Revelation: Part 44

When anyone anywhere, responds to this knowledge by having a desire to know this God, God will move heaven and earth to get the message to them.

You know, it’s often that I will look at a chapter especially in the book of Revelation, and I will say to myself, well, there’s not much here so this will be a short one. And then I start studying and praying and really when I start getting the Greek text, the Holy Spirit starts making things leap out at me and that was true about today. So as we start Revelation 15, I want to focus on just what this means. Actually, chapter 15 and chapter 16 are inseparably linked together.

Chapter 15 shows us the last judgments that will hit this planet, the most horrific, the most catastrophic seven judgments that will ever hit this planet. And chapter 15 shows us the divine viewpoint toward that. So the whole scene is in heaven. And it shows why God is going to do this.

And so it’s very important. Then in chapter 16, we see the unraveling of all seven of those golden bowl judgments, which are the last of series of three, three judgments, that are telescopic. The last, the seventh seal judgment, opens up the seven trumpets. The seventh trumpet opens up the golden bowls.

And so this is a very, very important chapter. And the, this shows us an interlude of grace. Now last week we talked about two harvests at the end of Revelation 14. One is a harvest of particularly vicious unbelievers.

And it’s talking about this goes right to the time of the end. And the second one is by the Son of Man and that’s Jesus Christ. And you have to remember, these are not part of the chronology of the book of Revelation. These are vignettes that show things that are at the beginning.

It shows the most important personalities. It describes the most important organizations and so forth that will shake the world during that seven-year period of the Tribulation. So the harvests that are described at the end of chapter 14 are not chronological. In other words, it simply describes what will happen at the time of these seven judgments that we’ll study tonight.

And so don’t get mixed up with that because some try to say, well, it looks like the Church is still gonna be here and that harvest is of the Church at the end of the Tribulation. No. You couldn’t prove it from that. So let’s take a good look at this chapter.

The interlude of grace is this is the last one. There were several that were described after each series of progressively greater and more intensive judgments. At the end of each series of those, at the end of the seven seal judgments, actually at the end of the sixth one, there was an interlude. And it’s like God gave the world breathing space to think about what’s happening and to give them a chance to reflect and to respond to the message of Jesus Christ and his salvation.

At the end of the trumpet judgments, there was another interlude. And we’ve seen several parts of that. And it’s showing that God is trying to give mankind one last chance. But when the events that are described in chapter 15 begin to be unleashed, there’s no more opportunity to believe.

In other words, this shows the end of God’s patience with mankind. So let’s read verse 1. And this is the third sign in heaven. It says then I saw another sign in heaven.

And again, that’s that Greek word that I talk about, allos, which means another of the same kind. It’s another of the same kind of sign in heaven. In other words, it has the same great importance that the first two had. And it says great and marvelous, about this sign.

And notice the sign appears in heaven. And then he describes it. Seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished. Now, I was particularly interested in the word that is used in the Greek testament for finished.

It’s from the word teleo. It’s exactly the same word used of Jesus when he screamed out his last cry on the cross. It’s translated in John 19:30 as it is finished. That’s not what the word meant.

In that time, it meant paid in full. It’s in the perfect tense, which tetelestai, and it means that something has been paid in full. And that was found on receipts that we have on parchment and scrolls and things like that. Receipts for a debt that is paid in full.

So when Jesus cried out tetelestai, just one word, it was a shout of victory. He meant the sins of man have been paid in full. Every sin that will ever be committed, he had paid in full. Now once he did that, you know, there’s seven statements that Jesus made while he was on the cross.

Once he did that, then his prayer to the father was entirely different. Remember the terrible, that terrible black moment when he was on the cross when he said, eli, eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God the father, my God the Holy Spirit.

Why have you forsaken me? God the son was hanging on the cross. So he didn’t say it once, he said it twice. He didn’t say it three times.

He said it twice. Because he was addressing the other two members of the Trinity. And, yet, here at the end, right after he says paid in full, he simply bowed his head and goes back to the intimate father, into your hands I commit my spirit. That shows that he was no longer carrying the sin of the world.

It had been paid for. He was separated when he said my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now he’s back in the intimacy that he’s known from eternity past. Well, so how does that word fit into this context?

Where it says because in them, the seven plagues of these seven angels, the wrath of God is finished. We should translate it this way. Because in this, the wrath of God against the Christ-rejecting world is paid in full. So it’s going to be something horrific.

And that opens up the chapter. Now let’s read on. Referring to the sign, the first great sign in heaven, that is in the book of Revelation, is in chapter 12, verse 1, where remember it was the sign, he says a great sign

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.

As I prepared for this week’s program, I was again struck by the speed with which events are moving into the scenario the prophets predicted for the end times. I believe we’re there. People on the street are talking about what all of these things mean. Folks that wouldn’t darken the door of a Church, or pick up a Bible, are now very curious.

This may be our greatest opportunity, maybe even our last opportunity, to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ before we’re silenced by political correctness. The message that God has given me is more important now than it’s ever been for the Church and for the nation.