Revelation: Part 43

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, even when you’re a believer, and I put myself in this. Many times we just don’t really calculate what that means. But when you really get a grip on the fact that Jesus, so saves you, when you simply admit your sins and receive the gift of pardon, that you are already in heaven, as far as he’s concerned. And nothing is gonna keep you from there.

And all of heaven’s glory is already assured. The more that gets a grip on you, you start having inexpressible joy. Because you look and see what this old world is, and where it’s going, the miseries that you can experience here. It’s been some fun, too, sure.

But nothing can compare with what you’ve been given. When you get a grip on that, your heart will fill with joy. Now let’s read on. Verse 10, concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently with the greatest care trying to find out the time and the circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them, was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Blessed are your eyes, for you can see what prophets longed to see in the Old Testament. You see what these prophets, prophecies. You know, they made prophecies they didn’t even understand. And they were trying to understand their own prophecies.

They were trying to -how can the Messiah suffer? How is it that the Messiah will suffer and die? They couldn’t put that together. And believe me, there was a lot of searching.

Rabbis searched before the coming of Christ. They finally, there are two portraits of the Messiah in the Old Testament, and they found that that was the final conclusion. Because, you know, there’s a portrait of the Messiah in the Old Testament coming as a great conquering king, and that’s the dominant portrait. But then there’s another portrait painted in other prophecies.

Some times only separated by a comma in the same sentence, that says he would suffer. So they tried to figure this out. And they finally concluded there are two messiahs coming. One Messiah would be the son of Joseph because he suffered.

And they, you know, the rabbis recognized Joseph was a picture of a coming Savior of some kind who would suffer. And then because he suffered, delivered the nation, Joseph did, in Egypt. So that was their solution. They didn’t realize it would be one Messiah coming twice.

And so they were searching and trying to find this out. Now, read on. In verse 12, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the Gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. We live in the glorious age of evangelism.

Since the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was sent to be resident in the world and dwell in every true believer. That has been a whole new age. An age of tremendous opportunity. But the next thing that blows my mind is this.

It says even angels long to look into these things. Now, the Greek is just mindblowing here. Epithymousin is a word of great emotional passion. And so when it says things to which even the angels passionately.

And then the next word, parakypsia from parakupto, parakypsia. That’s used in John 20:11, when Mary came to the tomb, after Jesus was resurrected and it says that when she came to the tomb, she stooped down and looked intently into the tomb. It means to look intently at something with the idea of trying to understand it. So when you put all of this together, it really says something.

It says as it’s talking now about the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, about the sufferings of Christ, and how the sufferings of Christ are now being preached to the world, that there’s forgiveness through this and so forth. It says that those things, even the angels passionately stooped down in heaven to stare at what God is doing with us and to seek to understand. Interesting, isn’t it? You know, in Daniel it talks about the holy watchers, the angels that watch us all the time.

Ephesians talks about the fact that the Church, meaning true believers there, the Church is teaching the angels the grace of God. And one of the ways that he’s teaching the angels the grace of God, is they look at me, they look at you, and not just take it personally. They look at me and they say if he’ll put up with that guy, he loves people a lot more than we ever thought. They learn that from the way God is treating us.

The way he puts up with us and he gently carries us along. He takes us to a divine woodshed that doesn’t kill us. He disciplines us to get us back on the right track. Angels passionately look at that.

Now you can imagine all these centuries the angels have been looking at all of this and how much they wanted to get in the action, and show us humans how to preach the Gospel. Well, I don’t know who drew the straw here to get that, this angel, but he’s got the straw and he’s out there. And it says, then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, every nation, tribe, language and people. And he said in a loud voice, fear God, and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come.

You see, this is just before the final judgment. Worship him who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and the springs of water. All right, that’s angel number one. He’s the great evangelist.

Angel number two, verse 8. And a second angel followed and said, fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. Which made all of the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries. Now I’ll have a lot more to say about Babylon the great.

I’m not gonna go off on that much here. But this is talking about the judgment of Babylon, which comes at the end. Now the second angel announces that great judgment that’s going, you see, this Babylon the great, who is called the whore of Babylon, in Revelation 17, is guilty for deceiving people from the beginning. Babylon is always a name that’s used as inseparably connected with false religion.

And when it’s called mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth, that’s pretty tough. We’ll get to that. So the second angel is the one who announces the judgment where all of this deception and false religion has come on the earth. Then it says, and a third angel, followed them and said in a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast in his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath.

He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. So this third angel is announcing the alternative. The first angel announced the good news. Believe and worship the God who had who made heaven and earth.

This third angel announces the alternative. If you don’t believe and follow him, this is where you’re going, this is your plight. Verse 12, this calls for the patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. You see, the price of faith in this period is going to be martyrdom.

Almost all. I mean, you know, by the grace of God, there will be survivors. But a tremendous number of believers will have to go to martyrdom. And the impatient enduring faith is based on the fact, hey, look what the alternative is.

And I believe this, a true believer, when faced with renouncing Christ or being put to death. I believe a true believer will be given dying grace by the Holy Spirit. And even the meekest christian will be true. For real, I believe it.

We saw in the Roman hippodrome, the great coliseum there, christians would go into the arena knowing they were going to be fed to lions. And they’d go in there and sing hymns with their children. But they would not renounce the confession Jesus Christ is Lord and none other. Lesous kyrios.

And had anyone to death by that. And he says in verse 13, then I heard a voice from heaven say, write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. You see, it’s at the end. Death is over.

Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. No matter how terrible death is, it’s worth it. I was pondering something one time and the Lord gave me a little syllogism as I was thinking about the alternative of the lake of fire in Revelation 20. And it talks about blessed is he who believes in the Lord because he will not be touched of the second death.

