How Does Armageddon Fit In the Feast of Trumpets?

As mentioned in the sermon, the blowing of the shofar or other trumpets, there was more than just the shofar used. There were silver trumpets, there were different trumpets that were used to signify different things in Israel's history. It was used for a lot of different reasons. Knowing the sound of that trumpet would tell you when, as it was brought out, your tribe would be on the move.

We know that the shofar was used sometimes just to herald of gathering people together for a convocation. It is used in its most terrifying way as an announcement of war, that there is danger. And so when that blast, when that sound was made, that was a terrifying sound, because people knew that there was a battle coming up and they had to rush to prepare for imminent danger. We also know that in Zechariah, that trumpets will blow, that were heralded the coming of the Messiah. And Isaiah said that Israel would be restored, quote, in that day that the great trumpet will be blown.

Throughout the Old Testament, there is a theme that there is going to come a time when trumpets sound and they will call to battle all humanity against God. And at that sound of that trumpet, God's anointed will come to set up His kingdom on the earth. That is throughout the Old Testament. And especially in the prophets, Isaiah, the minor prophets, Joel, Hosea, Zephaniah, Zechariah. There is all this mentioning of the blowing of a trumpet, the herald the coming of the Messiah, and the herald this terrible battle that's about to begin.

We've heard a spiritual trumpet today. You heard a spiritual trumpet to call you to come together to a holy convocation. Let's look at the instructions that were given to ancient Israel about this day. Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23, and let's start in verse 23. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. We're here. We're not going to offer a lamb or bullock or the different burnt offerings that they did, because those were functions of the Levitical priesthood.

When we blow a trumpet or a shofar, it's not in the same way that they did it. They did it as part of a ritual. We may do it as just part of the object lesson of this day. But we are here to observe a holy convocation, and as a memorial of the blowing of the trumpets.

That time period of the great battle when the Messiah comes is also known as the Day of the Lord. And it is commonly called the Battle of Armageddon. There was a movie out, I don't remember, six or eight years ago about a giant asteroid that was going to hit the earth and destroy it somehow. You remember that. And they sent some astronauts off to plant nuclear weapons on it and blow it up. And it was called Armageddon. Now, if you ever watch like I do, sometimes at night, when I say what I want to watch, my wife will say, why don't you pick a show?

Well, because I had fun for ten minutes flipping through all the stations. Now, when I get to the Sci-Fi channel, it seems like half the shows on the Sci-Fi channel are Tornado Armageddon, Earthquake Armageddon, you know, Tsunami Armageddon. It's like Armageddon is in half the titles of all. And of course, you turn them on, and they're very cheesy shows.

Although there was one the other day that I watched about three minutes of that I just had to laugh at. It was about tornadoes that picked sharks up out of the ocean, they came over and dumped them on, I think it was Los Angeles. And sharks are raining from the sky and flopping around on the ground and banging people, and I thought, man, I mean, you had to be really bored. Or it had to be a bet. You think people will watch this? Nah, come on. And of course, as most of us computer-animated, it wasn't like a real high-production-quality program.

I'm surprised they didn't call it Shark Armageddon or something. But Armageddon, the time of catastrophe, the time of the end of the world. We're going to talk about Armageddon today, and how that fits in with the Feast of Trumpets. Armageddon comes from a Hebrew word, harmagedo, which literally means the Mount of Megedo. Sometimes a mount will refer to a city, so it could be properly translated Mount of Megedo or City of Megedo.

Now, Megedo is an ancient city that has existed for thousands of years in the same place. It's still called Megedo today. It's about 55 miles north of Jerusalem on a great plain. There's mountains around it, and it's on this huge plain. And Megedo has a distinction in history, a very interesting distinction. It may have been the one valley where this little town is. I mean, the town has no significance at all, except that it sits at the crossroads of two trade routes. And if you think about what it looks like, what Israel looks like with the Mediterranean to the east, Mediterranean Sea, to the west, it was a pretty rough country.

And if you wanted to do trade between Babylon and Assyrian, Hittites, and Egypt, guess where you came through? What is now Israel? They controlled these trade routes, and two great trade routes happened to cross in Megedo. And so its great distinction is there may have been more battles fought at Megedo than any other place in history.

Throughout the ancient history, up until actually modern times, armies have marched through Megedo, and they have fought each other. One of the most interesting ones I've read about is one that took place back in about 1400 BC with one of the Egyptian pharaohs. And it's an interesting account because it talks about his brilliance and now well his soldiers fought. One thing about Egyptian history, when they won, they were the most brilliant, fierce, intelligent, greatest warriors of all time. When they lost, you can't find any accounts.

