Heavenly Signs

What I want to do with the sermon today is actually I've taken a series of questions that I started to get back in the summer. Not only for people locally, but in talking to other ministers, there were a lot of questions they were getting. And those questions expanded out, and I know at the Feast of Tabernacles this year is De Mote Springs. There were lots of questions people had, and they had to do with a big prophetic concept. And I'm going to be skipping certain things that try to deal with the specific questions. And that is, it has to do with, one, the signs in the heavens at the end time, and then the events of the millennium and the Great White Throne Judgment.

And there seems to be a lot of confusion, and part of that is because of what's happening in the Protestant world. In the last few years, there has been, if you've kept up with any of it, just an explosion in the evangelical world about how prophecy is being fulfilled by signs in the heavens. It started with the blood moods, and the blood moods became a huge thing.

Books of the blood moods sold millions of copies, and entire television radio ministries were dedicated to the blood moods. And the blood moods are an interesting concept, but understand, they're not biblical. The teaching on the blood moods, they throw a few scriptures in there, but they're not biblical.

So then the next thing that came up was that the eclipse was a sign from God. And a lot of other things became signs from God. You know, this eclipse came across the United States from the north part of the west coast, and came down across the United States. And then there's another one happening in seven years that starts on the other end, so it makes a big X across the United States.

And that's proof that God is turning his back on the U.S.

That became so big that many, many of the big evangelical evangelists have been coming out and saying, This is actually destroying the prophetic message of the Bible about Christ's return. That became big, and it went through the Church of God. And of course there was the whole thing about, I don't know if you kept up on what happened in September, Revelation 12. Revelation 12 talks about the woman and the twelve stars, and maybe I'll go through that sometime about what that actually means. But what came out in this new book, that was the constellations. And in September, all the constellations, there's one constellation that's a woman, I can't remember which one it is. She was in the right place, and there were twelve stars above her head, and there was Jupiter, I think it was Jupiter, moved around through her womb, and then came out, and this was all fulfilling of those prophecies. Now it's called astrology, I mean, yeah, astrology, which is condemned in the Bible. It's astrology. And then there was the issue of Planet X.

There is an unknown planet that's going to appear soon, and it's a sign from God. Now, some of this seems silly, but do you realize what an incredible impact that had on possibly tens of millions of evangelical Christians over the last three or four years? And there's questions that have come up, is this true?

Then there's the issue of, okay, when are these signs, and what happens after these signs? And the question that came up at the feast to me in numerous occasions were just total misunderstanding of how the events fit together about Christ's return.

Someone asked if, does the New Jerusalem come down at the beginning of the millennium?

Is that what happens?

And I'm thinking, how did you get off on that? So what I thought I'd do is I'm going to take all those questions I've received and try to deal with that in the sermon and the Bible study. We won't go through the history of the early church. We'll skip that till next time. We're on like six or seven of those out of the nine of those studies. But I want to just answer the questions. I know that here I have very few questions, but if there's enough out there, then let's talk about it.

Let's discuss it. Why have you not heard us talk about blood moons?

Why is it that we did not say that the eclipse was a sign from God?

Well, that was all over the Christian world.

Or meteor showers.

I missed the great meteor shower this week. I always go out and watch that. And at midnight, I thought, why am I staying up? Because it's best for after midnight. So at about five minutes after midnight, I went to bed. I couldn't remember why. See, you're getting old. I'm getting old. I couldn't remember why I stayed up. I get up the next morning. Kim said, did you go out and see the meteors? Because she knows I liked it. I said, ahh! That's why I stayed up.

Was that a sign from God?

Well, it might have been for me, but it wasn't for the rest of the world, I can tell you that.

So one of the verses used to say that all these signs are from God, that God is giving us a message, is in Luke 21-25.

Luke 21-25. And so this verse has been used to promote this sort of teaching, especially about the eclipse.

And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars. But on the earth, the stress of nations was the perplexity, the sea, and the waves roaring. Now, one book, and this minister has on the internet a fairly large following.

He took this verse, he took the eclipse, he took hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the sea's waves, and said this was being fulfilled.

