General Prophetic Overview

Brethren, there are a number of events around the world today, and we may ask questions. How do they fit these different events that we encounter into prophecy? What is important? What is not important? What is key in a prophetic picture? And the question in the end is, if we don't fully understand the big picture, or as I call it, a general prophetic overview, if we don't get the big picture, we can easily be deceived. And so my intent today is to look at that big picture. And the first question on that, to help us see the big picture, is what is our vision, and what vision has God got for us? What is the vision that God has for us? And you and I know that the vision is that we're going to be born as spirit beings into his family. We're going to be rulers and kings and priests in the kingdom of God. And that is the good news. That is good news. God has got a great plan for you. And for you and I, each one of us has got a specific plan for you and I, because it's a huge kingdom, and it's got many offices, many places in his kingdom for all of us. And so what is the purpose of prophecy? What is the purpose of prophecy? The purpose of prophecy is that we may repent so that we can be there. So the intent is that God has given us various prophetic statements about what he's going to do, and it's all based on God's Word, which is truth, which is infallible. And within that, he gives us the plan of salvation, which is outlined through his holy days. And we know that it starts with Christ's sacrifice. And then we've got to repent and make a commitment, symbolized by the days of 11 bread. And then God gives us the help of God's Holy Spirit to help us overcome. And so what we have is a combination of truth, God's Word, Thy Word is truth, and an application of his way and of his laws, which has got to be done in a loving way, in a kind way. So the question is, how do we use the Bible from a point of prophecy? And as we read in 1 Corinthians 13 verse 2, it's easy for us, or any of us, to get very involved with technicalities of prophecy and dates and lists and that and the other. As it says, we can do all that, but if we don't have genuine, outgoing, godly love and concern for the brethren, we're missing the point. That is so important. We've got to look at what is important. Now, obviously, in that very scripture of 1 Corinthians 13, it says there are three, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest is love. And obviously, faith is that we trust God. We know what he's saying is true. We can trust on him. He's yes, he's yes, and he's no, he's no, as we heard in the sermon. That's one of the things we've got to have. Our yes, be yes, and no, be no. But we need hope as well. Hope is like an anchor to the soul that we can see we have that vision of being in the kingdom, of being sons of God. And with that vision, we strive to do our part. Yes, God has done everything, and he will do everything for you and I to be there. He wants you there. He wants every one of you and me. He wants us all there. But we have to respond and do what he wants us to do, because he will not have more sitons in his kingdom. And so the hope is very, very important.

It's absolutely critical in this big prophetic picture. So what does prophecy help us with? Well, prophecy helps us to understand the truth. Prophecy shows us that God is supreme, is in control. Prophecy explains God's key events in human affairs, explains consequences of doing the right or not, and their punishments, if we do the wrong. That's prophetic. Punishments are, basically, if we disobey, there will be certain consequences, cause and effect.

And therefore, prophecy is there in the hope that you and I repent and change. That's what it's all about. You know the story when Jonah was in the big fish, and yeah, none of us are going to be destroyed, and then they repented, and then he went destroyed. You see, prophecy is to say, if you and I don't repent, this is going to happen. The hope is that we repent and won't happen, and it will not happen.

Now, obviously, the whole world is not repenting. The whole world has just gone in a disaster way, and so there is no true repentance today. But what we've got to be careful, therefore, is when we look at scriptures, that we put the scripture in the right context. In other words, you and I cannot give it its own interpretation as we read in 2 Peter 1 through 20.

No scripture is of private interpretation. You can't put your own speculation spin around it, because then you're going to go wrong. You can go wrong, and prophecy can be presented to us in many different ways. Typically, it could be type and anti-type. For instance, you could have the first Adam and the second Adam. You could have physical and spiritual, like the Passover, the killing of the lamb in Exodus 12, and Christ is our Passover lamb, the spiritual true picture of what that lamb pointed to. Sacrifices. You had the sacrifices in Old Testament.

Those were part of the law, right? But Christ came to fulfill the law. In other words, he executed those sacrifices. He was the ultimate of what those sacrifices point to. Obviously, you obey the law, but he also fulfilled the law by fulfilling those prophetic parts of the law.

