Revelation: Part 48

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.

Count yourself among the eternal blessed, if you’ve come to receive Jesus Christ and his forgiveness as Savior. Because you are. We live in a time when it’s very difficult to hear the voice of God. Satan has managed to weave this world system, I talked about a few, a couple of lessons ago.

He’s weaved this world system into such a web that it almost completely blots out any knowledge of God. That’s the world we live in, and that’s the one God predicted would exist just before all of this. Now, so it says the fourth angel poured out his censer on the sun and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire.

Yeah, there’s gonna be global warming.

But it’s gonna come suddenly. It’s gonna come suddenly and man will have nothing to do with it. The verse I read to you from Genesis 8, I believe it’s verse 22, where God promised mankind after the flood, he was talking to Noah, he said as long as the earth shall stand, that the seasons will not cease. Hot and cold will not cease.

Light and day, light and darkness shall not cease. In other words, there will be a continuing faithfulness of God to keep the seasons going. Sure, there are variations, there are times when the planet gets a little colder, a little hotter, but he said that would not be until this. This is when it becomes absolutely unbearable.

And it’s because of something God’s gonna do with the sun. He’s gonna tune it up. The thermostat’s gonna really be turned up. And, of course, the earth will be more susceptible to it because with what we’ve already seen, the nuclear war and everything else, the ozone will be almost totally destroyed.

So there’s nothing to protect man from the rays of the sun. And like I say, if Jesus didn’t come back to reset the ecology, no one would be able to live. But you know something wonderful? All of this gives evidence that God knows how to protect his own, even in this.

Because there are believers that are gonna survive all of this and they’re going to go into this new earth that Jesus is going to make, and they will repopulate and live in the new earth for a thousand years. So you can see that, hey, there’s horror here, but still, there is a bright outcome. There’s a new world coming. All right.

Verse 10. And the fifth angel poured out his censer on the throne of the beast. And we know who that -who’s the beast? The Antichrist.

All this is talking about his throne. In other words, the place where he rules from. It will be on his throne and his kingdom. Well, we know that will be Rome and it will be the revived Roman Empire.

So this is a judgment of the Antichrist and the revived Roman Empire, which has exercised tremendous influence. And it 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.

Hardened. Hardened heart. You see, most of us do not know what it is to be in total darkness. Even in the darkest night, there is some light.

The only time I’ve come close to this was when I was in the caverns there in new mexico, when they turned out the light. But even then, there’s some semblance of light. But this is talking about total impenetrable darkness that you can feel. And it’s only going to be on these -this assortment of nations that make up the revived Roman Empire.

And it says that the people are going to suffer great pain. You know, I guess it does intensify. If you’ve got horrible cancer on your skin and you’ve got pains from other things, these people will have already been burned from the global warming. They’ll be severely burned, all of them.

And then to sit in darkness, it concentrates all of your senses on what you’re feeling. And so it’s gonna be a terrifying thing. And that’s one of the great judgments here that’s coming. 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 and they came out of the mouth of the dragon, Satan, out of the mouth of the beast, the Roman Antichrist, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, the Israelite. And they are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs. Now this doesn’t mean trickery here. It means they’re going to perform real miracles.

And they’re gonna use these real miraculous signs to convince the world to do something. And note that it says that the first thing, this fifth, or I should say this sixth judgment does, is to be a judgment on the river Euphrates and to dry it up. There is so much Scripture about great, powerful demons being associated with the river Euphrates. Did you know that?

We saw that in chapter 9. It talks about in chapter 9, releasing the four great angels that are bound at the river Euphrates. And then it talks about the 200 million coming from the east of the river into the Middle East to war. You see, in all of the ancient history books, the Euphrates river was the dividing line between the near east and the far east.

And for most of human history, asians rarely ever got into what is called Europe or the west. The hoards of asia were divinely kept back because they could have wreaked havoc in the west, and the west was the area where God chose to work most of history. But the asians were always a brilliant race. Listen, long before we invented anything of consequence, they were inventing things centuries before.

