Great Tribulation and Heavenly Signs

Well, we're here. We're here two days before trumpets. And so it's the time of year we talk about a lot of things and a lot of things that aren't so pleasant when we look at the day of trumpets and the return of Jesus Christ. You'll hear about trumpets on the holy day coming up. We hear about great tribulation. We hear about all those things that Jesus Christ talks about. And it's necessary and good that we talk about those things. But as we do, we can't forget that it is Jesus Christ. And as we go through those things, we are doing His will. And we always have to be thankful for Him. What He has in mind through all of this is that we will become perfect, blameless, spiritually mature, whatever you want to call it, more like Him. And through it all, we should always remember to give praise and glory to Him. So I want to start off this morning by reading a psalm, Psalm 145. Because I don't want anyone to think, well, we're just preaching gloom and doom, and I know we always talk about Jesus Christ. But through it all, on the Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and all our lives, we should always give God glory and recognize what He has done for all of us and what He is doing. And keeping it all in perspective as Jesus Christ did when He was on earth, and He suffered more than we will probably ever suffer. In Psalm 145, I'm going to read through the psalm because you're going to see some of the Holy Day messages here in Psalm 145. And I'm not going to do a whole lot of commenting as we go through Psalm 145. I just kind of want to read it to set the tone for what we'll be talking about later today. And as you'll be hearing in two services on trumpets, let me mention trumpets. I understand 11 and 230 here, right? The same thing in Orlando. And that—I don't know if it's been mentioned, but I was asked to mention that if you want to bring your lunch to eat here in between services on trumpets, you can do that. So whatever it is. Sorry to mix that announcement in. I should have done that before I started, but let's go back to Psalm 145.

Psalm 145 says, The praise of David, verse 1, I will extol you, my God, O King, and I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever. Great is the eternal and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. We can't fully understand just how great, how loving, how merciful the God is. One day we may understand the fullness of it, but we learn it more and more as we go through life and the incidents that happened to us.

I will praise your name forever and ever and ever. Okay, very good. That is great, and this is unsearchable. One generation shall praise your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty. You know, as you read through the Psalms of David, he meditated a lot on who God was, what he is, what he does for us, and how it all fits together, even the trials and tribulations, as we talk about often, that we go through.

It's all because God loves us. One generation shall praise your works, shall declare your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of your awesome acts, and I will declare your greatness. They shall utter the memory of your great goodness and shall sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. He is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.

All your works shall praise you, O eternal, and your saints shall bless you. Your saints, that's you and me, your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and talk of your power, to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

The Lord upholds all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look expectantly to you, and you give them food, their food in due season. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. It's God, whether people recognize it or not. The Lord is righteous in all his ways, gracious in all his works.

He is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. In truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him. He will hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserves all who love him. But all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh shall bless his holy name forever and ever.

That's one of the Psalms of Ascent that they might have sung on their way to the Feast of Tabernacles. You can see the kingdom messages, the trumpets messages, the atonement messages, and the millennial messages that are in that psalm. But it's something for us for every day that we go through, that we remember to just always praise God. Never forget that Jesus Christ, everything he did and in everything we do, he's there. He is the reason that we have a future. He's the reason that we have hope.

He's the reason that we will ever live beyond this present physical life that we're in. You know, sometimes we read passages and I'm reminded of what Christ did. Like Luke 4, when they handed him the scrolls. Remember? And it says he read from the book of Isaiah, and he read Isaiah 61. You know, I'll give you beauty for ashes, oil for mourning, oil of joy for mourning, etc. And then after he read that, he just sat down and he made a few comments.

And sometimes I think that would be very powerful if we just read some passages and just meditated on those for a while and thought about it, because it is the Word of God that inspires us. We can embellish it with our words, and yes, we should explain some of the things that are in the Bible, and we know how they all work, but we should never forget that the words of the Bible are the things that lead us and guide us. They are God's words. And it takes some time to study the Bible and to see how it all fits together, but it fits together beautifully.

Beautifully as His Word that shows us what is going to happen, how it's going to survive or endure at all, as Jesus Christ says, and be there when He returns. So today, I do want to, since we're here at the Feast of Trumpets, or on the eve, if you will, a day before the eve of the Feast of Trumpets, talk about some of those things so that we are mindful of what is going to happen.

Because we think about the Day of Trumpets, but there are times that lead up to the Feast of Trumpets, and that was blowing of the seven trumpets that we read about in Revelation. And we're living in those times now. And so it's good for us to rehearse our mind and think they just don't all happen. They don't just all happen back sometime in the future, but just like everything, times grow, events grow, things progress to the situation that we find in Revelation 13. It's a very tough situation when you look at the government that's in place there, the way people are being treated and handled, and a system so far different than where we live and what we live in today.

So let's go back and talk about the times, and specifically the fifth and sixth seal before the opening of the seventh seal, which is those seven trumpets of Revelation. So if we go back to Revelation 4 and pick it up in verse 8, through these chapters of Revelation that spell some trying times for mankind, we see they are all punctuated by praise to God. They know the host in heaven, and Jesus Christ knows the trying times that are ahead of us.

