Prophecy

A question I get asked all the time is, has the tribulation started? Because of the problems in the world, and when England just went out of the European Union, a number of people said, is this the start of the tribulation? And I said, no, it's not. Well, how do you know that? And so this is a question that's on the minds of people outside the church.

At the public appearance campaigns, people will come up and say, has the tribulation started? How do we know? I mean, we don't know exact dates, but how do we know exactly what events lead up to, and when you say, okay, the tribulation has started?

We only know that through the book of Revelation. What I want to do today is, in an hour, cover what should take 12 hours to cover. What I want to do is do a simple outline of Revelation. And I say a simple outline because I'm not going to cover a lot of details. We can't. I'm not going to explain everything that's in the book of Revelation. And in all honesty, I can explain everything that's in the book of Revelation. But we can get an outline that will tell us an awful lot about what the Bible calls the tribulation. Remember, I gave a Bible, well, it was actually a sermon, a couple months ago on Daniel 2 and said that was a major template for understanding prophecy. You can't understand certain aspects of the book of Revelation without Daniel. This is also true with another template prophecy, which is Matthew 24, the Olivet Prophecy. We'll actually go through a little bit of the Olivet Prophecy today, but just a little bit. Really, what most people don't realize when they look at the Olivet Prophecy, we usually read the first chapter of the Olivet Prophecy, but the Olivet Prophecy is two chapters long. There's more material in the Olivet Prophecy about the church at the end time than there is about end time events.

But we usually don't study those two things together, and yet it was all given by Jesus Christ at the same time. So today we're just going to go through a basic outline, a very simple outline, trying to deal with mainly what we know, mainly what is obvious, in the book of Revelation. Revelation was the last book written, it's part of the New Testament, it's written by the Apostle John somewhere between 90 and 100 AD.

It had an important meaning to those people then too, but most of it is prophecy about the future, way in the future that those people would, you know, long beyond after they had died. If we go to the beginning of the book of Revelation in chapter 1 verse 3, it says this, The time is a whole lot more near than it was to the original audience that got that. The original audience that would have received the book of Revelation would not have understood probably 90% of it. They would not have understood what it meant. It had been like Daniel when he asked God, what does this mean? And he said, well, this is sealed to the end. These things are going to happen long after you're dead, so you're not going to understand it. Most of what they received, they would not have understood. Now, there's... someday we'll go into all the different interpretations of the book of Revelation. There's what is called the Preterist viewpoint in which they look at the book of Revelation as things that all happened in the first century AD. We reject that as not being what the Scripture is. So what we're looking at here is a prophecy about the future, about the return of Jesus Christ. If we go to a few verses later, once again, I'm covering a lot of information, and I'm hitting highlights. This is the concept sermon. Look at the concept of the book of Revelation. So we're just going to be hitting highlights. We have seven statements about Jesus Christ and His followers, and these two verses here of Revelation 1, verse 7.

Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, number one, He's the witness. He's the one through whom God is revealing these things. Two, He's the firstborn from the dead. We know that from what Paul teaches. Three, and ruler over all the kings of the earth, which this is about how He comes back, to establish Himself as the ruler, to Him who loves us. Now, that's real important as we go through this book. So when we go through the book of Revelation, I've actually had people say, please don't talk about the book of Revelation. It's too frightening. It's too scary. It just makes me depressed. As we go through here, this is a frightening book. I will just start out with this. When people say, as the tribulation started, my answer always says, oh no, these are the good old days. Enjoy this time. This is a good time. This is a really good time compared to what the tribulation is actually going to be. So Him who loves us is a real important thing to remember when we go through Revelation. He has freed us from our sins and His blood, and made us to be a kingdom and priest, to serve His God and Father, to Him be glory and power forever and ever. In other words, He's preparing people so that when He returns to serve Him in bringing humanity to God. And seven, look, He is coming in the clouds and every eye will see Him, those who pierced Him, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him. This is, by the way, from the NIV version. Most of what I go through is from the New King James. So this is very important. It tells us a lot about Jesus Christ, but it tells us about His followers here. He loves us, He's freed us from our sins, and we are being made into priests to serve in His kingdom and help Him change the world. The good message of the book of Revelation is that Jesus Christ is coming back to change the world. That's the positive side.

