Book of Revelation - Ch. 14, Vs. 14-20 (12/09/2018)

not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch, and pray, for ye know not when the time is.

For the Son of Man is like a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and he commanded the porter to watch.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh, at eve or at midnight.

Or at the cock crowing, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.

And what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch, for ye know not the time of the

Lord's return. Okay, now I've interrupted

Mrs. Mitchell, and I don't want to do that. You had a comment? Matthew has a similar comment, a parallel passage, and he talks about everything else, but he doesn't specifically say, the

Son of Man, the Son didn't know. But he did say, no man knoweth. But he didn't say, neither the

Son, but the Son is a man. So I don't know. I always,

John, felt like you. My whole life, I thought that when Jesus went to heaven after the resurrection, all things were made known to him.

Brother David told me Monday, he had been to heaven before he came. And he was there at the beginning when it was all laid out.

But one thing was apparently not laid out to him, the time of his coming. And I don't know about that.

I wouldn't argue with it. I wouldn't make a big deal about it. But I just thought it was curious. It answers the question right now.

We know now. At this point, we know the time. Because the angel just said, the time is now.

If Jesus didn't know it before, he knows it now. Trust in thy sickle and reap, for the time is come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

That reaping will be twofold. It'll be a seven -bowl judgment, which is coming up in chapter 16.

And that will be followed by Jesus' return to establish his millennial kingdom.

That will be at the Battle of Armageddon. We'll work through that in just a second. Jesus' first coming was a time when he, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in the fashion of man, he humbled himself and became obedient even unto death on the cross.

That was Brother Goldman's sermon the last two Sundays. The Servant King.

Jesus Christ, the Servant King. And we being like little lesser kings, lesser servants, but still

Servant Kings. Not come to be majestic, not come to rule, but come to serve.

That's the first time. The first time Jesus came as a servant. He will return as the

Sovereign King. In his first coming, he came in humility.

In his second coming, he will come in majesty and in splendor.

The first time he came to the earth, the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.

When he returns, it will be to judge the quick and the dead at his appearance and his kingdom.

The first time Jesus came, he came to sow. When he returns, it will be to reap.

Now, I already mentioned this, but there's two facets of this return.

One, before he actually returns, when he's pouring his judgment out on the earth. That's the seven -bowl judgment that will follow through in chapter 16, verses 1 -21.

It will be a rapid -fire sequence of frightening and worldwide judgments that will destroy the final

Babylon and the Christ's empire. And the second part is the

Battle of Armageddon, at which point Jesus Christ returns to judge and to destroy his enemies.

That will come in chapter 19, verses 11 -21. Okay. And another angel came out of the temple.

I'm just re -reading. Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that said on the cloud,

Thrust in thy sickle and reap. For the time has come for thee to reap, for the harvest is ripe.

Now, we're going to look at the reaping. The reaping comes, it's two crops that are being reaped.

The first is the grain crop and the grain harvest. And what this fourth angel does, he delivers the message from God the

Father to God the Son that it is time for him to move in judgment. Now God's wrath has reached its limits.

And his wrath is poured out. Now, if you remember back in Revelation 6,

I'm going to go here twice today, picking it up at verse 9. I'm going to read it. I'm going to leave out one word, one phrase, and I'm going to go back and read it later with the other phrase put in.

So, when I get to the word, don't tell me I skipped it. I skipped it on purpose. Verse 9, chapter 6, verse 9.

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.

And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge them that dwell on the earth?

You see some stuff left out? The wait is over. The Son can now exercise the right to judge.

He's going to judge and he's going to pour out his wrath. He has the right to judge because the

Father delegated all judgment to him. In John 5, 22, we hear it, For the

Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the

Son even as they honor the Father. So why did the Father give the judgment to the

Son? Well, that's true, but he had a purpose for that also.

So that the Son would be honored as the Father is honored. So that all men should honor the

Son even as they honor the Father. And then going down to verse 27, it says,

And hath given him the authority to execute judgment also because he is the

Son of man. So the Father gave the judgment to the Son. In Acts 10, 42, we discover that Paul knew that...

I think it was Paul, or maybe Peter knew that. And he commanded us to preach unto the people.

And to testify that he which was ordained of God to judge the quick and the dead.

So he's going to judge not only the living, but the dead. Who is? Not God the Father, God the

Son. For the harvest of the earth is ripe, and the earth is ripe for judgment.

And he that sat on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.

John MacArthur had this take on this passage. Here is one of the most tragic and sobering statements in all

Scripture. Simply and without fanfare, it records the executing of divine judgment.

The frightening details of the results of that judgment unfold in chapter 16.

Loathsome, malignant sores on the worshipers of Antichrist. The death of all life in the world's oceans.

The turning of the world's rivers and springs from water into blood.

The intensifying of the sun's heat until it scorches people. Painful darkness over all of Antichrist's kingdom.

The drying up of the Euphrates River in preparation for a massive invasion by the kings of the east.

A massive invasion that will culminate in the Battle of Armageddon. And the most powerful and destructive earthquake in history.