But they also know that those times are necessary in order for the kingdom of God to be on earth, for Jesus Christ to return, to establish His way of life on all the earth. And so through it all, they praise God. We're reminded of Jesus Christ when He was on earth and the suffering that He did. And there was the time that He prayed to God and asked, could this cup pass from me? The answer was no. It has to be. This was all planned before the foundation of the earth.

But Jesus Christ endured it all for the joy set before Him. Remember that in Hebrews 12, verse 2? Enstored it all for the joy set before Him. And so as we go through these things, as we live through these things that are necessary and must happen, it's the will of God, it's the plan of God, it can happen no other way than mankind can learn the truth of God, learn to live and appreciate His way than this. So let's pick it up in verse 8 here of Revelation 4.

Set the tone here for coming up to the day of trumpets. In verse 8, in Revelation 4, it says, The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes, around and within, and they do not rest day or night. They don't rest day or night. That doesn't mean that's all they're doing, just chanting this.

But in their minds, this is always there. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor, and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him, who sits on the throne and worship Him, who lives forever and ever, and they cast their crowns before the throne, saying, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist, and by Your will they were created. Day and night, we give You thanks.

We give You thanks for Your love, Your kindness, Your mercy. We give You thanks that Your plan exists. We give You thanks that You've opened our eyes to see the truth and that we can understand what's going on. And keep in mind all the time what God's plan is. It's a perfect plan. And that through it all, when times are tough, we look to Him.

We look to the joy set before us. We look to God and Jesus Christ, who says they will never leave us or forsake us. Because then as you progress through the next several chapters of Revelation, you see some tough, tough times. Just like the times that we're beginning to see now, and the times that will become more and more manifest in our lives as time goes on. So let's continue here in chapter 5 and just read what the Bible says about these times leading up to the day of trumpets that we'll observe in a couple days.

Chapter 5, verse 1, I saw on the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll, written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy? Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals? Those seals were the secret or the mystery to eternal life for this creature called man on earth, on this physical earth. Who is worthy to release those seals and to open them? And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look at it.

Only Jesus Christ, again pointing to us, it is only Him. He is the key to salvation. He is the one who made it possible for all of us. Acts 4, 12 says there is no name by which men are saved, then by the name of Jesus Christ. He did it all. He is the only one worthy to open these seals that we talk about and that we rehearse and that Jesus Christ Himself spoke about while He was on earth.

So, verse 4, this is John as he is writing here, the Apostle John, So I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll or to look at it. Well, what does it say? How do we get there? What do we do? Here it is, but no one can read this. No one can understand it. No eyes can see. What is going on?

But one of the elders said to me, Don't weep, behold the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of those elders who are praying, always thanking God, always giving honor to His name, always aware of Him, I looked, and behold, in the midst of the elders stood a Lamb, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

And He came. He took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. And when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. God remembers our heartfelt prayers. He listens to them. When we cry out, Thy kingdom come, when it's more than just words, but our heart is behind it, our actions are behind it, our lives are behind it, and the way we live our everyday lives show God, I truly mean and want Your kingdom to come.

Not just words, but the dedication of my life as I live the ways of that kingdom here and now. And so they, as Christ takes the scroll, they sing again a song of thanks. They are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals. For You are slain. You have redeemed, it says us, but it really is them. You have redeemed them, speaking of the saints, right? You and me. Those who follow Christ have His Holy Spirit. But You have redeemed them to God by Your blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

And You have made them kings and priests who are God, and again it should be they. We, they, shall reign on the earth, under Christ. Follows the thing. Somewhere along the line, the translators messed up the pronouns there, but even in your margin it probably says the actual translation in the majority text is they, not we.

So they see what's coming. This is the key. This is what happens to happen. These seals have to be opened. It can happen no other way. It was ordained before the foundation of the earth. Just like Jesus Christ had to come to earth, He had to live that perfect life. He had to give His life. He had to suffer, sacrifice His life. There was no other way. It was planned before the earth.

And when He asked, is there any other way, the Father said, no, this is, this is the, this is what the plan is. This is what the plan is. This is the way to eternal life and you and I, likely if it's God's timing that we will live through this. And I looked, verse 11, I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders. The number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, sang with a loud voice, praising God.

This is going to be tough on the people on earth, but it is the way to salvation. It is the completion of your plan. Things will now be fulfilled. This is what has to happen. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature which is on heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and such as our in the sea, all that are in them, I heard saying, blessing, honor, glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.

And the four living creatures said, Amen, and the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.

As we see these things happening, as we see, as we've talked about here, while I was here, and I'm sure since I've been gone, you've talked about it a little bit, as you see these buds beginning to grow on the trees and appear on the trees, when you see the things that are happening that show us how those things in Revelation go on.