The problem is, before that happens, a lot of bad things are going to happen. A lot of bad things are going to happen. So we get into the first part of the book of Revelation, and we have in chapters 2 and 3 the seven churches. So these people, there were literally seven churches in these places in what is now modern-day Turkey, and this letter showed up. And they would have read it to their congregations. And there are differing opinions on how to interpret this. Some historical interpretation is, well, this book is mainly, or these two chapters, are mainly just given to these churches, and they're just historical.

The other is that these are seven different kinds of congregations, or seven different kinds of attitudes that form over time. And a third interpretation is that this is about progressive church eras. This actually has a prophetic meaning to it. Now I'm going to tell you my opinion. Remember I always tell you my opinion?

You say, well, what is your opinion? Is your opinion that it's about seven churches, seven church eras, or seven attitudes? My answer is, yes.

See, it's written in such that all of those lessons can be taught from the same passage.

There was seven literal churches. There are seven different distinct types of attitudes that exist within the church. And yes, there are seven church eras in which there is a predominant attitude during that time. So when people ask me, my answer is, yes. And I think that's very important. In fact, someone's asked me that if maybe next year I could do a whole series on this. So we'll do a whole series on Revelation 2 and 3 sometime probably in 2017. Now we get into the vision that John has of the throne of God.

So here we have a scroll with seven seals. So think of a scroll like this. And it's rolled together, and there's seven seals on it. And each seal you break, you can unroll a little bit of this scroll. So there's seven seals on this scroll, and he sees it. And he labors with, and he just struggles with, who can open this?

He said in this vision he's having, nobody can open this scroll. And so John is agonizing with this. And so the scroll is open, and there's four seals. Now we've just jumped through a lot of the first few chapters of Revelation. I realize that. But just with the information we covered, you can read those chapters and see how it fits together. The message comes, it's a message, the revelation of Jesus Christ to John, and John gives this, and Christ is revealing these things to him, and he tells him, send this to the seven churches, and he tells all about the churches, and you start to see, well, wait a minute, this is more than just these seven churches. There's a prophetic message here. And then he gets to these seals. He's at the throne of God. He sees the throne of God in his vision, and there's this scroll with these seals, and he begins to open them.

As he begins to open them, you have the first four seals. And we're going to go through all seven of the seals. The first four seals are also called the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And we'll see why as we go through this. So they're called the four horsemen. So we have the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and the first four seals are the same thing.

Now that seems like a simple issue, but for many people, I've talked to people. We don't know what that means. The first four seals, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, what are these? Well, they're the same thing.

So as each seal is broken, something new is revealed about this end time that leads up to the return of Jesus Christ. And here's what we have. Now let's go to Revelation 6.

And we're going to go back and forth here between Revelation 6 and Matthew 24. Once again, this is nothing new. This is very simple sort of prophecy 101 in some ways.

But it's still easy to get all these things mixed up in our heads. How does this all fit together? Has the tribulation started?

You know, I mentioned before a number of years ago there was a very popular book out claiming that Saddam Hussein was the beast.

You can get that book now free at good will. They just give it away.

And it was a logical argument. It just didn't fit. It didn't fit what we see here in both Revelation and when we look at our other template.

Chapter 6, verse 1.

Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals. So Jesus Christ now begins to open these seals. And just think of this scroll is beginning to roll back. And now John is being told about what's going to happen.

And I heard one of the four living creatures, these living creatures are angels before the throne of God, saying with a voice like thunder, Come and see, and I look to behold a white horse, and he who sat on it, a bow, and a crowd was given to him, and he went out conquering into conquer. So here we have a white horse. You know, you can imagine this is opening up. It's sort of like a... What am I looking at? A hologram? It comes out of the... He's looking this holograph. What am I looking for? Give me a word. Holograph. This image comes up out of the page, okay? And he's looking at it.

And what he sees is this white horse. And it's going out and it's conquering. Now leave a marker there, and let's go back to Matthew 24. Matthew 24. This is our template. Daniel 2 is our template. All of it prophecy or template. This is how we build an understanding of Revelation. Without Daniel 2 and without Matthew 24, I have no idea what entire passage is of Revelation saying. I just don't know.

