SPEAKER_00: All right, let's bow in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, for those of us who were at the dinner earlier, we thank you for the food and for the people who prepared it and the people who give to this church so that we have the ability to go out and buy those ingredients.
SPEAKER_00: But we give you the praise, Lord, because we know that every good thing comes from you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, prepare our minds, our hearts, and our spirits, Lord, to hear from you as we look into your word.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, may we focus on giving our attention to you this evening, and may our time in your word, in as we study these end times, may we simply say as a group, come, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We love you, we thank you for every good thing, and it is in the mighty name of Jesus that we pray, and God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: So, the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah lived some 700 years before Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He prophesied these events 700 years before Jesus lived.
SPEAKER_00: And as we know, Paul writes the book of Revelation after Jesus has ascended and gone to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is, not Paul, I'm sorry, John.
SPEAKER_00: John is in exile on the Isle of Patmos.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to warn you guys on the front end.
SPEAKER_00: I've also been doing a lot of reading this week in the prophet Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: If I say Ezekiel instead of Isaiah, you're going to bear with me.
SPEAKER_00: If I say Paul instead of John, you're going to bear with me.
SPEAKER_00: John wrote the book of the Revelation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the vision that he received when he was exiled on the island of Patmos.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah lived some 700 years or more, most likely more before Jesus in the time of the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: And as Isaiah was prophesying, he would have a word from the Lord to share.
SPEAKER_00: And many times Isaiah would prophesy events that were happening in his own days.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been following along in the chronological Bible study, you know that Isaiah, Jeremiah, you're getting ready to go into Ezekiel next week.
SPEAKER_00: All of these men prophesied to the people of their day that they needed to repent because God was going to pour judgment out on the land in the form of to Israel the Assyrians and to Judah the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_00: And so many of the things that Isaiah said were to the people of his own day.
SPEAKER_00: Yet at the same time, as Isaiah was prophesying, not only was he speaking of events that were happening in his own day, he was also speaking of events that would be fulfilled, that would happen in Jesus during the time of the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: And even further, Isaiah prophesies in some places about events that won't be fulfilled until the end times.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can imagine, I always try to put myself in the place of the prophets, and I can only imagine how puzzling it must have been to say these things that God had told you to say.
SPEAKER_00: You're speaking the words of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And you know that they didn't fully understand the fullness of everything it was that they were telling those people, but they trusted that God knew what God was saying, and so they went ahead and said the things that God had called them to say.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see tonight some of the things that Isaiah said that have yet to be fulfilled, but because of the book of Revelation, we know that what Isaiah prophesied is true, is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: It just hasn't happened yet.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, when we read the prophets, whether they are prophesying in their own present tense or in the future tense about Jesus or the future future tense of the end times, it's never exactly spelled out neatly for us, is it?
SPEAKER_00: And so as we read the prophets, right now, those of you that are doing the chronological Bible study are in Jeremiah, and you're about to do Habakkuk tomorrow, and then some more of Jeremiah, and then next week you're in Ezekiel, and I'll just go ahead and tell you all.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a seminary student, Ezekiel, I think, is the Old Testament book that broke my brain the most.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I go to it today, and it's still rather challenging.
SPEAKER_00: These prophecies and the way they think the way that things fall, they're not always neatly categorized.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, there will be a time in the future when we will all be able to reference Isaiah or Jeremiah or even Ezekiel, and we'll be able to see how everything sorts out.
SPEAKER_00: But then we'll be in the eternal state with God in heaven, and all of history will have played itself out, and we'll understand how everything fits.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk a little bit more about the prophet Isaiah, because some say that Isaiah contains more prophecies directly about Jesus Christ than any of the other prophetic books in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Some also say that when Jesus is speaking, you can connect things that he says to things that Isaiah said more than any of the other prophets of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how accurate that is, that's why I put some say.
SPEAKER_00: I'll put it this way: if it's not at the top, it's pretty close.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty close.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah also has a pretty large number of prophecies related to the end times.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, so many that I really wasn't able to list all of them for you here tonight.
SPEAKER_00: But we are going to go over some of the more obvious and clear ones before we are done.
SPEAKER_00: So, how many of you in here, this is your first time to go through the book of Revelation as a study?
SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought.
SPEAKER_00: I thought that most of the room would have been involved in some form of study.
SPEAKER_00: If this is the first time you've been involved in a study of Revelation, I would say fasten your seat belts.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation is an incredibly rich and incredibly heavy study.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people make the mistake when they are studying the book of Revelation and they focus so much on what we would call the fantastical elements of it.
SPEAKER_00: They end up putting their focus on the Antichrist and the beast and the false prophet, or they put their focus on the state of the evil world, or they focus so much on the seven churches that begin the letter that they miss the overriding message of the book.
SPEAKER_00: And the overriding message of the book is that Jesus Christ is King of kings, he is Lord of Lords, He is going to triumph over the evil nations of this world as well as all supernatural evil, and he is going to create a new heaven and a new earth where everything is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: That is the overriding message of the book of the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Right here in this, right here.
SPEAKER_00: I'll leave this up so you can write it down if you want to.
SPEAKER_00: That is the overriding message.
SPEAKER_00: The temptation when we are studying the book of the Revelation is we want to get engaged in let's connect all the dots.
SPEAKER_00: This is this, and that is that.
SPEAKER_00: And some people uh ride that roller coaster, and they they're like, Well, I need to know, I know I need to go back to Daniel and how Daniel talks about Revelation, and I want to know which country is the third toe on the right foot of that vision beast.
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, they get all worked up about how does this fit with the European Common Union and how does this fit with the United Nations, and how does this fit with what's going on in Iran and all of this, and and that's all fascinating stuff.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason why.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of books have been written about that over the years.
SPEAKER_00: But this, ladies and gentlemen, is your overriding message for the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It is not about the Antichrist, it is not about the evil of the world, it is all about Jesus setting everything straight once and for all.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't normally ask for an amen, but I'm gonna ask for one right there.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen on that?
SPEAKER_00: All right, good, good.
SPEAKER_00: So the first passage that we're gonna look at in the book of Isaiah, I'm gonna have the passages from Isaiah up here on the screen for you from the New King James Version.
SPEAKER_00: I'll go ahead and call them out, but I am gonna call out for volunteers to read the passages from the book of the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: So those of you that have got a good voice, get ready.
SPEAKER_00: What we'll do is when I ask for someone to read from Revelation, since we've got a lot of people in the room, raise your hand first.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we've got two or three people starting at the same time, and that's never good.
SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and begin.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be in Isaiah chapter 13, and we're gonna look at verses 9 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 13, verses 9 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, any questions about anything that I've said over the last few minutes?
SPEAKER_00: All right, very good, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 13, 9 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: Prophet Isaiah says, Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, for he will destroy its sinners from it.
SPEAKER_00: For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light.
SPEAKER_00: The sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pause here for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Isaiah was clearly not talking about things in his own day necessarily, because when the Assyrians attacked Israel and the Babylonians attacked Judah, there's nothing recorded about the stars departing from the sky or the moon not giving out its light or these things.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one could say that when Jesus died on the cross at Calvary, we know that suddenly everything went black.