Circumcision. Circumcision of the flesh, and circumcision of the heart. You can see type and anti-type. Physical Jew, spiritual Jew, Old Covenant, New Covenant. Then you have examples like Elijah, and then John the Baptist. And then you have the Elijah to come. Then you have the Sabbath, and then you have the Millennium, which is a millennial Sabbath.

And furthermore, you have the Kingdom of God, which is the ultimate rest. The Holy Days themselves are prophetic. They are shadows of things to come, particularly the fall Holy Days. The spring Holy Days point to memorials of things that have already happened. Like Christ said, you observe these days as a memorial of my death. And so there are many such examples. So it could be duality, as I mentioned. Some that are dual. Some are even triple. For instance, you have the abomination of desolation in the past and future.

And so a prophecy lists various events, sequence of events, and those sequence of events give you and I hope, hope of what is beyond. So we look at current events, and then some of those events have what we call key markers, key milestones, and the Bible gives us those key milestones.

Many of the details the Bible doesn't give us. It doesn't give us details of different wars that are happening and this and that. It's just we don't have those details, but we look at big events. And so as we keep the general prophetic overview in mind, that helps in our faith because we can see that direction is going along the way God wants it. In other words, it gives us hope and helps us understand where we are in the sequence or the timeline of prophetic events.

And therefore, it is important to have a big picture of this timeline of sequence events as we look towards Christ's coming. And the question might be, so what? Why do one need this? Well, one of the big things is so that you and I are not deceived. Brethren is going to be you're going to look at Facebook, you're going to look at social media, and people are going to draw this conclusion and this event means this and that and that and therefore and a lot of those things that those people say are not really based on the big plan or the big picture of the prophetic events. And so what happens?

People get deceived because that rationale of those people, the human reasoning of those people is brilliant. They are very, very, very clever. But they deceive you with that.

I usually call that human reasoning apart from God, because the human reasoning can be very good, but it must be within God's principles. When it's apart from God, you're going to go off in the wrong track. And so we have to look at key points of Scripture. Now, in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 9 through 11, we see the coming of the lawless one. It was the false prophet that the wicked one is according to the power of Satan. In other words, you'll have signs, you'll have miracles. That'll be amazing. And it'll be very, very deceptive, extremely deceptive. Not only if the human reasoning is amazing, but now you've got miracles. Wow!

Signs, wonders, miracles. Wow! This must be true. We've got to be careful with that.

And the problem is people will follow that because they did not receive the love of the truth.

This is such an important, basic statement. We have to love the truth and not deviate from the text, from the Scripture. The Scripture is inerible. In other words, it does not fail. We've got to stick to the Bible, to the truth. And for this reason, it says then in verse 11, in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie.

Because they did not love the truth. Some people did not love the truth. They knew the truth and left the truth. And they're going to be swayed with strong, as it says, delusion.

Very, very, very deceived. Therefore, we've got to watch ourselves to love the truth. That's why in Luke 21, verse 36, we read, watch therefore and pray always that you may be counted worthy. We've got to watch ourselves. And if you read two verses before, in verse 34, it says, take heed to yourselves. In other words, watch yourselves. And so when we watch, therefore, oh yes, we watch news, we watch what's happening, but even more important, we've got to watch ourselves. It's so easy for us to get involved with work, with material things, with things around us, and they can create a trapping that we get into trouble. And so, therefore, watch and pray always that you may not be caught by these physical things. Look, physical things are around us, but we've got to put them in the right priority to escape. That's number one. Escape these things. But even more important is to stand before the Son of Man. Even more important is to stand when Christ returns. We have to stand. We have to be faithful and stand when Christ comes. What does that mean? Those that have died, they'll be resurrected and will be in the first resurrection, and those that are still alive, they'll be changed to spirit beings at Christ's coming. So we stand before the Son of Man at his coming. So that's what we've got to watch. And so, to re-emphasize and to restate the purpose of what I am sharing with you today is to look at the big picture of events. And I'll go into a number of details because of putting it together. There are some details, but I'm going to try and keep it as simple as possible. And the intent is that you have the big picture so that you will not be deceived when the deception will come. Deception will come. Miracles will happen.