Verse 3. Now as he said on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age? Okay, tell us what's going to happen before you come. So we'll know it. We'll be able to see it. We can experience it. So let us know so we'll be prepared. They didn't realize it was going to be a long time in the future yet. And Jesus has answered and said to them, verse 4, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. So he starts with that there's going to be many come, and these people will come and say that he is the Christ. There will be lots of religious deception. Let's skip down to verse 23.

Verse 23, Then if anyone says, Do you look? Here is Christ. Or there, do not believe it. For false Christ, the false prophets, will rise and show great wonders. To deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. He said, if you're not prepared, if you don't know about this beforehand, you will be deceived by great signs and wonders. Now we can tie that in, but we can go off into a whole hour now, and tie that into the beast of the false prophet. And other things that will be happening. But this is a concept sermon. Okay, we're looking at big concepts here.

Therefore, if they say to you, this is verse 28, Look, he's in the desert. Do not go out. But look, he's in the inner rooms. Do not go. Then he goes on to explain what it's going to look like when Christ returns. So there's going to be a great deal of false religion going on.

Who is the white horse of Revelation? Well, we'll come back to that in a minute. We get the second seal, the third seal, the fourth seal. Let me just flip ahead here once. Okay, let's look at this. There are two white horses in Revelation. Two white horses, okay? The first one rides to conquer. The second one, Jesus Christ is on. Notice the deception. They both appear as conquering benefactors, and they both appear on white horses. There's a reason for this similarity. Because as we just read in Matthew, this first white horse is going to be a false religion. And this is where we begin to understand it even in more depth, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Because the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, the details are given in Matthew 24. Remember, we lay Daniel 2, we lay Matthew 24 on top of that. Now we're just taking Revelation. I'm sorry, we take Daniel 2, we lay Matthew 24 on top of it. We're just taking Revelation and laying it on top of it. That's all we're doing. And as you do, you can see how it all fits together.

So there are two horses and there are two women in the book of Revelation. It's so important to know the difference. Because the reason they're described this way is it will be hard for people to tell the difference. What is going to happen is a false religion come along that looks so real that people from different religions are going to follow it, including Christians.

It is going to appear to be a false Christianity. It's riding a white horse. That's the purpose of the description. So let's go back here to the second seal. Let's go back to the second seal. Revelation 6.3. Revelation 6.3. Then we'll go back to Matthew and look at this.

When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Come and see it, another horse, fiery red, went out. It was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, that the people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword. So now we have this horse that appears and there's just global war taking place. A terrible war. Remember, these four horsemen ride all over the world. This isn't a local event. These are worldwide events. Now we go back to Matthew 24, verse 5, where we ended before.

It says, For many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ. Verse 6. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not troubled, for all these things must come to pass. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise up again, nation and kingdom against kingdom. When they asked Jesus what's going to happen, he gave them very broad description.

What we have now in Revelation 6, here's how these events begin to unfold. So is this the tribulation? Now let's go back and look now at the third seal. We'll read about the third and fourth seal here, verse 5 of Revelation 6. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come and see. So I looked, and a black horse.

And he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand, and heard a voice say, In the midst of the four living creatures, a quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, that do no harm on the oil and the wine. In other words, food is going to be, a lot of food is going to be very scarce. Other foods will not. Verse 7 says, When he opened the fourth seal, I heard a voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come and see.

And I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And his name who sat on him was Death and Hades, which followed him. I want to stop right there. Let's go back. Let's go back now to Matthew 24. Remember, verse 7 says, For a nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, And there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, and various places. So the third and fourth of the seals. We have the third and fourth of the four horsemen. But notice verse 8. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Jesus told them, when these four...

Now these are just events. They're a series of events. When these series of events get bigger and bigger and bigger until they culminate, how bad will it be? Well, that's pretty bad. He said, oh no, these will be looked on as the good old days. How bad will this be? Well, let's go back to the fourth seal in Revelation 6. So are you still with me?

I feel a few yes and a few... I don't know. Look what it says here at the end of verse 8. Four horsemen are riding, and power was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, and with death, and by the beasts of the earth. Power was given to kill with sword and hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. When the four horsemen have reached their full power, a fourth of the earth will die. That's catastrophic. A fourth of the earth.

You can think of a fourth of Europe dying or a third during the bubonic plague, but that's just one continent. A fourth of the earth will die. You see why we're not in the tribulation yet? But when the four horsemen, when these events all culminate in this horrendous time, when there's wars and there's famines and there's disease epidemics so great until the fourth of the world dies, the tribulation hasn't started yet.

