Revelation: Part 47

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.

Revelation 15:5, and we’re gonna read through Revelation 16. Now, what I did today was to sit down and -you know, virtually all the translations of this passage do not really bring out fully what the Greek is saying. So I sat down and translated it and I’m gonna read you my translation. And I’m gonna read it nonstop.

Then we’ll go back and look at what it means. But I want you to get the impact of it all at once. So, Lord, in Jesus’ name, may the Holy Spirit open each heart and may they be instructed by the Holy Spirit within them what this is saying. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Chapter 15, verse 5, and we’ll read right on through 16. After this, I looked and in heaven, the temple, that is the tabernacle of the testimony was opened. Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. And they were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests.

Then one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels, seven golden censers filled with the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. And no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were paid in full. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, go, pour out the seven censers containing God’s wrath against the earth.

The first angel went and poured out his censer on the land. It caused loathsome malignant sores to break out on the people who had the mark of the beast and had worshiped his image. The second angel poured out his censer on the sea and it turned into blood like that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died. The third angel poured out his censer on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.

Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say you’re just in these judgments. You who are, who were, the only holy one, because you have so judged. For they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets and you have given them blood to drink. And I heard the altar respond, yes, Lord God almighty, true and just are your judgments.

The fourth angel poured out his censer on the sun and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire, and they were seared by the intense heat. And they cursed the name of God who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. The fifth angel poured out his censer on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony, and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.

The sixth angel poured out his censer on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east. Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs. They came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of all the inhabited earth to gather them for the war of the great day of God almighty.

Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed. Then they gathered the kings together to the place in the Hebrew that is called Armageddon. The seventh angel poured out his censer upon the atmosphere.

And out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne saying, it has been completed. Then there came flashes of lightning, loud rumblings, peals of thunder, climaxed by a horrific earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth. So enormous was the earthquake.

The great city was split into three parts. The cities of the nations all collapsed. And God remembered Babylon the great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. Every island disappeared and the mountains could not be found.

From the sky, huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each, fell upon man. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail because the plague was so terrible. Not a very bright future, is it? I’m glad that we will be looking at it from heaven.

This chapter records chronologically, the end. The end of this world as we know it. Now, it doesn’t destroy the planet, but it destroys everything about this planet that man from the flood until now has made. And this -these events happen rapidly.

Apparently God has already set up all of the forces and so forth in order to do the things that happen here. Because what we see predicted that’s gonna happen in these seven great last judgments, will happen in such a way that, hey, if Jesus doesn’t come back, very shortly after this, there would be no one left alive. And, of course, that’s what Jesus promises in Matthew 24. He said unless those days are cut short, in other words, unless that time is shortened, there would be no one left alive.

And we see what he’s talking about here. This is the final phase of these three series of judgments. Now, the next chronological report that John gives will be in Revelation 19, which talks about the personal return of Jesus Christ back to the earth, with all of his saints riding with him. That’s you and me.

So at this point, everything has been brought to total destruction. The next event immediately to follow will be Christ’s return. He has to come back. Because he has to immediately reset the ecology, or no one would be alive.

Now, let’s go back and take a look at some of these things, and look at them in more detail. This begins with the third sign from heaven. There are three great signs from heaven, we’ve talked about them, that are listed in the book of Revelation. And this is the conclusion of those signs.

The first one was chapter 12, verse 1, the woman. And we saw that that woman is a picture of Israel through history. It says in verse 1, a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and moon under her feet, and on her head, a crown of 12 stars. So one of the great signs to mankind, according to the book of Revelation, is the phenomenon of this woman, Israel, and her history traced in a broad stroke of God’s divine brush in history, showing the most essential reasons for why this woman was created, meaning Israel, and who would be the number one force to attack her.

The great dragon. And he is the next great sign in heaven. Now, notice, these are miraculous signs, it says, that appear in heaven. And mankind is to see that what this is tracing is something that originated in heaven and has affected the whole history of mankind.

So the next one is chapter 12, verses 3 and 9. It says this. And this is the red dragon, Satan. Then another sign appeared in heaven.

And behold, a great red dragon. This time it doesn’t say that it’s a great sign. It says that the one the sign’s about is great. A great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems.

And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who continually deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. All right. So this shows that this is a great sign to mankind.

That will help us understand history if we believe it. And that is, that the history of mankind has been shaped by this great dragon, who is Satan. It tells us, gives us some hints here. It says that the great red dragon works through this imagery called the beast that has seven heads, ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems.

Well, when we get to chapter 17, we’ll go into great detail about what that means. But I can briefly tell you that it means the history of great Gentile world empires, seven of them, one right after the other, one succeeding the other, and it talks about the pageantry of Gentile world power ending up in this period with ten horns. And we know that that’s the ten nations that emerge out of the culture of the last Gentile world power, which is Rome. It’s a revived Roman Empire that comes with ten nations.

I’ve talked about this before. If you’re new here, come next week and we’ll unravel it. I’ll show you where that comes from and how it’s said. And on his head were seven diadems.

We know that when this great leader comes to Rome to take over these ten nations, there are three of them that do not go along with him and they are just forcefully taken in. And so it says he has seven crowns because there’s seven that come along with him. So anyway, it shows that the great sign in heaven that’s a key to history, is that Satan has operated on this earth for all of these centuries through the pageantry of these great Gentile empires. It’s the times of the Gentiles.