You have to search in somebody else's history to find any battle that they ever lost, because they just didn't write about it. It's like it never happened. But also in the Bible, in the Bible there's many battles that were fought at Megedo. One is Deborah and Barak's victory over the Canaanites. One of the most interesting ones has to do with Gideon. In the book of Judges, Gideon's great victory. In fact, I even thought about talking about Gideon today and his battle at Armageddon, and what he faced, and what we can learn as Christians as we think about Armageddon.

I mean, the very word is ominous somehow. Har Megedo, the city or the Mount of Megedo. But Solomon actually built a fort there, because armies came back and forth through Megedo. Let's look at the place where Megedo is mentioned in the New Testament in the book of Revelation. Revelation 16. Let's go to Revelation 16.

We're breaking in the middle of a lot of things going on here, which we'll fill in a little details in just a minute. But the sixth angel poured out his bowl. These are events that are happening towards the end of the tribulation. Poured out his bowl in the great river Euphrates. And its water was dried up so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. And they saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and in the mouth of the false prophet. The dragon being Satan, the beast is the leader of the northern coalition of nations that will come together, and the false prophet the religious leader of that group. For they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth, and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. And then Jesus Christ says, Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And they gather them together to the place called in Hebrew Armageddon. He says, understand this and watch. His followers need to watch and need to understand what this is about this and what's going to happen. Now, something I'll just bring up as a sideline here. It's very interesting that in Protestantism today, and even in some Catholic circles, there is a movement away from an old concept, a concept that we believe in, but something that goes way back hundreds and hundreds of years. And that is that the great...when you look at Daniel chapter 2, the revival of the end time, the great empire at the end time that produces the false prophet and the beast will be some kind of revival of the Roman Empire. And there's different ways to try to figure out that and who the nations will be in different things. But it has been commonly believed, and that's what we believe, that it will be a revival of the Roman Empire. But there are a lot of people that are starting to doubt that now. They don't believe it's the Roman Empire. They believe it's the Islamic world, that the beast and the false prophet will come from the Islamic world. They say, well, what difference does that make? Just briefly, and it's just a sidebar here because it's not really what the sermon is about, but the king of the north and the king of the south fight each other, which is a group of nations from the Middle East and a group of nations from Europe, or the beast power.

How will they be united, the king of the north? They will be united against the Islamic nations.

So all you have to do is say the beast and the false prophet are Islamic, and you can gather all Christians together to fight them.

And so there are people crying out today that all Christians must come together under one leader because sooner or later they're going to have to fight the beast and false prophet that are going to come out of Islam.

That is a very interesting viewpoint because what it does, and there are certain Sabbath-keeping groups that are already saying this too, it draws all Christians together under the great Christian deception.

The great Christian false prophet will be able to bring them together to fight who? The beast and false prophet.

The beast and false prophet will declare somebody else as the beast and the false prophet.

So just think about that. Just be aware of that because this is what Jesus says. I'm coming. Be aware of this gathering of these nations together. You do not want to be involved in the gathering of armies together at the end time.

You don't want to be involved in that at all because they're eventually being drawled together to try to fight the Almighty God.

Now, when we take the book of Daniel, we take Revelation, we take the minor prophets, and we put them together in this context, we see that theme.

We can spend hours going through the entire Old Testament to talk about the Day of the Lord. Now, I've talked a lot about the Day of the Lord in the continuing series of Bible studies we've done on the minor prophets. How the Day of the Lord in the Old Testament, most of the time, has a former fulfillment and a latter fulfillment. Israel was told, repent, or the Day of the Lord is upon you. And they had their Day of the Lord. That every time you read through those prophecies, there's like a second half. There's a future Day of the Lord and also pictures too. And that second Day of the Lord always involves two things. Gathering of armies and the coming of the Messiah.

So that's the great Day of the Lord we look to, not the former Day of the Lord, which happened to the Jewish people and happened to the Israelites before them.

We're looking forward to that great Day of the Lord when the gathering of armies... When we look at the New Testament, we begin to understand that there is a tribulation. Once again, I'm not going to go through the Scriptures to show this, because this is something we all know. There is a great tribulation coming that's three and a half years long. But the last part of the tribulation is a time known as the Day of the Lord. It is the time of the gathering of the nations and it is the time of the coming of the Christ.

The Day of the Lord is when God directly intervenes in human history.