And we can begin to happen. What is our response? That might be tinged with a little bit of fear, right? What is going to happen when I hear this and when I see that and I see one, two, three, four seals open in ways we've never seen them open before, and understanding they will grow progressively worse and worse, just like the Bible says, evil men and imposters will grow worse. This says in 2 Timothy 3, they will continue to grow once the buds show on the trees, they continue until they bear their full fruit. What's our response? Well, if it is fear, it's time for us to look at God and realize, okay, this is your will. This is your will. This is what we must do. We must prepare ourselves. You know, Jesus Christ in the Olivet Prophecy on Matthew 24. In Matthew 24, as he goes down through it, he describes some things to the disciples who were sitting there with him that day. They may not have understood everything he was saying, but he said, see, I told you beforehand. Why does he tell us things beforehand? So that we can be ready for them. When we see those things, we can sharpen up our spiritual lives. We can, with God's Holy Spirit, begin to think in the way that he thinks. This must happen. We must be ready. We must be closer to God. We must ask him to give us the strength, the endurance, the ability and the knowledge that he is there, always with us, never will leave us, and that his Spirit can change our mind and our thinking in ways that we think differently than we did before. That we, too, would be able to do like these angels and living creatures and elders in heaven. Thank you. Thank you, God. The time of the return of Jesus Christ is near. Thank you that your plan is about to be fulfilled. So, as we move into chapter 6, after all this introduction to it, we read about these seals that are going to open. We'll come back to Revelation 6 in a minute, but let's go back to Matthew 24, because when Christ was on earth, he talked about these very same things.

In Matthew 24, of course we all know that's the Olivet prophecy, and as he was there one day, his disciples came to him and said, Well, tell us. Tell us what will be the sign of the end of the age? What will be the things that we're looking for in the sign of your coming? The sign of your coming. And Jesus Christ begins to answer in verse 4 of Matthew 24. He says, Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and I will deceive many. And will deceive many. I am the Christ, and will deceive many. False prophets. There's been false prophets around from the time that Jesus Christ was, you know, ascended back into heaven. Immediately people were discounting what he had to say. The Jews discounted what he had to say. They say it was just a prophet. They didn't believe he was the Messiah. The Catholic Church rose up, and they persecuted people who believed in the Bible. Kept any of these Judaism Sabbaths in holy days, just like the true Christians did then and still do today. There's always false prophets who say, that's not the way. This is what he meant. No, no, no. Christ is clear in what he means. Same yesterday, today, and forever. But through the Middle Ages, the people, if we lived in the 11 and 12 and 1300s, and we believed what we believed today that God opened our minds, our lives would be far different. You've read about those situations. You know, as we've talked about some church history over the years, and how people, when they were found out, they were burned at the stake, they were done everything to them because Satan and false churches will do anything they can do to wipe out the truth of God. Anything.

Now, from the 1600s, 1700s on, life has become a little bit easier if you keep the Sabbath day. Certainly here in America, we've been blessed with freedom of religion, that we can keep Sabbath, we can keep Holy Days, and we have lived under this very nice system that allows us to do and worship however we want. But the time will come, the time will come that it's going to become worse and worse. And it won't just be by edicts. There may well be an edict that says, you no longer can meet on the Sabbath. You no longer can assemble even in your homes. Kind of like what the Jews endured back in, I think it was 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea. That time may come, but it'll be the deception, the deception that is going to be more and more there to test us.

As Jesus Christ mentions these false prophets as we go forward in Matthew 24, in verse 23, he shows the progression. It isn't that they just appear and they stay the same, but after he goes through the rest of the seals, and he talks about great tribulation and everything else like that, he says in verse 23 of Matthew 24, he comes back to false prophets. Again, he says, then if anyone says to you, look, here's the Christ, or there, don't believe it, for false Christ and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

Now, that means whatever false prophets will be saying then is going to be a lot different than what we're hearing false prophets say today. Today, I think none of us, well, I hope none of us would ever be fooled by what a false prophet has to say.

We are sound in the truth, I hope. I think we know what the Bible is saying. But something in the end time is going to be so clever, so cunning, so different than anything you and I have been exposed to before, that Christ says you better love the truth, you better know the truth, you better be living the truth because even the elect could be deceived by them because it will be a time that is unlike any time that has happened before us.

Now, I look back and I read some of the histories in the Middle Ages, and I think, wow, that was a pretty tough time to live. I'm glad I live now and not then. But whatever it is, it's going to be different. It's going to be worse. Christ says the time that's coming is unlike any time that has been on earth. And so we see these seals begin to unfold when we read through Revelation 6.

We see the false prophet seal that Jesus Christ talks about. As he first begins explaining to the disciples what will happen as a sign of the end of the age and his coming. And we see these false prophets, but then we see, after he talks about these other things that will try our souls, that these false prophets are there.

And then he punctuates it in verse 25 with, see, I told you beforehand, pay attention. Know what you're doing. Be grounded in the truth. Make sure it is you. You know, we've been talking a lot about Ephesians 4, 15 lately about truth in love to two pillars of God's way of life. Truth in agape, all those things that God is and that he wants us to become. And so Christ shows that progression, but let's go back to Revelation 6 and just review the other, briefly, two or three seals before we get to the fifth one.

