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Amen, so keep your place there in Revelation chapter 16 and when you leave Revelation 16, keep a bookmark there because we're going to be coming back and forth to Revelation chapter 16. Between really Revelation chapter number 9 and Revelation chapter number 16 is where you'll want to keep your place for this evening. So we're looking at the wrath of God. We're looking back in Daniel's 70th week sermon series and we're on the last half of the week. If you look at the chart in front of you, we've already gone through the first half of the week. We're looking at Daniel's 70th week which is the final seven year period of the end times that the book of Daniel talks about. We started out with the first three and a half years which is the tribulation leading into the great tribulation of the saints. The Antichrist comes on the scene at the beginning of that three and a half years period. That's kind of the mark of when we will know we're in the end times. You say, well are we in the end times now? The answer is no. So we're going to know that we're in the end times when this world leader comes on the stage and he makes this covenant with many. He begins this war that turns into a world war to rise to global power. This isn't something, as we studied through this, this isn't something we're going to miss. This isn't something you're accidentally going to be like, oh did we miss that guy that started this world war and rose to power and took control of this global kingdom and created this abomination of desolation in a temple that doesn't exist yet and forced everyone to worship it and persecuted Christians along the way, forced everyone to take this mark on their right hand and on their forehead and if they didn't he was going to kill them and persecuted them to the point where if Jesus didn't come back and rapture us up no one would have survived. We're not going to miss that. We're not going to miss all these things happening. The Bible is very clear about the chain of events that's going to happen. I don't know what all these things are going to look like. We don't know exactly how they're all going to play out but the milestones of these events are clear and which one comes before and after the others is very clear. So after the rapture, after we are taken up that is when God's wrath within an hour begins on the earth and God starts pouring out his wrath and that's where we see the trumpets and the vials that are poured out in the book of Revelation and that's what we're looking at and tonight we're going to finish up with the last three trumpets. There's seven trumpets and seven vials so the trumpet announces the vial which contains God's wrath. All right, go back to Revelation chapter number eight if you would. I'm keeping your place in Revelation chapter 16. So we've gone through the first four of the vials and trumpets that have been poured out on the earth, the waters, the sea and the rivers if you remember and then of course the sun, moon and stars as well. So that's the first four trumpets and vials that we've looked at but look at Revelation chapter number eight. Let's look at the final three trumpets and vials. Now there is a little bit of a shift here in these final three where the Bible says this in verse number 13 of Revelation chapter number eight. It says, And I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven saying with a loud voice, whoa, whoa, whoa, to the habit, habitures of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound. So we've already seen like major things happen. We've seen, you know, a third of the trees burnt up, all the grass was burnt up, we saw that the waters of the earth were poisoned. I mean it's been pretty terrible up to this point and this angel is saying, you know, you ain't seen nothing yet basically but you're going to see a shift here from not only just, you know, judgment on the earth, the trees, the waters, the sun, moon and stars on kind of the creation, you're going to see a shift onto people here in these last three woes and that's what this angel is talking about. He's saying not only is it going to get really bad but it's going to be shifted upon individuals. Look at Revelation chapter nine. Now flip over to Revelation chapter number nine. I'm going to read for you Revelation 16 which is the parallel verse of the vial here. You're turning to Revelation chapter nine. In Revelation 16 10, the Bible says and the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast and his kingdom was full of darkness and they nod their tongues for pain and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores and repented not of their deeds. So here we see in Revelation 16 with the fifth vial that men are in pain. These men that are against God that will not repent, they will not turn to God, are in pain, they're suffering, they're in the dark and something is causing them great pain and that something is revealed in Revelation chapter number nine. Look at verse number one. And the fifth angel sounded. And here we're going to see more detail. This is kind of the beauty of Revelation chapter nine. It's really kind of a gospel methodology here that God is using where he gives us some detail in Revelation nine and some extra detail in the parallel passages in Revelation 16. But look at Revelation chapter nine verse number one. Again, 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. So