And if you are not ground in the truth and if you are not loving the truth, you are going to be taken by this deception. It's going to affect us. And remember, the end goal of prophecy is repentance. The end goal of prophecy is that you and I change. That you and I become better people so that you and I can be in the family of God. That is the goal. In other words, so that we can be saved.

So remember, we know a lot of things are going to happen.

And there's a lot of prophecy, things that are going to be happening in the days ahead. And so we have to watch events as they move forwards.

The point is, brethren, we've got to put all this in the right priority. Because everything is going to be changed and is going to be modified. There'll be a new heaven and new earth. And so the important point is that you and I repent and change to be better people. We've got to change to be better people. Now, Christ, in Matthew 24, he mentioned that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world. The gospel, in other words, the good news of the kingdom will be preached in the old world.

Now, a lot of people think that the reason we need to preach the gospel is to have more people in church. And yes, that is a lovely outcome. Matthew 28 addresses that. But many are called, but very, very few respond to that calling. Very few change.

And so we could say, well, we're preaching the gospel, and there's no yield if we're looking at the yield in the wrong place. What we've got to look at the yield of preaching the gospel is that we are doing it as a witness to all nations. There is the outcome of our preaching of the gospel that many people are getting to know what is going to happen to one degree or another.

So that when it happens, they say, oh yeah, I knew that. I wish I had repented, but God in His mercy will still allow and give you time to repent. That is a point we will address a little later. So we have to look at it from the point that we are preaching the gospel as a witness.

And then the end will come. Now some people say, oh, therefore the preaching of the gospel as a witness will be right before Christ's coming, and that's the end. No, because it's got to be before what it says on the following verse, which is the abomination of desolation. And so we've got to preach the gospel before that next step, which is the abomination of desolation.

And people don't know what it is. It says, oh well, go and look at Daniel. But a lot of people don't know what it is. And so that is important for us to understand, to have that big picture.

Because we're going to preach the gospel as a witness, and the next major event is going to be the abomination of desolation. But what will happen just before the abomination of desolation?

Because we know that abomination of desolation will trigger, as we read in verse 21, a great tribulation, like never has been before. Never, nor will it ever be again. So that has not happened yet. We all live in houses, comfortable, great tribulation. You will not be able to do that. You'll have to leave your homes. It's going to happen. And so it's something that we've got to understand the big picture. So I have created this graph, which I've shown to some of you before, which highlights this big picture. Because there's going to be a great tribulation, and before it, there's the abomination of desolation, which I marked there as that second red flag. Let's call it that. But the first one before that is the man of sin to be revealed. The man of sin must appear in the world scene. And so, therefore, before the great tribulation, which is that little circle, which is got a number five, before it, there are four red circles, which are one, two, three, and four, which are the four seals, the first four seals of the book of Revelation. But we're not yet on number five, which therefore means we are in the first four, which are the four horsemen of the apocalypse. One is white, the other one is red, the other one is black, and the other one is yellowish, pale yellowish. And so they symbolize the first one is false religion, false ideas, false ideas. I'm the great savior of this nation or that nation, which therefore could be political or religion mixed with politics. Probably a better way of putting it. And this is very dangerous. It's a thing that's happening in this country. Religion mixed with politics. And then, that triggers wars. Because when people are very fanatical on one religion, like you see now in the Middle East, those people in their religion, they're not going to say, I'm going to give up my religion just because of this. It's like somebody will say, you're going to give up the Sabbath or else. Well, they're not going to give up that. And therefore, it really is wars. And out of wars, what comes?

Diseases, illnesses, and death. You know, those two that follow. And it says that out of that, one quarter of the earth will die. One quarter of the earth population will die.

