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Man, this morning I'm going to be preaching kind of an overview of the book of Revelation. Now the book of Revelation and really Bible prophecy in general, it's a subject that people either love it or they're not exactly that jazzed about it. And I think some of the reasons why people are not always that jazzed about it is because they can see it as maybe negative or scary. But I think another big reason is because some people just struggle to understand this subject and a lot of churches and a lot of preachers have made it more difficult to understand than it has to be. Now make no mistake about it, this is a little bit of a complicated subject. I'm not saying that it's always easy but you know thankfully the whole Bible isn't just so easy that you could figure it out in a few months because then you'd be pretty bored for the rest of your life when God expects you to keep reading and studying the Bible and you already understand everything and know everything. I'm glad that God has given us a Bible that will continue to challenge us and teach us and illuminate us for the whole rest of our lives. We're never going to get to the point where we know it all. Now when it comes to studying Bible prophecy, one of the clearest books to study is of course the book of Revelation. It's right there in the name, Revelation. Things are being revealed, they're being made plain and exposed and so studying the New Testament is a lot clearer than studying the Old Testament. The book of Revelation is really clear when it comes to end times but again there is some difficulty here. Hopefully a sermon like this, if you're one of the people that kind of shies away from Bible prophecy, will kind of give you some tools to more easily understand this subject so that you're not intimidated by it in the future and so that maybe you'll learn to love this subject and enjoy reading the book of Revelation when you get to it in your Bible reading. You know we've had a lot of people over the years tell us that they used to not enjoy the book of Revelation because it would confuse them or it went over their head and then after just a little bit of teaching now they love it because they read it, it makes sense, everything's clicking and so I'm hoping that I can do that for you this morning and help you out with this a little bit. Now first before I get into it, let me just start out by talking a little bit about when this book is written and who the author is, right? Well the author is identified right away of course at the very beginning of the book in verse 4. It says John to the seven churches which are in Asia. So the Apostle John, this is one of Jesus' 12 disciples, is writing this book and he's sending it to seven literal physical churches in Asia and when the Bible says Asia it's talking about the place that we would think of today as the modern day country of Turkey also known as Asia Minor. So all seven of these churches are located in the present day country of Turkey. Now when was this book written? Well this book is written sometime toward the end of the first century A.D. and here's one of the things right away that I want to deal with, some of the confusion about Bible prophecy is that there's often a debate about whether these things have already happened or whether they are going to happen in the future. Now the vast majority of people who actually believe that the Bible is the Word of God tend to believe that these things are all happening in the future but there are some that would try to say no these things have already happened, nothing more to see here, the majority of it has been fulfilled and part of the reason why this debate exists is because there is a little bit of truth in both sides. Yes, the vast majority of these things are in the future and they are still to come but there were things that happened in the first century A.D. that were most definitely a fulfillment of the things that we see here. So basically people make mistakes on both sides. On the one side you have the futurist who just wants to completely ignore everything that already happened in the first century A.D. and that's a mistake and then you have the preterist who wants to just get all homed in on the first century A.D. and completely ignore the fact that there's no way that the majority of this stuff happened in the first century A.D. at all and so the truth of the matter is that it's both and if you look right here in Revelation chapter 1, look at verse 19, it says in verse 19, write the things which thou hast seen and the things which are and the things which shall be hereafter. And so this revelation that John receives is going to be a mix of things that were, things that are, and things that will be hereafter. So it's not all present day, it's not all future, it's not all past, it is a mix of those things and as we go through this I think it's going to be clear to you how that works. But if we start out in verse number 1 here of Revelation it says, the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John. And so in this first verse he says he's showing him things that are going to shortly come to pass and then at the end of verse 3 it says the time is at hand. So this is why a lot of people say oh this already all happened in the first century. Here's the problem with that though, if you actually read the whole book of Revelation you're going to find that it involves cataclysmic events happening to the entire planet, to the entire world. It's not about Israel, it's not about the Jews, in fact the word Jew is barely even mentioned in the book of Revelation. In the prophecy portion it's not mentioned at all. The word Jew is used twice in chapters 2 and 3 just to talk about them being the synagogue of Satan but it never even delves into the Jews this, Jews that throughout the book the word is not even used. Yes there are some events in the book of Revelation that happen in Jerusalem but the vast majority of events are happening to the entire world and so the events of the first century A.D. were very localized to Israel and so it doesn't fit the bill. Now here's what you have to understand about this is that whenever you're studying Bible prophecy the most important thing, if I could just teach you one thing about understanding Bible prophecy it is the concept of dual fulfillment. This is literally the most important thing for you to know when understanding Bible prophecy and that is that virtually every prophecy in the Bible always has a dual fulfillment. Basically there's an application for the present day and then there's a bigger application still coming in the future and it is so consistent. I mean you could start in Genesis and just start going through this and just see it literally hundreds of times because this is just how Bible prophecy works. So if you miss this you're not going to be able to understand Bible prophecy. And again this solves the issue of preterism versus futurism because it's a dual fulfillment. There are things that happen in the first century but those are just a shadow, those are just the beginning and the big one is still coming in the future and then that solves everything. So let me just give you a few quick examples of this. Think about all the way back to the beginning of the book of Genesis when Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden and God tells Adam, Adam tells Eve, whatever, but the command is that in the day that they eat of that fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he says, in the day that you eat thereof you will surely die. Okay, now stop and think about this. The day that Adam and Eve ate of that fruit they did not physically die the day that they ate of that fruit. They died hundreds of years later. But when they ate that fruit they immediately died spiritually but also as a result of eating of that forbidden fruit they actually doomed themselves to also dying physically in the future. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? If they had not sinned and eaten of the forbidden fruit they would have lived forever but because they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they are going to die but there's a shadow fulfillment in the sense of a spiritual death that takes place immediately and notice what he said, in the day you eat thereof you shall surely die. That is the shadow fulfillment, the spiritual death, the physical death comes much later but it still comes. So the second fulfillment in Bible prophecy tends to be a more literal fulfillment and the first fulfillment tends to be more of a shadow fulfillment. Here's another example. Okay when God is going to destroy the earth in the days of Noah and sends the flood he says, man's days shall be a hundred and twenty years. Now the immediate context of that is that God is going to send the flood in a hundred and twenty years. A hundred and twenty years from that pronouncement that's when the flood is going to come and that's the time that it takes to build the ark and for all of those events leading up to it to happen. A hundred and twenty years after that pronouncement God destroys the planet. But there's another more literal fulfillment of that in that ultimately the human lifespan becomes limited to one hundred and twenty years. Because if you think about before the flood people are living much longer than that. After the flood they still live longer than that only in the first couple generations but you can see it start immediately winding down and scaling back. And today in 2024 there is not a person on this planet that is a hundred and twenty years old or more. It doesn't exist. That's the limit. Now the Bible talks about people having an average age of seventy, eighty years and that certainly is the average that we would expect but what about the upper limit if somebody's just super healthy and they just have great genetics and whatever. Look you cannot live past a hundred and twenty years. That's a limit that God has imposed. It's hard coded into our DNA that we're going to die at less than a hundred and twenty years old. I don't care if you sleep in a hyperbaric chamber and stay out of the sun and do all this. It's not going to change the fact that you're going to die at less than a hundred and twenty years old. But do you see that dual fulfillment? One of them is like the floods coming in a hundred and twenty years. The other is that in the long term no man's days are going to be a hundred and twenty years literally. And again I'm not going to spend the whole morning going through examples of this but I could and I have done sermons like that before because there are just so many great examples of this but I'm not going to belabor that point. I have a whole sermon on that if you're interested. So with that in mind we have to understand that the book of Revelation is set during the end of toward the end of the first century A.D. and there were some very significant events going on toward the end of the first century A.D. notably in 70 A.D. when the temple is destroyed, Jerusalem is trodden underfoot of the Gentiles and all of those things. And so some of those things are alluded to in the book of Revelation. There is a lot of illusion in the book of Revelation to the Roman Empire because again in the first century when this is being written that's the immediate context and so there's some shadow fulfillment back then involving the Roman Empire and so forth. You know for example there's a war known as the first Jewish-Roman war. It went on from around 66 A.D. to 73 A.D. so it lasted seven years. And in 70 A.D. which is kind of in the midst of that week of years then the daily sacrifice ceases, the temple is destroyed, right? Sounds a lot like Daniel's 70th week. Sounds a lot like the abomination of desolation. But where the Preterist makes a mistake is just oh there we go it's all done all finished nothing to see here. Folks that is just a shadow fulfillment. The big Daniel 70th week is still coming. And so John can be told here hey these are things that must shortly come to pass because you know this is probably being written in the years leading up to 70 A.D. and so these things are about to happen and so there's that idea of oh the time is at hand. But then there's also the idea that according to 2 Peter chapter 3 a day with the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. So to God this is all shortly going to come to pass and God wants us to always be ready for it in every generation. Even in the first generation of Christians he wanted them to always be thinking about the fact that hey Christ can return in our lifetime and we don't know if he's going to. No man knows the day or the hour. But he doesn't want us to just always think oh this is way far away never going to happen in our lifetime. He wants us to always realize that there's a possibility that Christ could return in our lifetime. Okay. It doesn't mean he's going to but that is why there's the immediacy of the time is at hand behold I come quickly shortly come to pass. There's a literal fulfillment because some stuff literally did shortly come to pass that's described in Revelation but there are other future events that are further out but we should always be ready for them thinking about them preaching about them and so forth whether they actually happen in our lifetime or not. So I hope that that helps clear up some of that confusion a little bit between the futuristic view and the historicist or preterist type of views because of the fact that there's a little bit of truth in both. These things are for the most part still coming. Okay. For example and I'm almost off this subject and then we'll get into the actual nitty gritty here. But just to touch on one example you know when you're in for example the book of Revelation chapter 17 and you clearly have some descriptions that describe the Roman Empire and you're talking about a city that you know that's on seven mountains and you know that of course Rome is the city of seven hills and then he talks about the different kings you know there are seven kings, five