this star was actually an angel and he opened the bottomless pit and there arose a smoke out of the pit as a smoke of a great furnace. So the bottomless pit of course we know is, and I don't have time to go into this because I want to get through all this tonight, but that's hell. Okay, so hell is being opened here 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. So again, you know, we're just literally the earth is darkened, the sun is darkened, there's so much smoke coming out of hell at this point. And there came out of the smoke locust upon the earth and unto them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. What do the scorpions of the earth have? What kind of power do they have? They have the power to sting people. They have the power to cause pain and, you know, inject a toxin that causes great pain in people. It was commanded that they should not hurt the grass of the earth nor either any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. Remember God sealed 144,000 already and sent them to earth before the wrath began. But turn to Ephesians chapter number four, I'm going to take a little liberty here and give some of my opinions on what's going on here. I believe, and I'm going to kind of show you biblically why I believe this, but I believe that as people are getting saved, God is also sealing them as well. And I'm going to show you some examples from the Bible that shows that this is just kind of how God works when he's pouring out his wrath in the Bible. Because look, this isn't the only time that God has poured out his wrath in the Bible. It's not only the end times, it's happened in the past and it's documented in the Bible. All right, so look at Ephesians chapter four, verse number 30. Of course, you know, Ephesians chapter one also says a similar thing, but the Bible says in Ephesians 4 30, it says, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye, meaning you are who are saved, are sealed unto the day of redemption. So we see a pattern here where saved people are sealed with the Holy Spirit. All right, turn to Ezekiel chapter number nine. So Ezekiel, of course, is prophesying the destruction in chapter number nine. He's prophesying the destruction. Ezekiel is a contemporary of Daniel and Jeremiah and prophets that lived during the time where Judah, the lower kingdom of Judah, went into Babylonian captivity. Remember during the time of Ezekiel, the northern kingdom was gone already for over 150 years. They've already been taken, they've already been destroyed by the Assyrian empire. But look at Ezekiel chapter number nine. For just some more examples of God, kind of as he pours out his wrath, he kind of takes care of those who are saved. Look at Ezekiel chapter nine, verse number one. He cried also in my ears with a loud voice saying, cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand. And one man among them was clothed with linen, and with a writer's inkhorn by his side, they went in and stood beside the brazen altar. Verse number three. And the glory of the Lord of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side. And the Lord said unto him, go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. So here we're seeing this picture of God sealing the men of Jerusalem that were not going along with all these abominations that they were committing, and they were being marked, they were being sealed, so they would not be hurt by the wrath that was coming upon Jerusalem. Now go to Exodus chapter number eight. I'll show you another one where God literally separated out his people when he was pouring out his wrath. And this is, of course, during the ten plagues. During the ten plagues that God was judging Egypt and trying to get Moses to be able to convince Pharaoh, really what we know is God was using Pharaoh as an example of his power. But during the ten plagues, it's interesting because right around the flies with the fourth plague, look down at verse number 22 of Exodus chapter number eight. I think this is the first time that God literally says he's separating out the Israelites. And I will sever, look at 822, and I will sever in the day, in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end that thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. Now go to Exodus chapter nine in verse number four. Now we're looking at the next, I think this is the fifth plague of the death of the cattle. Look what the Bible says where he says, and the Lord shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt. God is literally even protecting the cattle of the people, his people versus, you know, the people of Egypt. All right, the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt, that there should be nothing die of that that is the children of Israel's. Look at verse number, verse number 12. No, verse number 11. It says in the magicians, this is the boils. Now comes the boils upon the people of the land. It says in the magicians, could not stand before Moses because of the boils. So these are the magicians that are going and they're trying to recreate to Pharaoh all the things that Moses is doing, or that God is doing, that Moses is going to say God's doing. And now the magicians can't stand before Pharaoh because they have all, they're getting judged as well. It says, for the boil was upon the magicians and upon what? All the Egyptians. So the Israelites did not get the boils, they were separated out. Now go