You know, ever since He kicked us out of Eden, God has been sort of just touching human history here and there to keep it on track to where He wants it to go. Human beings under Satan's deception have created the world that we live in. This isn't God's creation. But He has always stepped in, and that's what your life is. Your life is one place where God touched. In all of human history, there's little places He touches, and that's who you are. If you didn't believe that, then you wouldn't be here today. You believe God touched your life and said, okay, and all of you in history right now, I want you to be part of what I'm doing. So He touched you, and this is why you're here. But there comes a point in time where God says it is enough, and He is going to come directly involved in humanity. Now, one person, not a small group of people, but all of humanity is going to learn who God is and who is His Christ. And when God says it's enough, you don't want to be on the wrong side of that.

Let's look at a couple places in the Old Testament and talk about this. Look at Joel 2. The book of Joel has a lot to say about the Day of the Lord.

And when we went through Joel in one of the Minor Prophets—and now we haven't finished the Minor Prophets—we will finish it someday. Well, hopefully.

Joel 2, the whole book is about the Day of the Lord.

And when we went through this, we showed how those people suffered their Day of the Lord.

But much of the book of Joel has not happened. It's looking to a future Day of the Lord. And their Day of the Lord tells us what the Day of the Lord is like. And believe me, the Day of the Lord for them was not nice.

God was with them for generation after generation. They rejected God, they rejected God, they rejected God. And finally, God said, it is enough.

Verse 1 of chapter 2, Blow the trumpet in Zion—by the way, that word trumpet there is the ram's horn. It is the shofar.

Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the Day of the Lord is coming. For it is at hand. A day—and he describes this, and this is just the beginning of an entire chapter of description—a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains, of people come great and strong, like the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them for many successive generations.

He describes the armies that would come against them like locusts, that would come and destroy everything. And he uses a locust blind that had happened to describe what was going to happen to them in the future, although these locusts were going to be human beings. In this chapter, he also tells them to blow a trumpet for a different reason. Look at verse 15. Blow the trumpet in Zion. Consecrate it fast. Call a sacred assembly. Gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders. He goes on and he says, blow the trumpet. Stop what is going to happen.

Call a sacred assembly and fast and draw near to me, and the day of the Lord will not happen to you.

They did not do that. And so instead of hearing the trumpet call for a sacred assembly, they eventually heard those shofars blow that said, war is happening. And when they heard the shofars that said, the wars are happening, it was too late. The Assyrian army had already shown up, and they did not have the power to stop it. Today we are here to commemorate the blowing of trumpets for a lot of different reasons. Today I'm centering in on the blowing of the trumpets to signify the day of battle, Armageddon, and the coming of the Messiah. Because those two things happen together, because the battle is gathered together. The people are gathered together to fight Him. Look at one other minor prophet that talks about this, and we're just once again skimming with the minor prophet saying, Zephaniah 1. Zephaniah chapter 1.

Another time, day of the Lord meant something specifically to them. Their day of the Lord has already come and gone, the time of judgment. The book still exists because the future day of the Lord, the great day of the Lord, is yet to come. Zephaniah chapter 1 verse 14. The great day of the Lord is near. It is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter. There the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers. It is a day of battle. It is a time when God does battle with humanity, when He sends His Son to battle Satan, and unfortunately, to battle humanity.

Our choice and our calling is either to be the saints that are prepared for Christ, or we will end up being part of the system that is there to fight Christ.

You have been called to come out of that system.

We must understand the gravity of this battle that is going to take place.

When we look through the book of Revelation, there are a whole series of events, and they are described and read as sealed scrolls. There are these scrolls with a seal, and every time one of the seals is broken, then what is announced is what's going to happen in the future. There are six seals that take place that lead up to the Tribulation and the Four Horsemen that take place during the Tribulation. But then the seventh seal, which is the last part of the Great Tribulation, describes what happens when God becomes involved.

You know, the Tribulation isn't God causing it. The Tribulation is Satan and humanity doing it to ourselves. But then when the seventh seal comes, and that is opened, we have God becoming involved. And that is called the Seven Trumpets.

I'm amazed that for us this is so clear. We look at all those places in Hosea and Joel and Zechariah and Zephaniah and Isaiah that talk about the Day of the Lord and the blowing of the trumpet. And when you read through those verses, you realize that they may have had a former fulfillment, but there's a latter fulfillment. And most commentaries agree with us on that, that the Day of the Lord prophecies in the Old Testament, many of them are talking about the great battle that happens when Christ comes. They all agree.

Then we come to the book of Revelation, and there are seven trumpets that announce when God becomes involved. And here we are keeping a feast of trumpets.

So we have dozens of scriptures of the Old Testament and prophecies that talk about trumpets. We have this entire section of Revelation that talks about trumpets. They all talk about the gathering of the armies, the coming of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection. And so we say, the Feast of Trumpets. By the way, in the Jewish world, they believe the Feast of Trumpets is about God's judgment and is tied in with the Messiah. So even that lands weight. And what I'm amazed at is the moment we say that, so many people say, well, that doesn't all go together like that.