When Gentiles had the ascendancy and control of the earth. Now, and it shows that behind it all what has -you look at history and you see the history of mankind is basically a history of war and barbarity. In fact, the greatest inventions that man has been able to create, have usually been created for killing people more efficiently and in greater numbers. And why?

Because of this great dragon. And it tells us here. It’s because of the great dragon. He was thrown down.

That serpent of old, who is called the devil and Satan. And the verb here is in the Greek, present tense, which means continual action. Who continually deceives the whole world. You see, you want to know why man is so barbaric and can be so -even civilized men, when law and order breaks down, why he can be so vicious?

It’s because, number one, he has a fallen nature. And number two, there is this great spiritual force, the highest of all the angels who rebelled against God named Lucifer, and became known as Satan and the devil. It’s because he has continually deceived man over and over and over again. So that’s why I believe that those are called great signs in heaven that show us the answer to what’s happening here on earth.

And the last one is in chapter 15, verse 1. And this talks about seven angel priests, we just read about them. These are the ones that are going to get the golden -it’s translated golden vials, golden censers. The Greek word means a censer.

What do you use a censer for? Burning incense. These are seven golden censers. And it’s the same word to describe the censers the priests in the tabernacle used to wave the fragrant aromas into the holy of holies so that the high priest could go into the presence of God.

It represents the prayers of the saints. But only in this final thing, you remember where we read the martyrs from the Tribulation who were standing before the throne of God and they were praying for God to avenge the way they had been brutally tortured and murdered? Well, this is a symbol that these censers that now come from the presence of God, are a response of God in answer to their prayers. And so the judgments that are thrown to the earth are the prayers of the saints and God responding to them.

Now, chapter 16, verse 1 again. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, go pour out the seven censers containing God’s wrath against the earth. And the first angel went out and poured out his censer on the land. And it caused a loathsome malignant sore to break out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image.

There is something about each one of these judgments that show that they directly come from God. Now, there have been several of these judgments that we’ve seen, and I believe there are some indication that there are weapons that we now have that God will allow them to be used and those things are gonna cause it. But these judgments come directly from God. And, furthermore, the people recognize they’re directly from God because they curse God.

They know it’s coming directly from God. But you know the saddest thing is what is at the end of chapter 15 where -remember what it said? That the temple was closed and no one could enter the presence of God until these judgments are over. That means that God has shut heaven to any further prayer.

There is no hope for the unbelievers from this point on. Those who are believers, notice, they’re protected. It says the malignancy will only come on those who have the mark of the beast on them. Those other believers will not receive that.

God will protect them. But God will not hear anyone’s prayer for salvation or for mercy or grace or anything, until this is over. The heaven is shut. Okay.

This is going to be the first horrible, horrible judgment. You notice how in all three series of these judgments, the judgment of the seals, the seal that closes a scroll never opened, the judgment of the seals had some pretty awful judgments. A fourth of the earth died. There were some terrifying things that took place in that.

But then that opened up the next series, the trumpet judgments, and that moved ahead to where the judgments involved destroying a third of the earth. And a third of all mankind that were still living were put to death. Now we come to this series. You see, it’s an exponential increase in the terrifying judgments.

In this judgment, the judgment is total. And you can just imagine how horrible it would be to suddenly have these malignant cancerous sores break out all over you on your skin. The soldiers that fight during this, are gonna have to fight against some real odds, but they’re gonna have this. Because everyone that has the mark of the Antichrist and that, remember, that mark has to be received in response to swearing allegiance to the Antichrist as being God.

So everyone who receives that is going to receive cancerous sores immediately on his skin. Now, verse 3. The second angel poured out his censer on the sea, and it turned into blood, like that of a dead man. And every living thing in the sea died.

You know, it’s interesting, the Bible uses the word sea, singular. Because though there are different oceans, you know, they’re all connected. And the Bible always knew that, so it always uses the single word, sea. And so when it’s talking about this, it’s saying that all of the great oceans inner-connected, everything in it will die.

No more sushi.

And you don’t want to know what blood is like that’s in a dead man. A few of us know. You just don’t want to know. But that’s what the oceans are gonna be.

Verse 4. The third angel poured out his censer on the rivers and springs of water and they became blood. Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, you’re just in these judgments, you who are, who were the only holy one. Now notice, there’s a plural used for God here.

Who are, not who is. Who were, not who was. That’s the way it is in the original. It shows.

Hey, we are three persons in one essence. Inseparably united but three persons. Now, the important thing here, though, is notice it says there is an angel in charge of all fresh water on the earth. And that this judgment is against all fresh water on this planet.

Every spring of water, every river becomes blood. And the angel leads a chorus in singing about this. He says, you are just in these judgments. You who are, who were, the only holy one because you have so judged, for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.

And I heard the altar respond, yes, Lord God almighty, true and just are your judgments. Then we come to verse 8. And the fourth angel poured out his censer on the sun. And the sun was given power to scorch people with fire.

And they were seared by the intense heat. And they cursed the name of God who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. Well, that shows how hard -how hardened the heart can become. That’s why whenever the spirit of God deals with your heart, don’t back away from it.

Don’t push it away. Don’t fail to listen. Because when you push away the Holy Spirit when he’s seeking to communicate something to you, you may have hardened your heart. And even as a believer, you can become -what is that word in the psalms?

You can become lean of soul.

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.