And depending on which of the ministers who are teaching this, this is either a sign that Christ is immediately coming, or a sign that the tribulation is about to begin, or a sign that the rapture is about to happen. They all have different viewpoints. Because some people think we're already in the tribulation, and it's a whole lot easier than I thought it would be. Others, you know, the big thing is that the rapture is about to happen. That was a sign, get ready, you're going to be raptured. Because it was interesting, I read one article where they interviewed a lot of younger evangelicals who basically said, I don't believe in God anymore. I waited for the rapture and it didn't happen.

And I realized my minister lied to me.

So there may be a God, but the whole Bible stuff is... And a lot of people just gave up their Christianity over this. So this is bigger than we realize, because we're sort of insulated from what's happening sometimes in the evangelical world.

What does that mean? We need to go through this. We need to go through what does this mean?

So I want to start with Luke 21 in context.

There's a couple principles we're going to go through here. One is, what is the context? And two, what other prophecies are related to this? Now, some of this I've covered in the last couple years. Remember, I gave a whole series of Bible studies, there was two of them on, how Daniel's the template. We lay the Olivet Prophecy on top of that, and we lay Revelation on top of that.

So this is our template. We're back to that template. We're not going to go back to Daniel 2, because that really isn't applicable. But we have to take the Olivet Prophecy, and this is part of the Olivet Prophecy here, by the way. This is Luke's version of the Olivet Prophecy. We have to take the Olivet Prophecy, and if that's a template, and then we take Revelation and we lay it on top of it, and that's how we get a continuity to Scripture. If we don't have that continuity, then we can make up whatever we want. And if Daniel 2, Olivet Prophecy, Revelation, if that template doesn't work, I don't know of anything that works. It's just whatever everybody wants to make up. So here this is being used to proclaim that these things are happening. And I'm just amazed at how many millions of people got caught up into it. Let's look at Luke 21, and let's look at where it starts here. Remember, Jesus was talking about the destruction of the temple. And we see that the prophecy He gives in the Olivet Prophecy has a former latter fulfillment. Some of this was fulfilled in part in 70 AD, but the overall prophecy was not fulfilled in 70 AD. Because the prophecy ends up with Christ coming back, and Christ hasn't come back yet. So we have to look at this as a former latter fulfillment. We won't go through that. I'll give a sermon here sometime the next year on the Amomidation and Desolation, and you'll see how part of that was fulfilled and part of it wasn't. Let's look at what He says here in verse 7. He's talking about the destruction of the temple. So they asked Him, saying, teacher, but when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place? This is slightly different than Matthew's account. Matthew's account is more exact, because Luke's writing from other accounts. Matthew's account says, what will be the sign of your coming?

But Luke's account and Matthew's account fit right together. It's just Matthew's is more exact. But Luke's account is the one that's being used here to promote this teaching. And He says, take heed, and what's interesting here, this statement is not exactly in Matthew's account. You put them together, and you get a more complete understanding of what Jesus taught. Take heed that you've been obdecieved. For many will come in my name, saying, I am He. Now that's what Matthew says. What Luke adds is this statement, and the time has drawn near. In other words, the closer you get to the return of Jesus Christ, the more people are going to be saying, Jesus Christ is coming back.

And they're going to be saying things that aren't true. So as you see these things happening, understand there's going to be people claiming these things are happening. But they're not going to be telling the right truth. I mean, for the people expected the rapture to happen in September of this year, there's just huge disappointment. They weren't supposed to be here anymore. They weren't supposed to be in heaven. He says, therefore do not go after them, but when you hear of wars and commotions, do not be terrified. For these things must come to pass, but the end will not come immediately. So this is very similar to Matthew's account. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines, and pestilences, and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. So you have all these things going on and signs from heaven. Now, if we just took that and stopped there and jumped down to verse 25, you could say, anything is a sign from heaven. But if we take, and really, the study that you'd have to take Matthew's account and Luke's account and put them together, but we take our template now. We say, okay, what comes on top of this? Something that's later. You know, the former teachings build the foundation, and then the latter teachings build on it. This was written before Revelation. So Revelation comes on top of this. So in the book of Revelation, we have the teachings about what it's going to be like before Christ returns. And it's called the time of the seven seals. And John sees a scroll, and there are seals on it, and as each seal is broken, the scroll unrolls a little bit, and it's announced this is going to happen, and that's what happens on earth. So if we want greater details about the Olivet Prophecy, how it breaks down, we go to the seven seals. Because that's describing the exact same time. The Olivet Prophecy ends up with Christ standing on the earth. What happens at the end of the seven seals? Christ is standing on the earth. So you see how one is laid on top of the other. So if one is laid on top of the other, we have to say, okay, when is this time of wars and rumors of wars and disease epidemics and pestilence and famine, where does that fit into the seven seals? And let's go to Revelation 6. Revelation 6. Leave a marker here. We'll come back to Luke. Revelation 6 begins to talk about the first four seals. And the first four seals are also called the four horsemen of the Apocalypse because as each seal breaks, what John sees is a person riding a horse, and each rider in his horse is riding around the world, and these terrible things are happening. Now remember, when we talk about these seals, it's not like one day wars are going to break out.