Because as Christ talks about those seals in Revelation 24, he'll talk about wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilences. And he says, all these are the beginning of sorrows. And I know we've talked here before about as we see the things unfolding in our lives before us, we see more clearly the beginning of sorrows. And as we watch what's going on in the world around us today, if our eyes are open, if we're paying attention and not getting lulled to sleep by everything that can lull us to sleep, we begin to see those things appearing.

So if we go back to Revelation 6 here, he talks in verse 3 and 4 about false religion. And in verse 5, I guess it's verse 4, verse 1 and 2, he talks about the first seal. So verse 3, when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Come and see. Another horse, fiery red, went out, and it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and the people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword.

And so as we live in the world today, you know, I think we've always heard of wars and rumors of wars. We see the war going on in Ukraine. We watch what's going on in the world around us. We hear just this week the threats of a world leader threatening nuclear, the use of nuclear weapons to get his way, and punctuated by, I'm not bluffing. And when a leader says, I'm not bluffing, he kind of draws a line in the sand, right? Because if he doesn't follow through somehow, then his credibility is lost.

So we have that specter whenever he thinks that he is going to do that or threatening the world with that. We have that specter on us. We have Iran. We have Iraq, who have always said they would love to see America, little nation of Israel over there, wiped off the map. And they move further and further to nuclear capabilities. We see China, who's rising in power, influence all over the earth, also developing some military things that we don't even understand. You know, sometimes, the prophetic times, when you look at that, it's pretty good about showing you what China is developing. You might not hear about that anywhere on the news, anywhere else, but that's a pretty good place to look and see what's going on in the world behind the scenes that you aren't going to hear on the 6 o'clock or 6.30 news and see what's going on developing in the world.

So Christ talks about this war. And as we go forward, war will increase. We know as we go through the time of the end, war is there. Many people will lose their lives. Israel, modern-day Israel, modern-day Judah, affected by war. It appears to be something that may be with us now that it started through the rest of time. We'll see what God has in mind. We go forward in verse 5. When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come and see. I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.

I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, A quart of barley for a denarius, and don't harm the oil and the wine. So we have famine. Jesus Christ talked about famines as one of the signs of His return and His coming.

While we don't have famine in our world today, some areas have famine, we do have something that this verse speaks to as well. We have inflation. Inflation has become a key element in our national discussion as people talk about it. Inflation was kind of like a non-factor for several years, and all of a sudden it's on everyone's lips. Every month now, when a new month begins, by the middle of the month, we hear what the inflation rate was the month before. We weren't hearing things like that before. You have people on TV talking how much more it costs for food now, what they're having to do. We have all this talk about what's going to happen in Europe as the winter approaches and what energy prices are. All this inflation that infects everything that everyone has to do. And all of a sudden, that's a new thing, and it's a worldwide global-type event. It's not something just to one nation or another. And so we hear these things, and we look at these things. And of course, when you see a quart of wheat for a denarius, that's a day's wages, right? A day's wages for a quart of wheat or for three quarts of barley. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. And you look at other nations of the world who have gone to socialist governments, and you see the rates of inflation and read about what has happened to them. Sometimes you can kind of see what happens as a natural progression when things continue to get out of hand, and as these seals begin to open and intensify through time. They're not there for just a moment, and they disappear. They intensify. One seal builds upon another. Verse 7, when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and the name of him who said on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. We just came through COVID. It's still with us a little bit, I guess, in a very mild form. But we learned a lot of lessons from COVID, and it's the first time there was this global pandemic that we all learned about. First time there was a global response. First time there was a World Health Organization that was dealing with it and trying to sell you what the method of treatment should be for everyone all over the world. And all of a sudden we had this globalistic response to a health care phenomenon that really was dangerous. Here in this congregation in Orlando, we had few who felt prey to that coronavirus. It was a very dangerous thing. Now it seems to have obeyed it a little bit, and we're praying that the feast allows us all to go to the feast, and COVID doesn't affect all of it, that we have this time coming up to go to the Feast of Tabernacles and to be able to enjoy it and celebrate it in the way that God wants us to without the disease creating some of the virus, creating some of the problems that it has caused the last couple of years. And so if you would join in that prayer, that we'd always have a good feast and that we will celebrate it and understand what the Feast of Tabernacles represents, that would be a good thing for us all to pray. We have this coronavirus. It's abated, but we've learned some things as a church from it. The government has learned some things from it.

There are those who would have power that have learned some things from it. There are those who have seen the value of fear and impressing fear on people who have learned some things from it. And as you hear, you know, some of the billionaires of the world, and maybe one in particular, talk about the next pandemic that will be coming from a different pathogen than this COVID. And how the world will be ready for the next time, you have to wonder what exactly is in mind. But we can be sure something else is coming down the road. Seals don't open, and they're not a one-time event, but God gives us the opportunities as we go through these things to learn things about ourselves, to see what's going on in the world around us. So when the next one comes, we're better prepared. Better prepared means we're closer to God. We have more faith in Him. We have more trust in Him. And we look to Him to see us through whatever comes our way, because He will give the strength. He will give the resolve. He will give us what we need to endure to the end. And so we look at those things, and we learn from all of them. We can see the intensity there in verse 8. While these four horsemen have been riding the earth for a while now, they didn't just start riding a few years ago. They've been extant on the earth for some time. We see in the verse 8 of Revelation 6, it intensifies. Power was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.

