In His Light Ministries Teaching Series
Revelation Part XXI 081124
All right, yes, let's get going, my goodness. The battle, the battle, the victory is yours. We are actually going to be talking a lot about that even today as we go through the scriptures and go through today's message. I do want to thank Hinder unhindered for bringing that. I actually felt like we were in a rock concert for a second there. We had rehearsal yesterday and I was about to come unglued and then, you know, this morning when we were doing rehearsal again, same thing. And thankfully, I kept it together while, you know, actual worship service was going on. I don't know. I'm not sure if you want me to come unglued. It's a little different. Just real quick, if you haven't gotten it yet, you can get your in his light ministry's coffee mug. It's in the back free of charge for all those who came today. I mean, why? I mean, if there's any leftover, maybe, maybe somebody can get one someday. We'll see. All right, care of a Papa Hoyt, as he always loves to give this church, this ministry gifts so that we can in return give out those gifts. So if and when we see him again here, we'll thank him. I've already we've already thanked him. But anyway, all right, whoo, he already? Everybody good? Everybody good? Because like I said, I've been ready today. I've been ready since yesterday, listening to the worship music and I was just like, man, it just needs to come on today. Let's just go. Let's just bring it. Let's just have it happen. And I don't know if it's just because the last few Sundays have been kind of talking about the bad stuff and revelation and talking about the beast and the dragon and the second beast and the bad things that they want to do to this world. And it's just not great. And I think it just weighed heavy on me. But who side are you on? The victory is yours as in its gods. It's the victory of Jesus. Who side are you on? Because I'm on the side of Jesus. I'm on his side because the victory is his. And since the victory is his, we by extension get that victory. Did you hear what I said? Because I know you all have stuff going on in your lives. I know that there's bad things that are happening. There's health problems or health issues and challenges. I know the victory is yours as well by extension. That's something to praise God about. Amen. That's something to praise God about because we know what's happening. We're not happening. What's happened? Things that we've gone through, things that you've gone through. Stuff that, you know, the monkeys have gone through. Stuff that, you know, here's a, here's a weird thing because Pastor Birder was just talking about this. How? There's something in the air. And I don't know about you, but I started feeling this something in the air way back when my family got hit with COVID. And you know what it was? Evil. Pure evil because COVID was made by man through the demons. Okay. Yeah, we might get censored for that, whatever. COVID was made by man through demons to bring about some bad things to this world. And I don't know about you, but the past few weeks, I've just been feeling it again, not COVID. I've been feeling that, that feeling, that heaviness, like there's something evil in the air. And it's, it's disturbing. And it has me go into the scriptures a whole lot more right now because I have to re-remember where our victory lies. It's not within anything that I do. All I can do is lean on God, lean on our father because he's the one who provides the victory. We get to be a part of it. But I'm excited about what we're going to be sharing today because we're starting to move into the victory. We get to do the victory dance. Anybody else want to do the victory dance with me? I don't know what it looks like, but it's going to be crazy. It's going to be crazy and it's going to be exciting. And we're going to be having a lot of fun. We're going to be shouting, shouting, shouting to the Lord, shouting, and we're going to have fun. We're just going to be excited because we get the victory. All this stuff is going by by all the bad stuff, all the bad feelings that you're having and that's in the air is going by by. The only thing that will remain is the love of Jesus. And us? Okay. All right, so I mean, you know, speaking of bad things, the ninth day of Av is coming up Monday evening into Tuesday. If you've never studied the ninth day of Av, it's not a very good day for the Jews or historically has not been a good day for the Jewish people. Bad things have happened on that day, on around that day. And a lot of them right now, knowing this, are even fasting right now. They're in prayer and fasting right now because they know that people are out to get them. You realize that Israel is surrounded by enemies. They're everywhere. And we haven't really talked about this yet. We've brought it up, but there is a war that's coming. We call it the Ezekiel War because in Ezekiel 38, 39, it talks about a war that's coming, not against us in America, but against the Jews in Israel. And it's going to come and there will be no help for Israel. But God, America, we have ships over there right now. We're helping them out. So something's going to happen. If this happens here sometime soon, something's going to happen where America pulls away out of the Mediterranean and out of Israel because Israel will be left to stand alone. And that sucks. And I kind of pinpoint a lot of that back to the Rapture of the church because if the Rapture happens before the Ezekiel War, and I'm not saying it will, I don't know for sure, but if it does, then who in America is going to stand for