The Chinese were the first to invent gunpowder, only they didn’t use it for gunpowder. They used it as toys. We’re the ones that took it and made weapons out of it. They were the first to use paper money.

Have a monetary system, banking system, and so forth. They created a lot of things. But God knew that he had to keep asia and the west separated. And it was separated at the river Euphrates.

The only one that really ever got into this was attila the hun. And some of the mongols. But they never came in force. They never really got into Europe.

But what is this sixth judgment all about? When you look at the things it says happened after this sixth censer of judgment is poured out, it is preparing the way for a global war. God is releasing all restraint and allowing the muster of a global force for a global war. And that’s what this is all about.

It’s global war. Just look at it. It says poured out his censer on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare for the purpose of preparing the way for the kings from the east. See, they’re already there.

From chapter 9 on, they were moving that direction. So this vast asian army is already at the banks of Euphrates when this judgment starts. So they just move across immediately. And it says then I saw these three evil spirits.

It says they are spirits of demons. And this is the supernatural activity of Satan and his demons, which are all fallen angels that followed him in rebellion against God before man was created. They go out and deceive the whole world so that they enter into an all-out global war with every lethal invention that man has ever created. There’s something else I want to bring out here.

Verse 14 says, they are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs and they go out to the kings of all the inhabited earth literally, to gather them for the war. And it’s not battle, it’s war. It’s polemeo, from which we get the word, polemic. It means war, which contains many battles.

It says to prepare them for the war of the great day of God almighty. And it’s at this point that Jesus gives a promise to those who live at this time and who are believers, to encourage them and to tell them, hang on. You see, you think it’s hard to be a believer today, it’s a walk in the park. But then, it’s gonna be really, really tough.

Listen to the words that Jesus told them. 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. In other words, don’t compromise because of fear.

Don’t compromise because of their threats. I’m coming for you. So hold fast. Stay awake.

And keep the righteousness that I’ve put upon you constantly in your minds. That’s the idea. Then it says then they gathered, this is the result of all of these demons going forth and showing miraculous signs and deceiving man. Behold, I come like a thief.

And then verse 16. Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called harmagedo. Megiddo is the ancient fortress that has witnessed hundreds of battles and wars in history. Megiddo, that’s in a central place on a central plain of jezreel in Galilee.

I’ve spoken from those pulpits, or parapets, many, many times. I made it a pulpit. So, now all-out war, the thing we’ve dreaded all of our lives, I’m sure, a real all-out war with nuclear and everything else involved. So, these things are getting -remember, these things are getting geometrically worse as we go through.

And here’s the worst one. The seventh angel sounds, or I should say pours out his censer. It says in verse 17, the angel poured out his censer upon the atmosphere. It says air, but it literally means atmosphere.

And out of the temple came out a loud voice from the throne saying, it has been done. In other words, everything is accomplished. Now, what’s terrible about this one? I call this last judgment total global destruction.

That’s what happens when this is unleashed. Total global destruction. Look what he says. He pours out his censer upon the atmosphere and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne saying, it has been been completed.

So the first thing we need to realize is that when he pours out his censer on the atmosphere, this means the atmosphere and the ecology are totally destroyed. That’s number one. Then there came flashes of lightning and literally, it’s a word meaning deafening rumbling of the earth. The largest known, recorded earthquake is somewhere around 9-point -I think it was around 9.5.

That was in chile. And that’s the most powerful we know. Well, here we’re talking about a 25 or a 30 on the richter scale. And apparently this earthquake is not going to be centralized to one location.

But it is an earthquake that circumvents the earth. The whole crust of the earth is gonna be fractured by this earthquake. And you look at the repercussions. And it says, no earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth.

So enormous was this earthquake. Now, here are the repercussions. Verse 19. The great city was split into three parts.