Those beasts are those little things that can cause us death, like the little bats of the world that can create all these problems we have to deal with. And so we have all these four horsemen riding. We have those things in Matthew 24 that Jesus Christ says, those things are going to happen. They happen before the trumpet blasts. They're going to ride on the earth, and they're going to intensify as the time goes on before the trumpet blasts occur. And in verse 9 here, he talks about the fifth seal, the fifth seal of the seven that are there.

We've been waiting for the resurrection for a long time. How much longer do we wait? Of course, this is not literal. This is figurative. As God knows what their prayers were, he saw their lives. They know that when they died, they were waiting for the return of Jesus Christ, waiting for that return of his and the establishment of his kingdom when they would be resurrected, pictured by the day of trumpets coming up.

How much longer? And God answers. How long until you judge and avenge those that a white robe was given to each of them, verse 11, and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

Kind of a harrowing verse, right? That there will be others who join them in martyrdom, because they will not yield to governments, people, family, or any kind of force from the earth, but always yield to God. Always yield to him and allow him to direct them because they have become close to him over the course of time. If we're not paying attention to the opportunities, as I often say, that we have along the way to build trust, build faith, build the love of the truth, that when that day comes, we'll be sorely lacking. Just like as the Bible talks about these athletes who train and train and train, you just don't go out and run a marathon one day because you want to run it. You train and you train and you train. And so God has us, and he lets us by the smaller trials we have today. Trust in me. Rely on me. Depend on me. Say no to some things. The Holy Spirit, the ninth one, the ninth listed fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Sometimes I think self-control, God put it there because that's the most important thing we do, the self-control that lets us say no to self. That's always the way I've done it, but no. I know I've got to say no, and that's really hard to say no to yourself. But the Spirit that gives self-control, God will take. He will provide that power. He will take that thought out of your mind. You have to exercise it. It's sitting there. It's available to everyone who has the Holy Spirit, but you have to use it.

It's no good to have the chainsaw sitting in your garage, and when you're trying to cut down a tree, go out there with a little saw. You've got to use it in order to cut down that tree. You've got to use God's Holy Spirit and say no to self. Sometimes say, even though I don't want to do it, yes. Yes, I will be there. Yes, I will ask God to help me develop the agape and the joy and the peace and everything else that comes with His Holy Spirit that we must have as this time draws near. So God says, you know, there's that time coming, and Christ talks about it as well. It happens before the seven trumpets.

If we look back in Matthew 24 and look at what Christ who gives this kind of chronological answer to the disciples on what will be the sign of the end of the age. What will be the signs of your coming? He talks about the beginning of sorrows in verses 4 through 8, but in verse 9, then He talks about after those things, look, things become personal to you and me.

You know, I'll use the word fine, but I don't mean fine. It's fine that we have false prophets out there. You and I can say no to the false prophets. We know what the truth is, and if a false prophet comes and says, you need to, you know, Sunday is the day of worship, not Saturday, we think, no, no. You know, we know that. And other things as well. But, and we can say, you know, through the things that we've gone through.

But in verse 9, after the beginning of sorrows, looks what He says.

Whoa! That becomes pretty personal, doesn't it? I mean, I can't say that any of my neighbors or any of my bosses...

Excuse me...have ever hated me. You know, they may not have wanted to hear anything I ever had to say about the truth, but that's different than hating. No one has ever hated me because of what they've done. No one has ever delivered me up to authorities and said, you know, this guy is preaching things that the state is against and that no one wants to hear.

And whatever, these are things for Old Testament times. These are not part of the new woke generation that's there, that has a totally different view on life and a totally different mentality than anything that you and I have ever lived before. They will deliver you up to tribulation. They'll kill you because they don't want the message. Always remember, Satan will do anything to stop the message of God, kill the message of God, and to remove us if he can. It's by God's protection that we continue, just like many times as you read in Christ where they were ready to grab him and deliver him, but God would deliver him because the time wasn't yet. And so we realize these times are coming.

Again, do we get scared? It's a little harrowing to think about it. No one wants someone to think that people would deliver you up or anything like that. But we have to prepare for that and ask God to give us the strength to do that. Many, verse 10, will be offended. Many will betray one another, and many will hate one another.