And that’s when the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear, you see, he who is born twice will die once. He who is born once will die twice. Because you must be born again. And being born again is not your work.

It’s God’s. You are to simply receive the gift of pardon that Jesus Christ gave you, and to be willing for him to come into your life, and to give you new motivation, new peace, new purpose, new power, new hope. Now in verse 14, this is the section about the harvest. I looked and there before me was a white cloud.

And seated on the cloud was one like literally the Son of Man. With a crown of gold on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. Who’s this? Jesus.

And he’s comfortably resting on a cloud. But he’s got a sickle in his hand. There are two sickles at the end of this chapter. And two reapers.

This is the first reaper. It’s Jesus. It says, and he had a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel.

This is the fourth angel, by the way, isn’t it? Another angel came out of the temple. Now notice, it doesn’t say the temple in heaven. Remember that.

It says another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud. Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come. For the harvest of the earth is ripe. So he who is seated on the cloud, swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

The earth was harvested. What happens to them? These are the believers. These are the believers.

They’re harvested here. It doesn’t say they’re judged. Now look at the second. It says and another angel, wow, they are all getting into the act.

All of the archangels. There are seven of them. They saved one to do the destruction and to watch over the, safeguard the Israelites. But five, this is the fifth angel in verse 17.

Another angel came out the temple where? In heaven. You see the difference? Why didn’t he say the temple in heaven before?

Because apparently this angel comes out of the false temple on earth. Where the Antichrist has taken his seat claiming he’s God. So he shouts to Jesus, okay, reap your people. But now this one comes from the temple in heaven.

And he, too, had a sharp sickle. And still another angel, how many here? Six. Still another angel, and all of these are allos, which means another of the same kind.

You know, I keep emphasizing that and I haven’t really explained why. One thing we know from the Scripture, whether they are angels of God or they are the fallen angels that followed Satan, there are strict ranks and it’s military-like ranks. And each one knows his rank and the angels of God keep their place. Believe me, the angels of Satan keep their place.

He won’t share anything with anybody. But there are seven of the most powerful of the angels of God. They are the archangels. And michael is the archangel that looks over the children of God to protect those.

And gabriel is used for other issues and so forth. But the important thing is that I believe the one of the seventh of the seven archangels is not here. There are six of them mentioned, because the seventh one has got his hands full protecting the children of Israel. Now, he says, take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.

The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes, and threw them into the great wine press of God’s wrath. Well, we know where these are. We know who they are, don’t we? They were trampled in the wine press outside the city.

What city? Gotta be. The city in the book of Revelation is always Jerusalem. And blood flowed out of the press rising as high as a horse’s bridle, for a distance of 1600 stadia.

1600 stadia works out to be about two hundred miles. But the point is this. This is talking about the end of that period that will be the greatest war that ever, it will start, Daniel 11:40-45, gives the battle plan. And it will start at the middle of the Tribulation.

In fact, the moment that the Antichrist goes into the holy of holies of the temple and announces that he’s God and takes his seat there. Jesus said flee to the mountains, don’t even go for your coat. Because that’s when all hell breaks loose. That is when it says that the red horse rides and takes peace from the earth, because it had been under a false peace.

That’s when in the first phase of that battle will be the Russian-led muslim confederacy, the muslim confederacy is headed by Persia, which is Iran. They will launch this all-out attack on Israel. They will sweep through Israel, and apparently God will keep them from going over into the mountains of Edom. Because it says that they will pass it by.

And they will keep going in a southern effect. And apparently, go to seal off the southern flanks so they go through Sinai going into Egypt. They take over all of those things there. And apparently, they’re get ready to launch an attack to take over africa.

Both along the mediterranean sea and south. Because it talks about the peoples that dwell there, they will be at his steps. And so then it says and when this commander is in Egypt, about to launch this movement to consolidate africa that news from the east and from the north will trouble him. Now he’s standing in Egypt.

So if you look eastward, what are you looking at? 200 million asians coming across the river. Wading across the Euphrates. And it says and news from the north.

Okay, standing in Egypt, you look northward, you’re looking at the revived Roman Empire in Europe. So it says he is going to turn around and retract his steps and he’s going back to Israel and it says he will found his headquarters on the beautiful holy mountain between the two seas. What seas are there? The Dead Sea and the mediterranean.

And the holy mountain is the Temple Mount. So he is going to come back to that, there he’s gonna set up his headquarters. And it says that he will come to his end on the mountains of Israel, and no one will be able to help him. So what’s gonna happen is the counterattack of the Roman-led west, and I believe the China-led asians coming in here are going to destroy Russia, and most of the muslim forces.

So once that’s done, what does that leave? The asians and the west. So the last phase of this war will be fought on all around Israel, between 200 million asians, and at least 50 million western forces. And that’s when the blood will stand to the horse’s bridle.

And apparently, the key battle will be in the valley of jezreel and Galilee. We call it many things. It’s called the valley of megiddo from which we get in Hebrew harmagedon. And it’s because that is going to become such an intense focal point of this war, that it’s called, you know, the whole war is nicknamed after the war, it’s not the battle of Armageddon.

In Greek, it’s the word that means war which means several battles. So Armageddon is not just a battle, it’s a war that involves many battles. But every time you hear the good news about Jesus Christ, and how he loved you and died for you, and paid for your sins, and offers a free gift of forgiveness to you if you will just accept him, and just ask him to come and take over your life, every time you turn that down, you get a little harder. Finally, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever hear it again.

Finally, you get so hard that you’ll be like these people. Even with an angel preaching the good news they won’t believe you.

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.