Revelation: Part 21

It’s encouraging to me to know that there’s going to be a number of people that’s too great to be numbered stander before the throne of God who have come out of the great Tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, it says. In other words, there’s going to be such a huge number saved during that time. They’re almost all going to be martyred. But there’s going to be a tremendous number that turned to Jesus Christ.

And you know, I’m thrilled about that because you know one of the reasons that’s going to happen? Because people you talk to now, even if they don’t believe now, they’re going to remember what you said. And when they see these things happening, they’re going to have to make a decision. They’re going to have to make a decision to whatever I have to suffer, I’m going to believe in Jesus Christ.

You know, it’s easy to become a believer in Christ now. You don’t have to suffer. In some parts of the world, you do. Here you just have maybe suffer a little bit embarrassment because the old nature.

But then it’s going to cost most of them their lives. And so this fifth seal is about the wholesale slaughter of believers around the entire world. And that’s going to bring God’s wrath, it’s going to unbridle it. But even then, God holds back his wrath in order that as many as will believe may believe.

All right. That brings us to the sixth seal. And here’s what I call the sixth seal. The first global icbm nuclear exchange.

And I’ll show you why in just a minute. Do you know all of our understanding about nuclear weapons is mostly theoretical? There have only been two nuclear bombs used in a hostile attack. And those were firecrackers compared to what we have now.

As horrible as it was, they were nothing compared to what we have now. We have miniaturized thermonuclear weapons, warheads, where they pack each warhead that’s been miniaturized packs enough power to destroy a whole city. And there are still – russia still has a bunch of intercontinental ballistic missiles that have multiply independently targeted warheads. That is, they can carry as many as ten.

We have them, too. And that means they fire one missile after it goes above the atmosphere, it parts, the cone of the missile parts, and the warheads split off, and go each one is targeted at a different target. All right. Now, remember that.

All of the our knowledge about what these weapons would do is theoretical. For instance, we do not know what would be the interactive consequence of fire a great number of nuclear – thermonuclear weapons into a closely related area at the same time. It is possible that it can cause a chain reaction. And I think when we get to the trumpet judgments, I’ll show you something that will be amazing that the apostle John, he was an eye witness to all of this.

The only way to understand a lot of this prophecy that we’re headed into now is to remember that John the apostle was told over and over by Jesus, write what you have seen and heard only. And the word see that is used means eye witness on the scene. And that’s why you go to the book of Revelation, you’ll find every time there’s a significant event that the apostle John is about to introduce, he will say, I looked and I heard and I saw. Every time.

Because he was there. Say, wait a minute, it hadn’t happened yet. No problem for God. Time is a creation.

God can put somebody in any spot. But that’s what happened. And you have to remember and apply that to understand these prophecies in the book of Revelation because you have to put yourself in the place of John the apostle in the first century. He was propelled into the what I believe is the early 21st century, and he was made to stand and witness events, especially war, that would be with weapons beyond his imagination.

And he would see these things. And then he was brought back to the isle of patmos again and said, now write about it. Well, how do you describe something like that? It’s beyond anything they had any inkling of.

So with that in mind, let’s read the sixth seal, okay. Verse 12. And I looked when he broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became like blood. Mike, you were telling me, you just – you drove over here only about a hundred feet up was just a solid mass of black smoke from this fire.

Well, think of that kind of debris scattered over most of the earth. He says that he saw – when he looked and he broke the sixth seal, there was a great size mays in Greek, and the son became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood. Now, size moss is translated “earthquake.” but that’s a jump from the original meaning. Size must means a violent shaking.

Now, an earthquake can do that, but other things can do it. You see, he was standing on the earth when the violent explosions took place, and to him, it felt like an earthquake. It was a great size moss. And immediately after that, the sky became black of sackcloth.

You see, the tremendous nuclear debris thrown into the air. And this would take a lot of warheads to do what he’s talking about. And then when the moon came out, he saw the moon through this tremendous pollution, and it appeared to be red as blood. Well, if you’ve lived in los angeles long enough, you’ve seen that.

Because if you get enough pollution up there and you see the moon coming up, what’s it look like? It’s red, isn’t it? Okay. All right.

So you see, he’s describing something here with the experience and knowledge he had of the first century. He’s saying, it looked like this. But if you know that in the light of today, you can figure out what he’s talking about, especially if you’ve got a Spirit-inspired imagination. All right.

