The Seven Seals of Revelation

We're getting close to the Holy Days, and of course we've been talking about it some two weeks ago. I went through and showed how the concept of the rapture, that somehow there's some kind of secret rapture that takes place before the seventh trumpet is just not biblically defensible, and that we understand that when Christ returns, that's when there is a resurrection of the dead, and that's when the saints are changed. And I thought last year or two years ago I had done a PowerPoint presentation where I went through the seven seals of Revelation to give us sort of an outline of how those fit together.

Now, when we go through the book of Revelation, we understand that I can't solve all the problems that Revelation presents to us. There's a lot of information there, and it's not always organized in a way that we can exactly pinpoint all events. But there is an outline to Revelation that gives us the ability to look at it and get an overview of what it will be like at the end of time. And since we're approaching the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, and those celebrations picture those end time events I thought I would take today and give an overview of the book of Revelation.

In the last week, I've had numerous people, people that aren't members of our congregation and other people, ask, you know, the river turning red in China, is that one of the prophesied events of Revelation? Because, you know, we know that somewhere in there it says that waters will turn red. And so, people are asking these questions, and that's what it means. I mentioned when I talked about the rapture that my neighbor, who doesn't even go to church, any church, doesn't even own a Bible, asked my wife recently if she thought that the end time events of Revelation had started.

She didn't even know what they are, but she just lives in this fear. So, I thought if we go through an overview today of the book of Revelation, we can at least get a context. Once again, there's no way to discuss, or there's no way to even, that we can prove or solve all the problems, so to speak, in Revelation. But we can look at an overview and see what God gives us as a template for being able to understand those end time events.

So, we're going to do this in a PowerPoint presentation, mainly because this way I can give you 18 hours worth of information in one hour, because it is so much. But at least if we have the outline, you can do a study on your own and say, okay, let's look at the outline of what God's doing.

So, we'll look at the first slide here. Revelation 1.3. We are told that blessed is He who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is near. So, we are blessed if we understand, if we read and understand, what this book tells us. And we almost also have to keep what is in it. And there's, you know, when we read the book of Revelation, a lot of times people don't think about the Christian living aspects of the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation has a lot to say about how we are to obey God, how we're to respond to God, how we're supposed to live our lives. Revelation 2.3 is written specifically to the church. And so, when we look at the book of Revelation, it isn't just to get the secret knowledge.

Remember what Paul said, I can have all prophecy, and if I don't have agape, it profits me nothing. It doesn't mean anything. So, we have to have the character of God, and then prophecy is going to have a meaning and purpose in our lives. So, we can be blessed by understanding this book. I find it interesting where I've read where, especially in certain denominations like Catholicism, where people have been told, don't read the book of Revelation, it will drive you crazy.

Because you can't understand it. Because, you know, no one can figure out the meaning. Or, the whole book is just allegory. Now, there are allegories in the book of Revelation. One of the hardest things we have to do in the way we look at the Bible is that, if you look at certain interpretations of the Bible, they see the Bible as allegory containing some true stories.

We see the Bible as true stories containing some allegory. That's a huge difference. We see it as true stories containing some allegory, not allegory containing some true stories. And I'm not trying to play all words. It is a way you look at the Bible. When we look at the book of Revelation, we're trying to sort through the thread of the reality of the events and the allegories used. You know, when it talks about war machines that it looks like locusts, we know that the earth isn't going to be attacked by people writing giant locusts.

That's an allegory. But we also know that it is describing a real event. Part of the problem we have here, too, is that John is trying to describe things that he has no context to describe. There's nothing in his life, there's nothing in his culture, that even he could use to describe some of the things that he's saying. So, when we go through this, we have to understand there are limitations. And I'm not going to try to fill in every detail, and I don't think we can fill in every detail.

But we do know that we're blessed. If we read this, we understand it, and we see where God is taking it. So, let's look at the next slide here. We have seven statements about Jesus Christ and His followers. And this is a good introduction to the book of Revelation, because we get the direction of which this book is going. Jesus Christ, this is from Revelation 1, verses 5-7, who is the faithful witness. Okay, so we have Jesus Christ as the faithful witness. First point.

Second, the first born from the dead. Second point. We have to understand who Jesus Christ is for this to make sense. For this book to make sense, we have to understand who He is. And ruler over the kings of the earth. So, we see Jesus Christ as the faithful witness, witness of God. He came to reveal the Father. He came, and of course became the first born from the dead through a resurrection. And He is the ruler of the kings of the earth. Then to Him who loves us, so He loves us. Number five is freed us from our sins and His blood, because not only the Father loves us, but Christ loves us.

The Father loves us by sending His Son. The Son loves us by being willing to come. 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. Amen. So, those who respond to this message, He makes to be a kingdom, a family of God, and to serve God as priests forever.

And then, number seven, the seven point here is, look, He is coming in the clouds. This is very important. The book of Revelation shows that Jesus Christ's coming is visible. This is why when we went through the rapture two weeks ago, and we showed that there are four scriptures that are used by people who believe in the rapture to prove the point. And two of them are said to apply to the secret coming of Jesus and two to His visible coming. But when we put all four of them up on a chart and I know some people said the chart was too small and they couldn't read it.

I probably should make some handouts because I had so much information created in that chart. But when we looked at all four scriptures, we saw that they're all explaining the same event. There is no secret coming. He comes in the clouds, and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him. And so here we have in this first chapter an introduction to the purpose of the book, and that we are blessed if we understand. But if we're really going to understand this book, we have to understand who Jesus Christ is. We don't understand who Jesus Christ is, and we don't respond to that.