SPEAKER_00: But when we see what is the language that's being given here, uh it seems that it's pointing to something a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get a volunteer to read Revelation chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6, verses 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hands and I'll call on somebody.
SPEAKER_00: All right, Brother Myron, let's wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get people let's let people find their place here.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6, 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_00: Once you found the place, just look up here if you would.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Give it a few more seconds.
SPEAKER_00: All right, Myron, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6, 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_09: And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sack of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell upon the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So what we see here in the book of Revelation, those of you that haven't been through the book of Revelation before, let me just sort of set the stage for you.
SPEAKER_00: There are a series of events as God has pulled his church out of the earth and he is pouring his wrath upon the earth that remains.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a combination of astronomical and what we would, I guess we would say, uh there's a lot of astronomical events.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta be real close to not say astrological, astronomical events.
SPEAKER_00: Um we have things happening with the moon, we have things happening with stars, we have giant meteors falling to the earth, we have all sorts of amazing phenomenon happening.
SPEAKER_00: And we see here Isaiah is talking about the stars of heavens and their constellations won't give their light, the sun will be darkened in its going forth, the moon will not cause its light to shine.
SPEAKER_00: And we see a corresponding passage there in Revelation 6, 12, and 13.
SPEAKER_00: Let's, uh, Myron, since you read that, go ahead and also read Revelation 8.12.
SPEAKER_09: 8.12.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_09: 8.12.
SPEAKER_09: It says, and the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and a third part of the stars, so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not, for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So you can see this idea of things happening with the moon, things happening with the stars, not being able to see the stars at night, not being able to see the moon at night.
SPEAKER_00: This is a recurring theme in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It's also a recurring theme in the prophet Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah was prophesying things that are yet to come.
SPEAKER_00: Let's uh move on, let's see, that's uh let's move on to the.
SPEAKER_00: We're still in chapter 13 in Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go from verse 10 to verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, God says through Isaiah, I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity, I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12 is a real interesting verse.
SPEAKER_00: I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I will shake the heavens, the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
SPEAKER_00: Again, these are things that go beyond the terror that the Israelites and the kingdom of Judah experienced at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_00: This is something much more terrible than those terrible days.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that again that there are passages in Revelation that compare well with what Isaiah is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look at that interesting verse, verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, basically what it means is just as just as gold is a rare metal, and you have to search high and low for gold, I never say there's such a thing as coincidence.
SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing as coincidence.
SPEAKER_00: There's only being aware of divine timing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh found myself earlier this week doing some reading about the California gold rush.
SPEAKER_00: Don't know why I was don't don't ask me why things, you know, I don't I don't control the algorithm of my life.
SPEAKER_00: But I found myself doing some reading about the California Gold Rush and how these guys basically went out to the gold rush searching for gold and how rare it was for those guys to actually strike a claim and make any real money out of that process.
SPEAKER_00: Gold's a valuable metal, it's a rare metal.
SPEAKER_00: God says there's a time is going to come when he's going to make a mortal more rare than fine gold.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's take a look at, let's get someone else to volunteer.
SPEAKER_00: We're still in Revelation 6, if you've got your Bible open to that.
SPEAKER_00: I need a volunteer to read Revelation 6, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand, please.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6, 8.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_11: I looked and there before me was a pale horse.
SPEAKER_11: Its rider was named Death, and Hades followed close behind him.
SPEAKER_11: They were given the power over a fourth of the earth, killed by sword, famine, and plague, and by a wild beast of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's one passage in Revelation that talks about a quarter of the earth's population after the church has been raptured out already.
SPEAKER_00: A quarter of the earth's population is going to fall victim to death.
SPEAKER_00: Let's combine that with what we read in Revelation 9.15.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 9.15.
SPEAKER_00: Mark, if you can just go ahead and find that for me, I'd appreciate it.
SPEAKER_11: And the four angels who have been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so after a fourth has been eliminated, if the timing is right, you're already eliminating 25%.
SPEAKER_00: And of that 75% that remains, another third of that is going to be wiped out.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's read Revelation 9, 18.
SPEAKER_00: Mark, if you would.
SPEAKER_11: A third of mankind was killed by three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that came out of their mouth.
SPEAKER_00: So what you see is in the book of Revelation, and David and Ian will go through this in greater detail, but there is a continued major winnowing of the surviving earth's population by all of this wrath and punishment that is coming.
SPEAKER_00: When we finally get to the last battle, everyone that is not on the side of the Lord is basically going to be killed.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we see here is God is going to be going through a process where surviving humans are going to be more rare than gold.
SPEAKER_00: More rare than gold.
SPEAKER_00: And this golden wedge of Ophir, unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to do a reading on that, but I imagine that that was well known in John's day.
SPEAKER_00: And that must have been among the rarest of the rare things made out of gold.
SPEAKER_00: So we do see where the prophet Isaiah is writing about things that are mirrored there in the book of the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and let's look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Here in Isaiah, he says, God says, I will shake the heavens, the earth will move out of her place in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of his fierce anger.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've looked at Revelation many times through the years, and I've never bumped into something that suggests that the earth is going to get knocked out of its orbit.
SPEAKER_00: But that's what that says, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: So interestingly, when you're going through the book of Revelation, and I've seen what David and Ian have planned for you, you really look at Revelation not just by itself as a unit, but you look at Revelation and you combine what's written in Revelation with the book of Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: You combine what's written in the book of Revelation with what's written in some of the letters of Paul in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And to really understand end times, Revelation by itself isn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: You really have to look at the counsel of all of the Word of God to really understand what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever's phone that is, don't panic.
SPEAKER_00: We've all been there.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: At least that phone has a nice chime to it, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So whoever that belongs to, don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's move forward.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Let's move forward to chapter 24.
SPEAKER_00: I want to look at uh a few verses there in chapter 24.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 24, verse 1, a terrifying verse.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty and makes it waste, distorts its surface, and scatters abroad its inhabitants.
SPEAKER_00: Again, when Israel and Judah were attacked during the days of Isaiah, there were many people that were displaced from those two kingdoms.
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of destruction that occurred in those two kingdoms.
SPEAKER_00: But the word that we see here is that the Lord makes the earth empty.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord makes the earth empty.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say the Lord makes Israel empty.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say the Lord makes Judah empty.
SPEAKER_00: It says the Lord makes the earth empty.
SPEAKER_00: So what Isaiah is talking about here goes beyond his own day.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that during Jesus' time in the Gospels, the earth wasn't made empty.
SPEAKER_00: So this is talking about events yet to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Distorts its surface.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone in here ever experience an earthquake in a dramatic way firsthand?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that I hear about that makes me glad that I have not.
SPEAKER_00: Earthquakes, apparently, the the it's the way that eyewitness testimony talks about it is that if you see a section.
SPEAKER_00: Of Earth that is being directly impacted by an earthquake, it's almost as if the solid ground has become a liquid of sorts.