over to verse number 25. Verse number 25. The Bible says in verse number 25, and now we're talking about the hail that comes right after the boils. And it says in the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt that was in the field, both man and beast and the hail smote every herb of the field and break every tree of the field. Only in the land of what? This is where God separated out the Israelites in the land of Goshen where the children of Israel were. Was there no hail? So again, God is separating out his people from his wrath in Exodus when he's judging the people of Egypt and judging, and it was the same thing with the first born, the death of the first born. Of course, this is the institution of the Passover, which again pictures the coming Messiah, the coming of Jesus Christ. All right, so look, we see patterns. You see the same pattern, by the way, in the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham, he goes to God and he beseeches God for Sodom and Gomorrah. God tells Abraham that he's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 18, Genesis 19. And Abraham says like, what if there's 50 righteous people there? And God says, if there's 50 righteous people there, I won't destroy it because he doesn't want to destroy the 50 righteous people. But there wasn't 50 righteous people there. And then it goes through this pattern where Abraham says, what about 45 God? What about 40? What about 30? What about 20? What about 10? There wasn't even 10. There was only four, turns out. And they weren't that great, but they were saved. All right, there was four. And then what did God do? He didn't just go and destroy the four. He went and he literally took the four out before he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So we see a definite pattern in the Bible through God's judgment, God's wrath, that God seals and tries to spare or does spare his people from his wrath. Look, we're not going to be spared from tribulation, from persecution of the world. And that's what we see the first half of the week, the tribulation of the Antichrist. But people are getting saved in the wrath of God. Yes, there was a rapture where all the saved people at that time, so the second after the rapture or the millisecond after the rapture, there was no saved people on the earth. But I bet you just the rapture itself convinced a lot of people to get saved at that point. A lot of people were popping in that Bible Way to Heaven DVD that somebody had given them being like, oh man, maybe they were right. So look, people are getting saved through the wrath for sure. All right, so I believe that God, when he says, you know, he's sealed people, the people that he's sealed, he's not doing that to, I believe that that means 144,000, the two witnesses, and also people that are getting saved along the way. All right, and I see plenty of evidence for that in the Bible, also in this story in Revelation. All right, go back to, where are we going? Go to Revelation chapter number nine, go to Revelation chapter number nine. So now we have, okay, so what do we have happening in this, with this fifth angel, with the trumpet pouring out this vial? We have an angel opening up hell, the whole earth is filled with smoke, and these locusts are coming out of hell. All right, look at Revelation chapter number nine and verse number five. I'm glad I'm watching this one from Heaven, by the way. All right, look at verse number five of Revelation chapter number nine. And to them it was given that they should not kill them. So these scorpion-like locusts are not supposed to kill people, but they should be tormented five months, and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man, meaning it's just this very painful sting. All right, I mean, look, I don't know if you've ever been stung by anything poisonous, but I mean, if you ever go fishing with me and you ever get a rockfish pop you in your finger or something, it hurts so bad it'll put you down on the floor, it hurts so bad. Just a little bit of a, it's got poison, they have poison in their quills, and I've gotten it in my finger before, and it is so painful. It's only painful, luckily, for not five months. It's painful for about five minutes, but it hurts really, really bad. All right, that's why many times you'll see me wearing gloves when we're out there, all right? But the point is, these locusts are stinging people and it hurts very bad. And the shapes of the locusts, it gets even worse, it's like a nightmare, the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle, and their heads were as it were like crowns of gold, and their faces were as faces of men. All right, so they have faces on them, all right? These little, I don't know how big they are, these little bugs or whatever, they had hair as a hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions, all right? This isn't your run-of-the-mill, everyday grasshopper here, all right? They had breastplates as it were, breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was the sound of, as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. So, it was loud when they were coming and flying, they were tough, they had some sort of armor, it wasn't like you were just going to take a flyswatter and whack one of these things. They had teeth, and they had tails, verse number 10, like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails, and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, and