revelation chapter one.
And he says the end of this world, now that's an interesting phrase, and anytime the disciples
are talking to the Lord Jesus Christ and he kind of brings up him coming back or the end
of the world, they're really interested.
And I think it's really an interesting topic, but there's also a lot of practical application
to understanding the end of this world.
But let's go to Revelation chapter number one.
Let's look at verse number 19.
It says, write the things which thou hast seen and the things which are and the things
which shall be hereafter.
Now the book of Revelation, it's given unto John.
It's given unto one of the apostles, the apostle John, by Jesus Christ.
Keep your finger there, but look at verse one.
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things
which must shortly come to pass, and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant
John.
Now it's interesting, throughout this book you constantly see John talking to an angel,
this angel which is a messenger that's delivering unto him a lot of these visions.
And not only that, the angel's been sent by Jesus Christ.
Not only that, the revelation of Jesus Christ was given to him by God the Father, is how
the Bible's explaining it.
So we have kind of this system of people that are explaining things, but when he talks
to John, he says, look, what I'm about to give you, the information I'm about to tell
you, it's broken in three parts.
Let's just tell the things that you've seen.
Not only that, the things that are and the things which shall be hereafter.
So if you read chapter number one, he's telling him the things that he saw.
He's saying, hey, I saw, you know, this great vision of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's saying I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
He's kind of telling us what he just saw in this vision.
Then he's going to tell us things that are.
So he's telling us basically present day things, and in the next few chapters of Revelation,
he has seven letters that are delivered to seven churches which are in Asia.
And he describes the current condition of these churches, and he's just basically giving
them information about the present.
But now go to chapter number four and look at verse number one.
After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven, and the first voice which
I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me which said, come up hither, and I
will show thee things which must be hereafter.
So basically when you break it out, you have chapter one, these are the things I saw.
Chapters number two, three, he's basically talking to the churches which are, and then
the rest of Revelation, he's talking about things that will be in the future.
Now a lot of false doctrine will arise from chapters twos and threes where they're trying
to tell you this is the prophetic part.
They'll try to say, hey, this is the church ages, and this is what's going to happen in
the future, and they'll talk about different things like the church of Philadelphia, as
you know the church is going to be raptured and all these things, they'll say verse one
right here is the rapture and all this stuff.
We haven't even gotten into anything that's future yet.
He's saying, look, I haven't explained anything future yet, I've told you what you've seen,
what is right now, what's happening in the present, now we're going to go into the future.
So after verse one, now we started getting some of the future things that are going to
happen.
So let's look at chapter five now, and let's look at verse number four, and I wept much
because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereupon.
So what's happening?
Well he sees in heaven a vision, he sees the Lord, he sees God the Father sitting on a
throne and he has a book, and they say, nobody can open this book, and he's basically weeping.
I mean he wants to know what's in the book so bad, how many people weep today to find
out what's in a book?
I mean, you know, it's kind of sad today that nobody wants to read anymore, but we see John
when he's in heaven and they have this book, and the Father's holding it, they want to
know what's in that book, and they're like, nobody can open it.
So now he can't know it.
He's crying after knowledge.
He's crying after wisdom.
The Bible describes this in Proverbs, the one who would cry for wisdom, cry for knowledge.
But let's keep reading.
He says in verse five, and one of the elders saith unto me, weep not, behold, the lion
of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose
the seven seals thereof.
And I beheld and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, and in the midst of
the elders, stood a lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are
the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth.
And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and twenty elders fell down before
the lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are
the prayers of saints.
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals
thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred,
and tongue, and people, and nation, and has made us unto our God kings and priests, and
we shall reign on the earth.
So basically they're singing this song unto whom?
The Lord Jesus Christ.
They're singing unto the Lamb of God, the Son of God, who's taken this book out of the
hand of the Father, and this book is special because it has seven seals that are on this
book.
Okay?
So this is basically just giving a precursor till we get to this chart, all right?
So basically what's happening?
He sees things that were in the past, he sees things that are, and he's about to see things
that are in the future.
And before we get into the future stuff, he's saying, look, I see this lamb, this lamb has
this book, it has seven seals.
And the seven seals are going to guide us all the way to the end of this world.
The end of this world are based on the seven seals that the Lord Jesus Christ, that the
lamb is going to open.
Now let's look at verse number one of chapter six.
And I saw when the lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise
of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat on him at a bow, and a crown was
given unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.
So this is basically where, and I kind of did a blowed up version of the chart that
you had, but it's so little, I was afraid you might not be able to see it.
That's why I just kind of printed out a sheet so you can also kind of follow along as best
as possible.
So basically, we're starting in Revelation chapter six, verse one, with the white horse.
So that's where we're starting with a timeline.
And I think it's important to have a timeline because of this, the Bible's chronological.
So when you're reading through Revelation, it's chronological.
It's just going to give you event after event after event.
But the thing is, is sometimes it will go back and start in a previous spot and give
you more details.
But it continues to be chronological all the way throughout.
It's not just jumping all over the place and here a little, there a little.
No, it's very systematic.
It's on purpose.
And whenever you lay out the events, you'll actually see that throughout the entire Bible,
it has the events in the same order.
It's completely consistent.
The Bible explains everything in the same order.
And when you see certain things lining up, it'll give you different details in different
parts of the Bible.
So I think it's important to kind of have it laid out and so you can kind of see what's
going on because we'll see how consistent the Bible truly is.
So I'll just kind of keep this here for a minute, but let's look at verse number one.
So we had the first seal that was open.
What is it?
It's a white horse and this white horse is going forth to conquer.
Now I'm not going to go through the book of Daniel this morning, but basically the
book of Daniel talks about the 70th week and that week is symbolized by seven years.
Basically in a week you have what?
Seven days.
So it's representative of the seven year period.
And it's basically kicked off right here when the first seal is open.
But I'm not going to go through all of Daniel's 70th week and all the different timelines.
And if you look at this chart, one thing that you need to keep in mind is this is not an
accurate representation of time.
So sometimes you might see a chart and it's very based on time.
It's very chronological as far as like exact when the timing is.
I want to just get the sequence of events in order and we see a lot more sequence of
events after the abomination of desolation.
So if you notice the abomination of desolation, I mean, it's like not in the middle.
If you're looking at this chart, I think a five year old could tell this is not in the
middle, but that's actually in the middle of this timeline.
This is a seven year period that's basically being represented here.
So there's three and a half years up to that point and then there's another three and a
half years after that point.
But just to give you the sequence of events so that we can understand what's going on,
I kind of shifted everything.
So this is just basically sequencing of events.
Don't think of it as necessarily an accurate as far as exact timing.
So we have this white horse and it goes forth to conquer.
So at the end of this world, what's going to happen?
Well, we're going to enter into a seven year period that's going to be different than the
rest of all of mankind.
And there's going to be great war.
There's going to be great wars that are going on, basically a world war where all of mankind
is basically at war with one another.