SPEAKER_00: Is that an accurate description?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it rolls.
SPEAKER_00: It gets distorted, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It gets distorted.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, um any of you notice that it's a little warm outside lately?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00: So uh have you have you driven down the road and you see in the distance how it just kind of shimmers a little bit on the surface?
SPEAKER_00: Okay this is made that that's a little bit of distortion.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking major distortion of surface here, and scatters abroad its inhabitants.
SPEAKER_00: Where is this, where is this echoed or come or compared in the book of the Revelation?
SPEAKER_00: Um, let's go ahead and read the next two verses as well.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, same chapter.
SPEAKER_00: The land shall be entirely emptied and utterly plundered, for the Lord has spoken this word.
SPEAKER_00: The earth mourns and fades away.
SPEAKER_00: The earth languishes and fades away.
SPEAKER_00: The haughty people of the earth languish.
SPEAKER_00: So what is going on here?
SPEAKER_00: Once again, the attack of Assyria and Babylon upon the Israelites was terrible, but it wasn't this terrible.
SPEAKER_00: It says the the we have the earth mourns and fades away.
SPEAKER_00: What could possibly be going on here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go ahead and uh a new volunteer volunteering to read from Revelation chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: All right, uh verses 7 through and including 12.
SPEAKER_00: 7 through 12.
SPEAKER_11: The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire.
SPEAKER_11: They said what these were thrown upon the earth, and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.
SPEAKER_11: The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning of fire was throwing into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.
SPEAKER_11: A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were the floor.
SPEAKER_11: The third angel blew his trumpet, and the great star fell from heaven, lazy like a fork.
SPEAKER_11: It fell on a third of the rivers and on the spring of the water.
SPEAKER_11: The name of the star is one word, and a third of the water became one of them, and many people died in the water because they didn't like.
SPEAKER_11: The fourth angle blew his trumpets, and a third of the sun and the star, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their life might be dark enough, and a third of the day might be heavily shining, and likewise a third of the night.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: So we have again all these astronomical phenomena are distorting the earth.
SPEAKER_00: They are laying waste to the earth, they are making the earth waste and empty.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they are scattering abroad the inhabitants.
SPEAKER_00: We have the earth mourns and fades away.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that verse a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Um we're actually going to talk about that one in just a few moments.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep moving forward here in chapter 24 of Isaiah and let's move on to verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: The earth is violently broken, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken exceedingly.
SPEAKER_00: But before we go any further, does anybody want to be here when any of this is happening?
SPEAKER_00: Do any of you want to be here when this is happening?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Hang on with me because I'm going to get to the good news that you won't be here when this is happening if you are part of the kingdom of God saved by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to get there.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you all are going to say, oh, Pastor Dave just shared gloom, despair, and agony all night long.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: But no, we're going to get to the good stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But let's go ahead and plow this ground.
SPEAKER_00: So the earth is violently broken, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken exceedingly in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall totter like a hut.
SPEAKER_00: Its transgression shall be heavy upon it, and it will fall and not rise again.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at just one verse that pretty much encapsulates what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good verse.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 21, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: If I could get someone to raise their hand and volunteer to read that one, please.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 21, 1.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Brother Jerry.
SPEAKER_01: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
SPEAKER_01: There was no longer any seed.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most common misconceptions about the book of Revelation is that Jesus comes back, rules for a thousand years, and then cleans up the planet, and we all get to live together on a nice shiny earth.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is there's going to be a new earth and a new heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible does not provide a whole lot of descriptive content as to what that's going to be.
SPEAKER_00: But since Jesus is in charge, we're all going to enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be better than we can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: It might be one of those things that words just can't capture how great it's going to be.
SPEAKER_00: But so, you know, what's that?
SPEAKER_11: No water.
SPEAKER_11: No ocean.
SPEAKER_11: I'm going to save it.
SPEAKER_11: What am I going to do?
SPEAKER_00: You're never, yeah, there will be no submarines in the new heaven and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: There's there may be no fishing.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, let's go ahead and let's jump in here for a bit.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Because I get this question a lot.
SPEAKER_00: People will say, well, Pastor Dave, what's heaven going to be like?
SPEAKER_00: As if I've been there already or something, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But what I normally, what what I normally say is the words of Scripture, whenever they talk about heaven, heaven is talked about as being with the Lord, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have the opportunity to be in the presence of the Lord, and you have all of your questions that you would ever have in this universe answered, are you going to say, well, I'm getting a little bored being in the presence of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to go fishing instead.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I don't think that that's necessarily how heaven works.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Now, that said, that said, God knows each of us better than we know ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: You think you know yourself well, God knows you even better than you know yourself.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: There is going to be nothing about heaven that is going to bore you.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be nothing about heaven that is going to somehow make you feel like, oh, this is it.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Heaven isn't going to be like that at all.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven is going to be eternal happiness, joy, bliss beyond what you've experienced in your best day here on planet Earth.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Coming up on the anniversary of my dad's passing in a few days.
SPEAKER_00: Hope I don't get emotional here.
SPEAKER_00: Dad passed away five years ago now.
SPEAKER_00: And have had five years to do a whole lot of thinking about heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I talked to my mom on the phone, you know, and my mom is one of those that I call to make a 15-minute call and it turns into a 45-minute call every single time.
SPEAKER_00: Love my mom, though.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely love my mom.
SPEAKER_00: But mom does a lot of questions.
SPEAKER_00: She has a lot of questions about dad.
SPEAKER_00: She has a lot of questions about heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Dad was a believer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm confident I'm going to see my dad again in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He understood that his salvation was in Jesus Christ, not in anything that he could do himself, not because of membership in a church or anything.
SPEAKER_00: He understood his salvation was because Jesus Christ, sinless, son of God, perfect in every way, paid the price for humanity sin there on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: His only hope of heaven was to surrender himself to Jesus as Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Confident I'm going to see my dad again.
SPEAKER_00: But mom has a lot of questions about what do you think dad's looking down on us?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think dad's doing this, that, or the other?
SPEAKER_00: And I say, I don't know, Mom.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I really don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But what I do know is dad's alright.
SPEAKER_00: Dad's fine.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing here is going to happen on earth that's going to make dad regret being in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You know, my sisters, my brother, me, we could do a hundred stupid things.
SPEAKER_00: Dad isn't going to say, oh, I wish I hadn't died so I could keep him from doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Dad's in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way it is.
SPEAKER_00: And when we think about heaven, all right, the new heaven and the new earth are going to be amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And they're not going to be much like the world that we're living in right now.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's going to be even better than that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's continue.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: It shall pass in that day, the Lord will punish on high the host of exalted ones, the earth, and on the earth the kings of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: They'll be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit and be shut up in the prison.
SPEAKER_00: After many days they'll be punished.
SPEAKER_00: The moon will be disgraced, and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before his elders gloriously.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Those of you that don't like politicians, this verse is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is going to punish on high the host of exalted ones, and on the earth the kings of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22 talks about them being gathered together as prisoners or gathered in the pit, and they'll be shut up in the prison, and after many days they'll be punished.