in the Greek tongue, his name is Apollyon. So by the way, this angel is working for God, by the way, all right? You know, this is an angel of God that has the keys of the bottomless pit, and God created hell. There's not this, this is a myth that Satan rules hell and all this. No, Satan's going to hell. Satan's going, Satan was created, hell was created for Satan and his angels. That's what it was created for, and anybody that doesn't get saved is going to go there with Satan and his angels. So this angel that has the key of the bottomless pit is an angel of God. It is not a demon or something like that, all right? So look, it is interesting though, it is interesting that where do these beasts, these animals, these locusts, where do they come from? They came literally out of hell. I mean, it kind of makes you wonder, like, what else is down there? You know, I'm glad that I'm not ever going to find out. Let's put it that way. Personally, that I'm not ever personally going to find out. I mean, we have all heard people out soul winning. I've heard this so many times from people out soul winning when you start talking to them about hell, and they're just like, well, hell is here on earth, man, because they got something going on in their life, and maybe things aren't great. Maybe they live in a dump or they, whatever, their life is a mess and a disaster and all these different things. And it's like, look, you know, what I always say, and I should say more than I say, but I'm like, look, man, things may not be going well for you right now, and you know, your life, you may have gone through some things in your life, but I mean, are you on fire burning and screaming in pain right now? Obviously not. Like, if you're standing at someone's door talking to them, and they're not literally on fire, like, things can get worse. And that's what, but much worse than just that. There's all these beasts that are stinging and torturing people. Look, these things were in hell before they came out. Apollyon, Abaddon just let them out for a while to, you know, torture the men on earth in God's wrath. All right, so look, the point is this, this is not hell. No matter what you're going through or what you've been through, this isn't even close to hell. All right, just these animals, these beasts that are in hell, it just shows you how horrible, horrible even the thought of hell is. These things with teeth and lion, the long hair, and ugh. Turn to Revelation chapter number, actually just look down at Revelation chapter number 9 and look at verse number 13. So here we see these locusts that are coming out and they're stinging men for five months, but look at verse number 13, it says, the sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, saying to the sixth angel, which had the trumpet, loose the four angels, which are bound in the great river Euphrates. Now it gets really bad. All right, turn to Genesis chapter number 3, turn to Genesis chapter number 3 and I'll tell you where I think these four angels came from. And again, this is just my opinion here, but look at Genesis chapter number 3 and look at verse number 23. If you remember when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, God, you know, put cherubims around, you know, at the entrance of the Garden of Eden to guard, you know, the tree of, you know, the tree of life. All right, look at verse number 23, therefore God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground, this is Adam, from whence he was taken and he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way, which is every way, north, south, east, and west, so there'd be four, to keep the way of the tree of life. So God didn't want anyone coming back this way. And of course, there's this intersection of these great rivers where the Bible says that, and I've actually looked at this on Google Maps to see if you can figure out where this would be. I've looked for the Garden of Eden on Google Maps, all right. But the problem is like with the rivers like the Tigris, the Euphrates, and these other rivers like in Iraq, basically is where it is, is they've been like rerouted so many times and rivers like change their course so many times, so it would be basically impossible to figure out where this was at. But the point is, the Bible says that God put at the bottom of this river, wherever this is, he put these four angels to guard the garden, guard the tree of life. All right, go back to Revelation chapter number nine now. So the four angels are loosed out of the river Euphrates at this point, and look at verse number 15. It says 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. It means, basically that means that they were prepared for this moment. These angels were waiting for this moment for God to release them, and the number of the army of the horsemen were 200,000,000, that's, you know, 200 million. If you just take a thousand times a thousand, that's a million, so 200 million, and I heard the number of them. So these angels are loosed, basically, they're loosed with this army to go out and kill a third of the men, a third of the people that are remaining on the earth. Look at verse number 17. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, of jacinth and brimstone, and their heads of the horses, whereas heads of lions, and out of their mouths, issued fire and smoke and brimstone. Again, a terrifying sight. 