Then this book will make no sense. So the next slide we have just a brief outline of Revelation 2 and 3. In Revelation 2 and 3 we have the message to the churches. This letter or this book was sent out as a letter, and it was sent to seven churches in Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey. And this letter went to all seven of those churches. So those churches existed at the time. There were Ephesus and Smyrna, Pergamos or Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphian, Laodicea.

But when we look at the message to those seven churches, we learn that the message wasn't just to those people who lived around 95 A.D. What's very interesting is that when you look at the message to those churches, all seven of those churches had developed quite differently.

By the end of the first century, the Church of God was headed on a very bad track because it was developing differently in every different congregation. And that's part of the message that John is given.

He sends to these seven churches. Of course, part of it was the churches were separated from each other. You know, if you lived 30 miles from another church, you maybe never saw those people your whole life. Thirty miles was a long distance. Thirty miles to us isn't. But if you had to walk it, it's a long distance. Or if you had to ride a horse, it'd take you at least all day to ride a horse.

And that's if you were a good rider and had a good horse, just to be able to go that distance. We also know, though, when you look at these messages that these messages apply to, attitudes are in the church at any given time. In fact, during the time of our lives as Christians, we can go through these attitudes ourselves. But we also know that they represent seven church eras. Christ comes back to these churches. They still exist at the end. And they represent seven church eras. So there's a prophetic meaning to this passage also.

I gave a series of sermons on Revelation 2 and 3 here two years ago. And I went through five sermons just going through the message to these seven churches and how they apply to us. Now we go to the next slide. We look at Revelation 4 and 5. Now remember, this is just an overview. But if we begin to look at the book of Revelation and see its outline, you can begin to piece together the story.

In Revelation 4 and 5, John has given a vision of God's throne. It's a remarkable passage because we get...we have someone who has actually been taken to the throne of God, at least in a vision, and is able to record, this is what I saw. I saw a sea of glass. I saw God shining like the sun, angels coming in and out. There were angels just singing to Him all the time. There's a rainbow. He said, all I can describe is thunder and lightning. And he tried to describe what it was like to see actual the presence of God at His throne. But He's also shown a scroll with seven seals. And no one is qualified to open that scroll except one person.

So we read in Revelation 5, verses 9 and 10, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God. So obviously this is Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father in that heavenly scene that John sees. Who purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God and they will reign on earth. So we're back to, you have to understand who Jesus Christ is because only He is qualified to open the seals on this scroll. And the rest of the book of Revelation, if you look at the next slide, is basically about the seven seals. Now the seven seals are also made up of seven trumpets and seven vials or seven plagues. So we'll have to go through and show how all these happen and try to pick out the order in which they happen.

The river that turned to blood in China is not an event directly prophesied or turned red in China in the book of Revelation because that is an event that happens in a series of events. People say, will the tribulation start tomorrow?

No. You say, well how can you be so sure the tribulation won't start tomorrow because there's events that have to happen before tribulation starts. How do we prepare for these things? People ask all the time, how do we prepare for these things? We can prepare for certain events physically, spiritually. You cannot prepare physically for the tribulation. You can't. It's too great an event. Now, should we do some things between now and then?

Well, we'll talk about that. It probably would be wise, but understand digging a bunker in your backyard made out of concrete, putting in three and a half years worth of food, and setting up a machine gun and a bazooka isn't going to help you one bit. It's not going to help you at all. We have the seven seals of Revelation. The first four of these seals is called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

That's our next slide here. You probably remember this if you were here for the presentation I gave two years ago about the last trumpets and seals, because I used this slide. It's just a dramatic slide. It's actually a painting from 1887. It's interesting. It shows the Four Horsemen. It shows all this destruction. I don't know from where you see it. You probably can't see it as detailed as the painting actually is, but it's a remarkable painting that just shows this horrible destruction as these Four Horsemen ride.

We talked about seven seals. We have seven seals. The first four seals and what is called the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and they're not called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the book of Revelation. That's a title that's been attached to them. They are the same thing. Now that's important to remember. So if we're going to begin to talk about the end time events, we start talking about these seals as Jesus opened the seal and part of the scroll was able to be read, as that part of the scroll was read and John began to understand it, he said, okay, the first four seals are now open.

As they are open, you see four horsemen. Now this is what's again an allegory. These four horsemen picture huge events that are going to be happening on the earth. Let's go to the next slide.

It gives us the first four seals. To really understand the first four seals, we have a companion passage, and it's the Olivet prophecy. In Matthew 24, they ask Jesus Christ, what are the signs of your coming? If you go through Matthew 24 and you read it and you start to read through Revelation, you see that he's talking about the same series of events. The same series of events. So let's go to Revelation 6, though. Revelation chapter 6. And let's read what the first four seals are. So we say, okay, we want to begin to understand the book of Revelation and the outline of end time events.

When we understand the Church, we look at Revelation 2 and 3, we see that the Church is going to be troubled at the end time. Read Matthew 25, which is part of the Olivet prophecy. Read part of Matthew 24. There are more verses in Matthew 24 and 25 in the Olivet prophecy about the Church than there are about the world.

Many, many more verses. And they all explain and describe a Church in trouble. So the Church is going to be in trouble at the end time for a number of different reasons. And maybe that's something we should cover here sometime, too, is what will the Church be like at the end time? I haven't covered that in a long time. What will it be like if we just go through Matthew 24 and 25?