SPEAKER_00: Destined for punishment.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and I've got a few verses to read here.
SPEAKER_00: All of them are in Revelation chapter 20, so if I could get a volunteer to read from Revelation 20.
SPEAKER_00: The first group of verses we'll read are verses 1, 2, and 3.
SPEAKER_00: Brother Pete.
SPEAKER_00: Give it a second.
SPEAKER_00: Let's wait and let people get there.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 20, verses 1, 2, and 3.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a look up here when you have found that in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: A few more looking.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Brother Pete, let it go.
SPEAKER_06: And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the abscess and holding in his hand a great chain.
SPEAKER_06: It's abyss.
SPEAKER_06: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_06: He sees the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
SPEAKER_06: He threw him into the abs.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Abyss.
SPEAKER_06: And locked and sealed it over him to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.
SPEAKER_06: After that, he must be set free for a short time.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so the first confinement of Satan is going to take place.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to last a thousand years.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how much better off the world would be if Satan were not messing around in things?
SPEAKER_00: I think we'd still have problems because we're fallen human beings in a world that's got sin.
SPEAKER_00: But I can't help but think that things would be a lot better.
SPEAKER_00: But the day is coming in the future where an angel is going to be given the job of locking Satan up for a thousand years in a pit.
SPEAKER_00: In a pit.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah could have said that they'll be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in a jail.
SPEAKER_00: He could have said, gathered together as prisoners are gathered in a prison.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, Isaiah used the language, prisoners are gathered in the pit.
SPEAKER_00: And we just read that word abyss that you had, you know, it's actually helpful that you struggled with that because it drew our attention to it, Pete.
SPEAKER_00: That word abyss, all right, it's one thing to say, if I describe to you a pit, all right, you might have in your mind a hole that's maybe, oh, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 feet deep.
SPEAKER_00: But when we use the word abyss, what we're talking about is a pit that is so deep that when you look down, you really can't see the bottom of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a chasm, it's a it's a monster hole in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: How many have you ever done any cable?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_07: I'm sorry, I just had a quick question.
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
SPEAKER_07: I've always been told, and so explain to me why I've always been told that those first three verses we're talking about before like while Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden when he was released for that short time is now that he was locked up in the abyss prior to that.
SPEAKER_00: That would be incorrect.
SPEAKER_00: I've always been correct.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry that you were told that.
SPEAKER_00: That would be information that uh that would be some interesting scholarship that got them to there, but I would disagree with that.
SPEAKER_00: Um the the common understanding is that Satan has Satan was cast down from heaven to earth, but he was not locked up.
SPEAKER_00: He was cast down from heaven to earth, and in being cast down from heaven to earth, he was able to interfere with Adam and Eve, and sin gets introduced to the world and all that.
SPEAKER_00: But he has not been locked up to this point.
SPEAKER_00: He's been disgraced, he's been cast out of heaven, he's been defeated in battle against the armies of God, we think, but he has not been locked up yet.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't until the events of Revelation that, uh, and after God has poured out his wrath on the earth, that Satan is then captured and chained up and thrown into the abyss for a thousand years.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that begs the question, what happens on year 1001?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: What happens then?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go ahead and take a look at some of that.
SPEAKER_00: You're um I had a volunteer in reading from chapter 20.
SPEAKER_00: Who is my volunteer that just read that?
SPEAKER_00: Pete?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um could you read verses 9 and 10 from that same chapter, please?
SPEAKER_06: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_06: That marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves.
SPEAKER_06: But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.
SPEAKER_06: And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.
SPEAKER_06: They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you see, at the end ever.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Pete.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the thousand years, Revelation tells us that Satan is loosed for a brief time, and he gets very, very busy very, very quickly organizing a rebellion against God that's made up of lots of high hosts of exalted ones, if you will, and the kings of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And they try to wage another war against Jesus, and Jesus ends that very quickly, and at the end of that, there's no tying Satan up and putting him in a pit anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what happens is he and his followers are placed into the lake of fire for how long, Pete?
unknown: Forever.
SPEAKER_00: Forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And there is no more loosing of Satan, and Satan is not a problem for anyone after that.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and read in that same chapter, Pete, if you'll give me verses 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_06: And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were open.
SPEAKER_06: Another book was open, which is the book of life.
SPEAKER_06: The dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.
SPEAKER_06: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_06: The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them.
SPEAKER_06: And each person was judged according to what he had done.
SPEAKER_06: Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire, and the lake of fire is the second death.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so what's happening here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's happening here is that after many days, punishment is being meted out on people, as Isaiah said here.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we see in the book of Isaiah is even though we don't have specifics in Isaiah about how all these things come to pass, nonetheless, the things that Isaiah prophesied, many of them are being fulfilled here in the book of the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I could have made tonight's study just as easily verses from the prophet Jeremiah that are fulfilled in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: I could have gone, it would have been a shorter study, but I could have said things in the book of Ezekiel that don't happen until the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: I probably could have stretched and found one or two things out of Habakkuk that fit this pattern as well.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm trying to get across to you is the book of the Revelation was not something that John wrote to put a cap at the end of our collection of New Testament books.
SPEAKER_00: The book of the Revelation is not something that just came to John because John was blessed to follow Jesus as an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, God has had the events of the book of the Revelation planned from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: This has always been God's plan.
SPEAKER_00: You can find God pointing to the book of the Revelation even as early as the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: And it's not something that God just came up with after Jesus died on the cross and rose again and ascended into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, this has been God's plan all along, throughout all of human history.
SPEAKER_00: And I think all too often we have in churches today, especially in America, we have this idea that we have the Old Testament, and then Jesus came and set up a whole bunch of new rules, and then the book of the Revelation just shows how Jesus is going to come again and change everything one more time.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not the way it is, ladies and gentlemen.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the way it is.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan has been coherent, filled with wisdom, filled with amazing miracles from the beginning all the way to the end.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_08: Yes.
SPEAKER_08: Can I answer your question, going back to Satan being cast into the abyss for a thousand years?
SPEAKER_08: My question is we know that we are told in scripture that we're we we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_08: Well, I take it that they're still in play despite their leader being in the pit for a thousand years.
SPEAKER_00: Well, so the um I don't want to steal a whole lot of Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Burton and Bullock's thunder, but I'll answer your question as best I can.
SPEAKER_00: Satan being cast into the abyss is something that happens in the future, hasn't happened yet.
SPEAKER_00: He's cast into the pit for a thousand years, and during that thousand years, we have the thousand-year reign of Christ upon the earth, often called the millennium.
SPEAKER_00: David and Iam will break that down for you in greater detail.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine, if you will, Jesus is ruling over the nations of the earth, and Satan is nowhere to be found.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that sound like a great combination of things?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you want to be a part of that?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, what we what the Bible tells us in Revelation and in other places leads us to the conclusion that when Jesus is reigning upon the earth for a thousand years, and we have already been raptured into heaven with him before that takes place, guess who's Jesus guess who's going to be working in King Jesus' government?