Now, let's say the world population is eight billion. One quarter means two billion people of planet earth will die. That means we're left to six million. And that is before the Great Tribulation. Okay, maybe some of them or those already died. We don't know where the counting begins. But there's going to be a lot of trouble before the Great Tribulation. And so, we have to understand what things to watch. What things to watch whilst is the period of the four horsemen that are riding in parallel. And at the bottom on the left, I have seven things to watch, which are basically, we're going to watch. First, the first four, I lighted in yellow, which are kind of geopolitical, which is Israel, Jerusalem, daily sacrifices, Europe uniting as a more of a dictator-type Europe of 10 nations or 10 kings, and or groups of kings or groups of leaders. Also, the king of the south and loss of pride and power of the nations of Israel, that God gave to them the blessings to be an example to the world. They're not they not be an example. Then, there's two other areas, which is the religion in the world and God's church, how things are happening around God's church. And lastly, the declining set of moral values. I think we all can see these things developing and increasing at a rapid rate. And so, there are many things that that will happen. And so, as we look at the Bible at the moment, and as we look at the seals of revelation, we see those first four seals. And what will trigger the next seal and that deception that is going to come? Because we see in Matthew 24 verse 5, it talks about that many will come in my name. Many will come in my name. And it says Matthew 24 verse 5, take heed that people don't deceive you.

That is really the point that I want to emphasize. Because before all these things blow up with the great tribulation and abomination of the salvation, before it blows up, many will be deceived. Because this is before verse 14 of Matthew 24. And it says, many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ. This does not necessarily mean a religious leader. Because Christ means the Messiah, the anointed one to rule. That's what Christ is going to come at the Second Coming, is going to be the anointed one, the anointed king to rule. And so many will come and say, I am the great leader that is going to save this nation. Be careful. Be careful. Regrettably, we need to be watching ourselves that we don't get involved in politics. Because a lot of the politics is involved in false religion. Be careful. Be careful. Because we're supposed to be virgins, not mixed in the politics of this world. And so, there'll be many false liberators, there'll be many fanatical ideologies, extreme, unbalanced religion. And that will climax in what?

In a false prophet rising up. A false prophet rising up.

And that is that big red flag. That first warning flag. If we look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 3 and 4, it talks about that false prophet. Let no one deceive you because first there'll be a falling away. Now, you could say a falling away has happened in 1995. If you've been in the church for a while, you could say a big falling away happened in 1995. But could this be a layered falling away? Yes, falling away in the church, but falling away of truth, of general religion just going completely wrong. Could it be that? I don't know. But first there's going to be a big falling away. So it's either happened or it will be to happen even in a greater level in the general Christian world. And then it says the man of sin will be revealed.

That is the false prophet. He is going to be revealed. And when that it says then the lawless one will be revealed from whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. In other words, that man of sin will be living when Christ returns. You'll be alive because as Christ comes, he will destroy that man of sin, that false prophet. So it is important for us to understand that it will be great miracles that this man of sin will do, a religious man, great miracles, and will deceive the whole world.

When it says deceive the whole world, to me it implies and includes other religious groups like for instance Muslims and Hindus and others. There could be the syncretism or a getting together of those different ideas into one general group. And one church has been throughout history very, very capable of syncretism, of mixing truth with lie, the truth with paganism, and they could therefore include others as well into that. And so we see that things are going to happen in ways that we don't understand the details. We don't understand all the details that will cause this to happen, but we know that these big milestones are going to happen, and that's what we got to watch for. That's what we're going to watch for.

For instance, in terms of the Middle East, it talks about Daniel 11 and talks about the King of the North and the King of the South. And it talks about all those events that are going to happen.

And then talks about the news of the East and North. Those are Daniel 11 verse 40, and Daniel 11 verse 44. What does that mean? That means there's going to be three, let's call it, New World Orders fighting for which one of them will take control. And of those three, two of them will have a religious background, namely the North, King of the North, and the King of the South.

And so I intend to give future sermons about explaining details about Daniel 2, 7, 11, and others to address this in more detail. But at this stage, I'm just giving you the big picture.

Giving you the big picture of what is going to come. And so this big picture gives you...

it helps. A picture helps a lot, at least helps to me. A picture helps to see things in a different way. And so what we see is there will be these different nations fighting for power, these world powers, and there's going to be various events during these seals which are described in Revelation 6, 3, 2, 8, in which will be ideologically based, religious based, and with that there'll be war, famine, illness, and death. And that's what we see.

And in the meantime, we in the church, we're going to be preaching the truth. That's our part. That's what we've got to be doing.