Well, then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. I have to wonder sometimes, does a prophet have to be a minister, a false minister, or just prophets of people who are on the news that we listen to? This one says this, this one says that. We have people barking at us in the news of people who have no background in medical sciences or anything else. But all of a sudden, they become the experts. This is what I want, this is what I think, and that's what I will do. What will happen in the future? Will it be just a minister of another false church or other prophets who say what's going to happen that we may listen to on the news and have the voice of authority, if you will, just because they have money or whatever else they have? Verse 12, because lawlessness will abound, boy, if you don't see the beginning of lawlessness in our society, then you are blind. I'll say it bluntly, you are blind, because what is going on in this country today and the things that you hear about in morality and in just about everything, really, anymore, that you hear, you think, this is a completely lawless society, different than anything you and I have lived in before. When you hear part of what's going on, I won't even go through all the details of it, then you think that can't, that even defies the imagination. How do people even think of this? How would anyone think that that could be a good thing? And we know what spirit it is that's working in man that leads to those unnatural, unnatural things that we hear. And then we're accused, or people who don't agree, are accused of being unloving, unforgiving. You could be racist, you can be biased, you can be whatever your things are, just because you don't agree with some things that are so even basically unnatural that you wouldn't agree with it. And that's where society seems to be headed. We live in a time of lawlessness. They don't want God's law, they don't want God's way, they want something completely different. And so as these things develop, Christ says, but he who endures to the end will be saved. Live through those things. Look at them, understand them, stand tall against them, don't believe them, don't give in to the clever arguments that they have. Understand what the Bible says, live by what the Bible says, but don't yield to the thought process of them. Don't think they have the answer. God has the answer. The only way to peace, safety, security, joy, everything else that mankind has ever wanted is only through God's way. Only through Jesus Christ. He said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. And he meant it. The only way. So whatever clever argument any government man, philosopher, billionaire, or anyone else might say, if it's not of Jesus Christ, it's not the way. Make yourself understand that and stick to it. In verse 14, he talks about the gospel of the kingdom being preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Now, the church has been doing that. The church will likely, as God leads it and Jesus Christ leads it, doing that in a stronger way going forward, whatever that means as he leads us to it. But we certainly have those two witnesses that will be, you know, extant on the earth for those 1260 days leading up to the seventh trumpet. And they will be preaching the gospel very, very, very strongly. The world will know. Remember, too, Satan will do everything he can to the powers of the world to kill those two witnesses, but God, and only by God's intervention of their lives do they stay alive until he determines the time that they will be silenced for those period of a few days. Satan will always do whatever he can to quell the truth and to quell the people who believe the truth.

So if we drop down a few verses here, we read in verse 15 about the abomination of desolation and Christ's warning there when you see this, you know, flee. But in verse 21, he says, Then there will be great tribulation, such as not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. So we have this great tribulation, you know, that's a specter on the world. It's part of the fifth seal. People that will be killed, people that will be martyred during that time. It's a time of great trouble on the earth. Daniel speaks of that time as well, so let's just turn back and look at Daniel because several times in the Bible, well, God will validate the things by the mouth of several prophets so that we have by many witnesses what the truth is. And Daniel certainly speaks to this in Daniel 12. Daniel 12 verse 1, he speaks of, you know, he speaks of, well, we have Trumpet's message here in Daniel 12, 1 through 3. We have a Feast of Tabernacles. We have a Last Great Day message in here as well, Daniel 12 verse 1. At that time, talking about the time of the end, and we've talked before about some of the things with the king of the north. And as we look at the time of the end and the king of the north and the king of the east, and he destroys the king of the south, and it's notable there is no west. There is no west anywhere mentioned in the Bible at the time of the end. The west is no longer a factor in world affairs. It's the north, the east, and the south. At that time, Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands, watch over the sons of your people. And there will be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time, your people, Daniel, will be delivered. Your people. The ones who believe in God, the saints of the Most High, you and me, if we are living by God's Holy Spirit, if we are doing the things that God said, if we are yielding more and more to him as life goes on. At that time, your people, Daniel, shall be delivered. Everyone who is found written in the book.

And of course, I could go back to Revelation, about the book of life and what it takes to be who we have to become in order to be written in the book of life. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, at the first resurrection. Some to shame and everlasting contempt, as part of the resurrection or resurrection, to follow that first resurrection. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars, for ever and ever. How do we shine like stars?

Live God's way of life. Be an example to others. Let others see the light that is in you. Don't hide it under a bushel basket. Our neighbors see who we are. Our coworkers see who we are. Our students, if we teach, our employees, if we employ, we all have a light to shine. Let it shine. Be living God's way of life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Let it grow in you. It doesn't a time, as long as we live, that we say, you know what? I'm living God's way perfectly. It doesn't happen. As long as we're drawing life, God has an area that we need to grow in. Every little thing that happens to us, even little incidents that come, you can look back and think, I needed that. I needed that for a reason, and I see things a little differently today than I did yesterday. Always look for God in your life, because He is looking to perfect and get all of us ready for the time that are coming. Verse 4, here we see the time that we live in. Daniel, shut up the words. Seal the book until the time of the end. Many will run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. We live in a time unlike any other. Planes, trains, automobiles, all these things that we can go anywhere we want to go.

Anywhere we want to go, there's never been a time on earth like this. Knowledge will be increased. Internet is absolutely amazing in so many ways. I am just amazed when I'm even wanting to look up just some obscure little thing, and I can type it into the Internet, and I can find it. I think that is so awesome. It used to take hours to comb through libraries and find these little bits of information that you need. Today, you can go right to your computer and find it out. You have to sort through the truth versus the not true, but it's the time of the end. People run to and fro, knowledge increased.