SPEAKER_00: All of us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, first off, that should be the first time in all of recorded human history that there'll be an army of really good civil servants doing their job every day, you know.
SPEAKER_00: The line of the DMV will be so short, you know, it will everything will work out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm joking right now, but uh playing it for cheap laughs, but it but get beyond that.
SPEAKER_00: Just any job that Jesus gives you to do is going to be the best job you've ever had.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_07: So does that go with kind of following up on that?
SPEAKER_07: Um in verse 28.
SPEAKER_07: Their number is like the sand of the sea in verse 9.
SPEAKER_07: They come across the blood of the earth and surrounding saying it's the blooded city.
SPEAKER_07: So you talked about Isaiah, the kings and everything imprisoned and chains.
SPEAKER_07: So is that gonna be all of those people that were imprisoned with him in those thousand redeemers?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Um that great question.
SPEAKER_00: So I see that.
SPEAKER_00: It's quite all right.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh and this can be first off, let's all acknowledge that we're talking about some really deep, confusing stuff here.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so great question.
SPEAKER_00: So Satan being bound and cast into the pit for a thousand years is not Satan and all of the kings of the earth that followed him and all of his followers.
SPEAKER_00: It is simply the dragon himself, Satan, the great serpent, who is tied up and cast into the abyss.
SPEAKER_07: So who is the member like the stand of Satan?
SPEAKER_07: Who who, I mean, are you saying that who's gonna be revelation saying that Satan is going to be?
SPEAKER_00: Ah, okay, now sorry, it took me a second to get to where you were talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter Revelation 20 and verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, after Satan is released in that year 1001, there will be people born during the thousand-year reign of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is our best understanding.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't say this specifically, so what I'm doing right now is I'm giving you my best take on this.
SPEAKER_00: There will be people on the earth who, even though they've been living under the reign of King Jesus, and even though all of us have been awesome at our jobs as civil servants, there will be people upon the earth who nonetheless want to rebel against that government.
SPEAKER_00: And when Satan is released, he will gather those people together, and there will be a lot of those people, it turns out, and they will try to wage war against Jesus, and with one word from his mouth, he will lay waste to the entire group.
SPEAKER_00: Again, these are things that David and Ian are going to explain in detail to you in this study of the book of the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_07: What happens to all the people when Jesus comes, the brain, the limbal return?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_07: And all of those people that did not accept him who have that salvation and they did not, and they did not believe in Jesus, where are they?
SPEAKER_00: They are in a bad spot.
SPEAKER_00: Um the the question that's being asked, allow me to rephrase the question.
SPEAKER_07: And it's I'm just wondering if they're they're part of because you're talking a lot, it's the number is like the sand of the sea.
SPEAKER_07: So you're talking about a lot of people, even if you're talking about people being born, then that's still a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's go ahead and and break this down.
SPEAKER_00: In a world where where Satan is bound for a thousand years, in a world where Jesus is on the throne, in a world where all of the civil servants of the world are made up of people who've been saved and changed by Jesus to have his type of body and his understanding of things, we could expect in such a world a fantastic progression of things like medical science.
SPEAKER_00: We could expect the defeat of all sorts of illnesses in the world.
SPEAKER_00: We could expect larger, we could expect longer lifespans for people.
SPEAKER_00: We could expect that things that are problems for us today, with King Jesus on the throne, he would stop those things from being problems.
SPEAKER_00: We might see a population explosion over the face of the earth greater than the earth has experienced ever in the time before that.
SPEAKER_00: With me so far?
SPEAKER_00: Hang on, Ron, hang on.
SPEAKER_00: We could we could expect a huge population explosion over a thousand-year period.
SPEAKER_00: You would have people living longer, you would have more people being born, there's going to be plenty of food for everybody, housing isn't what's that?
unknown: No wars.
SPEAKER_00: No wars.
SPEAKER_00: You could have just this incredible population explosion to the point where the only way that uh a person writing from John's vantage point in the first century to describe the number of people that are on the earth is to use the poetic language of saying, as numerous as the sands on the seas, on the seashores.
SPEAKER_00: And that is pro that is my best take in how to explain that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you'll notice that uh that even in that wonderful perfect type of world, though, there are people who are born during that thousand-year reign who will follow Satan and will try to attack Jesus and his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Which just goes to show you that the problem with mankind is not environment.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with mankind is that mankind is ultimately selfish and wants to have its own way and doesn't want to be told what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So hang on, hang on.
SPEAKER_00: I I can't I can't answer all the questions about Revelation tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I am grateful for these qu I am grateful for these questions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm very grateful for them.
SPEAKER_00: Um actually, in a perfect world, I'd take all night and answer as many of them as I possibly could.
SPEAKER_00: I enjoy answering questions, as you can probably tell already.
SPEAKER_00: But going back to Isaiah, Isaiah tells us, and Revelation tells us, that the ultimate fate of Satan and those haughty people that would follow him rather than following the Lord is death and destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Death and destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look again here at verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: The moon will be disgraced, the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and Jerusalem and before his elders gloriously.
SPEAKER_00: How do you insult the moon?
SPEAKER_00: How can you make the sun ashamed?
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look at Revelation chapter 22, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 22, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I will be happy to stay after class and talk to you more about these questions.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 22, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Let me have a volunteer to read that.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Karen.
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, ready.
SPEAKER_03: Night will be no more.
SPEAKER_03: People will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun.
SPEAKER_03: Because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: In the eternal state, after the new heaven and new earth comes into play, uh, we won't be baking under this sun.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we we will there'll be no need for the sun to shine because the light of the Lord will be our light everywhere we go.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, at nighttime, what nighttime probably won't exist anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really uh throughout all of human history, we've all been a little bit wary of going out at night because we can't see where we're going.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a problem.
SPEAKER_00: That's why bandits attack people at night, because they have the cover of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: With the light of the Lord everywhere, we won't have to worry about those things.
SPEAKER_00: The moon will be disgraced and the sun ashamed, because they won't be able to compete with the light of the Lord that is there in the eternal state.
SPEAKER_00: Why the Lord is reigning on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem before his elders gloriously.
SPEAKER_00: Just a few more here.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being patient with me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Isaiah chapter 25, and we'll look at verses 8 and 9.
SPEAKER_00: He will swallow up death forever.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, that should be an amen statement there.
SPEAKER_00: He will swallow up death forever.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Old Testament, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: The rebuke of his people he'll take away from all the earth, for the Lord is spoken.
SPEAKER_00: It will be said in that day, behold, this is our God.
SPEAKER_00: We've waited for him, he will save us.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We have waited on him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Old Testament, ladies and gentlemen, sure sounds like New Testament, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look at verse 8 here.
SPEAKER_00: Swallow up death forever, the Lord will wipe away tears from all faces.
SPEAKER_00: Let me get a volunteer to read Revelation chapter 7 and verse 17, if you'd raise your hand, please.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 7, 17.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand when you're ready.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_07: For the land who is at the center of the throne will shepherd them.
SPEAKER_07: He will guide them to the springs of the waters of life.