Because much of the Olivet prophecy is about the Church, but there are important parts that are about the world. And the ones that are about the world basically describe here what we're going to read in Revelation 6. So we have in 4 and 5 the Scripture of God's throne, the scroll, the scroll begins to be opened. Verse 1, And I saw the Lamb, so we see Jesus Christ, opened one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say, with a voice like thunder, Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a white horse, he who sat on it had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out to conquer into conquer, or conquering into conquer.

There's a lot of speculation about what this is. In a minute I'll show you, if we look at a consistency inside this book, what this pictures is a false Christianity. Now, when we go back to Matthew 24, Jesus said, Many will come into my name, saying, I am the Christ, and see many. So he describes a false Christianity in Matthew 24. So when you put the two together, we just don't have time to go through and lay them on top of each other, but if you put the two together, and you lay them on top of each other, they're talking about the same events.

There will be a false Christianity. There will be a religion that pretends to follow Jesus Christ, but in truth it does not. And so, it's portrayed here as a white horse, and there's a reason for that. We'll see that in a minute.

Verse 3, Then he opened the second seal, and I heard the second living creature say, Come and see. And another horse, fiery red, went out, and was granted to one who sat on it and will take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another, and that it was given to him a great sword. Now, war has always been an experience of humanity, right? I mean, you read what warfare was like in the ancient world.

You read the Bible. Tens of thousands of people killed in one day. And that wasn't with machine guns and tanks and bombs. It was with swords and spears and arrows. I mean, it was grueling face to face. You know, the person you just killed, blood is all over you. It was horrible. Two out the middle ages, barbarians running back and forth across Europe.

If you look at the Chinese, if you look at the history of the Far East, it was just one war after another. There has never been peace on this earth. The history of Africa, the history of South America. You read the history of Central and South America, the Aztecs, human sacrifices. They would fight a war with a neighboring tribe, bring them in, and sacrifice them by the hundreds to their gods. It's horrible. It's the whole history of humanity. And you look at this last century, World War I, World War II, huge wars. Fifty million people died in World War II.

But this will be worse. Now, if you look at the Olivet Prophecy, Jesus goes through these first four seals and he says, this is the beginning of sorrows. This isn't the tribulation. This isn't the time before Christ returns. These are the events that caused the tribulation. These are the events that caused it. Notice then, verse 5, He opened the third seal. I heard the third living creature come and see it.

I looked at behold a black horse. He who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, A quart of wheat for a denarius and three quarts of barley for a denarius, but do not harm the oil and the wine. Let's talk about famine. It costs a lot of money just to buy food. We're in the midst of a horrible drought for the last two years in the United States.

Yes, we get some rain once in a while, but it doesn't break the overall drought. The effect on food production is beginning to be dramatic, and it will get worse. People are selling off their cattle herds, their sheep herds. In places in the United States this year, the whole wheat crop was destroyed. Those by themselves are isolated events, but the cumulative effect of that is that food prices next year or next year will go up. Even if we had a great food crop next year, the food prices are still going to go up. My wife comes home. I hate it when she goes to H.E.V. or Sam's, because I know she's going to come home, and it's like the first thing out of her mouth is going to be, you can't believe how much the prices are going up.

Well, you just went two weeks ago! Well, remember, the United States helps feed much of the world. We won't be the first to suffer. It's the people we send to food to that will be the first to suffer. And so, when that famine spreads, we will feed ourselves first. Oh, it'll be processed foods. We'll stretch the natural food out. We may not be healthy, but we'll be eating something.

The rest of the world will begin to suffer much more quickly. Now, the fourth, verse 7, he opened the forest seal, and I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, come and see, that I looked at behold a pale horse, and I went to him who sat on him was deaf, and Hades followed after him, and power was given him over a fourth of the earth, the kill with the sword with hunger with death, and by the beast of the earth. So, we know that the first four seals culminate in the death of a quarter of the world's population.

See, we're not there yet. The tribulation can't start, because the tribulation doesn't start until after the first four seals. So, these events must happen. It wouldn't take them long to happen. In fact, everything that we see happening in the world today could be building up to those events happening very, very, very quickly. So, we're going to see a time where the world goes into a crisis worse than World War II, because the fourth of the people did not die in World War II. We're going to see that crisis happen. Then the tribulation starts.

Then it gets bad. So, that's what revelations give us. It gives us a starting point. We don't have to worry if the river in turning red in China was one of the events just before Christ coming back. No, it wasn't. Now, there should be warning signs, but they're not the events of Revelation. I mentioned the horse. There are two white horses in Revelation. Let's look at the next slide. One of them is the white horse of the apocalypse.

The other is Jesus Christ coming back on a white horse. That black and white drawing is actually a wood cutting from, I think, the 1500s. It shows a dragon being thrown in a lake of fire, an army coming from heaven, and an army on the earth suddenly realizing that they're overmatched.

It's an interesting wood cutting. We have two white horses. One is written by the true Jesus Christ. The other white horse is written by fake Christianity. That's why I said that white horses is important for us to understand. We will see there are a couple places throughout Revelation where there's a duality, and we understand what each means because of the duality. So there's going to be a great fake Christianity.

That right horse is not Islam. Many people think it's Islam. It's not. Islam isn't a fake Christianity. So Islam has a part to play, but we have to go to Daniel to do that, so we won't go there today. Islam has a part to play and what's going to happen at the end time. But Revelation doesn't give us that information. We have to go to Daniel to get that. So we have these two horses, and we understand them.