Now, in Daniel 11, verse 31, it talks about that time when these things will happen, and then it talks about sacrifices, daily sacrifices, to be offered at that time of the end, and that is the abomination of desolation. Now, the dilemma is that today we don't have a temple, or it's not even necessary to have a temple. It could be a temple, but it could be just a sanctuary, an altar, and a sanctuary. Remember, the temple did not exist until the time of Solomon.

So during the time of King David, and before that, there was no temple. And so you could have sacrifices without a temple. You just need a sanctuary, an altar, and a place to do that. We don't know these details. Once they develop, then we'll understand a bit better. Another minor detail, the eye, is that you see the word sacrifices is in italics, which means it's not in the original. What does that mean? And so we've got to be aware of specific situations that could develop, maybe not exactly the way we're thinking, but we've got to be prepared for these big milestones. There will be an abomination of desolation, and that deception will be so great that it will deceive the whole world. You see, and then we know that we just don't know when this is going to happen. The Bible says very clearly, we don't know when all these things will happen.

Will it happen one day or another? The problem is, many of us tend to put dates.

And that's where we can get into problems. We start putting dates, and yeah, there are certain numbers that the Bible does give us, but we've got to be careful that we don't over-create things that are not there. So we've got to be careful. And the point is, because we don't know, and that's what Christ said, no man knows the day or the hour, but we do know in Amos 3, verse 7, that says God will show his servants of what he's going to do. So there'll be a time that the ministry in the church, whoever God will appoint, that will become self-evident that we will know, and God will reveal it to his servants. And so as we move forwards in this timeline of events, you know, we see also, when we put in other scriptures, we see that Satan is going to try and attack the church. And in Daniel 12, we see that, yes, there was an attack in the Middle Ages, but then later at the end time, Michael will stand up and Satan will be thrown down to earth and expelled out of heaven. And then we see that when he comes to earth, he's going to be furious, and he will want to fight the church. And then it says the woman, which in verse 14 of Daniel 12, which is the church, was given two wings to fly into the wilderness. Now understand, that does not mean they're going to go in a Boeing 747 to go and fly somewhere, because, as you read in Exodus, when the Israelites left Egypt, they flew on the wings of an eagle. And clearly when they went through the wilderness, they were not in an aircraft. So that is an expression that means that God will somehow will protect them, like in the wings of an eagle, special protection that God will give them. And they will go to a place on earth, somewhere, wherever that is, and they'll be protected from the presence of the serpent. In other words, you will not have there the capability of having Satan's broadcasting coming into you. Maybe you want to have I-Fi or internet, and now you can't get all the social media stuff, which a lot of it is false or fake. And so whatever that will mean, it'll be a time where you'll be protected from Satan's influence. And we can see there that will be for a period of three and a half years. That it says it'll be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, on verse 14. A time is one year, times two years, so two plus one makes three, and half a time is half a year, so three and a half years. So the brethren, the church, the spiritual body of Christ will be protected. And the serpent, that is Satan, will then try and go and destroy. Like, for instance, when they left Egypt, an army went and tried to destroy them, and God opened up the Red Sea, and they were able to get through. And the same thing, they will try and destroy them, and the earth will open up, and they will be protected. So because of that, Satan will be furious with the woman.

And because he is not able to destroy the church, he will go and persecute the rest of the church. Oh, what does that mean? It means there will be a portion of the church that will be protected, and there will be a portion of the church that will not be protected.

The portion of the church that will not be protected is the one that keeps the commandments of God and has the testimony of Jesus. Oh, does it mean that the ones that are protected don't keep the commandments of God and don't have the testimony of Jesus? Of course not!

So what is the difference? Because both groups, one is protected, they keep the commandments of God and they have the testimony of Jesus, and the other group is not protected, they keep the commandments of God and has the testimony of Jesus. What is the difference? Well, could it be the way that our internal attitudes are following and designing to be more and more like Christ, showing love and concern and outgoing care for one another, showing submissiveness, showing obedience to different directions that are God-inspired? Could that be? Why not? If the attitude underneath is not quite right, even though you come to church, even though you believe in the Holy Days and you keep the Holy Days, but there's an attitude which is not quite right, then maybe God is not going to protect you. And brethren, I'm not just talking about United Church of God. I'm talking about the spiritual body of Christ. So there will be some people in the spiritual body of Christ that will be protected, some are in united, some may be in other fellowships, and there will be some people in the spiritual body of Christ, some in united, and some in other fellowships that will not be protected.