are fallen, one is and the others not yet come and you know you count the Roman emperors and again you know that's about where you'd be shortly before 70 AD you'd be you know five emperors down you know one that's shortly going to rain and blah blah blah. So there's a mix of current events in the book of Revelation and future events. Okay. So with that out of the way let's kind of dive in here to the book of Revelation. Chapter one is just an introduction just sort of setting the stage where John is on the Isle of Patmos and he's there the Bible says for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. He says in verse nine, I John who also am your brother and companion in tribulation. So he is going through affliction, tribulation, trials, troubles, persecution, right? And in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ was in the Isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet. So John is on this island, he's going through tribulation and he hears a voice, he sees a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ appearing to him and Jesus Christ tells him that he's going to give him this revelation and to write down the things that are, the things which were, the things which shall be hereafter. And then he says send this letter out to the seven churches in Asia. And he lists the seven churches and in chapters two and three we get a personalized message to each of the seven churches in Asia. So they're all getting the whole book of Revelation but then they also get a little part that's just addressed to them individually. And these things are addressing things that are going on in their churches at the time, things that they're doing right, things that they're doing wrong. They are not directly about end times prophecy. They're more just good admonitions for local churches that we could apply to our church today and we could say, hey, are we starting to be a little bit like the church at Pergamos? What do we need to fix? What are we doing right? And so these are like seven pattern churches that we could always compare ourselves to and sort of see what we need to fix or what we can improve about our own ministry. Now of course there could be other secondary meanings and double meanings in there that do have end times prophecy significance but primarily chapters two and three are literally talking about seven actual churches that existed back then. That's the primary application. Then we get into chapter four, it says in verse number one, after this I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me which said come up hither and I will show thee things which must be hereafter and immediately I was in the spirit. So we haven't really got to future events until we get to Revelation chapter four, right? He says okay, I've given you the message for the seven contemporary churches that you're writing to but now come up into heaven and I'm going to show you the things which must be hereafter. And then notice verse number two, it says immediately I was in the spirit. So we want to realize that John was not literally physically caught up into heaven. He is just spiritually caught up to heaven. He's basically having a vision, okay? He's not actually physically going there, okay? And so he's immediately in the spirit and he's in heaven and he sees all these things. Now chapters four and five, again, we're not yet getting into future events because chapters four and five are just sort of describing the scene in heaven and they're all just sort of introducing the events that are going to take place. It's not until we get to chapter six that we actually get to future events. So the real meat and potatoes of the book of Revelation starts in Revelation chapter six, right? Chapters one through five are really all an introduction, just kind of getting us ready for everything. So let's jump into chapter six and see how this account starts out of the events of the future that John is being shown. It says in chapter six verse one, and I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals and as I heard as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, come and see. And I saw and behold a white horse and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown was given unto him and he went forth conquering and to conquer. So the first thing that we see here when the first seal is opened, because the events of Revelation take place in these groups of seven, you know, you've got seven seals, seven trumpets, seven vials. So the first thing, first seal, we have this guy on a white horse, a crown is given unto him, he has a bow in his hand and he goes forth conquering and to conquer, okay. Now you might look at that and be tempted to immediately think of Jesus Christ, you know, conqueror, valiant guy on a white horse and whatever, but of course as we read it's going to become apparent that this is actually the antichrist, okay. Now it makes sense that if there's going to be an antichrist he has to come before Jesus Christ. It wouldn't really make sense for the imposter to show up second, that's not going to work. Now think about another great Bible story that has an imposter, Jacob and Esau, right. Jacob pretends to be Esau in order to steal Esau's blessing. Well how does he pull that off? He pulls that off by showing up early because he gets in there early by cheating instead of going out and hunting the animal he just takes a kid out of the flocks, as long as you season it right all meat kind of can taste the same, right, especially to a really old man that doesn't have much of taste buds left, put enough garlic on it and he's not going to know the difference and so, you know, he is tricked because Esau hasn't shown up yet and that's why Jacob's able to come and say, oh I'm, you know, I'm your son Esau, right. So the imposter has to come first, so obviously if there's going to be an antichrist which literally means in the place of Christ instead of Christ, it's the fake Christ, the imposter Christ, he comes up first, okay. But let's leave that alone for now, let's not worry too much about that. We just see there's a guy on a horse, crown is given unto him, he goes forth with a bow conquering and a conqueror, but look at the second seal, it says when he had opened the second seal I heard the second beast say come and see and there went out another horse that was red and power was given to him that sat there on to take peace from the earth and that they should kill one another and that there was given unto him a great sword. Notice we're not talking about Israel, we're talking about the earth. We're talking about peace being taken from the earth, so the earth is at war. Now we've already had a few wars in the previous century that were known as World War I and World War II, right. So these were wars that were not just local fought between a couple of people, but these were wars where fighting was taking place all over the world. And so we've seen that already a few times. Well when the end times come, the first thing that you're really going to notice or