So wait a minute, it hasn't started yet. Well, now we've got to start looking at the fifth seal. And then we're going to go back to Matthew 24 and discover something. Fifth seal. So let's go to Revelation 6, verse 9. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God for the testimony which they held.

And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you judge and avenge your blood on those who dwell on the earth? And then a white robe was given to each of them, 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 as completed. So the fifth seal is persecution, violent persecution on the people of God. Violent persecution on the people of God. Let's go back to Matthew.

And let's look in verse 9. Remember, these are the beginning of sorrows, wars and rumors of wars and devastation and disease epidemics. We lay that right. We take Revelation 6, and it lay right on top of Matthew 24. One-fourth of the world dies. And then they will deliver you. Wait a minute, this changes. You here is the church. He's speaking to his disciples and those who would follow them. So then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. He says many will be offended. There will be lawlessness. It's going to be a terrible time. He also says, during this time, verse 14, and the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all the world as a witness and to all the nations, and then the end will come. So the gospel hasn't been preached yet to all the world, but that's going to happen. So we're going to have to figure out, does Revelation give us an understanding of how that happens? He goes on and talks about how there will be the abomination of desolation. But if you skip down to verse 21, because this abomination of desolation we're going to come back to in a minute. For there will be great tribulation, such as not been since the beginning of the world until this time, nor ever shall be. So this persecution on the church is the beginning of a great tribulation. Back to verse 29 says, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened. So immediately after, at the end of the tribulation, there's going to be signs in the skies. And if you go to...well, before I get to the sixth seal, let's talk about this for a minute here. You have the four horsemen. What we're watching today are events. So we watch those events, and we see them beginning to happen. And as we do, we wonder, okay, is this the beginning of the tribulation? These events have to get worse and worse and worse. There's a point where it must all happen very fast. Very quickly, the reason I'm going to say that is because what I'm going to go through here when we talk about the Great Tribulation beginning, okay? These events happen and happen and happen, and then very quickly, the whole world collapses. It literally collapses in the chaos. There's famine, there is death, it's economic collapse. Twenty-five percent of the earth dies. And now, that's the beginning of the tribulation. So when I talk about the four horsemen, when those events actually happen, is what launches the tribulation. So it's part of the tribulation, and that is what launches it. But as it launches it, certain things begin to happen. What is it that happens? So when you watch 25% of the world dying, there will be another set of events that happen that is called the Great Tribulation. So we need to watch all these trends because at some point they'll accumulate, and when they do, things are going to happen real fast. So now the tribulation begins. It begins with the persecution on the church. It begins because 25% of the world is dying. There's chaos, there's collapse, and now something is going to happen. And we know a number of things happen. When we go through Revelation, we see the rise of the beast power. When we go back to Matthew 24, we see what is called the abomination of desolation. In Revelation 12, we see the part of the church is taken to a place in the wilderness, and in Revelation 11, we see two witnesses. Now these are four things that happen. What's interesting is they all begin at almost exactly the same time.

Think about this now. We've got to put this together. These trends get worse and worse and worse, and then boom! The four horsemen of the apocalypse just, I mean, the seals are dumped out. When that's dumped out, and we see this total collapse, then what happens? Well, first of all, there's in Revelation 13 the rise of the beast power. Now we go back to Daniel 2. We know that before the coming of Christ, there will be a revival of the Roman Empire. So we don't have to worry if this is going to be China or Russia. It's going to be, well, it may involve parts of what is now Russia or former USSR, but it's going to be seated in Europe. Now, there are two beasts in Revelation 13. One represents a political power, the other a religious power. Here's what's important. These two powers rule on the earth in accordance with Revelation 13 for 42 months. How long is 42 months? Everybody, so I'll know you get it. Okay. Smart group. Okay. We now have a three and a half year period. People say, does the beast power exist? No. People say, well, the European Union is the beast power. No, it's not. The beast power only exists for three and a half years. Now, I'm not saying there are, you know, the man who's going to be the beast is alive today and there's people trying to maneuver to make this happen. That's true. But the beast power comes together and only exists in its final form for three and a half years. So don't be surprised that the European Union falls apart to a great extent, because this existed a whole lot more in three and a half years. You see what I'm saying? This gives us reference points. They say, when's that going to start? I can only tell you when it starts, when it's happening. I can't tell you when it's going to happen beforehand, because the Bible doesn't. I do know when we're watching 25, when you're watching the news and 25% of the people are dying and you don't have any food on the table, and you start to see these things that happen, you know what's happening. You know what's happening, because it's happening. Now, the other thing on that list was Matthew 24, the abomination of desolation, where I just skipped through a little bit of it, where it's called the Great Tribulation. The term Great Tribulation is attached to the abomination of desolation. And when you read in Luke, Luke adds something to the story, and of course, the entire abomination of desolation is a fascinating subject in itself, prophetically. But it includes an invasion of Jerusalem. So at the very beginning of this time, called the Great Tribulation, which is simply being...it's happening out of this chaos that happens very quickly, you have Jerusalem being invaded and trampled underfoot until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Well, that doesn't help us much, because we don't even know what the times of the Gentiles are when Luke wrote.