Now we see rumors of wars and type of things like this happening all the time.
There's been rumors of war basically for the last 2000 years since the Lord Jesus Christ
came.
So that's not necessarily a great indicator of we're definitely about to enter into, you
know, the Daniel 70th week.
But in Matthew chapter number 24, he does explain to us that there's going to be wars
and rumors of wars.
He says the end is not yet.
Now what does he mean by that?
He's just, when we get through this, we'll understand that basically there's a lot of
things that have to happen before the end takes place.
So war is a beginning, it's a priest's cursor, but it's not the end yet, okay?
So we have the white horse.
Then what do we have in verse number three?
It says, and when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, come and
see.
And there went out another horse that was red and power is given to him that sat there
and to take peace from the earth and that they should kill one another and there was
given unto him a great sword.
So not only is there going to be a great war, okay, but there's going to be great blood
shed.
Now the thing is, is America's basically in this perpetual state of war.
I mean we're constantly in war with Iraq or Afghanistan or the Syrians or whatever, but
if we notice are a lot of Americans just dying from war right now?
No, right?
And there's lots of wars that have happened where maybe there's not that much of conflict
in today's world where they're just basically strategically sending in special ops or they're
strategically just bombing people or doing these type of things.
Well in this war, there's going to be a lot of people that are literally killed, a lot
of people that are dying from a result of this war.
So it's not just that they're at war, it's that a lot of people are dying as a result
of it.
So look at verse number five now.
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, come and see.
And I beheld in low a black horse and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, a measure of wheat for a penny
and three measures of barley for a penny and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
So what happens in the third seal?
Well now it's black, a black horse to represent death.
Not only are people going to be dying from war, they're going to be dying from famine.
He's saying because of all this great warfare, basically people are not going to be exporting
and importing goods as well as they normally have.
We're going to see scarcity of food items.
He's saying, look, your bread, your bread is going to be really expensive.
He says it's a penny.
You say, how much is a penny?
I have a lot of pennies.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm not that worried about it.
Well, according to the Bible, if you study the word penny, it talks about people that
would work a whole day's labor for a penny.
So basically a penny would represent that of like a whole day's labor.
Now if you tried to put that in modern vernacular, I would say people on average, they maybe
make about a hundred to $200 a day.
I'm just saying rent, you're just kind of averaging, you know, it just depends.
So imagine going to the store today and a price of bread, just a loaf of bread is $100
or $200.
You can see many people are going to be starving real quick.
I mean it doesn't take long for that to be the price.
Basically people are probably just going to loot the stores and they're going to be gone
and nobody's going to be selling anything and it's just going to be like a black market
for bread.
I mean people are going to want to get bread.
That's how scary this situation truly is.
Now let's keep reading.
And if you look at my chart, basically what I have is I have revelation, I'll hold it
this way.
I have revelation, basically this is signifying this mark.
Then we have in 6.3 it's signifying this mark.
Then 6.5, so we're just chronologically going through and it's just matching up exactly
with these events, isn't it?
We just keep going through and obviously the first time you go through it's going to match,
right?
It's once we start cross-referencing and showing other places where we're going to see how
much the Bible truly matches itself.
So let's look at verse 7.
And when he opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and
see.
And I looked and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed
with them.
And power is given to them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with
hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth.
So basically we're just seeing people being slaughtered in all kinds of ways.
How are they being slaughtered?
By the warfare, by the famine, and just by plain death.
I mean people die every single day from what?
Car accidents, from cancer, from a brain aneurysm, just from eating too much junk food, from
stabbing themselves with vaccines, I mean all kinds of stuff.
I mean there's lots of ways that people are dying today and it's just saying there's going
to be so much death.
I mean we're just going to see a mass depopulation of the world because so many people are dying
as a result of these seals.
So every time we read this what is happening?
The Lord Jesus Christ has this book of seven seals.
He's literally taking off a seal.
And now we're kind of blowing by this.
These seals are taking long periods of time.
It's not just like hey rip one off and then five minutes later rip another one off.
No, it's basically he's going to rip off the first seal and we're just going to be at war
for a while.
And things are going to probably set up, you're going to see people, troops getting together
and different strategies being taken place and after several months then there's going
to be mass bloodshed.
Even after the mass bloodshed there will probably be several months and then what will
happen?
Well the result of famine will come from the war because there's all these people blockading
others.
There's going to be all these treaties.
I mean there's going to be lots of chaos but this is going to be a long period of time.
Basically up to the abomination of desolation is three and a half years.
So we're not talking about five, ten minutes here.
We're talking about several months in between each one of these seals.
Look at verse number nine.
And when he opened the fifth seal I saw unto the altar of the souls of them that were slain
for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
And they cried with a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not
judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
And white robes were given unto every one of them and it was said unto them that they
should rest yet for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren
that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled.
So not only are we having all this death because of carnal things but the Christians will be
put to death for preaching the gospel.
The Christians are going to be heavily persecuted even before the abomination of desolation.
They're going to be people that are hated because of Christ's name, because of preaching
the gospel, because they're standing for the truth.
And even today we already see a lot of pushback towards the truth, don't we?
I mean, how much pushback is there from this hate speech garbage from our government and
all kinds of people trying to limit the truth and trying to say, Well, you can't preach
that.
That's hate.
Yeah.
Well, you can hate me.
You can hate Donald Trump, right?
Don't the liberals hate Donald Trump with a burning passion?
Don't they speak all kinds of evil and hate against him every single day?
And look, I'm not a Donald Trump fan.
I didn't vote for the man.
You know, he's an adulterer.
But at the same time, they're such hypocrites to sit there and say, Well, we can speak as
evil as we want about the president, but you can't speak against whoremongers and sodomites
and pedophiles and perverts and these people that are just, you know, confusing their brain
thinking that they're not a male or a woman.
I mean, this is a wicked world that we live in.
And today they're such hypocrites and there's so much persecution already.
It's just the beginning.
It's just the beginning of the persecution of the truth.
It's just the beginning of the limiting of information.
Look, they don't want everybody to just have free information.
They don't want the truth to just go out free course.
Look, the devil is always trying to cover the word of God.
And because there's so much of the King James Bible and he can't just get all of them, burn
them.
Basically, he's just trying to do information overload.
He's just trying to show so much, to scatter so much false doctrine at you, so much false
information at you that it'll distract you from God's word.
That's why you go to the bookstore today.
There's only one book in that store.
That's God's word.
All the rest are distraction.
That's why when you came to this location today, there was four other churches.
That was the devil's distraction to get you to not hear the truth this morning.
Look, you pass down the street, there's thousands of churches.
There's hundreds of churches this morning.
And look, they all preach a false gospel.
You say, how do you know that?
Because every single week we go out and preach the gospel and they say, I go to this church
and I go to that church and I go to this church and I go to this one over here.
And you know what they all say?
You have to be a good person to go to heaven.