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, for their power is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails were like unto serpents and had heads, and with them they do hurt. Now go to Revelation chapter number 16. So I want to kind of show you, it says in these three, but there was four angels. I want to kind of show you what that's all about. Look at Revelation chapter number 16. Revelation chapter number 16, and let's look at the Revelation 16 part of the sixth angel here. In Revelation 16, verse number 13, we see something happen on the other side. So here we see the four angels from God are loosed on the earth at this point, and they're to go out and kill a third of men, and they have this massive army of hundreds of millions of horses, and these horses are not regular horses, all right? They go out to slay a third of the men, but look at Revelation 16, 13. At the same time, this is what happens. It says, I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, that's Satan, out of the mouth of the beast, that's the Antichrist, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. So this is the unholy trinity here. So basically what you're seeing is these angels, these four angels are loosed with this army to go out and kill a third of men, and at that same time, the Antichrist, Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet are speaking these great blasphemies to try to get the people to rise up against God and what he is doing. It says, for they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth under the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to what? To gather them to fight the Lord, basically, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. So this is leading up to what we know as the battle of Armageddon, all right? But it's not like there's just this one battle. There's this huge mess going around the world right now where these four angels are literally killing a third of men on the earth, and then the false prophet, Satan himself, and the Antichrist himself are getting all the people whipped up to fight back against what these angels are doing. So again, here we are, World War again, basically. I mean, it's not much of a war, but it's not just one final battle at the battle of Armageddon. This is all kind of happening where all these things are rising up. Now, look at verse number 15. It says, Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments. Let he walk naked, and they see his shame, and he gathered them together into a place in the Hebrew tongue called Armageddon. So that's where that final battle is going to occur. So that's why it says, and these three, you know, cause, because the army of the four angels is rising up to kill a third of the men, and the three spirits, basically the three, the Antichrist, Satan, the false prophet are fighting against that whole thing. So it's basically, you know, two different sides of that same coin. All right, look at verse number 17. So these three spirits, you know, the Antichrist, his false prophet, and of course, Satan, who's running them all, are gathering an army of God's enemies to what's going to be the final battle here. Look at verse 17. Now we see the seventh angel in verse number 17. The Bible says, And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices and thunders and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such as not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great. And it was such a big earthquake. Look at the results here of this earthquake. It's such a big earthquake. It almost seems like a flood, but it's an earthquake. All right, and the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and great Babylon came into remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. We'll talk about that in just a couple minutes. And every island fled away. This is how bad the earthquake is here, that all the islands literally crumble into the sea, and the mountains were not found. So this earthquake is so big that it flattens the mountains, and it flattens the islands into the ocean. It sounds like a flood, but we know that God's not going to kill all the men on the earth with a flood anymore, as he promised us in Genesis chapter 8, Genesis chapter 9. Sorry. So it's not, it's an earthquake. It's such a great earthquake that it flattens the mountains. And look at verse number 21. And there fell upon men a great hail out of the heaven. Again, just killing more people here. Every stone about the weight of a talent, and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, and for the plague thereof was exceeding great. So you have hail that is basically, you know, 120 or 130 pounds, a hailstone that's 130 pounds falling out of the sky upon men. And, you know, I mean, I've seen some hail in my life, but that is extreme. We've actually seen softball-sized hail before. I mean, you may, you know, think that that's biblical, but this is a 130 pounds hailstone. All right. Softball-sized hail is scary enough, it will kill you. All right. Golf ball-sized hail, which is normal in North Dakota, will kill you too. So 130 pound hailstones coming down. So next, in Revelation chapter number 17, if you look at your chart, I added three things at the end of your chart here. So we see the fifth angel, the sixth angel, and the seventh angel. We see the locust from hell. We see, we see a third of men being killed by God's angels coming out of the River Euphrates. And