What’s the great city? Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Now listen to this.

And the cities of the nations, plural, which means all of them, all the cities of the nations, meaning the Gentiles. See, Israel’s been judged. Jerusalem is split in three parts and shaken to pieces. Now it’s the Gentile world that’s hit.

The cities of the nations collapsed. This earthquake will cause all of the buildings and everything else in every city on this planet to literally collapse and fall. There will not be one skyscraper. There will not be one building, even a house that will not collapse.

So everything that we have built is gonna be destroyed. Can you imagine that? Every city. You think of the great cities on this planet.

We start with New York. And paris, the city of light. Berlin, sydney. Buenos aires.

Mexico city. All of the great cities of this earth. Every one of them will collapse. And the fourth judgment, it says, and God remembered Babylon the great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of his fury of his wrath.

Now, as I see it, this is a judgment against the source of false religion and Babylon is destroyed. But this is, as we’ll see in chapter 17, mystery Babylon and the whore religion that it talks about the whore of Babylon, is Rome. And it pins it down. Now, this doesn’t mean the people, it means the system.

Now, the fifth repercussion, every island disappeared. Can you imagine the impact of that? Think of the beautiful island -I can think of so many beautiful islands I’ve been to. Every island will disappear.

Now, I believe God will have something better for the new world, but they’re all gonna disappear. Remember, most of the islands out there are simply the tops of volcanos. And earthquakes and volcanos go hand in hand. Now, it says all mountains will be obliterated.

Even the mountains will be shaken and fall. So, you know, the great mountains, the great mountain range we think of, the andes, himalayas, the alps, the rockies, all of these are gonna cascade down. All of them. Rocky mountain high, huh?

And finally, you know, we’ve talked about, I’ve said it when I get so angry at some enemy that’s threatened this country, I say, bomb them until the rubble bounces. Well, God’s got something even worse. The final phase of this last judgment is hailstones of a hundred pounds or more are going to fall as rain on every part of the surface of this planet. Have you ever tried to dodge a hundred-pound hailstone?

But that’s the last part. It says hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail because the plague of hail was so terrible. So I call this, this series of judgments, a crescendo of global catastrophe.

And after this, there’s nothing else to report until we get to chapter 19. Chapter 17 and 18 are going to review two of the principal reasons for mankind being so deceived. But this brings us right up to the end of that seven-year period we call the Tribulation. And mankind will survive and there will be unbelievers that will survive.

That’s why the first thing Jesus will do after he resets the ecology so man can live, the first thing he’ll do after that is come to the earth and gather all Gentiles and separate them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The sheep are the believers. The goats are unbelievers. Then he will cast the unbelievers directly into judgment alive.

The believers will stay here. And we know that during that period, God is going to finally create a kind of a civilization and atmosphere that man’s always dreamed of. It will be a perfect environment. Jesus himself will reign over the earth.

There will be no world system to fight because Jesus sets the world system. And there will be no Satan to have to deal with or his demons because they’re gonna be chained. The only thing mankind will have to contend with is his sin nature that all of us have as long as we’re in this mortal body. But mankind will be put into -those that are physically alive will continue, and it says that if a man dies at the age of a hundred years old, he’ll be considered accursed because the lifetime of mankind will be like that of a tree.

Apparently some will live a thousand years. Most of those who start this will live through it. And so, you know, talk about health and all that sort of stuff, it’s gonna be here. But the interesting thing to me is that, you know, the theory of most of the false political systems today base, and psychology is this way too, they base this, they say that man is what he is because of his environment.

That’s the whole premise of socialism. It’s the premise especially of communism. That if you change the environment, you change the man. Jesus’ last age here, he’s going to give us perfect environment, and at the end what happens?

Children of those who start this period are gonna rebel against him. And it shows that environment wasn’t the problem. It was the old sin nature. And the only answer always was and always will be you must be born again.

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.