Now, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as figs – as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. Now, first of all, the word translated “stars” is asrawz, which is not star. If a star hit this planet, there would be nothing left. Stars are bigger than any planet in this – or I should say at least in this cosmos.

Now, he is describing asteroids. And it says that he saw these asteroids. Now, what do they look like when they hit the earth’s atmosphere? They streak through the atmosphere flaming, don’t they?

And he said there was so many of them, it looked like figs falling off of a tree, an overripe fig tree, and like the wind blowing, and they’re just all falling. So he’s talking about a great number of these things. Meteors. So what’s he talking about?

I believe what he witnessed and what he’s describing here will be the first time that man launched an all-out icbm exchange between each other. Now, when those are launched, they’re fired up. A ballistic missile means that it’s fired in a great arc and it has to go up above the earth’s atmosphere before it acquires its target, they will look like meteors speeding toward the earth. That’s what he saw, I believe.

… Anything else wouldn’t make much sense. He feels its violent shaking of the ground underneath him. This black coming up like that.

Clouds. And then he says the source of all of this as he sees all of these warheads reentering the earth’s atmosphere and streaking toward their targets. All right. Then he says, aren’t you glad you’re not going to be here?

I see some people, they don’t know whether to get up and walk out. Some did. Or to continue, because this is grim stuff. I know it’s grim stuff.

But if you have accepted the gift of pardon that Jesus died in your place to purchase for you, you’re not going to be here. You are not going to be here. But God says that we are to read this book continuously, and he will bless us for reading it. So understanding this must have some reason, huh?

And since it’s the only book in the Bible that God gives an extra blessing promise for reading it continually. Now… Maybe it’s because it scares the hell out of you. And as I’ve said, I’d rather scare the hell out of you than have you go there.

All right, now, it says in verse 14, here’s what happens. All of these meteor-like things are streaking to the earth, and the next thing he describes, the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Now, we have – we’ve exploded in the air hydrogen bombs, thermonuclear warheads. We had cameras specially placed in our experiments and so forth.

And we had instruments that tested what happened to the atmosphere and all of that. So we know from the test generally what happens in one of these explosions. The first thing that happens is there is an enormous release of pressure that causes what they call, it’s a mild word, a great overpressure. Well, this overpressure pushes the atmosphere back.

It literally pushes the atmosphere back so powerfully and so quickly that it really compacts upon itself, it just rolls up on itself. So he’s giving a very accurate description here. The atmosphere is rolled up on itself like a scroll. And that is one of the destructive – great destructive parts of one of these thermonuclear explosions.

It will push the air out, create a vacuum, and it comes at everything standing with such pressure, it usually destroys things for miles in diameter. Creates a vacuum, and into that also comes this tremendous heat that everything within a diameter of five miles, it’s just evaporated, just the heat is so tremendous, it just evaporates. And then once the atmosphere reaches the farthest point, it rushes back into the vacuum. So you’ve got a two-fold destruction from that overpressure.

And another thing happens. When these weapons go off. What’s the most common symbol of a nuclear explosion? Mushroom cloud.

Do you know what that is? You see, when one of these explodes, it not only pushes the air horizontally, but it really jams it up vertically. And so what it does is push the atmosphere almost instantly up into the – above the stratosphere. Now, what happens when you rapidly and forcefully compress the atmosphere and push it up above the stratosphere?

What happens? It compresses the humidity. And when it gets up above the atmosphere, it instantly freezes. …

Read Ezekiel 38 sometime. Because it talks about fire and ice killing hundreds of thousands of people. When we did the hydrogen bomb test at an we talk, one of the things that absolutely stunned the investigators when they found they could go back in there, the ships were anchored there, they found that tremendous damage was done to all of the upper structures of these ships. And when they were able to run the film back, they found there were huge chunks of ice that hit them.

Because all of that humidity had been compressed, frozen, and fell back in great chunks to the earth. Now, these prophets didn’t know anything about that, but they talk about fire and ice killing people. Two things that are not really combatable, are they? Fun, isn’t it?

Except for those that are going to be there. All right. Now, it says, and every mountain and island were moved out of their place. In other words, for the first time, man is going to see what these things really do.

I looked with absolute astonishment at the pakistanis with the people from india, when they were seeing who could explode the most bombs, remember that? They were giddy. But the time is coming when all of these warheads that are stored by the tens of thousands are going to be let loose. And then what’s going to be man’s response?