see is there's going to be a world war going on. So a lot of people will act like, oh maybe the end times have already started, maybe we're already in the tribulation, you know, and people will say that, but wait a minute, are we experiencing world war right now? No we are not. It's also important to recognize that Jesus talked about the tribulation as being a time that was unparalleled in human history. Tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be. So if it's a time of unparalleled tribulation and he says peace is being taken from the earth, people are killing one another, we should expect to see a world war on a scale that has never before been seen. And so if we don't see that, which we don't, then that means no, it's not already happening because this is one of the first events. You know every time a volcano erupts in Iceland or something people are like, oh it's the sixth trumpet, you know, they want to point to different things in Revelation and try to claim that this is where the bottomless pit is opened up and blah blah blah. But hold on a second, you know, we've got to go in order here. In general, the book of Revelation pretty much goes in order. We're going to talk about that a little later when it goes back in time and reboots, it's obvious. But other than that, in general, it's going in order and so no, you know, a volcano going off in Iceland is not what starts this sucker, right? What starts it is a guy goes out to conquer and then the result of that is world war. You know, whenever one guy goes to conquer, you know, usually not everybody's just going to be like, okay, you know. So there's world war as a result. So you can see that the second seal is kind of the result of the first seal. A guy goes out to conquer and then boom, the next thing, peace is taken from the earth. That typically happens when you have a conqueror. Think about, you know, world wars and, you know, huge conflicts. They're usually because one group of people is trying to conquer another group of people. That's typically what's going on. Certainly the case in world war II. And so let's keep going. We get to the third seal, verse 5. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, come and see and I beheld and lo, a black horse and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand and I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. Now again, when we see the word penny here, we don't want to think of our 2024 penny as being a small amount of money. If we study the Bible and compare scripture with scripture, the penny is a day's wages. Okay. If we compare scripture with scripture. And so imagine working for a day's wages as a laborer, let's just say minimum wage, you go out and labor at minimum wage for a day and then imagine that that is what it takes to buy a measure of wheat, right? So you go to buy some flour at the store, you go to buy a measure of flour or wheat flour or three measures of barley or whatever, right? And you go and do that and it costs you 100 bucks or 150 bucks, right? However much you make in a day working. That would be very expensive, would it not? And so the reference here is a reference to famine because of the laws of supply and demand when there isn't enough food to go around, things get really expensive, okay? And so therefore a measure of wheat for a penny, three measures of barley for a penny, we're talking about extremely high food prices where you go out and work the entire day to just get a little measure of wheat that's not very impressive. Obviously this follows from warfare. Whenever you look at wars that have taken place, usually there are famines involved too. I mean think about how many people died of starvation in and after World War II, right? Lot of starvation, a lot of famine as a result of warfare because a lot of crops are destroyed, a lot of people instead of putting their effort and time into making the earth produce food, they are turning their plowshares into swords, their pruning hooks into spears and they're putting all of their effort into fighting and killing and destroying instead of actually producing food. Then it says in verse 7, when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and see, and I looked and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth. Now notice, power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth. Are we talking about Israel? Are we talking about Jerusalem? No. We're talking about the fourth part of the planet, the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth. Again, this is why it's kind of absurd to say, oh, the Roman Jewish war fulfills all of this. This is a shadow fulfillment that only involved Israel, the Jews, Judea, the Romans, but this, what we're reading in Revelation, is something in the future that's going to be global. It's going to be worldwide, okay? And you can see how one thing follows another, guy goes forth to conquer, then you have the world at war, this leads to famine, and then the result of all this is just death in one quarter of the world by all various means, sword, famine, hunger, pestilence, beasts of the earth, whatever, all of the things that go along with that. Now I want you to stop and think about the first four seals that we've looked at. Is there anything here that is necessarily supernatural? This isn't supernatural. Somebody going out to conquer, people fighting each other, high food prices, inflation, people dying of famines and killing, these are not supernatural events. These are human events that are happening. Does everybody see that? And then when we get to the fifth seal, we continue to see human events rolling out. It says in verse number 9, when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice saying, how long, oh Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. So the fifth seal involves people being killed for the cause of Christ, people being martyred. Again, not supernatural. This is just human events taking place. Then when we get to the sixth seal, we actually get into something that is cataclysmic on a scale that you could start saying, okay, this is starting to be supernatural in scope. And what you're really going to see become supernatural is after the seventh seal. So let's look at it together because this is probably one of the most key passages in the entire book of Revelation is what we're looking at right now with the sixth seal. This is the big one. The Old Testament is constantly pointing to this event. Jesus is repeatedly talking about this event. This is the big one in the sixth seal. It says in verse 12, and I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. Now here's the thing that is supernatural about this because the moon turning red like blood is not really that out of the ordinary because this is what happens when we have a lunar eclipse, right? And then the sun turning to darkness is not necessarily anything that crazy because that's just a solar eclipse and that happens naturally as well. But the problem is that it is never possible to have a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse at the same time. If you know anything about how eclipses work this would be utterly impossible, right? Because the solar eclipse only happens during the new moon and the lunar eclipse only happens during the full moon so these can only happen weeks apart, right? It's impossible because one's blocking the other. They can't both block each other, you know what I mean? And so basically there are two different things that we're talking about here. One happens during the new moon, one happens during the full moon. You know you either have the earth blocking the moon from getting the sunlight or you have the moon blocking the earth from getting the sunlight. It can't happen both at the same time, it doesn't work that way. And so the question is, is the moon between the sun and the earth or is the earth between the sun and the moon? They can't be both, right? So it's a supernatural event when the sun turns to darkness and the moon turns to blood at the same time, okay? So this is a cataclysmic event, okay? And then it says that the stars of heaven fell onto the earth even as a fig tree casts their untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. Obviously when we talk about the stars falling we're not talking about giant balls of gas that are far out in space like unto our sun, okay? Obviously those things could never fall from the sky which is why later in the book of Revelation the Bible still talks about the stars still being there. When the Bible talks about in this passage stars falling like a fig tree dropping figs, what we're talking about is a meteor shower and these are known as shooting stars, okay? Because first of all in the ancient world everything in the sky is referred to as a star. Even the planets are called wandering stars, the word planet meaning wandering. Meteor just gets shortened to just planet. But the point is that you have basically what seems like a solar and a lunar eclipse happening at the same time which is naturally impossible, this is a supernatural occurrence and then you have meteors crashing into the earth and all of the things that would go along with those meteor impacts taking place. So you have sun and moon darkened, you have the stars falling from heaven in that sense and then, and here's the thing, who has ever seen a shooting star before? We've all seen it, right? We call it a shooting star but is it really a star? No it's a meteor entering the atmosphere but that's still what we call it because that's what it looks like, right? It looks like a star shooting across the sky. And then it says the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, every mountain and island are moved out of their places so there's great earthquake, sun moon darkened, meteors coming down and the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bond man and every free man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to stand, right? So now we have the great day of God's wrath beginning when the sun and moon are darkened. Up to this point we've not seen the wrath of God. We've seen people fighting, famines, pestilence but it's all man-made, Christians are being killed but now when the sun and moon are darkened we begin to see what? The wrath of God, the great day of his wrath has come and who shall be able to stand. Now look at verse number one of chapter seven. It says, and after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth holding the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth nor on the sea nor on any tree and I saw another angel ascending from the east having the seal of the living God, we're in Revelation chapter seven verse two, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea saying hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees until we have sealed the servants of our God and their foreheads. Now stop and think for a moment. You've got now an angel saying don't hurt the trees, don't hurt the grass, don't hurt the sea until we've sealed the servants of our God and their foreheads. Now a couple things about this. Number one, it sounds to me like so far the earth, the trees, the sea hasn't been destroyed yet because he's saying don't do it yet because again if we look at the events of the tribulation none of them had anything to do with God, you know, raining fire and brimstone from heaven and destroying the whole world or something. All we saw was human stuff, wars, famines, pestilence, fighting, persecution, all that kind of stuff, right? And then when the sun and moon are darkened and the stars fall then all of a sudden it's like okay guys, you know, the angels are saying before we destroy the earth and the sea and the trees and before we start harming the environment, first we will seal the servants of our God and their foreheads and of course the 144,000 are sealed. Now think about this. We talked about earlier how it only makes sense to have an anti-Christ if he comes before the real Jesus Christ. Well here's the thing, Satan is a counterfeiter in many different ways and he counterfeits many different aspects of God and his program. And so he has also counterfeited this idea of being sealed in the forehead because we know of course that there's what's known as the mark of the beast and we're going to talk about that, you know, in another section of scripture but the mark of the beast where basically, you know, the anti-Christ wants people worshipping him and, you know, if you worship the anti-Christ then you receive a mark in your right hand or in your forehead and that no one can buy or sell unless they have this mark in their right hand or in their forehead. Now stop and think about this. If the devil is counterfeiting God's idea of having this being marked in the forehead, is he going to do it before or after God does it? You know, I mean think about it. The counterfeit comes first. The fake, the decoy comes first or it's not going to work. Because here's the thing, this before Christ returns, before there's any kind of sealing of the 144,000, before that the devil has already been handing out the mark of the beast to his followers previously, okay? Just something to think about, a little food for thought there. Obviously we could prove that later. But the point is that nothing up to this point has been harming, look at verse 3 of chapter 7, the earth, the sea, the trees, that stuff hasn't been getting smoked yet. What have we seen so far? It's just human stuff, folks, okay? Even after the sealing of the 144,000 we have in verse number 9 of chapter 7, after this I beheld a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people in tongues stood before the throne and before the lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands. So this great multitude appears in heaven now all of a sudden, right? And then if we jump down to verse number 12, actually let's look at verse 13, it says, one of the elders answered, saying unto me, so this elder's asking John. John's up in heaven and the elder asks him and says, what are these which are arrayed in white robes and