And I'm amazed at how many people can't see the simplicity of what I just said.

All these prophecies about trumpets, and you have a Feast of Trumpets, for which even the Jewish world is seen as a time that's tied in with judgment and the Messiah.

And so here we are, commemorating the time of judgment and the time of the Messiah who is going to come. So now let's look at the trumpets in Revelation. Revelation 8. This is a very simple sermon. It's just basically helping us see the tie-in, how all these pieces fit together to produce something you already know. I'm not going to tell you anything you don't know today.

But we need to occasionally go back and review what the Scripture says, and realizing what is going to happen, and why there in Revelation He says, be careful and watch the words of Jesus in some of your books, in some of your Bibles. If you've read the letter Bible, that one verse I read in Revelation was in red. Did you notice that? John was saying, you know, John didn't write it in red, but it was noticed that that suddenly changed that verse from the writing of John to the exact words of Jesus.

And he tells us to be careful we understand this.

Revelation 8. So we have, we've gone through now, the book of Revelation describes the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the beginning of the tribulation, the rise of the beast power, the rise of the false prophet, all the things that are happening in the world. The world becomes destabilized. And as it becomes destabilized, nations begin to create massive armies.

If you are a historian that's very interesting to watch what happens, every empire reaches an apex and then deteriorates. And it's always fascinating to study what happens when an empire does that.

They grow, they expand, some of them last hundreds of years, some of them short periods of time, but they reach an apex with its their farthest extent. And when that happens, usually maintaining the empire becomes impossible.

External forces and internal forces make it impossible to maintain it.

So what the Roman Empire had problems with? The Roman Empire expanded, expanded, expanded, so it got to the point it couldn't raise enough soldiers to protect its huge boundaries. Plus, since every town was minting its own coinage, coins became worthless. Everybody had pockets full of coins. They didn't understand inflation because they didn't have an economic system that would describe it. They just couldn't figure out why silver coins weren't worth anything. It was because everybody had a pocket full of them. Because every town and every region, plus Rome itself, were all issuing coins. So everybody had coins. And it expanded out, and then it collapsed. For decades before its collapse, it seemed stable. But looking back now, you can see how it was being frayed all along the edges. You can see how internally it was becoming more and more destabilized. The United States unwittingly became an empire, and it has reached its apex. Just like the British Empire, the Roman Empire, it has reached its apex, and it's fraying at the edges. It cannot maintain what it is. It can't. And so now we're being faced more and more with both economic and military problems that have no solutions.

If you were President Obama, would you let the Syrian dictator, who is obviously a monster, stay in power? Or would you overthrow the monster and let Al Qaeda take over?

And now we have another monster. Which one do you do?

These are the kinds of problems that an empire eventually reaches. The Romans had a simple answer. They just go and kill everybody. That's it. We'll kill the people in charge, and we'll kill the people that are fighting against them, and there we go. That was their answer in these kinds of situations. We'll never do that. I mean, we can't. That's not part of our nature.

You read about the British Empire and India in its latter days. They were forced constantly to make decisions of how much violence do we get involved in here until it became impossible for them to decide. The British people, you know, they would have been killing massive amounts of people to keep India. How do you make these decisions as an empire? The American Empire is at its extent, and it's starting to fray. We are where the Roman Empire was a few decades before its collapse. The scary thing is, the world we live in today, everything happened so fast.

I don't know how much time. It may not be decades.

No one thought the Roman Empire could fall. No one thought the British Empire could fall. It covered 25% of the world at one time. No one thought the Persian Empire could fall.

But they all did, because they all reached their apex, and the world destabilizes.

Doing the tribulation, what brings about the tribulation is the destabilization of the world and then, when we see what happens with the Beast of False Prophet, is what appears to be a re-establishing of some kind of order in the mess. Well, what is happening in the Middle East right now? Total destabilization of the entire Middle East. What happens if that continues?

Who wins in Syria? I don't care who wins. Guess what happens to the losers?

And how long do you think before the losers have an underground and they're trying to overthrow the government? What's happening in Iraq today? It's already beginning to become destabilized. What's happened in Egypt? The army has control. How long can they keep control before they have to start killing their own people in mass numbers? And how long before somebody decides that they all hate Israel to wipe them off the face of the earth? And Iran wants to wipe them off the face of the earth and has publicly announced they're going to do it. And they almost have the nuclear weapons available to do so. You say, wow, I'm glad the rest of the world isn't that destabilized. You know what? Watch the news every once in a while and see about the border problems between Pakistan and India. You think Pakistan is a stable country? You know it has nuclear weapons?