You know what they say?
That it's by works, it's not by faith.
And look, the Bible makes it clear that we're saved by our faith.
And look, we need to fight for the truth.
We need to champion for the truth.
And guess what?
In this time period, people are going to be persecuted and hated and killed for the truth.
If you can't stand for the truth now, when there's no persecution virtually, when there's
no, you know, harm to your body physically, when your life is not at risk for preaching
the gospel, how are you going to do it when literally your life is on the line to get
somebody the truth?
Maybe it'll wake some people up.
Maybe some people think, well, maybe it's actually serious now.
Maybe it actually matters now because we see people being killed for it.
Go to verse number 12.
So we've gone to the first five seals.
And like I said, basically this is a three and a half year period.
Now when we study our book, our Bible here, it does not address the abomination of desolation
in this section.
Okay.
But I put it on your chart because I just want to put a lot of things on your chart
and then we'll just kind of see the things that are lining up for the first go round.
Then we'll kind of come back and look at other things.
I might have to hurry.
I don't know how much we get through this this morning, but I'm going to try my best
to keep going.
Look at verse number 12.
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake.
And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs,
when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it was rolled together, and every mountain and
island were moved out of their places.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains,
and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free men hid themselves in the dens
and the rocks of the mountains, and said unto the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide
us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?
Now this is basically the Lord Jesus Christ returning into the earth.
He's coming with clouds.
And it's interesting because one of the things it says here is it says in verse 14, and the
heaven departed as a scroll.
Now you know there's different interpretations.
Some of the things, most of the things we're going to be learning today are just straight
from the Bible.
But sometimes we can just kind of, you know, put our own personal opinion.
What does that mean?
What do you think that that's meaning?
And so my personal opinion, this is not the Bible, is potentially when you look into the
sky, what do you see?
It's blue, right?
I mean, when you look into the sky, it's blue.
If you were on another planet and you looked into the sky, what would you see?
I mean, it'd be black, right?
I mean, we see pictures from the moon.
It's just basically black.
I think it's very possible what he's saying is, look, the sky and the heaven that we see
today, when Christ is coming, it's just going to be gone.
Why?
Because he's going to light up the sky when he comes.
But imagine just all of a sudden looking up and it looks like space.
Wouldn't that kind of grab your attention?
Wouldn't that kind of make you like, what's going on?
Like the heavens just departed as a scroll.
I mean, it's just rolled up.
It's gone.
You're like, whoa.
And it's just black.
And then all of a sudden, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming with clouds and every eye shall
see him and he's going to light up the world.
I mean, it's going to grab your attention, what's going on.
This was my personal opinion of a way that you could look at, what does it mean that
the heaven would depart as a scroll?
Okay.
Let's keep going though.
Go to chapter seven.
Let's look at verse number four.
So once we've opened the sixth seal, a lot of things are going to happen in the sixth
seal.
Okay.
The sixth seal, the Lord Jesus Christ opened the sixth seal.
Now what's happening?
He's coming.
He's coming with clouds.
He's going to gather all his elect together unto himself.
But we see the precursor is what?
There's an earthquake.
The sun and moon are darkened.
So imagine this.
The sun's darkened.
The moon's darkened.
The heavens departed.
I mean it's like it's just black.
I mean imagine.
I mean you can't see anything.
It's like all the lights go out.
But then the Lord Jesus Christ is coming with clouds.
It would be quite a glorious thing to see.
Look at verse number four in chapter seven.
And I heard the number of them which were sealed and they were sealed in 144,000 of
all the tribes of the children of Israel.
So at the opening of the sixth seal, not only we see, you know, basically all of the sky
and the heavens changing and the Lord Jesus Christ coming.
Also with the sixth seal, 144,000 are sealed of the tribes of Israel.
Now I'm not going to go through all of those different tribes but then go to verse number
nine.
After this, I beheld in lo a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and
kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the lamb clothed with
white robes and palms on their hands and cried with a loud voice saying, salvation to our
God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the lamb.
So we see a great multitude of nations of people.
Now on my chart, basically we have the opening of the sixth seal.
So far we've just kind of been one for one, right?
But now with the sixth seal we see a lot of things are happening.
What the sun and moon are darkened.
Now it doesn't explicitly say the second coming of Christ in chapter number six.
We'll see that from other chapters but I have it written there for you.
But then we have 144,000 sealed and then after this he sees a great multitude.
Well here's my question.
If that's not the rapture, if that's not the Lord Jesus Christ bringing all his people
with him, where did this great multitude from every nation come from?
I mean it's just obvious that what happens is after all these things are happening there's
a great multitude.
Why?
Because all the Christians are with the Lord in heaven and they're worshipping who?
God and the lamb.
The one that sits on the throne and the lamb.
Now we touched the seventh seal yet.
Nope.
We basically had the sixth, the sixth seals open.
What are the first five seals?
They're basically just lots of death to mankind.
This is just death to man.
What do we see?
Well the white horse, what?
There's conquering.
And the red horse, there's death because of warfare.
The black horse is death because of famine.
This one's a combination of warfare, famine and just the fact that you're dying.
Then we see Christians being killed.
So it's just death, death, death, death, death to mankind.
Then what happens?
Well if that was going to continue what would happen?
Everybody would die.
So the Lord Jesus Christ comes in the cloud.
He gathers together his elect unto him.
We see a great multitude in heaven.
The seals, 144,000.
Because at this point do we have any saved people on the earth?
Actually no.
So we can see the 144,000 are going to be taking part in this next section.
So let's go to the second seal now.
Let's go to chapter eight, verse number one.
Now I'm not reading every single verse in Revelation.
That would be for you to just go through and you can read different things.
I'm trying to highlight the events.
I'm trying to highlight what's going on so we can get a good idea, get a good overview
of the book of Revelation.
Look at verse number one.
And when he had opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven about the space of half
an hour.
Now this verse, it's a very interesting verse.
Because what's happening in heaven constantly?
I mean you have beasts, they're bowing down before the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're constantly saying holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty which was and art and is
and is to come.
Look, you're constantly praising God.
There's a great multitude praising God.
I mean there's just all this worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the one that sits on
the throne, just constant, constant worship.
Something terrible is about to happen.
Think about God allowing silence in all of heaven for 30 minutes.
Something serious is about to happen.
And look, the seventh seal is extremely serious.
It's extremely grave.
It's something that's very sobering.
It's so sobering.
Look, silence for half an hour.
Even the women are keeping silence.
You know, I mean that's got to be real serious.
Look at verse number five, an angel took the censer and filled it with fire of the altar
and cast it in the earth and there were voices and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake.
So basically it's silence for a while, then it begins to shake.
Then things are getting serious.
Look there's no saved person on the earth right now.
It's just unbelievers, people that are either of the devil or just unbelievers.
Let's look at verse number seven now.
And the first angel sounded.
Let's back up one more verse.
And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
So at the opening of the seventh seal, what happens?