Now let's go to the next slide. Let's get to the fifth seal. The fifth seal is in Revelation 6, verse 9. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw, under the altar, the souls of those who have been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood of those who dwell on the earth? Then a white robe was given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest a little longer.

This is an allegory. In other words, they're dead. This is like Abel's blood crying out to God. He didn't say, Come be with me. He says, You have to rest a little longer. It's not time for your resurrection yet, but I remember you.

Your voices still cry out to me until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. You rest a little longer, because they're still people of God who have to die. So the fifth seal has to do with the people of God who still have to die. So, verse 12, I looked, and I looked at the sixth seal. Well, let's start there with the fifth seal.

There's great persecution. If you go back to Matthew 24, Jesus said, They will persecute you. There's going to be a great persecution on the church. It's during this persecution that the tribulation starts. So one of the things you will know that the tribulation is about to begin is there is going to be a great persecution on anybody who has any semblance of true Christianity.

I guarantee you it won't just be us. Okay? Anybody that has any semblance of true Christianity is going to be persecuted. This will be massive. It's like the Romans. You know, when the Romans persecuted Christians in the second and third century, by that time there was a lot of different Christianity's around, including Nazism, which was a totally false Christianity. The Romans were equal opportunity persecutors. They didn't care. They persecuted anybody that had certain belief systems. There will come a time. Now, I'm not saying they will persecute everybody that's Christian.

They will persecute everybody that doesn't fit a certain mold of Christianity. And the true Christians will be persecuted in that time period. They say, well, how do we know the tribulation starts here? Well, let's go back. Let's keep a marker here so we can come right back to it. But let's go to Matthew 24. Matthew 24. Matthew 24, verse 9. In the All of That Prophecy, Jesus says, Then it will deliver you up to tribulation to kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

He goes on and says, because of that, some of His own people will betray each other. They'll turn each other in. They'll hate each other. Which is why I keep saying, you better understand that you get tired of saying certain things. In the end, you have God and each other. That's all we're going to have. And according to what Jesus said, during this time of persecution, some are going to turn on each other. So we better be committed to each other. And it's going to get tough.

This is why sometimes I think, ooh, maybe it would be better if Christ comes back after I die. You know, let me just grow up being an old man surrounded by my grandkids and let me die. And then I think, no, let's get it over. Come back. Let's get through this stuff and fix this mess. Right? But when you realize how the tough times are going to happen, the Revelation tells us. But notice then, verse 15. When you see the abomination of desolation, and we'll talk a minute about the abomination of desolation, we'll see this happen. So there's going to be persecution on the church. First of all, you get the first four seals. A fourth of the world is dead. There's chaos. You have persecution on the church. You have the abomination of desolation. Then it says in verse 21, For then there will be great tribulation, such as not been since the beginning of the world, until this time, no nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh should be saved.

But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. Even the plan that we see in Revelation is going to be shortened some, because Satan will try to speed up the destruction of humanity. So the tribulation starts. Now, we can go through what happens in the tribulation, or we'll go through Daniel about part of that. But I want to show you what happens in the book of Revelation now. We're going to skip over chapters 7 and 8, and we're going to skip up to some other chapters. We'll come back to those later. Because chapters 11, 12, and 13 of Revelation, you look at those and you think, well, where in the world did those things fit? Chapters 11, 12, and 13 of Revelation talk about the tribulation.

They explain what's going to happen during the tribulation. So this persecution is going on, and there's a number of things that happen. First of all, you'll see the second on this list, the abomination of desolation is set up. Matthew 24 talks about the abomination of desolation. Luke 21 talks about it. But what Luke 21 tells us is very, very important, that the abomination of desolation involves an invasion of Jerusalem. That's very, very important. So the abomination of desolation happens at the beginning of the tribulation or right before the beginning. I mean, these events are happening very quickly now. So if we see forces of the world die, the church is being persecuted, and there is an invasion of Jerusalem, we know what it's probably going to start about now. So we can start seeing when these things are going to happen. Now let's look at Revelation 13. Well, I won't read Revelation 13, but what Revelation 13 tells us is that there's a beast power. Now we can go back and tie this into all the Scriptures in Daniel. In fact, I'll go through each one of these and just give us an overview of it. There's a beast power. There's the abomination of desolation. There's the church taken to its place in the wilderness, but only part of the church goes. The church is being persecuted. Satan tries to destroy the church as it's taken to its place in the wilderness. It's being persecuted. A part of the church flees, and it goes to this place. And then in Revelation 11, we have the two witnesses. So Revelation 11, 12, and 13 gives us then, okay, this is an overview of the tribulation, what the tribulation will be like. So let's look at that overview. Next slide is the rise of the beast power, Revelation 13. If we go to Daniel 2, we understand that the beast at the end of time that is destroyed by Jesus Christ and His coming is a revival of what used to be the Roman Empire, which was split into two parts. So part of this empire, part of the beast will come from what used to be the old eastern part of the empire, and part will come from what was the western part of the empire. And there's ten toes, and you know, which represent ten nations. And we can go through Daniel 2, and we can see the prophecy about what this will be like. So Revelation 13 is telling us about the revival of the fourth beast in Daniel 2. Once again, this is an overview, so we don't have time to go through all the details. But just knowing that gives us a perspective. There are two beasts in Revelation 13, and this is very, very important. One represents a political power, and if you just read through it, you see one represents a religious power. Now remember, we have already have the two white horses. Now we have the beast power, with a false religious power. So it's going to be a false Christianity that works with the beast power. I only say that because we have to understand that this isn't Islam, which is becoming more and more popular in the Protestant viewpoint of what's happening. Islam is the beast. No, it's not. One of the reasons I believe Christianity and the beast power is going to form together is to claim they're going to fight the beast. The beast will be created as an attempt to stop what they claim is the beast. See how dangerous that can become?