You see, we've got to look at ourselves. That's why Luke 21 says, watch and pray that you may be accounted worthy to escape and to stand with the Son of Man at his coming. So these are all scriptures that we need to put together, because as I mentioned, that's when Michael stands up. Michael then will destroy Satan, but at the same time, if you look at Daniel 12, it says, Michael, you know, he says, who stands over the sons of your people, and it'll be a time of trouble. Such as never was since there was a nation. Isn't that what Matthew 24 says about the Great Tribulation? Even to that time, and at that time, your people will be delivered. Your people will be delivered.

So as the Great Tribulation is about to start, your people, some of the church, that has got the correct art, and God sees the heart. God sees the intents of our minds and our hearts, and God will then decide who is who. It's not you coming there and putting your name on the notice on the table says, yeah, I'll go, and you stay. I'll go. No, God will decide that for you.

We don't know how that will happen, but we can look prophetically many times. What has happened is an angel came and said, come out! If God has done that in the past, can't he do it today? And I think there's enough angels to cover us all. There's plenty of angels there. There's murders and murders of angels. So God can do everything. So there are a lot of things that we got to understand that God will intervene and will protect. On Daniel 12, then it gives a count of days, which is very interesting, and it says, you know, and it shall be towards the latter part of this verse 7, shall be for a time, times, and of a time. Again, three and a half years, which is prophetically 1260 days. And when the power of the holy people shall be completely shattered, all those things shall be finished. So one possibility could be that when the 1260 days come, that's 1260 days before Christ's coming, when that period, three and a half years before Christ's coming, which is also the period or beginning of the tribulation, when that comes, the power of the holy people will be completely shattered. Now, who's the holy people? Well, you can look at physically, you can look at spiritually. Physically would be the nations, physical nations of Israel. Their power will be completely shattered. Secondly, if you look at spiritually, will be the power of the church to be able to preach the gospel. So something would happen before that that will stop those activities.

And then again in Daniel 12, in verse 9, it says, go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

And many will be purified, made white and refined. And so that goes back to the point, it's not just keeping the holidays or the Sabbath and coming to church, because the Jews keep the Sabbath, but it is a matter of the heart, being white and refined. But the wicked will do wickedly. It will just get worse and worse. And then it says, but the wise will understand.

And we starting to understand these things, as I'm trying to explain to you. And from the time the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days.

And so that abomination of desolation, and that is when that sacrifice or that daily is stopped, will be a month before the Great Tribulation, because the Great Tribulation is 1260, this is 30 days earlier. So blessed is he who waits and comes to the 13 and 35 days. And that is 45 days earlier. What will happen then? I don't know. We don't know. It's sealed. I can speculate, but my authority when I speculate is zero. But it could be that it will be when the work will stop, could be when Satan will be thrown down to earth and suddenly the work has to stop. I don't know. If something is going to happen, and when it happens, we'll know that is it. And then we have 45 days, and then 45 days, the abomination of desolation, and then we got a month.

And therefore all this is put together again, and we need to look at this big picture. It helps us to see in this big picture where we are, because all we have then is just the beginning of the great tribulation, and we have that you can see a line going down there before that circle number five, where it says there's the two witnesses, and there's that 1260 days, and those things run in parallel. And so there are a number of things that we don't know, and we got a lot of booklets that covers this in great detail. One of the booklets that is very helpful, that I recommend you to read, is the Middle East in Bible prophecy, because it covers this and many more things about Psalm 83 and Isaiah 5 that is very important to put it into this context, which at this stage I am not covering in detail. But the point is we are moving now further, and moving now is to the third warning sign, because what is going to happen, the great tribulation runs for three and a half years until Christ's coming, but it says it'll be cut short. Short not necessarily in time, but intensity. How it'll be cut short, and you see the next big, the third big red flag there, is the heavenly signs. The heavenly signs is very important for us to understand, because the heavenly signs is two and a half years into the great tribulation, and there's one year to go before Christ's returning, and then we have the heavenly signs. Now, that is important for us to understand, and now we have in Revelation 6, you see what it says about the sixth seal, which is the great tribulation, and then, I mean the fifth seal, which is the great tribulation, then the sixth, which is the heavenly signs, and it's talking about it. Open the sixth seal, and you see the earthquake, and the sun becoming black, and the moon becoming like blood, and all these things. Now, understand, understand, by this time, a portion of the church will already be protected.