Pakistan? You have nuclear weapons? India? You can put an army of 10 million men in the field overnight? India? Okay, well that's not stable. Well, how about north to South Korea? What do you think would happen if the United States is afraid to begin to contract down from being an empire? What happens if we pull our troops out of South Korea? How long before North Korea attacks?

I don't think our soldiers would be on the boat entirely. They'd be loading on while they attack.

And they have...are creating nuclear weapons. Japan is so afraid of that that Japan just did something a couple months ago that no one thought possible. They created an aircraft carrier.

Now, it doesn't carry jets. It carries helicopters. So they can get troops any place in that area of the world as fast as they can. They are already discussing now changing their constitution, because by their own constitution they can't have a very large army, air force, or navy. They're talking about changing their constitution. Why? Because Japan wants to take over the world? No. Because as the United States contracts down, they're alone against China, the biggest population in the world. And China has always, since the communists took over, have always said they want Japan. They're looking at a huge foe. 110 million people looking at a billion people. So they're starting to arm because they see the United States contracting down. What's happening in Europe? The European Union is not very stable.

They would love to get rid of Portugal, Greece, and a couple other countries. The economies are dragging all of them down.

It's destabilized. What are they going to do? They don't know. They just know they can't continue the way they are. What I'm saying is that the destabilization of the world is minor now compared to what it's going to be. It becomes so destabilized, the tribulation starts.

Once the destabilization gets that bad and the tribulation starts, the beast power supplies what appears to be at least some control over the chaos. And they can only do it so long until the destabilization reaches critical points. The beast power isn't going to be a world power that brings world peace. They're just going to bring some kind of feeling that the destabilization process is under control, but it won't be. And it will continue and continue continue until the day of the Lord. And when it gets to the point that humanity is about to crumble in the total chaos, God says, I'm coming. And He begins to tell them He's coming.

Verse 1, He opens the seven seals. This is the beginning of the day of the Lord. This is after the tribulation of at least two and a half years into it. And there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar in heaven. And He was given much incense that He should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne, and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angel's hands. We know that at this time the church will be in two parts.

Part will be in its place in the wilderness, and part will be right in the middle of the tribulation.

The people who are in the tribulation, what will they be doing?

Their prayers will be doing to God, please save us. Please send Christ back. Please stop this mess. What do you think the people will be doing in the place of the wilderness?

But sitting around at their pool, sipping margaritas and saying, now we don't care if you send Christ back. This is wonderful.

They'll be crying out to God, send Christ back.

Because of the way the world has become. So both groups of the church will be crying out to God.

And so what begins now are the seven trumpets. Let's look at the seven trumpets. So we have a slide to show you here. Because I'm not going to read all of this, because this is overwhelming to read them. At least it would take too much time.

I want to show you, and you can write this down. Well, maybe I won't show you.

I'll just go on. It'll come up sooner or later.

First trumpet sounds. And it says that there's hail and fire, and a third of all the trees and green grass destroyed. Now, I want you to think about this. This is two and a half years, at least, maybe a little farther, into the tribulation. There has been massive wars. In fact, how bad destabilizes the world gets before horsemen ride before the tribulation starts. A fourth of the world dies. That brings about the chaos that starts the tribulation.

So the whole horsemen ride, then people say, well, we wish we were in the good old days back when, you know, there were just wars and famine and pestilence and the good old days.

What we have then at the beginning of the tribulation is the beast and false prophet bring on some kind of stabilization. But there's a massive war between Europe and the Middle East.

And now, into this time period, God begins to intervene. And the first thing He does is a third through hail and fire. Now, you think about the two witnesses. The two witnesses are on the scene at this time. You think maybe the two witnesses will cry out, repent, stop this, or think of Moses. God is going to bring upon you hail and fire.

And then hail and fire comes upon the earth. Hail and fire doesn't come upon Egypt or some, you know, Europe or China. Hail and fire comes upon the entire world so that a third of its vegetation is destroyed. Now, you think that gets their attention, right? No, it doesn't. So the second trumpet sounds, and one third of the sea becomes blood. I'm going to read this because this is very interesting. Revelation 8, verse 8, what this second trumpet is. Revelation 8, 8.

And the second angel sounded, and something like a great mount burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. Something the size of a mountain comes into the ocean.

Now, I don't know. That's an asteroid.

You know, the Earth has obviously been protected for a long time from that kind of massive destruction. We know what's happened in the past. Some of you have been out to Arizona where a meteorite or an asteroid hit out there. There's a huge crater.