SPEAKER_07: God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: God will wipe away tears from all faces.
SPEAKER_00: You see that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean that that's a that's about as clear a comparison as I'm going to draw tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Swallow up death forever.
SPEAKER_00: We see what happened to what happened to death in our previous reading from Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It was thrown into the lake of fire, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, death isn't a problem anymore in the eternal state.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Revelation 21, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 21, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: I get a volunteer.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand, please, if you're ready to volunteer.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'll just call on somebody at random.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Chase.
SPEAKER_10: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
SPEAKER_10: There will be no more death or mourning or crying for candy for the old for the old order of things has passed away.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, there's your combination.
SPEAKER_00: He will wipe away all the tears, and Chase said, There will be no more death.
SPEAKER_00: There will be no more death.
SPEAKER_00: And this is Isaiah that we're reading here, saying the same things.
SPEAKER_00: He will swallow up death forever.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will wipe away tears from all faces.
SPEAKER_00: I included verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: At first I wasn't going to include verse 9, but I thought it was important to include verse 9 here.
SPEAKER_00: It will be said in that day, behold, this is our God.
SPEAKER_00: We've waited for him, he will save us.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We've waited for him.
SPEAKER_00: We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Now the last few words of that verse, we will rejoice in his salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The only way that we can read the events of the book of Revelation and have any sense of being joyful about them is if we are saved, is if we have experienced that salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And what's Isaiah talking about, 700 some odd years before Jesus comes?
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the Lord and his salvation.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's go to Isaiah 26, 19.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah says, Your dead shall live, together with my dead body they shall arise, awaken seeing you who dwell in the dust, for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
SPEAKER_00: What's being talked about here?
SPEAKER_00: This is talking about people coming back to life that are dead, right?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Not only once, but twice and three times.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of death not being permanent is addressed here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, at this point, we're going to depart from looking at something in Revelation, and we're going to look at something in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians instead.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to look at, if I can get someone to volunteer to read one of my favorite sections in all of Scripture, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 through 18.
SPEAKER_00: I read this joyfully at funerals.
SPEAKER_00: Every funeral I've I've had the honor to preside over, I've included this verse as part of what I talk about.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 13 through 18.
SPEAKER_00: Do I have a volunteer to read this fantastic passage?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lee.
SPEAKER_11: But we do not want you to be uninformed, others about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do you have no hope.
SPEAKER_11: For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, from Jesus, God, rather through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
SPEAKER_11: For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
SPEAKER_11: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven cry of command for the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall lie first.
SPEAKER_11: Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_11: Therefore, encourage one another to these words.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: The event that Paul is describing, uh we have given this event the name of the rapture.
SPEAKER_00: The word rapture does not appear in your Bibles, but the event that that word describes does appear in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't the only place it appears, but this is my favorite place where it appears.
SPEAKER_00: You notice in what Lee read that a day is coming that there's going to be a shout of the archangel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes back with those who have already passed away in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: And as that is happening, the bodies of those people who passed away begin to rise from the earth to meet with their spirits in the air.
SPEAKER_00: Shortly after that is happening, the people who are still on this earth and who believe in Jesus also begin to rise into the air.
SPEAKER_00: And then in one sudden instant, the people who are still alive and the bodies of those who are dead, reunited with their spirits, all are changed in the twinkling of an eye, and we receive bodies that are like that in some ways to that of the resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we, as the church, all those who believe in Jesus in the past, all of those who believe Jesus in the day that he comes, the church is then assembled, and we are in bodies like that of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That occurs, that occurs, and as that occurs, it is sort of the alarm clock for the events of the book of the Revelation to begin.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: So here we have in Isaiah, your dead shall live, together with my dead body, they shall arise.
SPEAKER_00: How did Isaiah know that his dead body was going to be involved in this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because he's one of the ones who passed away in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: You notice that Isaiah doesn't say, My dead body, he says, together with my dead body, they shall arise.
SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah's talking about some event where not only is he being raised, but there are others to constitute a together that are being raised.
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be a fantastic day.
SPEAKER_00: People often ask me, Pastor Dave, how can you be confident that people who believe in Jesus Christ are not going to go through all of the punishments of the book of the Revelation?
SPEAKER_00: And I have one kind of pithy but nonetheless deep answer to share with you.
SPEAKER_00: The church, all who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, past, present, who are on this earth, are considered to be the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You read that again and again in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Well, ladies and gentlemen, God is not a wife beater.
SPEAKER_00: God is not going to punish those with his wrath that are saved by the power of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: What we see, what we see in Scripture, again and again and again, is that God, when he pours his wrath out upon a people, he makes sure that those who are a part of his kingdom are given warning to escape the wrath to come.
SPEAKER_00: And in the case of the whole world suffering the wrath of God, as you see in the book of the Revelation, we, one of the reasons that we have confidence in the rapture is because of the passage that we just read and this overriding idea that we see again and again in the scriptures, that God doesn't pour his wrath upon those who are his children.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that he doesn't chasten us.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean he doesn't take us to the woodshed when we're stuck in sin in order to get us back on the straight and narrow.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't suffer that wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know who suffered the wrath of God so that we wouldn't have to?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus suffered.
SPEAKER_00: Is God going to punish us because punishing Jesus wasn't enough?
SPEAKER_00: And I now when I say punish, don't go super theological with me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that Jesus didn't take punishment because he deserved to be punished, but rather Jesus took our punishment upon himself.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: Am I making sense?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Good to be in the deep end of the pool with you all tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_05: The sins were probably more painful than the physical abuse that you withdrew or took.
SPEAKER_05: Because once you left it, I mean, once you Okay, I don't have an hour.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great, we'll talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a the we could go long form with that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me continue.
SPEAKER_00: Let me great.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to uh I'm I'm complimenting the observation.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So uh let's take a look at some more resurrection of the dead, and let's now go to Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Revelation chapter 20 and verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Are you all enjoying this tonight so far?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good, good.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 20 and verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: A volunteer to read, please.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Tammy.
SPEAKER_04: But the rest of the dead live not again until the thousandth years were finished.
SPEAKER_04: This is the first resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Now stay there, Tammy, and if you'll give me verses 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_04: And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.
SPEAKER_04: And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
SPEAKER_04: And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a lot of confusion about the resurrection of the dead as recorded in the book of the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do my very best to try to clear things up for you.
SPEAKER_00: First off, we've already talked about the event called the Rapture, where all of those who are in the body of Christ, all those who believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, are going to be raised when he comes again, and that takes place before the events of the book of the Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: You with me so far?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: There are going to be people, there's going to be people not in that group because they have not received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a lot of people that are not going to be raptured because they didn't believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So then you have all of the people that die during the events of the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: And as I've shared with you already, that's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00: And we haven't even gotten into the people that die because they Sided with Satan, and at the end of the thousand-year reign, they try to wage war against Jesus, and Jesus strikes them down.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a time after all of those events that is called the Great Judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The Great Judgment.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a believer in Jesus Christ in this room today, you do not have to fear the great judgment, because you will have already been raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: You are not being raised from the dead to face the great judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that said, don't go around going, ooh, I don't have to be judged.