whence came they? And I said unto him, sir, thou knowest. And he said unto me, these are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. And so not only do we have this multitude that appears in heaven of all kindreds, nations, peoples and tongues, and they're just out of nowhere, and the elder asks like, where did they come from? So they apparently just got there. And then John's like, what do you, why are you, you tell me. And then he says, okay, just kidding, I do know, these are they which came out of great tribulation, they've washed their robes, they've made them white in the blood of the lamb, therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple and on and on, and how God's going to wipe away all the tears from their eyes and they're here and whatever. Then when we get into chapter 8, look at chapter 8 verse 1, it says, and when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half hour, and then I'm not going to read it for sake of time, but in chapter 8, a half hour goes by, and then next thing you know, it's fire and brimstone falling from the sky, destroying the earth. You have all the grass being burned up, one third of the trees are burned up, and you start having just divine judgment, cataclysm, hellfire and brimstone type of stuff going on. But notice, that stuff was not happening before the sun and moon were darkened, stuff was not happening during the tribulation, that stuff was not happening until you had the great multitude appearing in heaven after all that. Does everybody follow that? And then of course, chapters 8 and 9 are going to just go through all kinds of just horrific kind of fire and brimstone stuff that's going to be happening on earth and just environmental catastrophes, supernatural cataclysm happening during that time. And then, you know, culminating with chapter 11 with of course, you know, the seventh trumpet because in chapter 8, 9, 10 and 11, we have the seven trumpets. So the seven seals had to do with man-made situations, the tribulation, and then, you know, at the sixth seal, sun and moon are darkened, then after the seventh seal you get into the seven trumpets, that's all the physical destruction, supernatural, environmental destruction and so forth. So with that in mind, go back if you were to Matthew chapter 24, and let's kind of compare what we saw in the first part of Revelation and see if it jives with what Jesus taught in Matthew 24. Just briefly, we don't have a lot of time left, so this is probably the last thing we'll do is just look at Matthew 24 here, but I'm trying to give you an overview of the book of Revelation. I'll finish tonight because it's going to take two sermons to do this, but you know, I've given you most of the first half as far as giving you the tools to understand it for yourself. Hopefully you could just figure this out all on your own, but hopefully I'm kind of steering you in the right direction and getting you a head start, making it a little easier for you to jump in and study this on your own. But in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus prophesies, and again, his prophecy is twofold because on the one hand he's talking about the destruction of the temple in the first century AD, but then there's also the future fulfillment, and both are in view, and we've got to keep that in mind. And it starts out in verse 1, it says, And Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. So they're trying to show Jesus how cool the temple is, and Jesus is like, well, you know what? All this stuff you see, it's all about to get destroyed. So they're pretty surprised by that. And so they ask him in verse 3, they came to him privately, halfway through verse 3, it says, Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world? And so he's going to basically end up covering both. He's going to talk about when the destruction of the temple is going to happen, but he's also going to talk about his second coming and the end of the world. All of those things are going to be in view, and this is why this can tend to be a little complicated, right? But as we go through this, you're going to notice that it parallels what we just read in Revelation. For example, it says in verse 4, And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. False Christs will arise. Fake Christs. Here's another word for fake Christs. Antichrist. Right? So we have Antichrist. Then verse 7, or actually, sorry, let's look at verse 6, Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Does that sound like what we saw in Revelation? Antichrist. First seal. Second seal. Warfare. Peace taken from the earth. Nation rise against nation. Kingdom against kingdom. Okay? And then it says, halfway through verse 7, There shall be famines. Isn't that exactly what we saw in the third seal? Famines. And pestilences. And earthquakes in diverse places. So look, the pestilences would fall under the fourth cereal, I keep wanting to say cereal because I'm hungry, but no, I'm just kidding. I'm not hungry. I had a big breakfast and don't look at me like that. I'm stuffed from that burrito, okay? It was good. It was a joke. Seal. The fourth seal. The pestilence, just the general death from, you know, sword, famine, beasts of the earth, you know, there's pestilence, people are just dying, right? All these are the beginnings of sorrows. There's your first four seals. And then look at this. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you. That's the fifth seal. Remember, the fifth seal was all the murders. Now are you telling me that's a coincidence that, oh, Revelation has nothing to do with what Matthew 24 is saying? They asked him about the end of the world. They're asking about the second coming. They're asking about these things. And he says, oh yeah, it's, you know, false Christs, warfare, famine, pestilence, and then, then they're going to deliver you up to kill you. And then you go to Revelation and it's like, Antichrist, famine, you know, warfare, famine, pestilence, and then boom, you know, they deliver you up to kill you. It fits like a glove, my friend. You know, then shall many be offended, many false prophets shall rise. I don't have time to go through all of this for sake of time, but, you know, again, some of these things, if we were to go through verse by verse, if we had time, some of it is more geared toward like first century AD stuff with the destruction of the temple. And then some of it is for end times, you know, that's just how dual fulfillment of prophecy works. It's just that simple. And you come down through here and let's just hit a few highlights. Verse 21, then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no one ever shall be. And as you go through Matthew 24, you're going to see it's not talking about any supernatural cataclysms. It's all like we saw with the seals, all the man-made stuff, the tribulation. Then look at verse number 29. It says immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light. So we saw that there's going to be great tribulation such as the world has never seen up to