Nothing like that has happened since humanity's been here. Although, there was a meteorite that hit Siberia in 1908. If you've ever seen pictures of that, because they have pictures of what happened, it is absolutely amazing. When that meteorite hit, the shock wave knocked down the trees, the hidden little forest, and the trees are in a circular, you know, big circular area where it just laid them out for miles and miles and miles. There's just trees laid over on top of each other. It affected a thousand square miles of Siberia. The shock wave was felt in London, England. They thought they were having an earthquake. And this meteorite, right after they've gone in, they've looked at the crater. They've studied it. You know, people talk about just this fireball, this explosion, because there were people in little villages and so forth, miles away, that saw this and then the shock wave comes through. That meteorite they figure is about 200 feet long. We're talking about something the size of a mountain, a little bigger than 200 feet long.

And if that hits the ocean, it will send so much water into the atmosphere. It will change the global environment. It will also cause tsunamis all over the world.

God says, do I have your attention yet? Now, the trumpet sounds. I assume that means God tells people, right? I mean, trumpets aren't blown in the closet where nobody hears it.

Yes. The trumpet sounds.

And it happens. The third trumpet, a third part of the fresh water, turned bitter. That could be a result of this. The fourth trumpet, the atmosphere, deteriorates into the one-third of the lightest filtered out. That also could be a result of that.

The fifth trumpet, though, is God does something else.

You know, Satan, as the ruler of this world, only does what God gives him the leniency to do.

God told him, you can have, you know, once he, Satan came in, and he deceived Adam and Eve.

God did not, was not going to, oh, I lost control. Satan took over. What am I supposed to do next?

God's rule, God's sovereignty, still exists. God is still God. God is still God.

He gave Satan permission now to tempt human beings. Human beings follow Satan, and God told human beings, okay, but boy, is this going to be bad.

Right? But I'll say, Satan can't do anything unless God gives him permission. You know, I know that book of Job. Have you noticed my servant Job? Well, of course, yeah, he gets away with anything because you protect him all the time. Okay, you can have it within these guidelines, within these stipulations. Satan can't do anything outside of the limitations that God imposes upon him. God's given him limited kingdom. God's given him limited power, but he can't go beyond that. This is what Satan doesn't understand. He thinks he can somehow break those limitations, and this is what he does now. God obviously takes some limitations off of Satan, he tells humanity, you really want to know what your God is like? Okay.

I'll take hands off for a while. This is why, by the way, the day the Lord can't last very long, because humanity would die. Satan would kill everybody. He would convince us to destroy ourselves. Notice what it says in verse 1. Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star falling from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key of the bottomless pit, a star. That's a star. That's a star in him. When it's made personalized, the Bible has to do with these angels or Jesus Christ. And he opened the bottomless pit, and the smoke rose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun of the air was darkened because of the smoke of the pit. And out of the smoke, locusts came upon the earth, and to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. As I mentioned before in the book of Joel, when we look at that, we know that locusts are a symbol of human armies. Armies are beginning to gather. The world's destabilization has become so great, and this war begins, and this war is so horrible that some kind of chemical, biological warfare is used to the point where it says, if you read to the rest of this, that people suffer. They're sick. They want to die, but they don't die.

You know, you've never been so sick, you know, you're afraid you're going to die, but you're afraid you won't. Literally, these people will want to die. And it's so horrible, because of whatever is happening in this war, whatever is being released on used parts of humanity. Verse 11 says, And they had, as king over them, the angel. Who is the king over them?

Who is driving the forces of the gathering of the armies of this great mass of world war that's now taking place? And they had, as king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek his name is Apion. This is Satan.

God finally says, okay, you get his full wrath, his hatred, his anger. You want to see what your God is like? There he is. God gives him... let's have the keys at the bottomless pit. He gives him the key to freeing out his demonic powers on this earth, which have always been restrained to a certain extent. God has always restrained the demonic influence. He's always restrained Satan to a certain extent so that humanity would not be destroyed, and now he lets them go. Insanity, which is weak through humanity. Then we have the six trumpets. And the six trumpets are very interesting because in the six trumpet, all of Asia becomes involved in this war. This war goes beyond now the Middle East and Europe, probably somehow the United States and South America will be involved, destroyed, but now Asia comes into the picture. God restrains what's happening, and as soon as Satan is let go, he gathers everybody together. So that's what that six trumpet is. The six trumpet is Asia becomes involved. And yet, look what he says here in verse 20. This horrible war is taking place. Massive world war. Millions of people, hundreds of millions have died, possibly billions at this point. Massive amount of humanity is so sick they want to die. The economies of the world are wrecked.