then we see here at the end this great earthquake and these hailstones again killing more people. But in Revelation chapter 17, which I'm going to do a separate sermon on that, we see a judgment at this same time. So you kind of have to understand that there's a lot going on at the same time. There's these armies rising up against God. There's this army of God's angels coming against the armies that are rising up against them. And then in Revelation 17, we see the judgment of the great whore. All right. That's the whole chapter of Revelation chapter number 17. I'm going to explain to you what that's all about in a separate sermon. I haven't done a sermon on that. Most people agree on what that is. All right. We'll just leave it there and I'll do a sermon on that in the coming weeks. Revelation chapter number 18 I have preached on, but I will touch on it again next week, is the judgment or the destruction of Babylon. All right. The destruction of Babylon. And that will kind of be fitting for next week as I preach on a sermon on America. And then a lot of people think that Babylon in Revelation chapter 18 is America. It could be. It couldn't be. I've done a sermon on that before. And then in Revelation chapter 19, if you just want to flip over there, in Revelation chapter number 19, we see the ending battle of Armageddon. All right. We see how that battle turns out. So you have to understand that all these things are happening at the end of the week. They're happening at the end of God's wrath, at the end of this seven year period. But Revelation chapter 19 in verse number 11, let's just look at that. This is how that final battle ends up. And this is how it, you know, this is how it basically, it ends this war right here. Look at verse number 11. And I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And his eyes were as a flame of fire. So this is the Jesus that we see in Revelation chapter number one. So this is Jesus coming back to take care of things once and for all. And on his head were many crowns and he had a name written on, written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood and his name is called, and this is how we really know who it is, the word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean. I have to assume that that's us coming back with Jesus to begin the millennial reign. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword that with it he should smite the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and he treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God. So he is coming back to finish this battle, to end this uprising, to end the wrath of God and to set up his millennial reign on the earth. And I saw an angel and he had on his vesture on his thigh a name written king of kings and lord of lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried with a loud voice saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God that ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth. So I saw the beast, this is the antichrist and all the rulers of the earth that he has convinced to follow him in Revelation chapter number six, this global government. So all the presidents and prime ministers and all the different rulers of the earth that followed the antichrist, this is where they meet their end right here. And their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse to make war against Jesus and against his army. And the beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, which he had deceived them that received the mark of the beast and that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. Notice they weren't put in hell. Okay. These were put in the lake of fire, which look is an outer darkness. And you know, not to preach a whole sermon on that, but the lake of fire is an outer darkness. Hell will eventually be put in everyone in hell will eventually be put in the lake of fire, but they are not put in hell. They're put in the lake of fire, which means they're done. They're not coming back. It is Satan that is put in hell. And after the thousand year reign, Satan will be loosed for a little while and I've preached on this as well, but he'll be loosed to gather up God's enemies again, because guess what? Jesus is going to rule with a rod of iron in the millennial reign. People will turn against him again because people are people and they're just going to do the same thing over and over. In verse number 21, we see the final ending of the battle of Armageddon and the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. So this great army comes back with Jesus to finish this battle at the very end of the wrath of God and this great army that's with Jesus doesn't have to do anything. Jesus basically opens his mouth and just with the sword of his mouth, which I have to assume is like the word of God, he just destroys everyone. He destroys every the word of God destroys all of God's enemies, just like the word of God created the actual creation itself because the word of God has literal power. All right. We see that here. All right. So that's how the wrath of God actually ends. I mean, let's do some accounting so far on like death toll here. All right. I mean, you look at Revelation chapter number six, it says that a quarter part of men were killed. And if you look at me, if that's happened tomorrow, which is not going to happen tomorrow, but if it happened in the near future, a quarter of men is like