There's silence in heaven for the space of a half an hour.
Then there's great thunderings and earthquake and some hail and some fire.
And then seven angels are preparing to sound.
So now the seventh seal opens another seven, seven trumpets that are about to be sounded.
And then we're going to have the first guy sounding his trumpet out as part of the seventh
seal.
Look at what it says in verse number seven then.
The first angel sounded and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood and they
were cast upon the earth and the third part of the trees was burnt up and all green grass
was burnt up.
Now that sounds horrible.
I mean can you imagine, I mean I don't even want hail, but hail mixed with blood and fire.
I mean this is terrible.
All of the grass is burnt up.
I mean it looks like Phoenix, Arizona.
I mean, no I'm just kidding.
I mean it doesn't look like Houston anymore.
I mean it's just, there's no grass and a third of all the trees are burned up.
That's going to make the earth look a lot different, isn't it?
And now when we look in this chart, basically we have number one, we have eight verse five
or eight verse seven.
We have the hail and fire mingled with blood.
Now down below you have other things that are happening, but they're not in this sequence.
We're just learning about the trumpets is how the Bible actually goes through with this
chronology because look at verse number eight.
So we'll look at verse number eight.
It says in the second angel sounded and as it were a great mountain burning with fire
was cast into the sea and the third part of the sea became blood.
So not only is basically all the grass burned up and all the trees, not only this, a lot
of the water is going to be damaged and it says there's a great mountain burning with
fire was cast into the sea.
Now when I was younger, I had heard of sermons about this.
I heard different topics and when I heard the great mountain, I always thought there's
like a comment.
This is how it was kind of described to me.
Like there was this great burning, you know, comment that looks like a mountain, I guess,
but it didn't really fit.
And when you study the rest of the chapter, you actually see a lot of stars falling from
heaven and it describes it in that manner.
It says a star falling from heaven.
So you say, what is this?
Well, I believe when you're looking at the consequences of this second, is it's a volcano.
Because imagine a great tall mountain as it were a volcano and it's burning with great
heat.
Not only that, that could be cast in the sea.
Imagine a volcano that's surrounded by water because it isn't the damage, it's to the sea,
it's basically to the sea creatures, it's just to all of the ocean.
What does he say in verse nine?
The third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died and a third part
of the ships were destroyed.
So all the damage is just to water.
I mean, basically it's to the mountain, obviously, and then just to the water.
Basically the sea turns in the blood, you have all these creatures burned up, you have
a third of the ships burned up.
And I just thought about it, I was like, well, where's a, you know, a volcano that's surrounded
by water?
And I just thought, Hawaii.
I thought, well, what about Hawaii?
I mean, it's basically just a big volcano.
So then I just looked up online, what's the tallest mountain in the world, in the earth?
That's where it's at.
It's in Hawaii.
The tallest mountain in all of the earth is in Hawaii.
Now, they measure mountains in a lot of different ways, okay?
Most people say, well, it's Mount Everest.
Well, here's the thing, Mount Everest is the highest point above sea level.
But if you measure the base of the mountain, the mountains in Hawaii, Mauna Kea, okay,
Mauna Kea, its base is way below sea level, but it's actually a higher peak than Mount
Everest.
It is 33,000 feet tall.
And not only that, it's the second highest point for any island in the world.
So basically, it's the highest point above sea level that's just an island.
So again, this is not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible say it's Mauna Kea and, you know, the second trumpet.
I'm just giving you basically a possible interpretation here.
I think it actually makes a lot of sense because if you just had this great, enormous, I mean,
I'm not talking about a normal volcanic eruption, I'm talking about a supernatural one that
got just like sending out an enormous amount of lava.
You can see this great mountain just be kind of cast in the sea right there.
And not only that, destroying most of the Pacific Ocean.
Now if you look at the Pacific Ocean, there's a lot of trade going on through the Pacific
Ocean, a lot of ships, a lot of sea creatures, and we don't see any damage really to any
land here.
And I even looked up the US Navy, 60% of its ships travel through the Pacific Ocean.
So 60% of the United States Navy is traveling through the Pacific Ocean.
I even looked at different maps of just like trade routes of just a commercial ships.
And I mean, it's everywhere.
I mean, it just looks, it's all coming to the United States basically.
But I mean, you just see basically trade routes that are going anywhere and everywhere.
I think it makes a lot of sense that that's what we could see with this second sound being
trumpeted that this great mountain just kind of goes into the sea.
There is one other volcano that's in the same Pacific Ocean.
It's like Tau Massif or something like that.
And it's, it basically, it doesn't even really cover much of the sea level.
You can barely see any of it.
Supposedly it's bigger than this one too.
So it could be that one.
I mean, it could be anything.
It could be a volcano somewhere in another part of the world.
I'm just giving you my opinion because basically what are the ramifications of this?
It's just the sea and the ocean that's getting destroyed, right?
That's basically what we see.
Let's keep reading.
Look at verse number 10.
It says, and the third angel sounded and fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were
a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters.
And the name of the star is called wormwood and the third part of the waters became wormwood
and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.
So again, basically when it's talking about an actual comet, what does it call it?
A star falling from heaven.
And we even see the Bible talking about many stars falling into the earth.
So in the first seal we have hail, fire, mingles of blood.
Then we have a great mountain burning with heat, casting the sea.
So is that going to really destroy your bottled water though?
I mean, are you getting bottled water from the Pacific ocean?
Nobody's really drinking a lot of the bottled water.
It might hurt your tuna production.
It might hurt some of that canned tuna or salmon or whatever, and it might hurt some
of the imports, but it's not really destroying your drinking water.
But then a great star from heaven called wormwood, it's going to go into the fountains of the
waters you drink, the rivers and the fountains or the springs of water that you actually
drink from, and it's going to make them bitter.
So it's actually going to destroy a lot of the clean drinking water on this earth is
what it's saying.
Alrighty, you have no grasp.
Basically the Pacific ocean is destroyed, some area of ocean is destroyed.
Not only that, you basically have no drinking water.
This is starting to get really bad really quick.
I can see why they were saying, oh man, you know, silence in heaven for a half hour.
Let's keep going.
Let's go to verse number 12 now.
It says in the fourth angel sounded and the third part of the sun was smitten and the
third part of the moon and the third part of the stars, so as the third part of them
was darkened and the day shone not for a third part of it and the night likewise.
So basically somehow, basically part of the day is just destroyed.
I mean there's no sunlight, there's no even night for a third part of the day.
I don't know, I don't really have a good speculation.
Perhaps maybe there could be another planet alignment that's just kind of blocking part
of the sun and the moon as a third part of the day.
I don't know.
It doesn't really give us a lot of detail, but for whatever reason, your day is cut in
third.
And you say, oh cool, I don't have to work as long.
No, this is not going to be something that you're going to enjoy.
We'll even learn about the vial that comes with this one that makes it even worse.