The agriculture of the world is wrecked. Everybody's told anger and hatred and violence. And yet, in verse 20, but the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can either see nor walk, hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders, or their sorceries, or of their sexual immorality, or of their thefts. Humanity holds on to our worship is right. And they're worshiping demons. This is why this idea in our society today that all religions are equal is so dangerous. Paganism is the worship of demons. Paul said that in the New Testament. If it is the worship of demons, why would we involve that in what we do? This is why we are so against idolatry. This is why we make a stand against Christmas and Easter.

It's because those things are pulled out of the worship of demons. And here the whole world refuses to turn to God. They must know from the two witnesses, they must know. Because you think about it, if this was happening and no one had any message, they'd be saying, what's happening to us?

But it says they refuse to repent. In other words, the message has come when the trumpet sounds, the two witnesses declare what's going to happen. And they still say, no, we will not follow you. No, we will not do that. No, we do not recognize your God. And remember, this includes much of the Christian world. They will not recognize the God of the two witnesses. And then we have the seventh trumpet. Revelation 11, the seventh trumpet, verse 15. Then the seventh angel sounded, and there was a loud voice in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. It was interesting, back a little bit earlier, we read that before the seventh trumpet, when that seventh seal was opened, and before the trumpet sounded, it says there's silence in heaven. Now, I want you to think about that. It says for half an hour, give it the exact amount of time.

God's throne right now is a very active place, if you read about it, especially at the beginning of the book of Revelation. The Father's there. Jesus Christ sits at His right hand. Angels are coming and going. It says that there is a chorus singing. There's instruments playing. It says there's thunder and lightning and a sea of glass and there's rainbow above it. There's this amazing place and suddenly it all stops. Absolute silence, like the entire angelic world is holding its breath.

Everything stops, and there's this long pause. God is the master of the long pause. And then He says, now. And that first trumpet sounds. That long pause. The earth is in chaos, and the whole angelic world stops and figuratively holds its breath.

Now, when He says now, and now we're to the seventh trumpet, and they're not holding their breath anymore. And the 24 elders, verse 16, who sat before God on their throne, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was and who is to come, because you have taken your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and your wrath has come, and the time of the dead that they should be judged, that you should reward your service to prophets and the saints and those who fear your name, small and great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth, the time of the dead.

The seventh trumpet doesn't involve just one event. You think about this time of the dead.

First Corinthians says that the dead shall be raised at the sound of the last trumpet. Well, there are seven trumpets. When the seventh one sounds, there's no more. It's the seventh trumpet. We know that in the first Thessalonians 4, it talks about how the dead are raised, and we who are alive shall also be raised at the sound of the trumpet, and that trumpet sounds, and this resurrection takes place. But there's more to it than this, because the Messiah is coming.

And as the Messiah comes, the world gathers to fight Him. And as they gather to fight Him, unfortunately, He has to send out punishment on the earth. And so you have the seven vials.

We have that listed here. Seven vials.

Also known as the seven last plagues.

He pours these out for the seven bowls. Now, you only think about this. Christ is coming. They can see Him coming.

The dead are being raised, and all He's pouring out this on mankind.

All these horrible plagues.

Please repent. Do not keep doing what you're doing. And what are they doing?

We read it in Revelation 16. They are gathering at Armageddon.

He's doing this as they gather. They're gathering, and He's coming back, and the saints are being raised, and He's pouring out on them and saying, look, okay, I'll cover you with sores. Now you won't fight me. He keeps punishing them, and they, because of the God of this world, because the demonic powers have been unleashed on a massive scale like never before in history, because God has always held it back. God now lets Satan have his way completely.

Be glad God didn't let Satan have his way completely, or Adam and Eve would have been the only two people who ever lived if it had never got past that. He's always held him back. He's always said, you can't do that. This is still my kingdom.

I just let you have a piece of it for a little while.

And He's always held him back. That, to me, is one of the great, amazing things.

First of all, they would let him do it, but there's reasons for it. But He's always restrained him.

And for this short period of time, He doesn't. And all these nations are gathered.

So we read about how they come together in Armageddon. But it's really not the battle of Armageddon. Revelation 19. It's really not the battle of Armageddon, because from Armageddon, they all head for one place. We know in Zechariah, verse 14, that when the Lord comes, where does He come to? The Mount of Olives. Right? He stands on the Mount of Olives there at Jerusalem, and He fights a battle. So they gather at Armageddon. But I want you to think about how massive this army may be. It's this 200 million men coming from the east. So you have all the armies of the Middle East, all the armies of the Islamic world, all the armies of Europe, and 200 million men that just came from the Far East. Who knows how massive this army is? They've all decided to get together to stop the invader from outer space here.

They're all together. This army will stretch for hundreds of miles.

They're in trucks and tractors and tanks and probably horses. They're on foot.