But in Revelation 11, the times of the Gentiles will be 42 months. How long is 42 months? Okay. You start to get a feel here that these things...these are concurrent events, right? Because they all last the same amount of time. Now, the third of the four things I mentioned is the woman the church has taken to its place in the wilderness.

There are so many interpretations of Revelation 12. One is that the woman is Mary, but that doesn't make sense. The other is that it symbolizes Jewish Christians. That's because there are people who believe there are two different churches, the Jewish church and the Gentile church, and that doesn't make any sense. So what we really have here is the woman, and that's another sermon in itself. In the first verses, she represents ancient Israel. And after the resurrection of the child, who's mentioned there Jesus Christ, she represents the church.

At the end time, according to that prophecy, it's a long prophecy, at the end time, Satan tries to attack the church, and she is put into a place where she is protected. Not all the church, by the way. Part of the church is protected, part isn't. Part of the church is protected for times, time, and half a time. There are very few things in the Bible that are universally accepted. Almost every scholar says, time and time, and half and half times, it's three and a half years. Oh, we have another three and a half years. So let's look at the four horsemen, and it calms me. 25% of the world is dying.

There's wars and chaos and death and destruction, and nobody's got control. The beast power comes on the scene. There's an invasion of Jerusalem, and there's a persecution on the church, which is the fifth seal, and part of the church is taken into the wilderness. This is all happening concurrently, or at least very quickly mingled together. These things are all happening real fast. Real fast.

And then the last in the list was, oh, I just want to mention two. There's two women, two women in Revelation. One is obviously the church, which Satan tries to destroy.

The other woman rides a beast. I wish I could find better than that sort of bad T-Rex there, but it's all I can find. So what we have, two women. One representing the true people of God, and one representing this false religion. The fourth, or the first of the four horsemen in the apocalypse, by the way, is a false religion. So they're symbols of the same things. Then we have in Revelation 11, two witnesses come on the scene. Remember we read there in Matthew that the whole world is going to, the gospel is going to preach to the whole world, and then the end will come? Well, how's that going to happen?

These two guys show on the scene. They will tell the people to repent and stand against the beast's power for 1,260 days. How long is 1,260 days? See, it's all the same time period. This stuff all happens concurrently. So the gospel is being preached to the world completely. I mean, everyone comes along throughout history and gets this little piece. For 80 years, Herbert Armstrong was able to reach people because of mass communication in ways that nobody has done. But still, that's not what Matthew is talking about.

It's talking about this. It's talking about how these two individuals are going to reach the whole world. The whole world will know who they are and the God that they speak of. They will finally be killed and their bodies lie in the streets of Jerusalem. People from all over the world will see their dead bodies. And then the two witnesses will be resurrected after three and a half days. After they're killed, they're resurrected after three and a half days. So we're back to the overview. It breaks the seals, these horsemen ride, these events begin to build and build and build. The horsemen aren't riding yet, but I think they're sort of trotting along, okay?

That's my personal opinion. When they reach that culmination point, it's catastrophic. As the world goes into chaos, and as the world goes into chaos, these things happen. The beast power comes on the scene. The abomination of desolation. We have the invasion of Jerusalem and Gentile peoples taking over Jerusalem. Part of the church is taken to its place in the wilderness because it's being persecuted. And not only, not just the church by the way, the descendants of Israel will be persecuted too, according to Daniel 12.