Israel? Because at this point, America is about the only nation that is willing to stand with Israel. And if you look at our leadership right now today, and I'm not talking about Democrat Republicans, I'm just talking about everybody. They're swaying in the wind right now. They're not as hardcore as they used to be and in favor of Israel like they used to be. So all it would take is a quick snatching out of the Christians out of this place, out of America, out of the rest of the world, and all of a sudden what's left. Chaos and people who don't care too much about Israel. Well, right now, when you read in Ezekiel, it talks about the different nations that are coming together that will come together to form a alliance against Israel. Just turn on the news. And at this point, you got to dig a little bit because they're starting to kind of figure out that people like me or sitting there going, Oh, look what's going on. Look what they're doing over here. Turkey's lining up with Iran. Iran's running lining up with Russia. Russia's lining up with all these other people. And it's not looking good for Israel. I'm not getting excited about that, but I'm I'm sitting here looking at it going, Oh my gosh, we can see this happening. The alliances are forming even now. And they're not totally trying to be secretive about it anymore. It used to be secret alliances. Now they're just kind of boldly saying it. Iran's even saying, they're going to attack Israel on the 9th day of off. Now, are they going to? Are they just saying it? They could be. Are they just getting ready for something else that's going to happen? Maybe? Is it a head fake? I don't know. My point, we need to be praying for Israel right now. We need to be praying for their safety. We need to be praying for their deliverance. We need to be praying for their salvation. It's not our job to get them saved. We can read the scriptures and realize that a lot of them will not be saved when the tribulation starts. But God hasn't given up on them. They are His chosen nation. He's not given up on them. But it's going to take some stuff that's going to go down for them to recognize. Hey, Pam? Yeah. Since we're calling out Pam today, I just thought just continue the process here. But we're going to jump into Revelation 15 today. And guess what? We're going to go through Revelation 16 today as well. I know. I know. Heavy. But you know what? I mean, it's just good. But there's not a whole lot of explanation that's needed in this. It's a lot of it to me, and maybe it's just me. And that's fine if it's just me. But we can further talk about it. I don't need to be right about all these things that we're talking about. I could be wrong on a lot of things. I get that. There's other opinions I'm giving you. What I believe is the best opinion that we can give on a lot of this stuff. Revelation is one of those books that a lot of people shy away from because of the imagery that's taking place because they don't understand the imagery. Well, what's stopping us from understanding the imagery? We just need to study it. We just need to re-look at it. We just need to read it. Read it out loud. Read it to other people. Read it. And obey it. So we're going to start in Revelation 15. We're going to talk about that, and then we're going to jump into Revelation 16 and talk about that. Then I saw another sign in heaven. Great and amazing. Seven angels with seven plagues which are the last. For with them, the wrath of God is finished. And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire. And also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the lamb saying, "Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O king of the nations, who will fear, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." Verse 5 starts off with, "After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened. And out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure bright linen with golden sashes around their chests. And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. And the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished." This is another sign. This is another vision that he's getting. The beginning of this starts off with another sign in heaven. Seven angels with seven plagues. So he's seeing this ahead of time. He's seeing it as a vision, as a sign ahead of time. A lot of people teach that the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and what's about to come, the seven bowls, the seven bowl judgments, are actually the same thing taken from different perspectives. And I've studied this, and it doesn't make any sense to me. And there's several reasons why it doesn't make any sense to me. But what this verse is saying is that this set of seven are the last, which means the other ones had to have come before. So the seven seals and the seven trumpets must have come before the seven bowl judgments, because the seven bowl judgments are the last. That's what it says here in verse one. Also the seventh seal was actually the start of the seven trumpet judgments. Did you notice that? I don't know if we ever really paid much attention to that, but you've got the first through the six seals where something happens, and then the seventh seal is broken, and it's actually our introduction to the trumpet judgments. And then when we, there's one through six trumpet judgments, but as we get to the seventh trumpet judgment, it's an introduction into the seven bowl judgments. So they're intertwined. It's not one perspective of the same thing, or three different perspectives of the same thing. Also, the seventh seal, I'm sorry, the seventh bowl judgment