that point. What does it consist of? Terror, famine, pestilence, martyrdom. And then immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun and moon will be darkened. Now look, I feel like we could issue this test to like a first grader or a second grader and give them all, like I feel like if I gave all this information to like a first grader or a second grader and then said like, okay, boys and girls, circle the seals that are part of the tribulation. Right? Like if the sixth seal is the sun and moon being darkened and he says that after the tribulation is when the sun and moon are darkened, then where are you going to put the circle, kids? Anybody here in first grade want to tell me like which seals are the tribulation? Anybody in second grade want to tell me? Stand up. Stand on top of your chair if you're a first or second grader and you want to tell me which seals are the tribulation. If the sun and moon are darkened and the sixth seal and that's after the tribulation and everything, I mean, can we go to third grade? Kids don't be shy. Somebody jump up behind your chair, fourth grade. I'm drowning on stage here, folks. Fifth grade, who wants to tell me? You're fifth grade? Okay. Okay. Peter, you're not in fifth grade, but tell me. You want to give me the answer, though? Okay. Fifth grade. Help me out here. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Sixth grade. Can a sixth grader tell me? Okay. I'm going to make this series last all year if somebody doesn't stand up and tell me this. All right. It's going to be Revelation, every service for the whole year of 2024 and 5. Sixth grade? Children? Is anybody paying attention to the sermon? Seventh grade? Yeah. Yeah. What about the fifth seal? All right. Let's start. Okay. I'm starting over the sermon again. The point is, my friend, this isn't complicated. Okay. I'm sorry that our children are so shy and will not step up to the plate. The bottom line is that if we just described warfare, famine, pestilence, martyrdom, and then immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun or moon are darkened. Then we go to the book of Revelation. First five seals cover all those things and then the sixth seal, the sun or moon are darkened. Then guess what? Anything that comes after the sixth seal isn't the tribulation because the Bible says immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun and moon are darkened. So if the sun and moon are darkened after the tribulation, then everything that comes before the sun and moon are being darkened is the tribulation. The stuff that comes after, what's the stuff that comes after called? Well, what did they say when the sun and moon are darkened? The great day of his wrath has come. So God begins to pour out his wrath after the sun and moon are darkened. So before the sun and moon are darkened, it's the tribulation. After the sun and moon are darkened, it's the wrath of God being poured out. And these are not the same thing, my friend. The tribulation events that we saw, they did not describe God pouring out his wrath. They described human events taking place on this earth. And so he says immediately after the tribulation, verse 29 of chapter 24, it says, Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun and moon be darkened, or sorry, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Exactly what we saw in Revelation 6. Did we not? Look what comes next. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. That's Jesus. Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. What were people saying in Revelation 6 when the sun and moon are darkened? What did people say? They said, Hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to see it? Sounds like they're mourning. Sounds like they're scared, upset, they're freaked out, and they're saying, Hide us from the wrath of the Lamb. The Lamb of God is, of course, Jesus. And so it makes sense that they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and shall gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. Now, doesn't it make sense that we have a great multitude appearing in heaven at this time because we have the angels gathering the elect from the four winds, we have the sound of a trumpet, we have Christ coming in the clouds, we have Christ gathering the elect from the four winds of heaven. This is clearly what we would know as the rapture, right? When Christ comes in the clouds and the believers in Christ, the dead in Christ, rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord, wherefore comfort one another with these words. This is clearly that event. Christ in the clouds, trumpet, gather the elect, great multitude appears in heaven of all nations, kindreds. And here's what people will say. People will say, well, God's not going to let Christians go through the tribulation because God wouldn't pour out his wrath on his own people. Folks, I know the little kids weren't listening, but were you listening? Because let me tell you something, is that God's not pouring out his wrath during the tribulation. The tribulation is totally separate from God's wrath because there's something that happens between them, the sun and moon being darkened, that is the delineator between those two things. Remember what the angels said, don't hurt the earth, don't hurt the trees, don't hurt the seas. It means they haven't been doing it up to that point. They're about to start torturing that stuff in chapter 8, but in chapter 6 it hasn't started yet, has it? So what we believe in is we do not believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. That is a fiction, it's a fairy tale, it has no basis in scripture. We believe in a post-tribulation, post means after, post-tribulation pre-wrath. So it's after the tribulation, but it's before God pours out his wrath. That's what Matthew 24 teaches. We could look at the same exact thing in Mark 13, we could look at the same exact thing in Luke 21, right? Because these parallel passages, Jesus taught this over and over again. Jesus taught the same thing in Luke 17, it's a little bit different, but you get to the same idea of a timeline from looking at all of these passages, okay? And so he sends the trumpet, or he sends his angels, the sound of a trumpet, they gather the elect, and so forth. Now look at verse number 36. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. So he tells you that the return of Christ in the clouds with the trumpet, gathering the elect, is going to happen after the tribulation, but then he says, of that day and hour knoweth no man. Do we know the day and the hour of the rapture? We have no idea. We don't know what time of year it's going to be, we don't know if it's going to be in a certain month, we don't know if it's going to be in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, it could be in any month. We don't know what month it's in, we don't know what year it's in, we don't know what day of the month, we don't know the date, and there are always these idiots predicting the date of the coming of Christ, and it's always lies. I'll tell you this, we don't know when it's going to happen, but when anybody makes a prediction, mark that day off the counter, you know it's not happening on that day. You could literally, if some famous preacher comes out and says, Christ is returning on this date, just put an X, he will not come on that date. I don't know when he's coming, but it's not on that date. I promise you that. I'm not even kidding right now, I'm dead serious. You can start putting X's on the calendar when these idiots make these predictions. And you know what, anybody who makes these predictions is a fraud. And these liars, these phonies make all these false predictions because people love it. People eat it up. And then when they're wrong, they just go, oh, my calculations were a little incorrect, and then they just predict it again. The Jehovah's Witnesses falsely predicted it six times. And they just, and bozos just keep following them. How can you keep following someone who gets up and lies and falsely predicts? Jesus Christ literally said that he didn't even know. So you're smarter than Jesus? If any human being was going to figure this out, it would be the Lord Jesus Christ. If anybody could just open the Bible, do the math. And by the way, these guys are never math majors, but they did the math. And if anybody could do the math and look at Daniel and Zechariah and figure it out, it would have been Jesus. I mean, who knows the Bible better than Jesus? Who was more spirit-filled than Jesus? And yet Jesus said, of that day and hour, no man knows. I'm going to go to Mark 13. You don't have to turn there. But in the parallel passage in Mark 13, he says in verse 32, but of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. He says the Son doesn't even know. Only the Father knows. But you figured it out? So I'm supposed to believe that some TV preacher or some Internet chipmunk-looking preacher, that he figured it out, but even the Son of God hasn't figured it out? Give me a break. It's absurd. Look, folks, we have no idea when Christ is going to return. Christ may return in our lifetime. Christ may return within the next decade. Christ may return 100 years from now or 200 years from now or 500 years from now. We don't know when this is going to take place. No one knows and no one can know. It's impossible to know. But I'll tell you one thing. I'll promise you one thing. He is not coming back in the year 2024. He is not coming back in the year 2025. And he is not coming back in the year 2026. You say, how can you promise us? How can you guarantee that? Because the Bible says that he comes back after the tribulation, my friend. And here's what's funny. If you ask these pre-tribulation, and the tribulation takes more than three years. That's why I'm saying he can't come back in the next three years. You know, these events could start happening in 2024. The tribulation could begin theoretically in 2024, but not the coming of Christ because Christ returns in the cloud. The rapture happens after the tribulation. Okay. Now, when you ask a pre-tribulationist to show me in the Bible the pre-tribulation rapture, they can't. There's no verse that says before the tribulation. There's a verse that says after the tribulation. Then there's another verse that says it over here and another verse, you know, because we can see it in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We've got three places that teach after, but they don't have anything that says before. So here's what they'll typically say. They'll say, well, the reason we know it's pre-trib is because no one knows the day or the hour. And so if no one knows the day or the hour, it could happen at any moment. Wrong. Okay. Because, look, I don't know the day or the hour when my son Oliver is going to get married. But one thing I know is that my son Oliver, who's a one-year-old, by the way, is not getting married this year, and he's not getting married next year, and he's not getting married the year after that. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Oh, so you know when he's going to get married? You know he's not coming to… Because certain things have to happen first. He has to grow up. He has to go through puberty. He has to realize that girls don't have cooties. He's going to have to go through a process to get married. He is not getting married any time soon. So just because you say you don't know the day or the hour doesn't mean that it could happen immediately. Does everybody understand that? And here's what's so hilarious. You ask people, well, why do you believe pre-trib? And they'll say, well, no man knows the day or the hour. And I always say to them, well, where is that in the Bible? Well, you know it's in there. And I'm like, well, yeah, I know it's in there, but I want you to show me where it is. And then they're kind of like, you know, you know, okay. Matthew 24, what did you say? What'd you say? Did you say Matthew 24? Because guess what Matthew 24 literally just said? After the tribulation, Christ comes in the clouds, but of that day and hour knoweth no man. And here's what's funny. If you show Matthew 24, 29 to a pre-tribber, they'll say that's not the rapture. But then suddenly when we get down to verse 36, it's the rapture. So verse 36, rapture. Verse 20, oh, that's not the rapture. Matthew 24 is not about the rapture. But then suddenly it is in verse 36 because they're lying, because it isn't true, because it's a fraud. Now, again, I'm not saying the pastors who believe in this are malicious or evil or conniving, but some malicious, evil, conniving person taught this to them or taught it to someone who taught it to them. This doctrine is garbage. It's a false doctrine. It comes from the father of lies. I'm not saying that everyone who's been duped by it is a bad person, but I'm saying that when shown the truth, people should repent. And people should go with what the Bible says, not with tradition. And again, I'm not trying to pick a fight with pastors that are pre-trib. If anybody out there in internet land is going to a pre-trib church, sit down, shut up, and be a blessing to that church. I'm not saying to pick a fight with your pastor over this. But, you know, this is our church. And around here, we have this right. And we don't care about all the peer pressure from the good old boy IFB club, you know, pre-trib, amen. No, we're not. It isn't biblical. So anyway, I hope that that helped you this morning. Have a little bit of an overview of the first part of the book of Revelation, and I will continue tonight to, you know, flesh out the rest of the book of Revelation. And again, we're moving kind of fast because it's an overview. But I hope that helps. Let's find out a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the book of Revelation. And Lord, thank you that we are able to understand it through the Holy Spirit's help. And Lord, thank you for the opportunity to preach this morning and hopefully help people have a better grasp of this sometimes difficult subject. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.