two billion people is what we're talking about. All right. And then after that, you got the rapture, which I don't know how many saved people you think are on the earth right now, tens of millions, millions, maybe. But, you know, not billions. I wouldn't say definitely not billions. You see revelation chapter eight, you see men in the sea are killed revelation chapter nine, a third of men are killed again. So a third now that's a third of men. So if you just subtract two billion from eight billion, there's eight billion people on the earth, right? Eight billion people, give or take a hundred million or so, eight billion people on the earth. You got rid of two billion. Now you've got six billion, a third of them. That's two more billion. Two more billion are killed in the wrath of God. So you've got four billion people dead. And then you've got some amount of saved people during the wrath of God. But the vast majority are probably unsaved. So you've got four billion people dead. You've got raptured Christians and you got about four billion unsaved people at that point. Turn to Matthew chapter number nine. Turn to Matthew chapter number nine. So you understand like even after four billion people are killed, there's four billion unsaved people on the earth. Imagine that. Now you understand what Jesus, like the harvest is always plenteous. The harvest is always plenteous. Look at Matthew chapter nine verse 37. Matthew chapter nine verse number 37. The Bible says, Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. So you got these four billion unsaved people. You got about 144,000 saved people that were there to get them saved during the wrath of God. Definitely outnumbered. We're always going to be outnumbered as saved people to unsaved people. Turn to Philippians chapter number two and verse number 10. I'm going to show you just one more thing. And then I want to make a point tonight on why God did this. You think about this for a second. Why do this? Why the wrath of God for three and a half years? Look at Philippians chapter number two and verse number 10. And I touched on this a couple of weeks ago, but I just find it interesting that people believe that people can, people do not believe the reprobate doctrine. How could you not believe the reprobate doctrine when you hear an account like this? You literally have God doing these unbelievable things, smiting the sun, moon, and stars. He is literally releasing creatures from hell. And what do most of the men at that time do? They just get angrier and angrier and angrier and blaspheme God for it. They do not get saved. The vast majority of people during the wrath of God. Look at Philippians chapter number two and verse number 10. It makes you think, it makes you wonder about this verse, not really, but it makes you think about this verse, that at the name of the Jesus, that look at this in verse number 10, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. So the Bible here is saying that eventually every knee will bow to Jesus Christ. Every knee. You say, what do you mean? Are you talking about just saved people or unsaved, you know, what are you talking about? Of things in heaven, things in the earth and things under the earth. What it is saying here is every knee will bow to Jesus Christ. And you're like, wow, even the people that hate God in the wrath of God, well, they've gone through this terrible, these locusts from hell have stunned them. They've gone through these hailstones, this earthquake that flattened basically the entire earth. And they're still not bowing a knee, but yes, but these people are going to go to hell and they're going to spend a thousand years in hell. And that's why the Bible says that every and things under the earth will bow their knee to Jesus Christ. Because after the millennial reign of Christ, everyone that is in hell is going to be brought out to the great white throne judgment and it will be at that point where they will be knee and begging Jesus Christ and hailing him as king and begging him to not put them back where they were. And instead, they're going to the lake of fire. Because at that point, it's too late. That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Every tongue will confess it. Even the people that are brought out of hell after the millennial reign of Christ. Alright, why do this? Why, why, I mean, that shows you, does not that show you how bad hell must be? Yes, we see the locusts, yes, we see that it's called eternal torment, that the smoke of their torment will ascend up forever, that they're going to be, there's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth, that it's going to be this excruciating pain that never stopped. But really, that Philippians chapter 2, that these people that just could not be convinced, they could not be turned to God, they just hated God more and more and more, even those people will go to hell and they will come out praising Jesus as Lord and begging for mercy. So the question becomes, why the wrath at all? If hell is so bad, why the wrath at all? See, people look at this last period, even us, even the people in the tribulation that go through the great tribulation, they're literally telling God, they're like, when are you going to avenge us? When are you going to avenge us, God? They want God to take them out and avenge their martyrdoms, avenge their loved ones that were killed. That's what they want. But look, God's going