is actually going to look different, completely different. All these look different. That's the other reason why I can't sit there and go, this is the same thing. No, it's not the same thing. It looks completely different. This is chronological. The first, the seven seals, then the seven trumpets, and now the final seven bowl judgments. These are the last. Verse two, those who conquered the beast, today is gain in Christ. So I'm not sure, I'm not actually sure if these people who are standing on the sea, if they died because of the beast, and that's how they conquered, or if they just happen to be around at the end when Jesus finally comes, or if conquering means that they never ever took the seal, or took the mark, they never worship the beast, they never worshiped its image. That to me is conquering. That's a big deal given the circumstances that they are facing. Verse five, I don't know about you, but I love this for some strange reason. Verse five is kind of like he's John is going, okay, we're shifting from, I saw a sign in heaven, and here's what it was looking like to all of a sudden he's going back into chronological order with after this. In verse five, he starts off with after this. And then I love in the scripture how the glory filled the sanctuary in heaven. And this is not the sanctuary here on earth, which has been filled with his glory, and nobody could enter. When Solomon dedicated it, you know, different times this has happened, this is in heaven. We always look at heaven as like, oh, well, that's different. You know, that's just different. You know, of course, heavenly beings can be around God and, you know, and his glory and everything like that. God's glory filled the sanctuary in heaven, and no one could enter. It's all the creatures, the heavenly beings, the elders, nobody's going in there. They can't enter because his glory is there. To me, that just makes heaven God in heaven just seems so much more awesome that even the heavenly beings can't enter the sanctuary when God's glory is present. I love it. I love it. Anyway, we're all done with chapter five, 15. I mean, it wasn't a whole lot to talk about. It's just, you know, here's what happened. And, you know, he saw the sign and then he's going, hey, and by the way, what I started to see, that's actually starting to happen after this. This is what I saw. So we're going to go to Revelation 16. Sound good? Sound crazy? Yeah. Well, I'm up here, so it's got to be crazy. Revelation 16, then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, "Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God." So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. I'm going to stop real quick because last week, when we started talking about the bad things, you know, Pam even mentioned it to me, you know, there was just something that hit me and it hit me that, you know, bad stuff's going to happen to some people. And it's like, man, we don't want that to happen. But in the middle of while I was sitting there trying to gain my composure because I started to cry because I'm thinking of all these bad people and the bad things that are going to happen to them, I felt like the Holy Spirit said, okay, that's enough, Cam. This is my judgment that's coming because they made a decision against me. Who side you on? Who side are you on anyway? I didn't hear God tell me that part, but I mean, it's like I had to re-recognize that people are going to make a choice. People are going to take a stand one way or the other and it's not going to look good for everyone. And it's not our choice, it's not our responsibility to go any further than presenting them the gospel. But when the bad stuff starts to happen to these people because they chose to reject the truth and therefore be saved, then we need to just stand with God. And we also need to kind of put ourselves in the place of the people who will be alive at this time as believers in Jesus and what these people who are receiving God's judgment are probably doing to the believers at this point. They may not be super nice to all of us. Good godly people. So I felt like God was telling me, okay, you cried. You're done. Stop. Time to move on. This is my judgment that's coming. And quite honestly, I felt a lot better after that. No, we don't want to see bad things happening, but people have to eventually make a choice one way or the other. You're going to accept the God of this world, the creator of all things. Or are you going to accept the enemy who wants to be God? Verse three, the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea and it became like the blood of a corpse and every living thing died that was in the sea. The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the water say, just are you, oh, holy one, who is and who was for you brought these judgments for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve. No, no, no point in crying over what they deserve. Verse seven, and I heard the altar saying, yes, Lord God, the almighty, true and just are your judgments. The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs, for they are demonic spirits, performing signs who go abroad to the kings of the whole world to assemble them for battle on the great day of God, the almighty. Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed. And they assembled them at the place that is that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying it is done. And there were flashes of lightning rumblings, peels of thunder and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth. So great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts in the cities of the nations fell and God remembered Babylon the great to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away and no mountains were to be found. The great hailstones about 100 pounds each fell from heaven on people and they cursed God for the plague of the hail because the plague was so severe. There ends Revelation 16. Let's talk about it. These judgments start off as kind of a throwback to the plagues of Egypt. Remember those plagues back in Exodus? You know where God is trying to get his people out of Egypt but he has let Moses know that it's going to be by his power that it happens. It's not going to just be because Pharaoh lets them go. And so he allows Pharaoh's heart to be hardened a little bit so he can bring another plague to them and then another plague to them. And these first plagues are kind of a throwback to those plagues of Egypt. But you notice that it quickly escalates into something we haven't yet seen starting in verse 8. But before we get there verse 5 shows us that these judgments are not coming from anywhere else. But God. Let me just jump to Mark 10 17 through 18. I believe it's at the bottom of the the list there Michelle. And as he was setting out on his journey a man ran up and knelt before him that him being Jesus and asked him good teacher. What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Now I know that everyone wants you to believe that God will never do all the things that you and I consider to be bad for us. But how do we mere humans determine what is good and who is good? It's not by our standard that these things are measured. These things are not measured by man. These things are measured by God. And so if God is doing something since God alone is good what he does is good. So these judgments coming directly from God means that these judgments are good. Now don't go throwing hailstones at people because you don't like them but this is God vengeance is the Lord's. Not ours. So we don't get to do this stuff but just because God has decided to do these things doesn't make him a bad God. Don't ever say that. God is good. All the time. All the time he is good. Devil bad. God good. But the world wants to sit there and paint a picture for you on what they believe God should be like. You see that all the time right now oh well if God was a loving God why would he let this happen? Who are you to determine what God is what is good to God? Man every now and then I just sound like one of them southern preachers. I don't know. It's just comes out comes out but who are you who are you to sit there and determine what's good to God? If God is doing it if God is bringing somebody to it it's good. You may not like it. It's still good. The world. The world definitely has no place telling anybody what's good. They don't know what's good because they've turned the devil has turned everything upside down. What's good is bad. What's bad is good to the world. You know what's good? This word is good. His truth is good. We follow his truth. We follow his word and if that means we don't follow the things of the word hallelujah we're not going to be following that today because God hasn't determined that that's okay and he's not going to change his mind. I don't know why these preachers think that oh well you know we've been enlightened God must have been an error. God always knows. He's always known. Don't sit there and try to tell me oh well that was a surprise to God. No. No. It was not a surprise to God. He knows all. He knows everything. He knows the beginning from the end. He has lived not just a day. He's lived all days. He's already not just seen the end. He's lived the end and the end is just the beginning but we're not there yet. Verse 7 true and just are God's judgments. Not only is God truthful and loving and good he is also a just God. He is truthful. He is loving. He is good and he is also just. One of the things again that the world doesn't want you to recognize because the world wants to do whatever it wants to do and then wants God to get on board with them. And we want to live a sinful life. We want to have all these pleasures of the flesh and then we want God to come on board with us. Okay, bless what I'm doing God. He's not going to bless something that's not bless a bull and he determines what's bless a bull. Verse 8 through 11. The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People nod their tongues and anguish and curse the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds. Verse 8 through 11 has gotten a little bit escalated. We're no longer talking about the easy plagues of Egypt. We're not talking about something a lot worse and it's almost as if God is giving them a little taste of what hell is going to be like if they don't repent and turn towards him. Scorching of the sun. Last time we saw the sun it was turned black. Now it's scorching people because it's so hot. Almost like God is sitting there going here's a little taste of what you can expect. The gnawing of the tongues. Nashing of teeth anyone. Sounds like hell to me. I don't want to be there. No thank you. And yet they did not repent and turn towards God. Verse 12 the Euphrates River dries up so that the kings and the armies of the east can go across. The Asian countries mostly Asian India Japan China Asian and then here's an interesting part. So three demonic unclean spirits come out of the mouths of the dragon the first beast and the second beast. These will go to gather the kings of the whole world to come to Megito. In the Hebrew is Harmageddon Har Megito. It actually is mountain of Megito. Interesting enough right now it's a valley of Megito. What does that mean? I