But let's go, if we would, to chapter nine now.
So we'll skip to the fifth one.
And before we read verse one, let's read verse 13.
He says, and I beheld an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice,
Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth by the reason of the other voices of the trumpet
of the three angels, which are yet to sound.
So he basically says, look, you thought that was bad?
The next three are way worse.
The next three, you don't even compare to this one.
I don't even want to go through one of those.
I mean, all of those are terrible, but he's not to say the next three, it's called the
next three woes.
Each one is a woe.
It's so terrible about what's about to happen.
Look at chapter nine, verse one.
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth.
And to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke
of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the
pit.
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth.
And unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any
green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their
foreheads.
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented
five months.
And their torment was the torment of a scorpion when he struck at the man.
So we learned a lot of things in this chapter.
Again, when we were learning through the first five seals, were these five-minute increments?
No.
There was time that was going on in between each one of these seals.
The same thing with the trumpets.
The trumpets, there's time in between each one of these judgments.
And we even see a good example of this in five.
Because he says, look, they're going to be tormenting for five months.
So for five months they're going to be going through the fifth seal.
But not only that, he said in verse number four, and it was commanded them that they
should not hurt the grass of the earth.
Well, didn't all the grass burn up?
Well, it's interesting.
If you burn all your grass, next year it'll grow all back.
So basically we've seen, it's basically been probably a year, at least a season, where
we've gone through all of these first few judgments.
Now when we get to five, it's probably been a year.
It's probably been six, I mean, it's been at least six months, nine months, a year.
Most likely it's been at least a year.
And now they're going to go through five months of these locusts from hell, literally
locusts from hell, that have these special scorpion tails that they just go around just
sting you constantly.
You just constantly attack.
I mean, just think about mosquitoes, how many times you get bit by mosquitoes here.
I mean, I get bit all the time.
Imagine that being a scorpion, like a scorpion sting just stinging you.
I mean, this is terrible.
This is awful.
Just constantly for five months.
And not only that, he says the only people not affected are those with the seal of God
in their foreheads.
Who has the seal of God in their foreheads?
That was the 144,000.
So we see the purpose of these 144,000.
They're going on the earth.
Do what?
You say, what are they doing?
Are they just walking around, just chilling?
They're preaching the gospel.
They're going out trying to get people.
All the Christians are gone.
All the same people are gone.
So these 144,000 Old Testament Jews, they get a chance to do some soul winning.
They get to do the coolest soul winning ever.
They're going around.
But guess what?
These people are probably not super interested.
Think about all the people that reject you when you got soul winning.
This is that group that they're getting the second chance to go out and give them the
gospel.
So let's keep going.
That was the first woe.
And if you look at your sheet even, I don't think I put it on the chart on this board,
but on your sheet you have the first woe written above the fifth trumpet, right?
So that was the first woe.
Let's look at verse number 13 now.
And the six angels sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar,
which is before God, saying to the six angels which had the trumpet, loose the four angels
which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour and a day and a month
and a year for to slay the third part of men.
And the number of the army of the horsemen was 200,000 thousand, and I heard the number
of them.
So not only that, there's this great army from four angels caught in the Euphrates River.
They come up and they have an army of 200 million soldiers.
I mean, that's what a thousand thousand, you time a thousand times a thousand, you get
a million.
They're saying there's 200 million of these soldiers going out, and they're going to cause,
you know, wreak havoc.
Basically, when we look at verse number 17, and I saw the horses in the vision, and then
the sound of them having breastplates of fire and adjacent and brimstone in the heads of
the horses, whereas the heads of lions and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke
and brimstone.
By these three was the third part of men killed by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone,
which issued out of their mouths.
So basically this army, they're just going out and these fire-breathing lions, lion horses,
whatever they are, I mean, they're just breathing fire and killing people.
It's crazy, killing people by smoke.
I don't even know what that looks like, but that just sounds terrible.
I mean, they're just killed by the smoke.
Now, I've heard a lot of sermons on Revelation.
Some people try to take these things and they try to make them in like a carnalized fashion.
So they say, well, if you look at certain tanks and stuff, they kind of have like a
lion painted on the face of them, or you see like certain, you know, helicopters, they
might have like animals painted on the face of them.
And this is kind of like what's going on.
The more and why I study the Bible, I honestly don't believe that's true.
I believe it's literally like what he, what he's describing is things that he's seeing.
Now, obviously John's looking in a vision in the future, so it's possible he's seeing
something he doesn't really know how to describe and he's just describing it in this way.
But I would think honestly, with the language of the Bible, he would be saying like a chariot.
If it really were a tank that he's trying to describe and he doesn't have modern words
like tank to use, he probably would have been saying a chariot.
So the fact that he's saying a literal horse, I mean, he knows what a horse looks like.
So I think honestly that these are special creatures that are designed just to wreak
havoc on the earth.
And we even see in heaven special creatures that worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
So why not have these special, you know, death creatures?
These creatures going out and breathing fire and smoke and brimstone.
Let's go, if we would, to chapter number 10 now, chapter number 10.
So basically then, you know, the angel that's with him, he says, John, you need to eat up
this book.
And you know what he's meaning by eating it?
He's not saying eat literal pages and ink.
You could eat this Bible all day and you wouldn't get any smarter, you wouldn't get any wiser.
That's stupid.
That's a carnal way to interpret that.
He's saying, look, you've got to memorize God's word.
That's what it means to eat it.
Look, if I take, rip out a page out of my Bible and I start chewing on it, I'm not going
to get any of God's word.
That's not what he's saying.
You know, this is what the Catholics think that they're eating this cracker, they're
receiving Christ.
No, it's by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ that you receive Christ into your heart, not
by eating a cracker.
And you know what?
Eating some piece of paper is not going to get you to understand God's word.
You've got to read it.
And you've got to memorize it and you've got to meditate on it.
That's what the Bible is saying to John.
Hey, he took the book and he put it in his mouth and it was sweet as honey.
But as soon as he ate it, my belly was bitter.
So sometimes you read it, you're like, man, this is great.
This is God's word.
I really like it.
But the truth of God's word, sometimes a little bitter.
Think about the reality of all these people suffering this great torment on the earth.
Look at chapter 10, verse number four.
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write and I heard a
voice from heaven saying unto me, seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered
and write them not.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, lift up his hand to heaven
and swear by him that liveth forever and ever who created the heaven and the things that
are there in are and the earth and the things that there are and the sea and the things
which are there in that there should be time no longer.
Now I've heard this really stupid idea from some people.
They say, well, you could understand everything in the Bible just if you were on an island
by yourself with nothing else, no news, nothing.
You could just understand everything.
Well, here's my question.
Didn't he just tell us certain things not to write and we wouldn't know it?
There's things all throughout the Bible that you just don't know, that we just don't understand,
that we'll understand someday, that we'll see someday, but there's certain things today
that we just have no idea about.