to avenge us when these people go to hell. There's nothing worse than the idea of hell. There's nothing worse than that. So why the wrath? Why the wrath? If hell is a thousand times worse, why go through that at all? And the answer is this, it's not vengeance, it's mercy. It's God's mercy. It's God's mercy through his wrath. Because God is using one final filter, one last ditch attempt. That's why the 144,000. He's putting the 144,000 soul winners on earth. He's putting the two witnesses on earth. Turn to Revelation chapter number 11. For what? For one final chance for people where it's not too late. Look at Revelation chapter number 11 and look at verse number three. The two witnesses will also be there. They will basically be like the 144,000, except they're like these public figures. And I will give power unto my two witnesses that they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days, basically three and a half years, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before the God, standing before the God of the earth. And most people, you know, the smart money's on Moses and Elijah here. Most people think that's who it is, but it could be somebody else. Somebody said to me, my daughter said to me, like, maybe it's just somebody that we don't even know. Never even thought about that before, but who knows? All right, who knows? These two witnesses are going to be there. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies. If many men will hurt them, he must be in this manner be killed. These have the power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, again, you know, Moses brought water, Elijah, you know, brought a drought as well. And when they shall have, look at verse number seven, and when they shall have finished their testimony, what would be the point of their testimony? Their testimony is while the wrath of God is being poured out, they are, they are testifying who is doing it and for what reason? Why? I mean, what would be the point of just these two witnesses and these 144,000 people that are sealed in their forehead, what would be the point of them just rebuking the wicked, just rebuking, you know, reprobates, just send them to hell. I mean, why, why waste your time? But the point is, is that they're not all reprobates during the wrath of God. The point is to save those that would be deceived by these haters of God during this time. So just as God, you in the Old Testament that we see in, you know, the Exodus, where we see in the judgment of Judah, just as God, even in Sodom and Gomorrah, he doesn't want to leave anyone behind. So in God's wrath, we see, I mean, we see, God is literally using the wicked to give other people one more chance to accept him. That's what you're seeing here. The wrath of God in the final half of Daniel's 70th week, as everything else in the Bible is all about the Gospel, as everything else in the Bible is. It all points back to the Gospel and, you know, giving people one final chance. And look, I mean, that kind of shows us, that kind of shows us, you know, whether whether us in the United States today, I tend to think that, you know, Americans and the United States and just being Americans, we tend to think maybe we're more important than we actually are in world history. But the last point I want to make, as far as God's mercy being shown in his wrath here, whether or not the United States of America is part of the end times or not. That, this story of God's wrath and God having mercy in his wrath, literally the point of his wrath is to show mercy to people that might just need one more chance. Just might need to have that door knocked one more time. They might need to see, you know, a miracle from God and just have somebody give him the gospel just one more time. Literally whether we are part of the end times or not, because look, we could be Babylon. There's a lot of things that fit about America being Babylon, but guess what? We could just be another nation that has the spirit of Babylon that rises, gets arrogant, prideful, and falls in the exact same pattern. We could easily not be part of the end times God's wrath. We could easily not be part of this 70th week. We could fall before then. I mean, a lot of things have to happen before this God's wrath is played out before this destruction of Babylon happens, and to say that a lot of things, we'd have to survive a while as a nation in order to get to that point. But the hope that we can take, even if we're not part of this actual story, the hope that we can take is that even if God does judge this nation, which look, he's judging this nation one or another. Times are not. Nations, that's the story of the Bible right there. Is nations rising, turning against God, God's wrath coming down upon them. But what we can take from this tonight is whether we're part of this end times Babylon or not, whether we're part of America is part of this end times or not. Even if we're not, God looks out for his people. Look, tribulation, persecution, I get that, but when God's wrath is poured out, he looks out for those that are sealed. And look, we can take some comfort in that at least. All right, so God's mercy is really the takeaway from God's wrath, which is kind of an interesting thing. But it just shows you the depths of God's mercy. He doesn't want to leave any single person that can hear the gospel one more time behind. All right, let's bow our heads and have a word.