SPEAKER_00: I can do whatever I want.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was judged rather than us being judged.
SPEAKER_00: Did I bring my drink in here?
SPEAKER_00: No, I did not.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was put to death.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus bore the penalty for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: We have nothing to fear in terms of the final judgment.
SPEAKER_00: That said, live in life as though you are going to have to give an accounting for yourself before Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: There's some wisdom in that.
SPEAKER_00: There is some great wisdom in that.
SPEAKER_00: But the type of judgment that's being talked about here is a resurrection of those who rejected the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They are going to be judged based on the quality or lack thereof of their lives.
unknown: Can I ask you a quick question?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_07: Is that what you're talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Combination of groups.
SPEAKER_00: You're right on target.
SPEAKER_00: These are people who before the rapture rejected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: People who went through the tribulation period and still rejected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: People who went through the thousand-year reign of Christ and rejected Jesus as Savior and Lord.
SPEAKER_00: People who waged war against Jesus in that final battle with Satan.
SPEAKER_00: They are all going to be judged at the final judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't want to be in that number.
SPEAKER_00: Because it doesn't, no one gets, no one comes before the throne at that point and is able to demonstrate that by their good works they deserve to get into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one path to heaven, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father but by but through me.
SPEAKER_00: And so the only way to heaven is through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, as you read the book of the Revelation, rather than focusing on the Antichrist and all the myriad things, always remember you're doing the study well if you're focusing on Jesus Christ and what it is that He is doing as you go through the book.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, I have one final slide, and I'm hoping to end on a good note here, because I have given you the gloom, despair, and agony on us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Isaiah chapter 34.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's one section of scripture across two slides.
SPEAKER_00: I misspoke.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 34 verses 1 through 4.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 34 verses 1 through 4.
SPEAKER_00: Come near, you nations, to hear, and heed you people.
SPEAKER_00: Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world and all things that come forth from it.
SPEAKER_00: For the indignation of the Lord is against all nations, his fury against all their armies, he has utterly destroyed them.
SPEAKER_00: He has given them over to the slaughter.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Also their slain shall be thrown out, the stench shall rise from their corpses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the good part.
SPEAKER_00: All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, the heaven shall be rolled up like a scroll, all their host shall fall down as the leaf falls from the vine, as fruit falling from a fig tree.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, someone stole my last sheet of paper here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to do this off my head.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I need a volunteer to read Revelation chapter 19 and verses 15 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a short passage necessarily.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 19, verses 15 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you'd like to be that volunteer.
SPEAKER_00: Look at everybody not making eye contact with the teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Karen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_03: A sharp sword came from his mouth so that he might strike the nations with it.
SPEAKER_03: He will rule them with an iron rod.
SPEAKER_03: He will also trample the wine press of the of the fierce anger of God, the Almighty.
SPEAKER_03: And he has name written on his robe and on his side, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_03: Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he called out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds flying up high overhead, Come gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of the kings, the flesh of the military commanders, the flesh of the mighty, the flesh of the horses, and of their riders, the flesh of everyone, both free and slave, small and great.
SPEAKER_03: Then I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and against his army.
SPEAKER_03: But the beast was taken prisoner, and along with its false prophet, who had performed the signs in its presence.
SPEAKER_03: He deceived those who accepted the mark of the beast, and those who worshipped its image with it with these signs.
SPEAKER_03: Both of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur.
SPEAKER_03: The rest were killed with a sword that came from the mouth of the rider on a horse, and all the birds ate their fill of their flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's some pretty grisly material.
SPEAKER_00: The warning here is very clear and very obvious.
SPEAKER_00: You do not want to side with Satan in the final battle against the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The warning is very, very clear.
SPEAKER_00: It's very, very graphic.
SPEAKER_00: There is no middle ground.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be on the Lord's side, you don't want to be on Satan's side.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to sort of focus on this a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look what Isaiah says again.
SPEAKER_00: The indignation of the Lord is against all nations.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah would not have been writing that simply to the Israelites and the people of Judah, because their oppressors were the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and a handful of countries around there.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing about the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: What Isaiah was talking about was against all nations, something yet to happen in the future.
SPEAKER_00: His fury against all their armies.
SPEAKER_00: Did we see some furious slaughter going on in those verses that we just heard?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Utterly destroyed them.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we just read about that.
SPEAKER_00: He's given them over to the slaughter.
SPEAKER_00: This is language that points to Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: The next part stench from corpses and mountains melting with blood.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that all echoes what we just heard from that passage in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to look at verse 4 here in Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you should immediately think, that sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_00: Where does that come from?
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to chapter 6 in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Get a volunteer to read chapter 6 and verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 6 and verse 14 in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Miss Carroll.
SPEAKER_02: And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island will move out of their places.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it almost sounds like it's from the same book, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: The heaven shall be rolled up as a scroll.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really, and there you are in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven rolled up like a scroll.
SPEAKER_00: It just works.
SPEAKER_00: Well, when I said earlier this was my last slide, that's because I came to my last sheet of paper.
SPEAKER_00: I've actually got another slide here to share with you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: There's somebody going, oh, another slide.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see if this is the last one.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, hey, that works out pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the last slide is from Isaiah chapter 65.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to read our last two verses from Isaiah chapter 65.
SPEAKER_00: I've tried to go in the order of the books of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: We're jumping around in Revelation, but we're actually going in order in Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: So don't think those of you that think it sounds like he just cobbled this thing together.
SPEAKER_00: No, there's an order to it.
SPEAKER_00: There's an order to it.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, Isaiah chapter 65, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.
SPEAKER_00: That's Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Not the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: That's Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.
SPEAKER_00: The second part's really interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The former shall not be remembered or come to mind.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people have asked me in the past, well, based on verses like that, does that mean that what God creates the new heaven and the new earth, that He's going to wipe our minds clear of what happened before?
SPEAKER_00: Certainly a possibility, but I think that it's probably going to work a little more like this.
SPEAKER_00: How many of us remember the first time that we cried when we were a baby at one at less than one year old?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember the first assignment you had to do in second grade?
SPEAKER_00: You remember the first assignment you had to do as a second grader.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember the how many of you remember the last assignment that you ever had to do in school?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: There's this thing that happens in the mind of human beings.
SPEAKER_00: The stuff that, as we, the longer that we live, the less important certain things tend to be.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're living in eternity with God Almighty, then there comes a point in eternity where you don't even think about what you went through down here on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: Because you've been spending thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, to quote Carl Sagan, billions and billions of years in the eternal state, and you are no longer even thinking about the stuff that happened for that 100 years or so when you were on the old earth.
SPEAKER_00: Because it has faded into irrelevance in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_07: I don't know when we're talking about the thousand year and the actual after Satan is going like this right here.
SPEAKER_07: Is this talking about this is after that?
SPEAKER_00: This is after all of that.
SPEAKER_00: After after Satan is after Satan is thrown into the lake of fire and he's no longer a problem at all, God creates a new heaven and a new earth.