And through all of these signs, is he pointing to things in the Bible and saying, look, when
you see wars and you see the death and you see the famine and you see the clouds in the
sky, look, obviously the world that we live in today, God created, this is the father
of this world.
It's the song we sang unto him, this is my father's world, right?
He gives us this world to help us understand the Bible.
Now, I'm not saying that this isn't our final source of authority, this isn't where we get
all of our truth, but the world that we live in confirms this word day after day after day.
When I go out and I preach the gospel and it gets people saved, it confirms the power
of God's word.
When I go out and I preach the gospel to a reprobate and they don't want to hear God's
word, it confirms Romans chapter number one.
Everything that I see in my life today helps confirm God's word.
But of course we live by faith.
You know, I don't walk, I don't know what's going to happen, I spank my children by faith,
but guess what?
When they start responding to the correction, I see, oh man, God's word's confirmed.
That's how life works.
And God gives us all kinds of things in this world to help understand the Bible.
And when it comes to revelation, look, it just helps us, when we look at the world today
that we live in, we have to take it with a grain of salt.
Like I said, I interpreted the second sound of the trumpet could possibly be a volcano
in Hawaii, right?
Is that gospel truth?
No.
But the world that we live in today helps us understand how these things could come
to pass.
And not only that, there's plenty of things in the Bible that we don't know.
But we're not going to know.
Jesus Christ said he didn't even know the day or the hour.
You're going to tell, oh, I could figure it out though.
I could understand it.
You're just a liar.
You don't even understand what the Bible teaches.
Paul said, for now I prophesy in part and I know in part.
But then shall I know, even as also I am known.
So he's saying, look, right now we prophesy in part, we know in part, we only know certain
things.
But guess what?
There will be a day when we know more.
There will be a day when we see more, when our faith becomes sight, when we actually
see the Lord Jesus Christ, when we actually see the face of God the Father.
But I don't know what it looks like today.
There's a day when I know what it looks like.
There will be a day when I get to see the face of the Father.
There's all kinds of things that I will get to see that I don't know right now.
And look, it's not my job to figure out all the things I don't know.
Let's worry about the things that we do know.
We're learning about a lot of things that we do know, don't we?
So let's keep reading.
Basically, he says, look, it doesn't really spell out that this is when the seventh trumpet
is sounded.
But from other things in scripture, we learn that this is when the seventh trumpet was
sounded.
And we see a lot of different things happening.
So go to chapter number 11, verse number 2.
But the court which is without the temple, leave out and measure it not for it is given
to the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
So he's basically given us this timeline.
When you look at the chart, he's basically given us this timeline.
Now in chapter number 11, he's just giving us some concluding statements.
So it's not like it's out of sync of the timeline.
He's just giving us some concluding statements.
That's why we see on the second line that I have on your chart, Revelation chapter number
11.
Basically, he's telling us what's going to happen in this section.
He's saying for forty and two months, the holy city is going to be trodden by the Gentiles.
This is when the antichrist came into power, and he's basically going to be in control
for forty and two months.
Not only that, if we keep reading, he says in verse number 3, and I will give power to
my two witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three short days
clothed in sackcloth.
So we also have basically the same thing.
One thousand two hundred and sixty days, his two witnesses.
These are the same timelines.
If you take one thousand two hundred and sixty and divide by thirty, guess what you
get?
Forty-two.
So he's just saying, look, for the time that the antichrist is in Jerusalem, ruling he
has power, there's going to be my two witnesses that are also there preaching the gospel,
you know, killing people with the fire coming out of their mouth.
You know, you've got the two witnesses and you've got the one hundred and forty-four
thousand.
That's basically your options for getting saved and this wrathful seventh seal that
we see.
So he's just giving us some concluding statements, right?
Revelation 11, two through three.
And if you even look at Luke chapter number twenty-one verse twenty-four, it confirms
the same sentiment of the forty-two months.
So let's go, if we would, to verse number seven, though, because we're going to pick
up with some of the latter things that were happening.
If you look at verse number seven, and your Bible says, and when they shall have finished
their testimony, the beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit shall make war against
them and shall overcome and kill them.
So what happens?
At the end, he's going to eventually kill the two witnesses.
I mean, they've been harassing him for forty-two months.
He's ready to get these guys gone.
Eventually at the very end, he's going to kill the two witnesses.
And so we have the two witnesses up here, basically that's eleven chapter number seven.
He's going to kill these two witnesses towards the end of this timeline.
Not only that, look at verse number fifteen.
Skip down to verse fifteen.
And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms
of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign
forever and ever.
And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their
faces and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art
and wast and art to come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned.
Verse eighteen.
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath has come in the time of the dead, that they
should be judged, and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and
to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great, and shouldst destroy them
which destroy the earth.
And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of
his testament, and there were lightnings and voices and thunderings and an earthquake
and a great hell.
Now, don't get confused with what just happened.
Basically he's saying, look, the time for the Lord Jesus Christ to come and to rule
and reign is come.
Does that mean that it's already happened?
No, he's just saying it's about to happen is what he's trying to say.
Imagine I said, hey, it's time to go to bed, kids.
Does that mean they're in bed?
A lot of times we go and brush our teeth first, we use the bathroom, then we read a book or
we sing a song, and then we get in bed.
That's basically what he's saying.
He's just saying, look, the time that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come and he's
going to rule and reign, and we're going to see him physically on this earth ruling and
reigning, that time is come.
Does that mean that there's nothing else about to happen?
No, he's saying other things are going to happen, okay?
So then there's thunderings and lightnings and hail, and basically that was the seventh
trumpet.
With the seventh trumpet we see these voices and thunderings and hail.
That was the same thing he was saying in chapter number 10, all these things are happening.
So he's saying when the seventh trumpet is sounding, that's basically when we're about
to enter into the Lord Jesus Christ coming and ruling and reigning.
It's signifying that event taking place.
So that's why we have that there with number seven.
So for sake of time, I'll try to get through as much as possible.
Let's go to chapter number 12 now, chapter number 12.
We might not get through all of it this morning, but we got three services a week, right?
No, I'm just kidding.
Look at verse number one.
And 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.
So now, when I read Revelation, I do believe that everything that John saw throughout this
book was in order, is a sense that it's written.
So when it's going to chapter number 12, I do believe it's the next thing he saw after
what he just already saw.
The reality is, though, he's now seeing a new vision, and the vision is taking him back
to a different timeline.
This is the same thing with Daniel.
If you read the book of Daniel, Daniel keeps getting a new vision, a new vision, a new
vision.
It starts at different timelines.
I mean, the book of Daniel, chapter number seven, chapter number eight, chapter number
nine, chapter number ten, every time he's getting a new vision, it's not always just
picking up at the exact same spot.
It's sometimes going to different spots.
But that was the order that he received those visions in.
I believe when you read the book of Revelation, this is the order that John was receiving
these type of revelations.
But when you get to chapter number 12, he's starting the timeline in a different spot
again.