And the two witnesses come on. All this is happening at one time. And all this lasts for three and a half years. That's the tribulation. So has the tribulation started yet? No! So enjoy this. As bad as this is, actually we're living in pretty good times. We'll eat dinner tonight. That'll be a luxury doing the tribulation.

You know, of air conditioning tonight. Tribulation is the worst apocalyptic movie you've ever seen. It's unimaginable. That's why in Matthew 24 it says, if Christ doesn't return what He does, nobody will live. Everybody will die. It's that catastrophic. How bad does it get? Well, Revelation 7 now reduces two groups of people. I don't want to go through that. Now we have the sixth seal. Revelation 6, 12-17, which are signs in heaven, which were spawned with Matthew 24-29. And then we have the seventh seal. The seventh seal is the beginning of a new stage in this tribulation period. Just like the Horseman of the Apocalypse are what creates this, it's what drives it, then you have this three and a half years of tribulation.

The seventh seal begins the day of the Lord. We don't know how long the day of the Lord is, but there's one scripture in Isaiah 34 that calls it a year. If we know how long it is, we don't know. A year is the only guess we have. I hate to say dogmatic statements when I don't know.

All I have is Isaiah 34-128, and it says it's a year, but it's a little vague. But if we know anything, it's probably a year, maybe even less. But if it is a year, what we have is two and a half years into this tribulation, the beast power finally has rule, which doesn't happen overnight, and has control, and is controlling the world economy, we have God begin to step in.

The seventh seal, that last seal is broken, and we find out that in this seal there's a whole series of events. There are seven trumpets. Now, we talk about seven trumpets every year on the Feast of Trumpets, don't we? Blaring, announcing the return of Jesus Christ. But the seventh trumpets is more than just that seventh trumpet, which announces the return of Jesus Christ. It is now where the entire earth begins to disintegrate.

This is where global warming actually happens. Because of what humanity has done to itself, plus what God is doing. God is now being directly involved in what's going on. My personal opinion is, part of this too is because God is finally taking his hands off and saying, okay, you're going to live by your consequences. I think we'll have brought this up between Satan and humanity, and he's keeping it from destroying itself, and he's just going to let it go.

And then he's going to start actively saying, I'm doing this, and I'm doing this, and I'm doing this, to bring people to repentance. And according to, when we go through Revelation, some people will repent. Most of them will have to die for their repentance. The majority of humanity will not. First trumpet, Revelation 8, hail and fire. The third of all, trees and green grass destroyed.

Now you think about what the four horsemen did. And then the beast fire is involved in this global takeover. Who knows what destruction has taken place during that time period? And there's a lot of discussion about what in the world happens to the nations of Israel. What happens? It's just going to be total destruction. And yet, there reaches a time when the tribulation were the good old days, because now it's the day of the Lord. We think we know how to fight war. Do you fight God?

Hail and fire. A third of the trees and green grass is destroyed. The second trumpet. One third of the sea becomes blood. One third of sea creatures die. One third of ships destroyed. Whatever that is, that's a massive problem. It's not just the blood. I mean, the sea is turning to a blood consistency. A third of the ships are destroyed. Now, there's all kinds of attempted explanations of what this means. Some are pretty interesting. But I'm not going through that. This is just an overview. How could that actually happen?

The third trumpet. A third part of fresh water turns bitter. A third of the earth is facing no water. You can live days without food. You can't live very long without water. Fourth trumpet. Atmosphere deteriorates so that one third of light is filtered out. They talk about a nuclear winter. We have a problem with our atmosphere, probably from all the wars and the things that are going on that lead up to this time period.

Plus, God's now intervening what's going on. That light is going away. You know what happens when you don't have light? You can't grow food. People say, oh, the good old days when the four horsemen were riding.

The last three trumpets are also known as the Three Woes. The fifth trumpet, which is the first woe, the beast power, brings about world war. At this point, the war goes global. It's everybody against the beast, the beast power. Sixth trumpet, the second woe. Asia becomes involved in the war. We have this huge army come out of China, India, that area, and they're coming into the Middle East.