SPEAKER_00: And none of that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: There might even be a day where we don't even think about Satan anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't say Pastor Dave said there's a day coming.
SPEAKER_00: I'm simply following the logic that God has provided to us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Brother Ron.
SPEAKER_00: It's very likely, Brother Ron.
SPEAKER_00: It's very likely.
SPEAKER_00: And and while you all have great jobs in the future world, I'll be sweeping up some trash or something.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So one last verse I want to get to here.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk about the new heavens and new earth.
SPEAKER_00: Volunteer once again.
SPEAKER_00: We're just going to read it again, Revelation chapter 21 and verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: We've read it once already, but it bears repeating.
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
SPEAKER_00: Verse, yes, Brother Myron.
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
SPEAKER_09: And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth was passing away, and there was no more sea.
SPEAKER_00: No more sea.
SPEAKER_00: Why is there no more sea?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to answer the question as to why there's no more sea.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the ancient world, the sea was seen as the source of chaos.
SPEAKER_00: You remember in the book of Genesis that the Spirit of God hovers above the waters in the creation of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: If you were living in the days of antiquity of the Apostle John, you probably on all too regular a basis heard about people that you knew and loved who had died in shipwrecks or were lost at sea.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the ancient culture, to say the sea was not to think of some nice cruise like the love boat or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, if you heard about the sea, you were filled with apprehensive fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's going to be no more fear.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be no more anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be no more people being lost at sea.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be no more sea.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's look at this last verse.
SPEAKER_11: This is our sea all day long, the sea.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's on the Isle of Patmos.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's stuck.
SPEAKER_00: He's stuck on John is stuck in exile on the Isle of Patmos.
SPEAKER_00: What is there to look at?
SPEAKER_00: Water.
SPEAKER_00: Water, water everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: There will be no more sea.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure John went, yay, no more sea.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Last verse.
SPEAKER_00: Stick with me.
SPEAKER_00: You've gotten doing really good.
SPEAKER_00: Last one.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, 700 years plus before Jesus, says, the wolf and the lamb shall feed together.
SPEAKER_00: The lion shall eat straw like the ox.
SPEAKER_00: Dust shall be the serpent's food.
SPEAKER_00: They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the wolf and the lamb shall feed together.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, since the time of Adam and Eve, the earth has been under a curse.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: A curse.
SPEAKER_00: A curse is why doing gardening is wonderful, but except for if you're doing it today in 115 degree heat.
SPEAKER_00: And if you, you know, how many of us, how many of us have pulled a lot of weeds in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: How many of us have wished that we got along as well with the animals as Adam originally did in the Garden of Eden when he was naming them one by one?
SPEAKER_00: When the curse came, that's when animosity occurred between man and the animals and between the animals themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, not the book of Revelation, Isaiah says, the wolf and the lamb shall feed together.
SPEAKER_00: This points to the idea that the curse is going to be removed.
SPEAKER_00: Hang in there, we're almost there.
SPEAKER_00: We've got the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
SPEAKER_00: Lions don't eat straw.
SPEAKER_00: Lions eat other animals.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Dust shall be the serpent's food.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, that great serpent Satan is being punished and has nothing but dust to eat.
SPEAKER_00: They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountains, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Where are our passages in Revelation that compare with this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go ahead and read.
SPEAKER_00: We've already talked about the punishment of Satan, but let's talk about the removal of the curse.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Revelation chapter 22, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 22, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Volunteer to read Revelation 22 and verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 22, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Chase.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_10: No longer will there be any curse.
SPEAKER_10: The grown of the eye and of the lamb will be in the city of the servants will serve it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's reread those first seven words.
SPEAKER_10: No longer will there be any curse.
SPEAKER_00: No longer will there be any curse, we read in the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Time is coming when the curse will be removed.
SPEAKER_00: When the curse is removed, the wolf and the lamb will feed together.
SPEAKER_00: This idea that they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.
SPEAKER_00: This points to the idea that there's going to be a place of God where there is never fear of attack.
SPEAKER_00: There's never fear of any kind of hurt taking place.
SPEAKER_00: Our last reference in the book of Revelation is going to be chapter 21 and verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 21, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: This is one that usually escapes people's notice, but it's one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 21, yes, Brother Ron.
SPEAKER_12: Each day its gates will never close because it will never be not there.
SPEAKER_00: The gates that surround the final city of Jerusalem where we will all live in the eternal state, it has gates around it.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: The gates are never shut.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we shut gates in the first place?
SPEAKER_00: Keep people out.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we want to keep people out?
SPEAKER_00: Because we think they're up to no good.
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
SPEAKER_00: Did someone say something there?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Protection.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: We shut our gates because we know that there are bad actors out there that want to get up to monkey business, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the kingdom of heaven, there are no more bad actors.
SPEAKER_00: There is nobody up to no good.
SPEAKER_00: There's no reason to shut the gates.
SPEAKER_00: The gates are there more or less as a testimony, as a way of praising God for the fact that we don't need them anymore.
SPEAKER_00: They're always open.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what they there's not going to be any hurt, there's not going to be any destruction in his holy mountain, in the place where we will spend the rest of eternity with Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So I wasn't necessarily supposed to be here tonight, but I'm glad that I was here tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I've given you guys a primer of sorts to carry on into your study of the book of the Revelation without stealing the thunder that Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Burton and Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Bullock will have.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_11: Okay, up there.
SPEAKER_08: On Isaiah 17, and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.
SPEAKER_08: Is that the answer to people who wonder about their loved ones who aren't there?
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not the answer.
SPEAKER_00: That answer is um that's a I I don't have time.
SPEAKER_00: Um seriously, I just don't have time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've kept you guys later than I planned.
SPEAKER_00: Let's close in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I'll stick around to answer questions.
SPEAKER_05: But let's say the sign-up sheet went over again.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Did anyone not sign the sign-up sheet?
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get it back there so that people can sign up.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I will stick around to try to answer questions uh as best I can.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation is confusing.
SPEAKER_00: People have argued about what's in the book of Revelation and what it says for 2,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I I am simply trying to share with you the way that that I understand it, which I happen to know mirrors the way that David and Ian are going to be teaching the class over the next several weeks.
SPEAKER_00: And it also mirrors what we say that we believe in our documents here at First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: I made a sh I made a point to look at those before coming in here.
SPEAKER_00: So let's close in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to stick around, I can be here for a long time, but let's get people home who need to go home.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: Almighty Father, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that we are confident that all things will come together and work for your honor and glory.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we thank you for the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ that causes us to breathe a great sigh of relief that these things are meant as your punishment upon a wicked world and not for those who have already received Jesus as Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if there's anybody in this room who hasn't received Jesus as Lord and Savior, I pray that tonight has been a great warning to them and that they'll pursue knowing you closer and knowing you better and being saved and added to the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: May each one of us in this room be used by you to bring more people out of the path to hell and onto the path to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: For your honor and glory we pray in the name of Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And God's people said, Amen, and we are dismissed.