He's saying, look, now I saw a new wonder in heaven.
I literally believe he saw that after he already saw all the stuff from chapters one to eleven.
Does that kind of make sense, what I'm trying to say?
So then, we basically start with a timeline that's not on this chart.
So he's saying, look, I see a wonder in heaven.
There's this woman clothed with the sun, right, not only that, verse two, and she began
with child cried, travailing in birth and pain to be delivered, and there appeared another
wonder in heaven.
So basically, he's seen all these things, then he just sees a great wonder.
There's like this woman and she's about to give birth.
What does that signify?
It signifies the Lord Jesus Christ coming to this earth.
Then he says, now I see another wonder.
So he's sequentially seeing different wonders.
And behold, a great dragon, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven
crowns upon his heads, and his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and it cast
them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman, which was ready to be delivered,
for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
So we see the devil wants to kill the Lord Jesus Christ as soon as he's born.
Isn't that what we see in the gospels?
Don't we see Herod?
He's trying to kill the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's trying to snuff out the Creator right at the beginning when he's the most vulnerable,
when he's the most innocent, and that's how the devil always works.
He always tries to get the innocent when they're most vulnerable, when they don't have
any protection.
He's after your little ones.
He's after your children with all kinds of filth and smut and disgusting sins of this
world today.
And look, you need to be careful to guard your little ones.
You need to be careful to guard your babies and your toddlers and all of them.
The devil would love to get them when they have no protection, when they can't protect
themselves.
That's when he's going after the Lord Jesus Christ.
Not only that, look at verse number five.
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 into his throne.
So what happens to the Lord Jesus Christ?
Well he fulfills his role on this earth.
He says it is finished.
He dies on the cross of the sins of all the world.
His soul goes into hell for three days and three nights.
Then he returns into his body.
He walks out of the tomb for 40 days and 40 nights.
He shows his resurrected body unto his disciples.
He eats fish.
He does a lot of talks with them.
He hangs out with them.
Then 40 days later he sends up into heaven and he's caught up to what?
He's caught up unto God and his throne.
Right?
Not only that, it says in verse six, and the woman fled in the wilderness where she had
a place prepared of God and they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three
square days.
So now these events, they just kind of happen rapid.
It's like, look, there's a woman ready to give birth.
Then the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then he's caught up together.
Then he says this woman has a place prepared for 1260 days.
So what's the thing?
The devil would love for every man to die.
This is just a reality throughout the Bible.
The devil would love it.
Not just believers.
Listen to me now.
He wants every person to just die.
He would love it if all mankind would die.
And look, what does Adam call Eve, the mother of all living?
Look, that's why this is pictured with a woman.
Mankind is symbolized by the woman.
So what does the devil want to do?
He wants to kill all of mankind.
Now what happens with those first five seals?
It's death.
The devil is trying to fulfill that plan.
He's trying to literally kill every single person.
But what does the Bible say?
Well, let's keep reading.
He says, and the woman fled, verse six, into the wilderness where she had a place prepared
of God that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days.
So what's happening?
Basically, there's a thousand, you know, these thousand two hundred sixty days is on this
part of your timeline.
It's these first five seals all the way to the abomination of desolation.
That's the half of the year.
Until we get to that point, this is him persecuting the woman, trying to kill the woman.
But God does not let the devil just kill every single person.
He's basically opening the seals and the devil, you know, is pouring out his wrath.
This is the devil's wrath trying to kill every single person.
And we see for the thousand two hundred and sixty days, this woman is not going to be
completely killed.
She's not going to be completely destroyed.
That's the imagery that he's giving to us.
So let's keep reading, though.
Let's go to verse number thirteen.
And 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 where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the
face of the serpent.
So what is he saying?
Well, basically there's war in heaven during this time and eventually the devil is going
to be cast down to the earth.
And what's going to happen is this.
He's controlling all this through the antichrist, through the beast.
But eventually the devil, he wants to take control completely.
He wants to take control of this antichrist.
So the antichrist is going to come into the temple and declare himself God.
And pretty much simultaneously what's going to happen is when he calls himself God, he's
going to end up dying physically from a deadly wound.
And what's going to happen?
The devil's literally going to inhabit his body.
Let's see that in our Bibles.
Look at chapter number 13, verse number 4.
It says, 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 continued forty and two months.
So isn't that what we saw on our chart when it says, look, he's given power for forty
and two months.
So this is basically a revelation chapter 13 verse 5.
Verse 5 is telling you for forty and two months he has power.
In verse 4 we learn that he gets the power from who?
From the dragon.
From the devil.
The devil's giving him this power.
Not only that, verse 6, and he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme
his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell on the earth.
So he's basically, he's blaspheming God.
He's saying that he is God.
He's saying that he is the second, he is the Lord Jesus Christ or whatever, you know, lie
that he has about himself.
Verse 7, and it was given unto him to make war with the saints and overcome them and
power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations.
So basically, at this point, now he has complete power over the earth and he has war with the
saints.
That's what it says in verse number 7, right?
He says it was given unto him to make war with the saints.
Now who's that?
That's just the believers.
That's the people that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and it says, look back at chapter
12 verse 17, and the devil was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant
of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So after the devil fails, the devil fails to just wipe out all people.
Then he decides, well, I'm just going to get real specific about who I want to kill.
Now I'm just going to kill the Christians.
And after the abomination of desolation, when the devil inhabits the antichrist after this
deadly wound, look, he's going to call every man to take a mark, the mark of the beast
in their right hand or in their forehead and those that will not worship the antichrist
will not worship the beast, will not take his mark, he is going to kill and he's going
to make war with the saints.
He's going to make war with the Christians.
Now have we had the second coming yet?
Have we had the Lord Jesus?
No, look, the devil is on a leash to some degree, but he's going out and he has power
to wipe out mankind, to wipe out, you know, Christians and if it were allowed to continue,
he'd kill them all.
He'd kill every single last one of them.
He is a, he's just a murderer.
He's a murderer from the beginning is what the Bible says.
Let's go to chapter number 14, verse number six.
So this is really serious.
This is some really serious stuff.
And look, the preacher rapture, it doesn't prepare anybody for all the events that we
just described.
It says, well, you know, the Christians will just be gone.
We don't have to worry.
They say they're gone before the first seal.
They're like, well, you know, I don't worry about anything.
You know, who cares if Trump ruins this world?
Who cares about, you know, the liberals?
Who cares about hate speech?
Who cares about getting preached for the gospel?
I mean, who cares about any event?
You know, I'm just gonna be gone.
Look, who's, who's he waking war with?
The saints.
How in the world is every Christian gone who, he's making war with the Christians.
That doesn't even make any sense.
That's just lack of void of any understanding or knowledge.
But look at verse number 16 in chapter 14.