The beast power armies are coming into the Middle East, and they finally kill the two Indus. Finally, we're going to have the final shootout, and whoever's left gets this piece of burned-out earth. Basically, that's what it's coming down to. Whoever's left gets this apocalyptic earth that won't grow anything that's mainly desert. You know, sometimes they, oh, I can't wait until the tribulation comes and Christ goes back.

And sometimes I think, I don't know. I want Christ to come back. I really hope I'm in the place in the wilderness, you know.

If I'm not in the place in the wilderness, what I've asked God is, let me be martyred quickly by twelve guys who all shoot me in the heart at the same time.

Let's just get this over quick. The seventh trumpet, the third woe. The seventh trumpet is composed of seven vials or seven bowls, sometimes it's translated. And remember, we're all in the day of the Lord here. This is God's intervention, where He's both causing events and saying, okay, I'm not protecting the earth anymore. And it's now being driven forward, and humanity isn't repenting. Humanity has continued to destroy itself. Of course, remember, Satan's a baldness. Satan has two desires. Either he makes us into animals, theory of evolution, we just become higher forms of animals, and we act like animals, or he wants us destroyed, one or the other. He doesn't want us to be children of God. So he's driving humanity towards its own destruction. In Revelation 14, you have a series of messages. I won't go through all those. But let's go through the seven vials.

This happens very quickly. Remember, the two witnesses are killed, and it's three and a half days later, they're resurrected. That's the resurrection. They're resurrected at the resurrection. So for the next three and a half days, you basically have this. Soars, mass death of sea creatures. Well, a third of them had already died. The rest of them are dying. Fresh water turns to blood. Nobody can find water. The sun scorches the earth. There's darkness. Well, one third of the sun are even blocked out. This means it's just darkness. There's very little sunlight filtering through. The Euphrates River dries up, and the Asianic armies and remaining beast armies converge on Megiddo. There's a great earthquake and hail. And if you read Revelation 16 and 17, the entire Babylonian system collapses. The whole beast power begins to collapse. It's basically an army. Its economic system collapses. It appears the government itself may have collapsed.

The religious system, the whole thing is collapsing. And you have these hordes of Asianic armies coming over, trying to find food and, you know, just survive. Probably have, who knows how many women and children with them. Here they come. You have hundreds of millions of people converging on Jerusalem.

Finally, they're going to destroy humanity forever. That's what would happen.

And that is the good news.

Right at that moment, when we've reached the point where we have exhausted every human idea.

See, every human idea that's come along for these thousands of years always failed.

That's why the United States, as wonderful as this is, is going to fail. It's a human idea. The Constitution of the United States, as brilliant as it is, is not God's Constitution.

God's Constitution is this book.

It's this book.

The United States is going to fail because it's a human idea. It just happened to be about the best thing we could ever come up with. But it is not going to survive. It never was. It never was going to survive. Not according to Revelation.

Because no human system has ever worked.

The ones that work a little better than the others are the ones that have the most of God's laws involved in it. We had some of God's laws involved. Not all of them. Not all of them.

And so we finally reach where all human endeavor under Satan's direction will go.

It was going to end this way when Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden. This is the only way it could end. Understand. When God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, this is the only way it could end.

I'm just amazed we didn't do it beforehand.

Well, maybe that's probably the reason for the flood.

We're probably going to do it too quickly.

God had a plan. It was supposed to last a certain amount of time.

And if it had ended too quickly, well, He had to step in to keep it from happening too quickly. And so here we are.

And Christ returns. The saints are resurrected.

The saints are resurrected. Those who are in that place in the wilderness, they're changed. They rise to meet Christ in the air, just like it says in 1 Corinthians 15.

Once again, Matthew 24 gives us a basis, Revelation 20. You can tie it in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians.

At the return of Jesus Christ, there's the final destruction of both the beast power and the Asiatic armies that have sort of combined to battle this invasion from outer space. Zechariah 14 talks about that in Matthew 24, Revelation 19.

And the binding of Satan and the establishment of God's kingdom on this earth.

Remember at the beginning of the book of Revelation, because this ties us together. Why are you and I supposed to understand this book? We don't understand all the details. And I can't tell you exactly where all this stuff is going to happen. I can only tell you when it's happening. If you wake up tomorrow and 25% of the world has died, I'll jump up and say, the four horsemen, they've ridden.