don't know exactly but there's all kinds of debate on what that could mean. Technically if there's a valley there's a mountain around it. But there is no such thing as Harmageddon. There is no such thing right now as mountain of Megito. It's a valley of Megito. And this is the place where over 200 battles have been fought through history. And the last is going to be fought there as well. But these demons these frog-like things are gathering up all these other kingdoms to come to one spot. And there's debate on why they're coming or the Asian countries going to fight against the beast the Antichrist or are they because it looks to me like these demons are just gathering them up to fight against Jesus is how it looks to me. I know there's debate on that. That they were actually going to go fight with against the Antichrist because they didn't like what he was doing or whatever and then they must have turned and hark oh there's Jesus let's fight him instead maybe something brought them there is bringing them there these demons are the ones who are bringing them there these frog-like things demonic unclean spirits verse 17 the last bowl the last bowl the angel pours this out into the air interesting could this be a direct judgment against the devil himself Ephesians 2 2 cause the devil the prince of the power of the air just a thought because after the after you know after the statement of it pours out into the air then all of a sudden these other things start to take place the earthquake that's the worst earthquake ever peels of thunder there's no more mountains anymore there's no more islands anymore and then this part hundred pound absolutely gigantic hailstones start to fall from heaven and they land directly on people crushing them this reminds me of the trodden of the grapes of the winepress in Revelation 14 that we talked about last week this thing that's going to happen in Armageddon valley of Megito or Mount of Megito is not going to be a pretty picture and God is trying to show us y'all want to avoid that spot y'all want to avoid being there at that time and that's not just a warning of oh don't go to Megito that's a warning of get saved right now find Jesus right now accept him into your heart right now because all this stuff is lining up watch the news look who's lining up against Israel 9th day of Av is Monday evening into Tuesday let's see what happens if there's nothing that happens praise the Lord if I ran Iran decides to attack Israel I would almost guess because they already tried to attack Israel on their own and it was nothing it was a little dud I think Jeff was even sharing with us that it was like lawn mowers that was coming across the sky they didn't have any problems taking those down but was that just another head shake because they're in league with Russia which means they have access to Russian weapons the the Gog Megog beast gets hooked and gets pulled out of his country kind of sounds like a treaty to me like they didn't really want to go but since we have this treaty with Iran that maybe Russia has to then go and fight could be the hook possible all super excited this sounds awesome all the stuff that's going to happen and we ended with on Revelation 16 and it's almost like cliff anger like all these shows are doing nowadays you know if you've watched any kind of TV which we tend to steer away from a lot of the the shows out there right now but man everything seems to be a cliffhanger everything's to be continued until the next episode and then you still might not even find out because interesting enough we still have 17 and 18 chapter 17 and 18 to go through which is going to give another kind of information about stuff because Babylon's mentioned here but it's really going to be talking about Babylon in the next two chapters and then Jesus will come in 19 anybody looking forward to that I'm looking forward to that whoa I cannot wait but at this point I have to sit here and stop and go to be continued also because I have no grandiose conclusion at all to this it is what it is as we say and the Bible is what the Bible says amen all good man I'm telling you what I'm excited I'm ready to pray if you haven't gotten your cup please go grab it's in the back tell your friends they can only get one when they come to church Lord God our Heavenly Father we want to just say thank you thank you for your word thank you for blessing us tremendously with worship thank you for a rock star worship today Heavenly Father and we just want to say thank you for all that you are doing for us Lord God thank you that you have sought after us that you took us as your own Heavenly Father that you would not stop pursuing us even when we decided long ago to turn away from you and run as fast as we could away from you it seemed like every time we turned around you were right there and I thank you so much for that because all I had to do was turn and say yes so Lord God thank you for the yes that has come out of my mouth for you and so many people here are saying yes to you Lord God we just ask that you would move mightily in our hearts in our minds and our work Heavenly Father is next week we go about doing your business Heavenly Father no matter what that looks like we're building the community of believers through the love of Jesus Christ to change the world and we want to say thank you for that thank you for helping us thank you for pursuing us and Heavenly Father we desire to seek you and pursue you in everything in all that you do we get to be on your team we're so thankful for that we get the victory because you have the victory in Jesus mighty and matchless name amen