It says, and he sat on a cloud thrust in a 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 he cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle saying thrust
in thy sharp sickle and gathered the clusters of the vine of the earth for her grapes are
fully ripe and the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the
earth and cast it in the great wine press of the wrath of God and the wine press was
trodden without the city and blood came out of the wine press even in the horse bridles
by the space of a thousand and six hundred for long.
I'm not gonna get through the rest.
I'll finish the rest of this sermon this morning, this evening, and then we'll cover
the back page.
We'll cover the actual, the new heaven and the new earth.
We'll get to the real end of the world.
But essentially what happens?
Well he's saying, look, they're sticking, they're putting in their sickle.
They're putting in this and they're gathering what?
They're gathering all the same.
This is what you see with the great multitude.
It's also known as the great harvest.
So go back to Matthew chapter number 13.
This is how we'll conclude.
We'll go back to where we started from, right?
That's always a good place to go back where you started from.
Matthew chapter 13.
He's giving parables and that's what we learned is the Lord Jesus Christ gives a lot of parables
and now when you're trying to understand Bible prophecy, when you're trying to understand
anything in the Bible, don't use the parable to understand it.
Let the parable confirm your understanding.
Let the parable confirm the clear statements of the Bible.
Revelation has a lot of clear statements.
It explains things in detail.
It gives you a great account.
It's not talking, a lot of times it's not talking vivid imagery.
Sometimes you use symbolism type of things like that, but for the most part, what we've
seen is just really straightforward.
It's just giving you these type of events and when you go to Matthew chapter 13, he
says the exact same thing.
He talks about the great harvest.
What is the harvest?
Well, look, there's good harvest and there's bad harvest.
There's the wheat and there's the tares.
So let's see Matthew chapter 13 verse number 37, and he answered instead of them, he that
soweth the good seed is the son of man.
The field is the world.
The good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked
one.
The enemy that sowed them is the devil and the harvest is the end of the world and the
reapers are the angels as therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire.
So shall it be in the end of this world.
The son of man shall send forth his angels and they shall gather out of his kingdom all
things that offend and then which do iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire
and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
So he's giving us even more in this in this parable and we'll see that at the end.
But basically saying, look, this is when the end is the end of this world.
But he's saying first what he's going to gather his wheat.
So that's what we see with the harvest.
We see the great multitude.
He gathers all those that have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, those that have put
their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Will he bring with them, you know, that have already passed those which are asleep in Jesus
and those that are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds
is what the Bible says.
And we'll be with Christ.
We'll be this great multitude.
People singing and praising God.
That was what the harvest was.
And the harvest is what?
The end of the world.
Think about what he's doing to the world here.
I mean, man, the end of this world is great destruction, great fire and all the tears.
They're going to go through some of the worst destruction imaginable.
Now it's important for a couple of reasons.
First of all, it's important for us to be prepared.
It's important for us to be prepared and to understand the Bible.
God didn't give us this information just for fun.
Now obviously I think it's fun.
Obviously I enjoy it.
But at the same time, it's to sober us.
It's to prepare us for what will happen in the future.
He talks to certain churches in chapters 2 and 3.
One of the churches, he says, look, be faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of
life.
So look, Christians have always been put to death.
Christians have always suffered great persecution, great affliction.
And some people don't understand the fact that, look, from an individual level, people
have always suffered the most extreme conditions for the cause of Christ.
From a personal level.
There's always been people that have been put to death or they've been separated from
their families or they've been tortured for the cause of Christ.
But there's never been a time where just the majority of Christians have been persecuted
like it will be at the end.
So that's what he's saying.
Look, this is going to be the great tribulation, not in the sense that individuals be suffering
more than they have in the past.
Just the fact that more Christians are suffering at the same time is what he's trying to describe
to us.
And the reality is, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ and you put your faith in him to save
your soul, why wouldn't you put your physical life in his hands too?
Meaning we should be willing to go out and preach the gospel no matter what the cost
is.
And if you think that you're going through the preacher rapture, you're not mentally
prepared at all.
You're not ready at all.
You have, I mean, if you can't go out and stand against the apartment manager today
and say, look, the Bible tells me to go out and preach the gospel to every creature.
That's what I'm going to do, sir.
If you can't even stand up to him, how are you going to stand up to the police officer
holding a gun to your face, saying, you better not preach this gospel.
You better take this mark of the beast.
You better worship the antichrist.
I'm not going to do any of that.
And look, I can say it all day long, but you know what, I've got to prepare my heart first.
And you never really know what it's like until you really face it.
If you can't face the apartment manager, let me help you out.
You're not ready to face death.
You're not ready to face that.
And it's a sobering message.
When we read God's word, it's honey.
I love God's word, but guess what?
It's a little bitter too.
It's a little bitter to realize that we could actually have to put our lives at stake.
But look, whatever suffering you have in this world, you getting a bullet to the head is
nothing compared to someone suffering eternity in hell.
It's nothing compared to any of the things on this earth that they're going to go through.
All the locusts from hell and all the suffering and affliction that they're going to suffer
from that, that's worse than anything you've probably experienced.
But then hell is 10 times worse.
Listen to my sermon, Nine Terrors of Hell.
It's way worse than anything you could ever imagine.
That's why we go out and preach the gospel, because we love people.
And if you love people, if you want them to know the truth, then you'll go out and you'll
preach the gospel.
And when you read about these things, you realize, my house isn't going to survive this.
My car is not going to survive all of these things.
My life does not consist of the bunch of the things that I have today.
You know what should concern me?
Eternal things, things of value.
And when we learn in the night sermon about the new heavens and the new earth, we'll see,
man, that's way better than anything we have today.
That's what we should have our minds focused on.
That's what we should be thinking about.
We should have our thoughts on heavenly things and things of eternal value.
That's where the importance is.
And God gave us the end so that we would be prepared.
That's what we got.
We prepare ourselves to preach the gospel.
We'd also live our lives as if it's important, as if we know what's going to happen.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Father, so much for your word.
Thank you so much for the truths of your Bible.
I pray that we would just be sober about the reality of your word.
That we love your word, we'd eat it like honey, but we'd realize that some things
are unsavory.
They're a little bit bitter.
But I pray that we would just prepare our hearts that we want to go out and preach the
gospel for any reason.
And while we have free course, while the word of God is not bound, while we can go out for
free and preach the gospel this afternoon, I pray that you would stir our hearts to realize
the importance of going out and preaching the gospel.
Understand the importance of preparing ourselves and dedicating ourselves now so that if it
ever becomes harder, if it ever becomes more persecution in the future, we can withstand.
We can be strong.
We can be steadfast in the faith.
We can always be abounding the work of the Lord.
I pray that you would just help us all understand the importance of eternal value.
How that those that were faithful and to death received a crown of life.
How that you will greatly reward your servants for going out and serving you.
It's not in vain.
It's not in vain to pull someone out of the fire.
It's not in vain to save a soul from eternal damnation.
We should go out with love in our hearts and a tear in our eyes and preach your gospel
till death.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.