So this false Christianity is mixed in with this political power. The mark of the beast is 66 and, once again that's a detail, so I'm not going to go into that, but they rule on earth for 42 months. 42 months is three and a half years. So we have three and a half years here. Now, we have on the next slide, of course, the abomination of desolation.

Matthew 24, Luke 21. Luke says that the Jerusalem will be trampled until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, but he doesn't tell us how long it is. In other words, Jerusalem will be under the control, will be trampled by different nations, so the times of these nations are fulfilled. But how long is it? Well, it's interesting. In Revelation 11, verses 1 and 2, the times of the Gentiles is 42 months, three and a half years. See why Revelation 11, 12, and 13 are all talking about the same events? Well, they're talking about things that happened, events that happened during the same time period. That's what's so important to understand. And this is what the abomination of desolation is all about. It's all about Jerusalem being trampled for three and a half years. And some people say, well, that means the church. No, this literally means Jerusalem, because the church is taken to its place. So that's the next slide. Now, I talked about Revelation 12 two weeks ago when I went through the rapture, so I won't spend a lot of time with it or exclamation. But we know that in Revelation 12 we have a woman who is taken to a place, and there she is protected for time, times, and half a time. Three and a half years. So, same event.

Remember, persecution starts. The abomination of desolation is put up inside. In other words, there's actually some pagan statue that is brought in. I mean, if you look at the first two times of the abomination of desolation, they're fulfillment. It always involved an army invading Israel or Judah, and it always involved the statue of paganism. That statue may be a statue of, quote-unquote, Jesus Christ. I don't know what it will be. But Jerusalem will be conquered. The church will be persecuted. Part of the church pleads. This is all at the beginning of the Tribulation. This is all during that time, right before and during the beginning of the Tribulation. This beast power will have come on the scene and become enormously powerful. But all this comes out of the chaos of the first four seals. The world will be in chaos. And that's what everybody fears. You think about it, people feel like they're in chaos all the time. Everybody you talk to fears that our country's collapsing, the economy's collapsing, the world's collapsing. I mean, all you have to do is turn on the news for the last three or four nights, and you watch chaos, right? I mean, all over the Middle East is chaos. People are rioting, and they don't even know why they're rioting in times. There's what, 21 places now where there's riots taking place last night? That's chaos. Now, that's not the first four seals. And maybe the beginning of it, I don't know. Chaos at a massive scale is what we're looking at. And this comes out of it. What comes out of it is persecution of the church. What comes out of it is the beast power. What comes out of it is the church being taken, part of the church being taken to its place in the wilderness. And that's why I want to show the next slide. What we have is the two women of Revelation.

Revelation 12 is the church. The woman of Revelation 17 and 18 is a prostitute that rides the beast. It's also a church. It's a false church. It's the church that's actually motivated and led by Satan, according to Revelation. So we have the two churches. It's like we have the two horses. This is important. Because the true church is taken to its place in the wilderness, the rest of it is left to be persecuted.

There's a massive work, by the way, that has to be done during the tribulation. We'll talk about that in a minute, too. So we have the two women. Knowing who the one woman is helps us understand who the other one is. If one is a false church, the other one is the true church. If one is Jesus Christ on a white horse, the other is a false Jesus Christ on a white horse.

So now we can begin to make sense of all this imagery that's in the book of Revelation. The other issue we have about the tribulation is Revelation 11, the next slide. The two witnesses. They tell people to repent. They stand up against the beast power for 1,260 days.

You know how long 1,260 days is? Three and a half years. 11, 12, and 13 are all talking about the same time period. The abomination of desolation. Same time period. So we have this three and a half years. They will finally be killed, and their bodies will lie in the streets of Jerusalem. People will rejoice for three and a half days. Or three days, yeah, three and a half days, and then they are resurrected. It's amazing to me how many people I've met throughout the years who want to be one of the two witnesses.

What an idiot! Whoever these guys are, I've wondered, where did they come from? I, my personal opinion, this is my opinion, is they just come out nowhere. Two guys show up one day and say, oh, where are the two witnesses? And people say, oh, yeah, and fire comes out of their mouth. It's like, okay, here are the two witnesses. And we're going to say, who are those guys? Well, they are the two witnesses. But, well, I tell you, what kind of training they're going through, I have no idea. I doubt if they know who they are, right? Because who would want to say, oh, good, ten years from now I get to be killed in the streets of Jerusalem.

So, we know that they prophesy during this same period. Now you begin to understand, part of the reason why the church is probably persecuted, the two witnesses come on the scene, everybody hates their guts, and who's the only people that says, yay, they're our heroes?

Well, we can't get to them. Fire keeps coming out of their mouth. But we can get to you. See why persecution would come? See it all? These things all stack up. You just get this, it's like a dam, and it all stacks up. When a dam breaks, it just all happens. And there's, so you have four events now, or four series of events that all happen at the same time period, all during the Tribulation.