There's always been wars, right? What we're looking at is wars that get worse and worse and worse and worse. So they culminate in a specific point. And that's what I really want to emphasize here. We will know when certain things happen because there's a culmination of events.

We can look around today and say, wow, these first four seals may have already been broken. I don't know if they have or not. All the trends are there that would lead to them. You see what I'm saying? We're looking at trends, not specific events. So the trends get worse and worse and worse. And there's got to come a point where each seal is actually broken and it becomes global at a level that makes today look good. And that's what we have to understand. We think today's bad. Talk to someone who is very few alive that lived in 1932 in the United States.

To live in the Depression in 1932 in the United States, the majority of Americans, 25% of the people, were out of work.

The majority of the people had an outhouse, no indoor plumbing, and no indoor heat.

And the only reason it wasn't worse was because the majority of Americans still lived on the farm.

But you know, Burke McNair, I just did his funeral. During the Depression, I remember him telling me this story, during the Depression, his dad lost his job. So they had to move on to the old family farm. All the family was moving on to the old family farm. There was no place to live except the family at one time had built a one-room schoolhouse and dedicated it or given it to the local town. And everybody was so poor, there was nobody going to school anymore. So for years, they lived, eight of them, lived in a one-room schoolhouse with outdoor plumbing.

Now see, that was the Great Depression, where in Germany, it literally took a box of money to buy a loaf of bread. We had deflation here. Nobody had any money. They had inflation there. It was the opposite. Everybody had money, but it didn't mean anything.

There's nothing we are experiencing like that yet. We're not experiencing like the people did in World War II, where 60 million people died.

So understand, we're not in those times. Because this is supposed to make, at least according to Scripture, it's going to make World War II and the Great Depression look like wonderful times.

Because it says what's going to happen is like nothing that's ever happened before.

So until it gets a whole lot worse than the Great Depression of World War II, the tribulation hasn't started yet. It hasn't started yet.

Now that should...you say, oh, that makes me feel with fear. It should do the opposite. It should make you appreciate what you have right now in the life that you have and the blessings that you have.

And it also should make you have the faith to realize that God is going to have to take care of you.

Because it's going to make World War II and the Great Depression look like a good time.

Until the beast takes over, and then the beast is going to bring back prosperity, and he's going to stop a lot of the wars, the beast is going to make this really seem wonderful. That's why the world's going to follow him.

So what we have here is these first four seals. And the first four seals are exactly what we read about that Jesus said in Luke.

Wars, false religion, many will come in my name, many are going to come say they're Christian, and they will deceive people even about his second coming.

And that's when I find answers in Luke's account. They'll even deceive people about my second coming, because they'll say it's going to happen soon.

So you have false religion, you have wars, you have famines, you have diseases, all these things are happening.

And he says, but this is just the beginning.

How will we know when those things have reached their peak? How will we know when the first four seals have actually been opened and were ready for the fifth seal?

Well, we'll know because...

Oh, that's not working. Am I using the wrong...

Which one of these do I use?

Oh! Did I do that last time?

Did I do that last time?

Oh, wow, that's pretty cool. I'm... I don't know... PowerPoint challenged here.

Okay. Let's look at verse 7 of Revelation 6.