Well, let’s read. Hey, hold the geography of any parts of the earth’s going to change immediately. It’s going to move whole mountains and islands out of the way. And it says, verse 15, then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders in the rich and the strong and every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “fall on us and hide us from the presence of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come; and who is able to stand?” well, Revelation 7 tells us who will be able to stand.

But let me just conclude by observing this. These people know who is sending these judgments, don’t they? And yet they’re so hard, they still won’t believe. What does that tell us?

They’ve got the mark. And you see, during the first three and a half years when the rider on the white horse, the Antichrist, goes forth, he is going to bring people to receive a mark, either in the forehead or in the hand. And it’s going to be a number, and the prefix is 666. Each person will have a personal number after that, but the prefix will have to be added, apparently it is some kind of an electronic 666 that validates that you have sworn allegiance to the Antichrist, and therefore you can conduct business, you can buy, you can sell, you can hold a job, and so forth.

But that gives the Antichrist through economics absolute control. And once a person takes that mark, and remember what’s at issue here. It’s not the mark itself, it’s what you have to do to get it. It is swearing allegiance to the Antichrist that dooms a person forever.

Because the Antichrist is going to claim to be God. And once they swear allegiance to the Antichrist as God, they cannot change. That’s why it says everyone who receives that mark is doomed. They can never change.

And who are the only ones who refuse it? In a time like that when the Antichrist is mesmerizing the whole world, he will come at a time when the world is even in a worse condition than it is now, he will come out of the wings, be unveiled by Satan, he will come with such tremendous charisma and power, and he will appear to be the most wonderful leader that’s ever been. He’ll mesmerize the world. He’s the answer.

And the only ones that will refuse to take that mark will be those who believe in Jesus Christ. Because not to take the mark means you can’t survive. If you can’t buy, sell, or hold a job, you cannot survive. Furthermore, it exposes, and this is one of the reasons I think Satan has that system set up, it exposes who is not a believer in the Antichrist and who is a believer in Jesus Christ.

And so that’s – people are afraid to death of 66 don’t be afraid of it now. It has no significance until the issue is made, swear allegiance to me against God, and we’ll give you the authentication by which you can buy, sell, and hold a job. We’ll get into that a lot later. But you see people here who have reached a state of hardness that is so hard of heart they know who is sending these judgments and they still won’t believe.

… I heard billy graham say something very pungent one time, really hit me in the heart. He said, you know, the same sun that melts butter hardens clay. …

If you’re here tonight and you don’t know that you have received Jesus Christ as your savior, maybe you don’t understand it, he just says, come as you are and come by faith and make a step of faith and receive the gift of pardon that I paid my life for you to give you. And he says, then I will give you a spiritual birth which will give you the same kind of life that God has and then you will know me. But you can’t really know God personally until you’ve been born spiritually. As you were born physically alive but spiritually dead.

That’s why we have to be born again. But I found this. Every time a person hears the good news that Jesus did this for you and you put it off and walk away, you become a little harder and a little harder until you’re like them. Don’t let that happen to you.

Let’s close in prayer. Father, I thank you in Jesus’ name for these revelations that you have in your word. Lord, how grateful we are that we belong to you. If there’s one here in doubt about where he or she belongs, then make that person right now just simply say thank you, Jesus, for dying for me.

I don’t understand it all, but with as much faith as I have, I say, please come into my life. I receive the gift of pardon you say you’ve done me – you’ve purchased for me. Come into my life, give me new spiritual life and guide me in the way that you would have me go. In Jesus’ name, amen.

If you have the guts to be a real revolutionary, come forward right now and accept Jesus Christ as your real revolutionary, and he’ll make a revolutionary that will change lives. Thank you so much for standing with me as a watchman on the wall. I pray daily that he will reward your faithfulness and protect and prosper you in these difficult times. Thank you again for being a vital part of my team.

Male announcer: join us next week for the continuation of Hal Lindsey’s Bible stead of the book of Revelation. Male announcer: you can find more of Hal Lindsey at his website, www.hallindsey.com. There you can access our video and article archives. Visit our online store for Hal Lindsey’s cd’s, books, and other specialty items.

Male announcer: to support this program, send your tax-deductible gift to Hal Lindsey media ministries p. O. Box 470470 tulsa, oklahoma 74147. You can also support this ministry online.

Visit hallindsey.com or call 1-888-Rapture.