I pray all the time that I be accounted worthy to go to the place of the wilderness. I really don't want to be in the Tribulation. Now, if God puts me there, that's His choice. But I keep asking, please, please, let me not have to go through that. Let my family have to go through that, because I really would like to go to the place of the wilderness. So now we have Revelation 12, we've skipped ahead, we were in Revelation 6, we skipped ahead to Revelation 11, 12, and 13.

Now we have an explanation or description of the Tribulation. Let's go back to Revelation 7, because in Revelation 7, we have a slide for this too. We just have an introduction of two types of people, okay? Two groups of people. We have 144,000 Israelites who are sealed with God's Spirit at that time. So we have Israelites who respond to the calling during the Tribulation, and they are given God's Spirit.

And then we have the great multitude who are converted, who come out of the Great Tribulation. In fact, in verse 14, let's look at Revelation 7, 14. Because John wants to know who these people are, this huge multitude of people that are following God. And I said to him, sir, you know, he was asked a question, and John, very wisely, usually when you're asked a question by God or Jesus Christ or an angel, it's, I don't know.

Okay, best way to answer. He says, these are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation and wash their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. So we have this huge group that comes out. So verse 7 skips ahead, because they're coming out of the Tribulation. 11 and 12 and 13 describe the Tribulation. So chapter 7 just introduces two types of people who are going to come out of the Tribulation.

And some are descendants of Abraham and a huge amount are descendants of Abraham. So they're introduced in. So now we get to the next seal, the sixth seal. Revelation 6 verse 12. I looked and he opened the sixth seal. Behold, there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree dropped its late figs when it was shaken by a mighty wind.

And the sky receded as a scroll when it rolled up and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and the rocks and the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.

The great day of his wrath has come, who is able to stand? There is a time when people actually see what is happening and it is so great they say, This is God and we're in trouble. The sky itself, the meteorites falling from the sky, the moon turning and looking like blood, the sky rolling back. They see something so incredible that they are afraid. The whole world sees it.

The whole world sees what is about to happen. And this brings us to the seventh seal. The seventh seal consists of seven trumpets. Boy, I need another hour. I have 20 minutes. The seventh seal is the day of the Lord. Revelation 8. So Revelation 7 sort of jumps ahead and says, Hey, there are people who come out of this mess.

There are two groups of people who come out of this mess. Revelation 8. And he opened the seventh seal. There was silence in heaven for half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God and then were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden sensor, came and stood at the altar. 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.

He goes on and talks about the prayers of the saints coming up to God. And then verse 6 says, So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. Now I won't go there, but Isaiah talks about the day of the Lord. And it talks about the year of recompense. It is possible that this day of the Lord lasts a year. I'm not going to say that that's exactly what it says. But there's an indication. What that means is the first two and a half years of the tribulation is humanity destroying itself.

The last year of the tribulation is God saying, I will take this no more. No wonder everybody's afraid. God is saying, I will no longer take this. And it is the time of God's wrath. When you go through the day of the Lord in the Old Testament among the minor prophets, especially, what you see is there's two happenings. One is the former fulfillment and one is the latter fulfillment. Study the formal fulfillments. We're going to do a series of Bible studies here sometime in the next...well, if I ever get through the outline of the Bible, what I like to do is go through the minor prophets, but go through them really emphasizing what happened to them to the original audience that heard it.

I mean, if we want to understand what happens in the future, look at what happened to them. What happened to those people? So the day of the Lord then was in a local area. The day of the Lord now happens to the whole earth, and you will see them through the prophets where he talked about the day of the Lord bring all nations to me. So the second, you know, the day of the Lord in its final fulfillment is God's wrath. You and I have to be careful here.

We can become so much like the world we think because the knowledge we have is enough. It's not enough. It's our relationship with God. God either protects us or he doesn't. God either takes care of us or he doesn't. There's nothing you can do. You know, my wife and I have talked about, you know, we're preparing physically for that time of the first four seals, you know, maybe a little extra food.

We're getting out of debt. We're trying to financially get as independent as we can. We're trying to save a little. You know, we're looking for, say, maybe, you know, that first four seals, if we have to survive physically, we need to be prepared physically and we need to be prepared spiritually. But nothing you can do can prepare you for the tribulation and the day of the Lord. Either God does it or we're doomed. We have to remember that. Either we have to be totally dependent on God, especially when these events start.

So now we have the seven trumpets. The next slide will show you the first four trumpets. Starting in Revelation 8, the first trumpet is hail and fire and a third of all the trees and green grass destroyed. You can just show the slide of all four of them together, which will save me. It's slide number 18. It'll save me having to read all the Scriptures. I'm going to shortcut through all the Scriptures here. First trumpet, hail and fire, a third of all the trees and green grass destroyed. Now, before this, the first six seals seems to be man doing it to himself.

This is God doing it. A third of everything that's green on the earth that's left is destroyed by God. The second trumpet, one third of the sea becomes blood, one third of the sea creatures die, one third of ships destroyed. Say, it's not just one river in China. Probably caused by man-made pollution. It's one third of the entire seas of the earth. Third trumpet, third part of the fresh water, turns bitter. Fourth trumpet, atmosphere deteriorates so that one third of the light is filtered out. Humanity had reached the point of just about self-destruction. God says, you want a taste of destruction?