So fourth of the earth is either dead or dying, okay? We're not there yet. A fourth of the world's population. That's almost two billion people. We're either dead or dying.

That's when the fourth, you know, the first four seals have really been opened.

Now, the trends are there that that could happen very quickly. I mean, really could.

But it's... it's... it's not there yet.

So, the reason I mention this is because when we go back to Luke, we have to understand when is the signs he talks about.

Because that verse is what was used in a number of books over the last few years to say the signs are happening.

Christ is about to return. No. The rapture is about to happen. Okay? The rapture is about to happen. Has anybody ever heard any of this? Maybe most of you didn't hear. Oh, some of you did. Okay.

I mean, this has been a big thing.

So, this has got to happen. Hasn't happened yet. So, let's go back to Luke.

He talks about the church being persecuted. Now, all during this time, there's going to be persecution of the church.

So, that's a trend that's going to happen. But this persecution culminates at the same time as these first four seals culminate.

So, he talks about, Jesus talks about nation to rise against nation. Then he talks about that there will be this persecution.

Luke makes it sound like this is going to be happening during all this, and Matthew says this is going to happen after all this.

And the truth is, both are right. It's going to be happening during this that it culminates to a certain point.

And that's really important to understand if we're going to go back to the book of Revelation to look at this.

Because, in Luke 21, Jesus said that his followers will be persecuted and Jerusalem will be conquered by armies.

He says the same thing Matthew does. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you know the time of the Gentiles is going to begin.

We're not going to go there because, once again, this is so much you can cover in a short period of time.

Anyone know how long the time of the Gentiles is, according to Revelation?

42 months. 3 1⁄2 years. Ok, so it's 42 months. So, all these events are leading up to the 42 month 3 1⁄2 year what?

Tribulation. So we're still looking at events that culminate and culminate and culminate, and they create the tribulation. Ok, because it's after the first four seals that both Matthew and Luke, Jesus says on both of their accounts, now look at Jerusalem.

Because you're going to see armies surround Jerusalem.

So you have these events happening, they all get worse and worse and worse and worse.

Remember, he said, this is just the beginning of sorrows. This isn't it, guys. This is what you see happening, it's going to lead up to it.

And then it's going to lead up to it, and when the world is in chaos, so 25% of the world is either dead or dying from all these things, the persecution of the church reaches a culmination. And that's why we won't go through it, but Luke then goes through and talks about how there's going to be persecution on the church, and then look at Jerusalem because there's going to be armies surrounding Jerusalem.

If you go back to the top of our template now, this leg on top of this, we have the first four seals.

The fifth seal is persecution on the church. Do you see how it fits together?

Wars, rumors of wars, pestilence, false religion, saying, Jesus, they're going to say, I am Christ, but they're going to teach wrong things. And what are the first four seals? False religion, war, disease, same things.

Then you're going to have persecution on the church. That's happening all during these trends, because remember, they're not singular events, they're trends, but that really culminates when 25% of the world is either dead or dying from all this. Then you have the church persecuted.

There's going to be actual killing of the church. The persecution will reach a culmination point. And now, when the church has reached the culmination point of persecution, the world's falling apart because of all these things.

That's when you have the beast power come into power. And that's when you have the time of the Gentiles, which is 42 votes.

Or three and a half years.

Now, I went through all that in one of the sermons I gave. Remember, I went through the Book of Revelation and showed an outline of Revelation.

Because that was a year and a half ago. We forget over time. So that's the basic framework there.

So now we go back to what are the signs in the heavens in Luke?

See, I can't figure out why. This made such a big splash in the United States, not in other places in the last couple of years, because anyone who studies the chapter of Luke 21 can't come to the conclusions that those people did.

You just have to pull the verse up. Because what you have is now Jerusalem's surrounded.

And let's go back to Luke and let's look at verse 24.

Verse 24 is talking about Jerusalem being surrounded.

And it says that they will fall by the end of the sword and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Now, that is a latter fulfillment that had to do with 70 AD. But it has a formal fulfillment. It is a latter fulfillment in that it's going to happen again.