If the beast power just comes on the scene, hey, guess what? Tribulation started. Because it'll be happening. I can't tell you the exact date it's going to happen.

But at the end of this time, Christ does these things. And remember at the beginning of the book, He says, well, I hate to go all the way back. I don't want to hear. Let me read it.

I don't want to have to go all the way through the...

It talks about Jesus Christ being the faithful witness, the firstborn among the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us has freed us from our sins and His blood, and made us to be a kingdom and priest to serve His God, and Father to Him be glory and power forever.

You and I have been called now by the grace of God. Try to explain why God would call you and not your neighbor.

We're called by the grace of God, and we're given an enormous opportunity, and what that becomes an enormous responsibility, and that is to be prepared to serve Jesus Christ when He sets up this kingdom.

Can you imagine the state of the survivors of the world?

Hundreds of millions of people, billions and billions have died.

They don't believe in any God. They don't believe in anything. They're animals that will cheat and lie and steal and kill and do anything for a piece of food.

That's what they'll have been driven to.

We have to go care for those people.

If we think, oh, I'm glad I'm going to be here with Jesus Christ, I'm going to fry some of the beast-powered soldiers, that's not what you and I... He'll do that for us, okay?

We've got to go take this world, and we've got to help turn them to God. First of all, to Christ, and they understand, okay, God sent His Son.

And it's not going to be easy. You know why? We're told, Zechariah, what happens? Egypt won't even come to the feast.

Gog and Magog, according to Ezekiel, tries to come down and fight against the Messiah. Wait a minute. He's already on earth.

The destruction of the beast-powers isn't the last war. Then you've got at the end of the millennium, you've got Gog and Magog trying to do it again. This is tough. These people have been hardened and driven mad by what they've been through. Has the tribulation started?

Oh, man, go home and enjoy that bowl of cereal, you know, that bowl of Cheerios you eat before you go to sleep tonight. Enjoy that as you turn on your air conditioner and your television, you drive home in a car.

I don't say this to scare... well, I do say it to scare us a little bit, because we want to be prepared for this so that if God says, go to the place in the wilderness, we say, yes, Lord. And if God says, no, you stay, I have a job for you to do during the tribulation, we say, yes, Lord.

And we follow what He says.

I pray every day, almost every day. I hope I can be a kind of worthy to escape the tribulation. Of course, my dad prayed that, and right before he died, he said, God answered my prayer, I don't have to go through the tribulation. He was all happy, you know. He said, you do, come on, Dad.

I had a funny sense of humor, my dad.

Then we have the millennium.

Christ sets up a kingdom on the earth. Can you imagine? The first thing He does, He heals the earth. It grows food. He heals all the water. He heals all the animals. There's fish all over the place, and animals all over the place, and food just grows up, and the weather is beautiful and wonderful.

And we've got to sit down with Israelis and Palestinians, and teach them how to get along.

We can't even get along with each other.

We're going to have to teach the world how to get along.

The Book of Revelation isn't done yet.

There's the millennium, and there's the great white throne judgment, in which we know all humanity who never had a chance to know God gets their chance, gets their opportunity, which is followed, of course, as part of that as the lake of fire.

But then Revelation 21 and 22 is such an amazing part of the Bible because, eu Jerusalem, God's throne comes to this earth. We don't go to heaven. Heaven comes here.

The earth becomes the very throne of God, where it says, we will be His children forever.

That's not everything you always want to know about the Book of Revelation, because we've scratched the surface.

But if we can at least get that snapshot of how it fits together, four horsemen accumulate into the tribulation.

Tribulation is all these events. We went through four of them that last three and a half years.

Jesus Christ comes back and establishes God's kingdom on this earth. At the end, there's the great white throne judgment, and after that, God brings His throne here.

There's the lake of fire, and after the lake of fire, all that's left are the children who become His children.

Sometimes we look at ourselves as the center of God's plan. You and I are just one little piece of it in history. The center of God's plan is when Jesus Christ gives the family to God. It says He presents the children to the Father.

When He gives the kingdom to God, that's the center point. That's billions and billions of children.

I don't even think we'll be in the front of the line.

See, that's not the point. The point is that we have been given, by the grace of God, an opportunity to participate now, an opportunity to be part of what He's doing now, and to share that with the world, and to be there when Jesus Christ returns, to help Him change the world.