Let me show you what you're actually fighting against. When that sixth seal opens and those skies change and it rolls back and people say something's coming, they see visibly something in the sky. And then very quickly we have these seven trumpets. You know, when we keep, when we observe the Feast of Trumpets, we don't observe the Feast of Trumpet. Right? Well there's a seven trumpet sounds and Christ returns and that's all that the Feast of Trumpets is about. There's seven trumpets and six of these trumpets may take a year to carry out.

See, the Feast of Trumpets is about a whole series of events. Just like the Day of Pentecost, isn't just about the pouring out of God's Spirit. It's about the whole spring harvest time that leads up to the fall harvest, the whole season of harvest, which is the church era. So the Pentecost has this huge meaning. The Feast of Trumpets has a huge meaning. It's the Feast of Trumpets and there's seven of them and these first ones are horrible and Christ still hasn't come back yet. The next slide. The fifth trumpet. The last three trumpets are so bad, they're just called, whoa, like this is really bad. Now this isn't a discouraged you, you know, wow, boy, I go home tonight and just, you know, I'm going to go home tonight and eat five pounds of pizza and six pounds of chocolate, just comfort foods, because after that sermon, this is supposed to be, we're blessed if we understand this because we see what God is doing. I can't imagine facing this and not knowing what God's doing. Can you imagine going into the tribulation and having no idea what God's doing? People are going to be killing themselves all the time. So we have the beast power brings about world war. So if things weren't bad enough, we have a global war taking place. There had been war all this time, right? Remember, war is one of the reasons. It's one of the first core seals that creates such chaos that kills one-fourth of the world, and then the tribulation starts. Well, there's war all through the tribulation, and now we have world war on a massive scale. God just takes gloves off. Go ahead, fight it out, folks. The sixth trumpet is Asia becomes involved in the war. The two witnesses are killed when you, because if you look at this, this is all now happening at the end. When we get to the sixth trumpet, we're to the very end of the day of the Lord, because we have the seventh trumpet, which is the last part of the day of the Lord.

Look at Revelation 9. Well, I tell you, I don't really have time here.

Let's go to, well, let's look at the seventh trumpet now. Revelation 10 verse 5. So, if, okay, we're at the absolute end of everything. After two and a half years of Satan and man's destruction, we now have this time period of God's wrath poured out on the earth.

And we're to the point of the death of all humanity.

You know, everybody's squaring off into one giant war that's going to take place in the Middle East.

And all the armies are gathering there.

And we have verse 5 of Revelation 10.

Chapter 11 verse 15.

And here you have the angels, if you read the rest of this, are singing to God. But look in verse 19.

The work is without electricity. You're starving. There's hordes of barbarians, probably, moving across the earth. The great armies of the world are gathered in Jerusalem. And here we have the return of Jesus Christ. Chapter 15 verse 6. And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues.

You think, oh good, it's done, right? The earth is shaking. God's poured out His wrath.

Christ is returning. The seventh trample at the return of Jesus Christ, which is the return of Jesus Christ, also involves a whole series of events. It's just not a singular event.

Because you have the seven plagues, also known as the seven vials.

Before I go to the seven plagues, I've got to mention Revelation 14. Because Revelation 14 is in the midst of all this, here's the seventh trumpet sounding, and there's all these messages that just come out. Okay? Because this angel comes out with this message, and this angel comes out with this message, and there's just a series of messages, messages that come out that are all part of this event, or series of events, called the seven trumpets. You have the song of the 144,000. You have an angel that announces the gospel. An angel that announces Babylon's fall, which is part of what happens here. You have an angel announcing God's judgment on those who worship the beast. He also declares the patience of the saints who keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus. The true people of God are keeping the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus. And then there's also an announcement about the punishment of Jesus Christ that He's destroyed the armies. Now, He hasn't destroyed the armies yet. In Revelation 14, it's just announcements of things that are happening. Because the armies get destroyed at the end of these seven plagues, or a part of these seven plagues. So Revelation 16 then gives us the seven plagues poured out.

So this is number 21.

Soars. This is the trumpet sounds.

The trumpet sounds. Now, there's a lot of things that happened during the seven trumpets. We have the resurrection of the saints. We have the destruction of the beast power. And we have seven plagues.

Soars. Mass death of sea creatures. Fresh water turned into blood. Sun scorches the earth. Darkness. The Euphrates river dries up so that the Asianic armies can end up in Armageddon.

For some reason, they're stuck behind the Euphrates. The other armies are joining, so God says, well, you might as well come too. So he dries up the Euphrates river, and a hoard of 200 million men cross the Euphrates. 200 million! There's only 300 million people in the entire United States!

Then there's great earthquake and hail, and the Babylonian system is destroyed. But you know what I find interesting in the midst of all these seven last plagues? I mean, remember, the sky has opened. That's the sixth seal. The sky has opened. There's been seven trumpets.

All these events are taking place. People can see Jesus Christ coming.

And yet, in verse 12 of chapter 16, it says, the sixth seal, or sixth angel poured out of this bowl of the great river Euphrates. So just talking about the drying up of the Euphrates. And then verse 15, 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. You think about all the places in the Bible where Christ says, I'm coming as a thief. And here, right in the midst of all this, you think, how in the world could people not know he's coming? The point he's making is for us, the true followers of God, the people who are anticipating this, in the midst of all this we will lose track of it.

We have to be careful, because we will be surprised by his coming.

They think, how in the world could that happen? If you're in the tribulation, I could see how it could happen. If you're in the wilderness, I could see how it could happen. But right in the midst of his coming, he says, you have to be careful, my people, or I will catch you by surprise.