Now, why do we know what's going to happen again? Because now we're to the signs of the heavens. Verse 25. And there will be...okay, this is after Jerusalem is surrounded. This is after Jerusalem is destroyed. And by the way, when I go through the abomination of desolation, there were signs of the heavens in 70 AD. Both the Jews and the Romans recorded. They saw it.

So we know what happened then, which helps us to understand what's going to happen in the future.

And there will be signs of the sun and in the moon and in the stars on the earth, the stress of nations, the perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring. And men's hearts failing from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Oh, did that all happen at 70 AD? Well, verse 27. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near. So when you see these signs, you will also see what? Christ coming in the heavens. This is what people expected in September of this year.

Because there was an eclipse.

Folks, there's been eclipses ever since there's been the sun and the moon and the earth.

There's been blood moons, as far as we know, ever since there's been a moon. It's a natural phenomenon. There's been meteorite showers ever since there's been an earth.

Well, I don't know if there was one. I can't say that because I don't know when the creation was perfect. But ever since the creation has been imperfect, there's been meteorite showers. These things are all natural phenomenon. There's blood moons. The Jews talk about blood moons happening hundreds and hundreds of years ago. In my life, on a regular basis, Kevin and I have looked at the moon. We've been driving someplace. They're doing something. Wow! It's red! They didn't find all the air. It's a blood moon. Of course, sometimes if you just be in certain parts of the country, there might be enough pollution that it looks red. Okay, so it's not the same thing. The point is, it's not biblical. What are these signs? These signs are after the first four seals. They're after the fifth seal, the persecution of the church and the tribulation. This is right before the return of Jesus Christ. You can't stop in the middle of the sentence and then say, well ignore the part where Jesus Christ is coming back. And everybody sees it. The two eclipses crossing the United States and putting an X on it, is a natural event. These aren't natural. These are from Almighty God. These are signs from God. Let's go back now to Revelation. Revelation 6. Let's go to the sixth seal. So you're with me so far. We're just taking these templates and laying on top of each other. That's all we're doing. The sixth seal. Verse 12.

Verse 12. And I looked in the open, 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. This is the sixth seal. Unless the other five seals have already happened, this hasn't happened yet. So this, you know, it's really big on the internet that the sixth seal has happened. It hasn't happened because the first five seals haven't happened yet. And besides this, how dramatic is this? Is this just... I tell you what, the eclipse was fascinating to me. I stood outside in the backyard.

I went outside for two hours just to put on my glasses and watch it happen, right? My neighbors thought I was crazy. Because I ran over and made them walk through the glasses, too. And watching the solar snakes, they call them, you know, and the different things, I was just fascinated by the whole thing. That shows the power of God. Because God is creator. That wasn't a sign from God. Because, you know, 200 years ago people saw that, and it wasn't a sign.

I mean, the only sign is God's power. It wasn't a prophetic sign. A thousand years ago, when there was a solar eclipse, it wasn't a sign from God that prophecy was about to take place. Three thousand years ago, when there was a solar eclipse, it wasn't a sign from God that prophecy was about to take place. It is, it shows the power of God as creator. These events here, verse 13 says, And the stars of heaven, this is way beyond that, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its light figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.

We're talking about meteorites, asteroids, not like the meteorite shower I missed the other night, where I would have stood out there for about an hour and see maybe ten of them. If you had a right place, you could see a hundred of them, you know, but I'm just not far enough out of the city. That's not what this is talking about. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it has rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.

The great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand? The UN didn't say, Let's all go hide, because we see the face of God. If I take Luke and Matthew and Lamb on top of each other, we have signs in the heavens that happen at a certain point, and that point is immediately before the return of Jesus Christ.

Let me just go back to Matthew 24. And now I lay this on top of it, and we have the same thing. All these scriptures are talking about the exact same events. Let's go back to Matthew 24. Let's look at Matthew's event, or description of this event, because I just want to catch something he says here. Because he puts this in the exact same place that Luke does after the wars and rumors of wars, and after the beginning of sorrows, and after the persecution of the church, and after the time when the abomination of desolation is set up in Jerusalem.

Then you have that time of the Gentiles, the 42 months. Verse 29 says, Immediately, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be dark and the moon will not give us light. The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Now this is the exact same teaching of Jesus that Luke's writing about.