Now, we are two and a half years into the great tribulation, another portion of the church is not protected. But remember, during the great tribulation, many people that have got to the witness, because we're preaching the gospel as a witness to the whole world, and the two witnesses will be there, right? There will be two witnesses, just like there'll be a leader of the beast and a leader of the church, so the beast leader and the church leader, they'll be kind of competing once against another, and they can't destroy the two witnesses. So the two witnesses will be able to do miracles, likewise. You remember the story about Moses and Aaron going to the king, and they did miracles, and they couldn't combat. And so there'll be that time. But then, at the end of those two and a half years, there's these heavenly signs. What happened during those two and a half years, a lot of people that heard the truth will repent, will say, oh, I should have repented. And so they repent during the great tribulation. And so, you see, at the end of Revelation 6, that this is the heavenly signs, and then he says, immediately after the heavenly signs, says, the great day of the Lord, of his wrath, has come. The day of the Lord has come. That's that last year. And then we can continue reading in verse 31 and 32 of Joel. Joel says, very interesting, the sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, that's the heavenly signs, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And you know, in prophecy, a day is a year, a day for a year. In Numbers 14, you read that.

And in verse 32, it says, and whoever shall come to pass, and shall come to pass, that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

So, people during those two and a half years that repent and acknowledge Christ, and not just call, just use spoken words, but live and actually practice and learn, because the two witnesses will be there, and they would have had all our literature, they will now repent. They will be saved from what? From the terrible things during the day of the Lord, which is that last one year.

And it says, and it says, as the Lord said, among the remnant. Who are the remnant? Part of the church was saved. The other, which was the remnant, had to go through the great tribulation. And amongst the remnant, those that go through the great tribulation, during those first two and a half years of the great tribulation, which is three and a half years, the first two and a half years, they call. The Lord calls, and they respond. You see, many are called, but few are chosen today.

But at that time, that calling is still there, and they will then respond.

And so, what do we have? We have a period in which many will repent. And the very next chapter in Revelation, which is chapter seven, is the sealing of people. And in fact, there are two groups of people that are sealed. So, we have the heavenly signs, and we know the seven trumpets don't blast yet, because there's a period of time before they're lost. And in the middle, the heavenly signs is the end of Revelation 6. The trumpets begin on Revelation 8. In Revelation 7, in the middle, there's the sealing of God's servants.

There are two groups of people that are sealed. One, or 144,000 of his physical Israel.

And the other group is a great multitude of all nations. And we see, and he says, sir, say to me, what are these who come out of the Great Tribulation? Well, they come out from the point of view, they have repented. They came through the Tribulation those two and a half years, and now they've repented and they changed. And they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. In other words, they've repented and accept Christ. And they are now living a godly life like you and I of the baptism. That's what happens during that time underground. People will be baptized and will repent and will call upon the name of the Lord. And he says, where are these come from? They come out of the Great Tribulation.

And they stand before the throne of God. Oh, what do you mean? Are they now spirit beings? No!

Because if you read Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19 and 20, says that you and I today, as physical human beings, we're still physical. We can go to the throne of God, and we need to be bold because we can go to the holiest of alliest, the throne of God, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, consecrated through the veil that is His flesh. And so you and I today can go to God's throne in our prayers when we repent.

And when we pray, we have access to God's throne.

Those people that have repented during the Great Tribulation will likewise have the same access.