That's a stern warning, isn't it? Verse 15 just blows my mind, but that tells me something very important.

If we're not close to God in the midst of all this, we won't get it. We won't get it.

We'll be so caught up in the distress and the anxiety and the fear that we won't understand what's happening. See, we get so stressed out now.

What's it going to be like then? Verse 15 is a fascinating verse to me.

Look, my people, some of you still aren't going to be ready. I'm coming as a thief. But again, that thief analogy cannot apply to a secret rapture, because he's saying it right in the middle of his coming.

So the warning is to be prepared. The warning is that there will be people of God not prepared, even at this point. So the Babylonian system is destroyed. Let's look at the next slide, because this now is a summation of all the seventh trumpet. Christ returns at the seventh trumpet. Part of it are these seven vials, these seven plagues that are poured out. But here's what happens that's so important that it's part of the seventh trumpet. And this is what we usually center on on the Feast of Trumpets. And we should.

Boy, it would be really sad to come to the Feast of Trumpets, and all we hear about is the wrath of God for the whole time. So what we generally do is we center on the seventh trumpet, because that's the great hope. But remember, it's the Feast of Trumpets.

There's more than one trumpet. But the seventh trumpet we know. Okay. And the pouring out of these vials, these trumpet sounds, the dead are raised, plagues are poured out.

So we have the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the saints. We have the return of Jesus Christ and the destruction of the beast power. And so now Jesus Christ establishes the kingdom of God on the earth. And so we have the description of Revelation 20 about the resurrection.

Now, we know it's interesting when we go back to the seventh, when the seventh angel sounds. I didn't get to read all of that. But the angel's thing, he is coming to judge the dead.

When we tie in Matthew 24.31, Revelation 21 through 6 in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4.13 through 18, and we see, okay, the dead are raised at the sound of this trumpet. Or, as it says in 1 Corinthians, the sound of the last trumpet. That's amazing to me. You know why? How did Paul know there were seven trumpets? Because the seven trumpets weren't revealed to the book of Revelation, unless they knew a whole lot more than they gave up, you know, than he put down.

He had to know there was more than one trumpet. At least, oh, I don't know what Paul knew, but I knew this. I know this. He knew there was more than one trumpet.

Because it's the last trumpet that the resurrection takes place.

Unless he believed there was only one, and it was the last one. But, you know, it just doesn't make sense. It's like, why would you say the last trumpet?

But we know all the details weren't given to the time of John at the end. This was 30 years, more than 30 years after Paul was killed, around 30 years. So, we get to Revelation 20. Now, we have the description of the resurrected saints who did not worship the beast, and they are with Christ. The next slide tells us what happens. Oh, God, we get to the good news. Okay.

When Christ stands foot, stands on the Mount of Olives, the millennium begins.

That doesn't mean it's all peaceful yet. It just means it begins.

We know that Satan has to be bound. I mean, the early work of what happens in the millennium is shown to us in the day of atonement. Satan's bound. People were brought into one with God.

The atonement has this huge meaning of it takes us back to Jesus Christ.

You know, He is the kinsman, redeemer. And then the King of Kings, the high priest, He's the King of Kings, all tied into the concept of atonement. And what's this? The atonement shows us what happens after Christ comes back. This is the work He's doing. And, of course, during the days of the Feast of Tabernacles, we get to celebrate the good part of it.

We get a little bit of a vision of what it's going to be like in a time when everybody worships God. Every day is a worship of God. In the terms of the world, all obeys God and worships God, it doesn't mean it'll be perfect. When the whole world keeps the Sabbath. When the whole world keeps the Sabbath. Can you imagine that? Well, there are no idols.

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine what that's going to be like?

The last part of the book of Revelation, then, the next slide, we have the millennium. We talked about Revelation 20. We have the great white throne of judgment. Let's talk about, at the end, of the book of Revelation 20, in which the rest of the dead are raised and judged.

We have a great rebellion that happened at the end of the millennium.

We're staying this loose for a short period of time. Revelation 21 and 22 is an amazing part of the Bible because it tells us about how God's throne comes to this earth. God's throne is coming to this earth. We are not going to heaven. He is coming here.

He is coming here. So, there you go. And in an hour and ten minutes, everything that you can talk about in the book of Revelation in an hour and ten minutes.

Once again, there's a lot of details, and I don't pretend to know everything in the book of Revelation. What we do know is a whole lot more than what we don't know.

What we do know is a whole lot more than what we don't know. And it gives us an overview that we can look at what God's doing. And as things happen, we can find peace.

You know, I believe it's going to happen in our lifetime. If it doesn't, okay, somebody else will go through this. But when it happens, we will know what's happening.

When it happens, we will understand what God is doing. We will understand who we are. We'll understand what God promises, and we can hold on to those promises that we can be taken care of during that time period. And there's a great work that has to be done during the Tribulation.

I mean, look at what the two witnesses do. A great multitude comes out, having been converted during that time period, prepared for the Resurrection. Now, many of those people will have to die. Many of the churches that go into the Tribulation will have to die, because it says they will be martyred. So that's a horrible thing. But the result of that is eternity with God. Eternity in His family. So hopefully this will get us our minds on the Fall Holy Days, and at least start thinking about these things as we go into the Feast of Trumpets here on Monday, the Day of Atonement, and then the Feast of Tabernails. And the last great day. Don't want to forget that.