There's massive amounts of airplanes and helicopters. This is the biggest collection of humanity in history. Satan finally has what he wants. I can overthrow God. I have my demons, and I have my human armies, and I can finally win this or kill everybody trying. It did.

This army must stretch from Jerusalem 55 miles south up through the valley of Megiddo. It must go on forever, it would seem like. It is a huge army. Nothing like anything the world has ever seen.

And here it comes. The Lord stands on the Mount of Olives, and who are with him?

The saints. Because they've been resurrected, and they've met Him in the clouds, and they're coming with Him.

Verse 11 says of Revelation 19, Now I saw heaven open and behold a white horse. This is the fifth horse of Revelation. You know, the program we just did last week that has been the most responded to program we've ever done, it's about the four horsemen, but when we did the script, we kept saying, we have to say there's a fifth horse. So throughout the program, we kept telling people, but there's a fifth horse. Because there is a fifth horse in Revelation.

The fifth horse is what it's all about. The fifth horse is being ridden by the Messiah.

Now I saw heaven open and behold a white horse, and he who sat on him was called faithful and true, and unrighteous as he judged and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name ridden that no one knew except himself, and he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. This is Jesus Christ. And the armies in heaven clothed in white and fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. This can be us. We come with him.

Now I tell people, I conscience this objector, I do not believe I should serve in the military of the world. I'm not a pacifist. I'm going to be part of an army someday. There's a difference.

Now out of his mouth was a sharp sword that with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and the wrath of Almighty God. We should stress the love of God. It is the love of God that gives us just the grace to be able to come before him. It is the love of God that leads us to repentance. It is the love of God in his mercy that shows us the way. It is the love of God that allows him to forgive us. It is the love of God that allows him to give us his Holy Spirit and change us. It is the love of God that will change us at that resurrection. But for those who live in rebellion against God, massively influenced now by Satan and the demons to hate God the way they do, there is the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty God. And believe me, we have to be on one side or the other, and you don't want to be on the side that receives the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty God. And we can never believe that God's love somehow erases this. It's funny, people say, well, that's the God of the Old Testament.

Who is coming down? Out of whose mouth does this sword come from? Jesus Christ.

This isn't the Father doing this. It is Jesus Christ doing this. He says in verse 16, and he has in his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of King, Lord of Lords. John says, that I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses, and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, of small and great.

Talks about how the beasts of false prophet are captured alive. But then verse 21 says, And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with all their flesh. I don't know. 200 million man army? Plus all the armies of the world? What, 300 million men here? 250 million men? This is so massive! And they come to fight Christ.

And Jesus Christ destroys the army. And then he turns to Satan and says, Yes, your time's up. Your time's up.

And Satan is bound until the end of the millennium when he's led, you know, during the Great White Zone Judgment, very short period of time he's let loose at the end of the millennium. And then his time's up forever.

But at this point, his time is up.

This is fantastic news. Oh, man, I'm really depressed now. No, no, this is fantastic news because we know this. You and I can choose not to be part of the system that will have millions and hundreds of millions of men gathered together to fight Jesus Christ.

The one thing in history that's going to unite humanity, the one thing in history that unites all of humanity is they all decide to fight against Christ. We will be part of that. We know better.

Instead, we will be waiting and we will be celebrating. And when we hear those trumpet sounds, when we hear the warnings, when we hear what the two witnesses say, we will know what's happening on the face of the earth. We will be responding to that because we will be right with God. Our clothes will be white, as it says, righteous before God. So even though these are fearful times, we can choose, we can know, God can be with us, we can be part of that resurrection, and we can be part of those who help Christ stop war. Do you realize that's what he wants to do?

He wants to stop violence, and he will stop.

And he will begin to create this new world that we will be celebrating and not too distant future.

We'll be coming together to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in just a short period of time.

Well, we will be celebrating when this is all done. And you know what we're going to do? We're going to be cleaning up the mess. We're going to be taking in millions of people who are destroyed and hurt and driven nuts. Satan and the demons will be gone. They'll be lost.

They'll be such under the influence of Satan and the demons when they're gone, they'll be lost.

And we will be coming and telling them, there is the Almighty God, and His Christ is the Durosum, and we can lead you and we can teach you.

And we will be gentle about it. We will be gentle about it.

As I usually do on this day, on the blowing of the trumpets, I blow the shofar.

I was going to do something different this year, but I decided to do what I've done in the past.

I'm going to try to recreate the sounds that are played in the Orthodox Jewish synagogues today. Three different sounds. They have different meanings, but they have to do with judgment of God, the mercy of God, and the shofar can be a very frightening sound. It's supposed to be, because one of its reasons is a call to war.

Now that I've scared you to death, have a happy rest of the feast of trumpets.