And if they have repented and want to be God's children, why should they go through the punishment that Christ will bring to the world? If you're going to punish people but your children amongst them, you're going to protect your children. And so those sealed will be protected from the punishments that will happen. And so we get now to the seven trumpets, which is basically the punishments that will happen in the world. And there are four trumpets, which the Bible talks about the first four, and those first four are basically events that will affect the earth, like water and sun and things like that. And these are part of the trumpets.

I don't want you to confuse these with the seven lost plagues, which are later.

These are the trumpets. And then it shows they being sounded from verse 7 through 12. You can read that. See them being sounded. And then in verse 13 says, whoa, whoa, whoa, because there's three more to go. You see, four have happened. Now there's three more to go. Okay, which are the blasts of those angels. Remember that these are angelic trumpets. They're not human physical trumpets of people blowing like they had to do at the union of month on the Sabbath on the holidays. These are special types of spiritual, quote unquote, showfors or thunder, strong noises that will be blown by angels. And then we continue in Revelation chapter 9 at the beginning, the first 12 verses. That now is the fifth trumpet. You see, we had the four, which is things affecting the earth, the sun, the moon, whatever. Now we've got the fifth, which is what we talk about the locusts. And it says those people that were sealed will not be impacted because it means they're still physical, but they sealed, they protected from the Spanishment or these Spanishments that come from God.

And then that locusts will affect people for a period of five months. So understand to give you something of encouragement. If you're right, your spirit is right, your attitude is right, you're in the church, and God sees your heart, you could be protected before the Great Tribulation. If not, you go through the Great Tribulation, some will die, some will not, but some will repent, and then they could still be protected through the sealing. And then when the trumpets come, which is the punishment of God on the nations for one year, those people will also be protected.

And then we have the sixth trumpet, because when you read our booklets, you'll see the fifth trumpet implies the beast power attacking the north and east. Then we have the sixth trumpet, which is the north and east counterattacking. And in that you can see that it says they will have an army of 200 million. Now an interesting point that it says, yeah, it says, blessed release the four angels who are bound in the Great River, Euphrates, and so the four angels who have been prepared for the hour and the day and the month and the year. Let me ask you a question. Does God do these things on time? God knows all the way that there will be the day he's got the day, the hour, the month, the year worked out when this will happen. God knows, the father knows exactly, is in control. And so that will mean that will be released. Those powers around Persia will be released and with help from nations from the north and east, and they will kill a third of mankind. And it talks about being with Rhesusia towards the Rhesusia. They had brace plates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulphur yellow, and to kill a third of mankind so rapidly that is an atomic wall or something similar. And so earlier I mentioned, let's say the population of the earth is 8 billion, a quarter was erased, so now we left with 6 billion, and now we have a third of that erased, right, which is what, another 2 billion out, so it means you left with 4 billion people. 4 billion people. That means half of the world's population, as we have today, will be wiped out before Christ comes. Wow. That's big, brethren. We need to be close to God.

God will intervene and will protect you. We saw He will intervene, He will protect. There's many scriptures that talk about that, and so we have to have that clearly in our minds, and we must not be deceived because then we see this picture, yeah, we see the four seals, the four horsemen, the man of sin, the abomination of desolation, the great tribulation in parallel with the two witnesses, then two and a half years into the great tribulation those heavenly signs, then we see the servant sealed 144,000 Israelites and a great multitude of older nations, then we see the trumpet period for a year, as we compare that from Joel chapter 2, and then we get to the seventh and last trumpet. Because once you have the European powers attacking with locusts, the northern east, and then we have the northern east revenging with atomic power over planet earth, killing a third of the dead living population, what do you think the beast power is going to do? Oh, yeah, I'll submit to you. No, let's say either me or you, old president, will exterminate human society, and that's when Christ has to come in. Christ has to come in at that time.

And so, brethren, what is the conclusion of the matter? The conclusion of the matter, brethren, is that we got to understand the ultimate goal of God. God wants a family.

God wants you and I to be in that family, and He prizes you, and He'll protect you as you protect your children. He will protect you. Fear not. But we got to do our part. It's not just coming to church.

It's actually how we live in our hearts, because God looks at the heart. God does not want another Satan in the kingdom. God will intervene, but you and I have to love the truth.