Luke can't be before the tribulation, which is the whole teaching of this, because he and Matthew are now contradicting each other. Immediately after the tribulation, that's when these great signs of the heaven take place. Then, verse 30, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming, and the clouds in heaven with power and great glory. And it says he's going to send the angels out to gather the elect to meet him in the air.

I know I'm taking a lot of time for something, and probably seems silly to some of you, but I've talked to ministers who said, yeah, most of my young adults have bought into this thing because they saw some guy on the Internet that said, this is what's happening. This doesn't fit the biblical narrative, but it has left a lot of people not believing in God or the Bible. It was just another way of driving people away from the Scripture, because it didn't happen. But that's okay, because the signs in the sky prophets are coming up with their next explanations.

John Hagee hasn't stopped believing that the blood moons predicted something that was supposed to happen last year at the Feast of the Abernackels. It didn't happen. He just made up something. Well, this is what happened. I just misunderstood what was happening.

Okay, well, that can happen. I think we all misunderstand Scripture prophecy once in a while, so I'm not putting it down for that. The problem is, he's not going to reevaluate the blood moons. That they may have some validity in the way the Jews look at things, but they're not biblical. We can't say that that is a teaching from God. So it might be interesting, but it's not from God. And the signs in the heavens. So Christ now comes back. Now we arrange our second series of questions. At the Bible study, I'm just going to take the Bible study.

By the way, we'll also have our yearly congregational meeting because I have a few things to go over with you with that. We'll take the first part of that and just any questions you have. I don't have all the answers.

One thing I really have come comfortable with in the last five or six years is the answer I don't know. I'm really comfortable with that. I don't know. But I do know some things. You know, from the Scripture. We can look at the Scripture and say, this is what the Scripture says. So we'll go to the Scripture and say, this is what we know, what we don't know, we don't know.

And God didn't reveal everything to us on purpose. We don't know all of it. We don't. And once again, that's hard for us to admit sometimes. And we've got to know all of it. What kind of prophecy we know? What we do know is amazing. You and I should be watching all these trends. They're just starting. Well, they've been going on for years, but they're going to get worse and worse and worse.

When we see the signs in the sky, the tribulation's over. Crisis is coming back. When we see these signs. So, you know, if God does some other special sign, it will not be a predictable sign. Years ago, they were predicting when this eclipse was going to take place. They've already predicted the seven years when the next one happens. I tell you what might be a sign from God. That seven years from now, it doesn't happen. Because that means something in the universe is really messed up.

See, this runs on natural laws God created. Well, we can predict when the next one's going to be in seven years. It's because we're able to look at the natural ... Wow! God is great!

How great is God? Seven years from now, that happens again. But it comes from the other direction. That's amazing! If it doesn't happen, that's when you get nervous. That's when you say, was that a sign from God? I'm going to say, it's a sign that something really bad has happened. Because God's laws of the universe are no longer applicable. And that's not good. So, seven years from now, if we're having this conversation and it doesn't happen, we'll be praying.

So, now we have to deal with Christ's returns. What happens after He returns? We're not going to go through, you know, you get the seven seals, which end up with the seven trumpets and the seven bowls. That's all happens between this point where the signs and Christ stands on the Mount of Olives. There's all these things that happen. That's not our subject today. The seven seal releases, the events known as the seven trumpets, and the seven trumpet releases the pouring out of the seven bowls of God's wrath.

But, once again, that's not part of what we're going to talk about. What we're going to talk about is the signs. This happens between the signs and then Christ stands on the earth. How do we put together the next series of events? Which includes the millennium and the great white throne judgment.

How do we put those together? There's a very, very important scripture here that actually lays the understanding of how the events take place. And it's not in the Olivet prophecy and it's not in Revelation. It's in 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15. I know it's... I know you usually don't do this in Sabbath services, but because I don't want you to lose your thoughts. What we've covered so far, are there any questions about that? Yeah, or? Available over the year, which is really two and a half years into the circulation. Is the world...is Christ evident to the world or is it just the things that are happening that are happening?

I think yes and no. I think they know something's happening, but they refuse to accept who it is. They know something's happening because God's pouring out this wrath. But they refuse to accept who it is. Christ's faith going down on the Mount of Olives and Mount Olives is at the culmination of... Yes, right.