He then goes and he talks about the 1260 days on trumpets. Here we have God talking about the Great Tribulation in the Fifth Seal. You're in Daniel. Let's go back to the book of Jeremiah for a moment.

As you look at Jeremiah, chapters 29 and 30, I'm not going to read all of 29 and 30. On 29 and 11, as God comes to this time of Jacob's trouble, that is, he talks about it in chapter 30. Chapter 11 is one of those encouraging verses like Psalm 145 that we read at the beginning. In chapter 29 and 11, he says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. That's why these things are happening. I want you to be there with me for eternity, God says. I want you there. We all want each other to be there for eternity.

That's why we work together. That's why if we see someone having a problem or whatever, we might go in love and say, hey, what's going on? Haven't seen you for a couple weeks. What's happening? Not in any kind of accusation or judgmental way, but out of love. Where are you? It's important that you're part of the family. If you're not part of the body, if you're not in the church, God can't work with you the way that you have to be worked with.

There are no lone wolves. You've heard me say many times over the years. It is through the church. That's what Christ established. It is through the church that we are taught, that we are trained, that we grow in grace, knowledge, truth, agape. And all these things, God says, everything that happens, I do, because I give you a future and a hope. I love you. I love you. Remember that and thank me for it.

And then we come to chapter 30 here in Jeremiah, and we see a tough time, if you will, in Jeremiah 30 for Jacob. And I think everyone here knows who modern-day Jacob is, modern-day Israel, modern-day Judah. I mean, if you don't, get the booklet out.

It takes you right through the Bible and history. Go back to Genesis 49 and see what those blessings that Jacob gave his sons were, specifically to Joseph, for the latter days, not for the time just before that, but what they would be like in the latter days.

And you will see it clearly. And if you have any questions, if you want to talk about it, you know, read the booklet, talk to Mr. Kennebecke. If you want to talk to me, you can talk to me. Because it is something that is one of the foundational teachings of the church and an ability to understand the prophecies that are coming, or the prophecies that are given to us, so we understand what is coming.

And so we understand, and are ready when these things come. So in Jeremiah 30, verse 4, he says, These are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah. Notice Israel and Judah. Israel had already been taken into captivity by the time Jeremiah was prophesying.

Judah went into captivity while Jeremiah was prophesying. They didn't listen to anything Judah said. They didn't learn the lesson of Israel, and so they went into captivity too. And so as Jeremiah says these words, God inspired Israel and Judah, all those nations. Thus says the Lord, we've heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Of fear, and not of peace. Fear is just as powerful a weapon as we learned back over the last two and a half years as a weapon or a threat.

Fear can be a very, an attack on our faith as well. We've heard the voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask now and see whether a man is ever in labor with child.

So why do I see every man with hands on his loins, like a woman in labor, and all faces turn pale? You know, he gives us this picture of the pain, the intense pain that every woman who's given birth in this room knows. And he says now men, men are experiencing this. They're like, what is going on? I don't know what to do with this pain. For that day is great.

None is like it. It is the time of Jacob's trouble. Jacob's trouble. He doesn't say the world's trouble. He says it is the time of Jacob's trouble. But then God always gives hope. They'll go through it. There's a reason they'll go through it. God wants Israel to be there. They are his holy people. They are the ones who he consecrated back at the time that he blessed, made Abraham the promises, and said, Your people will be blessed. He still knows who physical Israel is. There's also the group of people in the New Testament, you and me, that he says, You are a holy people, a royal generation, a royal priesthood.

So we have holy peoples that God, once he says that they're there, set apart for a reason. Excuse me again. And so he talks about Jacob's trouble. It's talking about the physical descendants of Israel today. It is the time of Jacob's trouble, but he will be saved out of it. Not every single person, right? I mean, we've read, if you listen to the Bible studies in Isaiah 6, it tells us the remnant is 10 percent. It tells us the same thing in Amos. It tells us the same thing in Ezekiel. Not everyone, but God says, no, it won't completely destroy Israel. They will live over. They will be part of the kingdom. I will bring them back to their promised land, something that never happened to ancient Israel.

It will come to pass, verse 8, in that day, whenever you see in that day, speaking of a separate time, for it shall come to pass in that day that I will break his, whoever it is that brings this burden on Israel, whoever is the one who finishes them off, right? It will be Israel who does it to themselves, their ways will do it to them. But there will be the desolation. There will be the people being led to captivity. There will be this nation that has their arms on the neck or their feet on the neck of Israel, just like Egypt had their feet on the neck of Israel back when they were enslaved. And God compares in Isaiah the time coming to what occurred back in Egypt when God delivered them, that I will break his yoke from your neck and will burst your bonds. Foreigners will no more enslave them, but they shall serve the Lord their God, and David will be their king, whom I will raise up for them. See how God says, this is what's going to happen, but I'm going to save them, and David's going to be resurrected, and they will be their king. So we have a vision of the future. God lets us know what will happen. He gives it one, two, three, but we know it occurs over a period of time. God's word is sure. God's word is exactly the way that it should be. Now keep your finger there in Jeremiah 30, but let's go back to Revelation one more time.