So yeah, because it's the seventh trumpet. So it has to happen at the end. The question...yes. The question was, the year of the day of the Lord... and it says a year, it's only one place that says it, so we wonder if the day of the Lord is a year long, then that means the last year of the three and a half years tribulation is the day of the Lord.

And that last year is God's punishment. Everything up to that point is we do it to ourselves or Satan's done it to us. But that last year is God's punishment. But Christ doesn't come back to the end of the day of the Lord. So he comes back at the very end, because you have the seven trumpets, and then he comes back at the very end.

So if he doesn't come back at that point, no humanity will survive. That's what he said in Matthew 24. He has to come at that exact point, or no humanity will survive what's happening. And then the army's gathered to fight against him. So the earth is absolutely devastated. It's a mess beyond imagination. How bad is it? It says they'll throw their gold in the streets. Wealth will mean nothing. You won't have anything. You don't mean nothing. Yes, even Walmart will be gone. Any other questions? See, it's a big subject, but when I get enough questions, I figure I better talk about it.

I've had enough over the last six, eight months that we need to talk about it. In Bible study, we can be more comfortable asking a question, or write a doubt and give it to me if you don't want to ask it. First Corinthians 15. Because this sets us up, then, for what we need to talk about next. First Corinthians 15. First Corinthians 22. This is known as the resurrection chapter because Paul explains in great detail the concept of the first resurrection. And being resurrected at the sound of the trumpet, you know, it's the seven trumpets, it's the last trumpet, the sound of the trumpet, you're resurrected.

He talks about that in here. He talks about the spiritual body that we get at that resurrection. But it's very interesting here in verse 22. For as an Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But each one in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ that is coming, then comes the end. When he delivers the kingdom to God the Father. He says, then comes the end.

Well, we're going to look at Revelation and see, then comes the end, doesn't mean immediately after the resurrection. It means after a series of events happen. So, and this is where people get confused. Well, I guess the New Jerusalem comes out at the beginning of the millennium. No. And here's why we'll know this. Because when we go through Revelation, we'll be able to put all this together. But each one in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ that is coming, then comes the end.

When he delivers the kingdom to God the Father. So he's going to give the kingdom now to the Father. His work will be done. He will have created the kingdom, the family. So we've got to find out what exactly that happens. And he presents it to the Father. And he says, when he so when, and this is about Christ, so Christ has to do something. When he puts an end to all rule and all authority and all power.

So all human authority and power is going to be gone. Satanic power has to be gone. Anything left is God's power. For he must reign, so Christ must reign on the earth until some things have happened. For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. So he must reign on the earth until all these enemies and all this power is broken.

And then he's going to give the kingdom to God. And then the next statement is very important. The last enemy. So we'll know he has completed his work when the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. Now when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will be also subject to him who put all things under him that God may be all in all.

So there's a point where Christ gives the kingdom to the Father. But it's not until he has conquered all power, all rule, all enemies, and all death. So then we have to figure out, Christ comes to the earth, and what happens between that and this point? How do we know when this is completed? So we've now gone through the signs in heaven. And how the signs in heaven that we see in Luke, we see in Matthew, we see in Revelation, they're all talking about the same thing.

And they have to do with the sixth seal. The announcing, the seventh seal, is the seven trumpets. It's the return of Jesus Christ. So we can separate all that confusion because those three passages, and they also go to a passage in Joel, but when you read the passage in Joel, it's talking about the day of the Lord. So the passage in Joel is talking about the exact same time. So the four places that are used in these signs in the Sky Prophets, none of them refer to what they say they refer to.

They all refer to a very specific set of events. Now, Christ comes back. So we'll work through this. Now, Christ is on the earth. What happens next? So what I'm going to do is go ahead and we'll stop here, because what I'm going to do in the Bible study is, okay, let's look at Christ's return, and to this point, how does that play out? Does the Scripture give us a timeline between Christ's return and the time when He gives the kingdom to the Father? And how does that timeline play out? Because actually it's very...the timeline is one of the few things that we have that's pretty apparent. So we'll go through that timeline.