Revelation...

Okay, Revelation 6. I'm going to briefly mention the sixth seal, and then I'll sit down. Let me finish the fifth seal. Okay, so we're talking about the Great Tribulation. And then in chapter 7, you see this great group of people. The angels are saying, let us seal these 12,000 from each of the tribes of Israel. There in the first several verses of Revelation 7. And in verse 9, it says, And behold, a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out with a loud voice, saying, All the angels stood around the throne, and the elders and the four living creatures fell on their faces before the throne, and they worshiped God, saying, Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor, and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen! Always praising God. And one of the elders answered, saying to me, Well, who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from? And I said to him, Sir, you know, so he said to me, These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Here's this group of people, these martyrs. These are the ones who came out. And then, as you go into chapter 8, you begin to see the seven trumpets begin to blast, that you will hear more about on the day of trumpets. So we have the fifth seal. Let's briefly talk about the sixth seal. Jesus Christ talked about it as well. But while we're here in chapter 6 of Revelation, let's go back, or, yeah, chapter 6 in Revelation, go back to the fifth seal, which we've talked about, and it'll give you some pause and things to think about as we go through the next couple days before we're together again. I guess you and I will be together virtually on trumpets. In verse 12 of Revelation 6, it talks about this sixth seal, again, that occurs before the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets. I looked when he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its late figs when it's shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. Things happening, heavenly signs that have never happened before, no astronomer, no scientific man can say, oh, that occurred 400 years ago. Oh, yeah, that's okay. That blood moon will occur again because we have the calculations. We know how God works. This is completely out of anything that any astronomer or anyone on earth has ever seen. This is clearly the hand of God, the heavenly sign. So as these things happen after the one, two, three, four, five seals and the sixth seal happens, then they begin to go into the trumpet blasts from God. And so you have these things happen, and there in verse 15 it tells you the world gets it.

Okay, this must be God who is shaking the earth. This must be God, but they don't want to hear it. They don't want to believe it. And so many in the world today and so many in the government, it's like, we don't want to hear about God. We don't want to hear about the Bible. We don't want anything about Him. And so they've steeled their minds to Him and hardened their hearts against Him that no matter what He does, they're going to reject it. They get it. You know, as we've been talking about Ahaz on the Bible studies and how He rejected God and resisted God and didn't get any of the signs that God gave Him, He would never turn because He hardened His heart to God. We always have to be aware that we don't harden our hearts against anything that God would teach us. Everything that the Bible teaches us, we must learn. We must search for the truth. We must seek the truth. And ask God to lead us to the truth and give us the strength to do it. So you see these kings of the earth in verse 15. The great men, the billionaires on earth who think they have the answers, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every freeman, what they do? They hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains, just like Isaiah predicted that they would, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand? All those things. Jesus Christ talked about it. Well, let's go back. Let's just, as long as I'm doing this, you can, I can buy a few minutes from you here today. I'll be done in a few minutes. Back in Matthew 24 one more time.

Verse 29 of Matthew 24, what does Christ say? The same thing that He explains in Revelation. Matthew 24, 29, Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of man, the sign of the Son of Man, will appear. We go through the trumpet blast, but there you have the sixth seal as well that Christ talks about. Mankind will know it's God. There is something. If it's not God, there's unexplainable, and there is no future in new hope for mankind. But they hide. They hide in fear. You and I shouldn't hide in fear. We should be praising God when that happens because the time of Christ's return is very, very near as we see it occurring today. And as we see things continuing to move in that direction, as we continue to move closer to God, no dates being set, nothing else like that. It's in God's time, but just watch the progression as we move toward that time and as we move forward. Let's go back to Jeremiah 30 one more time, and I will close there. You know, through it all. Through it all, it's God who delivers. It's God who provides for us. He will see us through. He has a plan. He loves mankind. We need to love Him, agape Him, as the Bible says. And verse 9, oh, I'm in chapter 31. Hold on. Yeah, verse 10 of Jeremiah 30, we ended in verse 9 before. Therefore, God says, all these things, this time of trouble will come upon you. All these things you will see. But, my servant Jacob, he says in verse 10, don't fear. Don't be dismayed, Israel. For behold, I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return. Jacob shall have rest and be quiet, and no one will make him afraid. For I am with you, says the Lord, to save you. Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, just like God will correct us today, not because He's mad at us. He could be angry with us, just like we could get angry with ourselves when we realize we've done something stupid that we shouldn't have done. But He does it so that we will correct our mistakes and go forward because He wants us to be there. Yet I will not make a complete end of you, but I will correct you in justice, and I will not let you go altogether unpunished. Always for our good, but always what God's will is, just like Jesus Christ. For the joy set before Him, He endured the shame. Didn't enjoy every minute of it. We won't enjoy every minute of it, but always keep God's way in your mind, His will in your mind, and always look to Christ. He will be there, and He will see us through the time until His return.