Now, one thing you need to understand. Not a single one of these bold judgments can be attributed to anything other than God Himself.

He was the one that turned the light off. He's the one that turned the ocean to blood. He's the one that killed all the life in the ocean. He's the one that caused the loathsome sores.

He is the one who is judging. We will get to chapter 16 in a week or two.

And when we get there, we will go through all of this in detail. These seven rapid -fire bold judgments mark the first phase of the final reaping of the earth.

And that final reaping, first phase, the grain harvest. The vision of the grain harvest is followed by the vision of the grape harvest.

Now, whereas the grain harvest was the seven bold judgment, the bold harvest is just the

Battle of Armageddon. Verse 17.

And another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out of the altar, which had power over fire.

And he cried with a loud voice to him that had the sharp sickle. That's the other angel. Saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the grapes of the vine of the earth, for grapes are fully ripe.

And the angel thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine -prep of the wrath of God.

Okay. Here in the grain harvest, the reaper... I said grain harvest.

This is not the grain harvest. This is the grape harvest. I don't know whether my machine did that, or whether I did it.

But I'm going to fix it. Here in the grape harvest, the reaper is an angel. But the angel can do nothing until the

Son of Man commands it. And now we come to the second part of the saint's prayer in Revelation 6.

I'm going to go back and read it, and put in the part that I left out. And when he had opened the fifth seal,

I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.

And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

And white robes were given to every one of them. And it was said unto them that they should rest a while for a little season until their fellow servants also, and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

Okay, they ask, How long? And Jesus says, Wait a while. Even in Revelation, even as late as chapter 6,

He says, Wait a while. It's not all done yet. Now is the time. Now is the time to avenge the blood of the tribulation saints.

So here's how he describes it. And the winepress was trodden without the city.

And the blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horses' bridles, by a space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

Being a mathematician, I couldn't, and my brother, we looked at this last night, we couldn't resist doing a calculation.

And if you had a pool of blood 200 miles long, which this one was, a thousand and six furlongs is about 200 miles.

And maybe half that wide. And you kill all the people.

You kill people for the blood. It would take about half of today's population to create a lake that would reach to the horses' bridle.

So there would be enough people for it actually to be that deep. John MacArthur said, Well, that looks like a lot of blood to me.

Maybe it's just talking about the rivers are running with blood for all of that area.

I don't know. But that is a lot of blood. But there's a lot of people. Whereas the vision of the grain harvest depicts all the final bowl judgments, the vision of the grape harvest depicts only one judgment, the

Battle of Armageddon. We'll get to that in chapter 19, and we'll add to that another description of that same battle, which

Ezekiel describes in chapters 38 and 39. There's going to be some interesting things there.

In fact, there are people that say that Ezekiel predicted not only the Battle of Armageddon, but that the device that would be used would be a neutron bomb because of the way the bodies reacted.

So I don't know if that's the case. That's just something in front of us. So now we are back.

I want to go back to the chapter 38 and 39.

Almost all of 38 and almost all of 39 describes a battle that matches up very well with the battle in Revelation 19, verses 11 through 21.

So if I were going to read it, I'd read Revelation 9, 11 through 21 first, and then

I'd read the two chapters in Ezekiel. Okay, I want to go way back to Matthew 24, verse 1.

I'm just about finished for today, and that will give us a lot of time for discussion.

24, we're going to start at verse 1. I wanted to start at verse 1 in order to get the context.

Nothing's going to happen. Well, a lot of things are going to happen, but we're looking ahead a little bit.

But in any case, Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him for to show him the building of the temple, the buildings of the temple.

I thought that was interesting. They had to show Jesus the temple like he couldn't see it himself.

So they wanted to show him and say, look how wonderful this temple is. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things?

Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.

Now, did that happen? Has it happened already that the temple is destroyed and not one stone is left standing?

Some people say, well, maybe the wailing wall. But the wailing wall was not really part of the temple.

It was part of the earth protection devices to protect the temple.

In 70 AD, that's right, the Roman Empire crushed the

Jewish rebellion and much of the city of Jerusalem, including the temple, was burned.

That wouldn't have made the stones move. What made the stones move?

Well, the limestone could burn, I guess, if it were hot enough. But that's not what made these stones move.

The Roman soldiers did. You see, there's a lot of gold in the temple. And they wanted the gold.

So they pried all of the stones apart looking for gold. And they didn't leave one stone on another one that they didn't pry apart.

And that fulfilled that part of Jesus' prophecy that the temple would be torn down and not a stone left standing.

That is amazing. They thought they were doing it to get the gold.

Why were they doing it? Because God prophesied it. Jesus prophesied it.

And if Jesus prophesies it, it's got to happen. Everything that Jesus prophesies happens.

He didn't finish at verse 2. He went on to verse 3. And as he sat on the

Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?

Well, those things that he's already talked about, well, not for them. For them will be in 70

A .D. And tell us, what shall be the signs of thy coming?

That's a different question. When shall the temple be destroyed and no stone left upon it?

That's one. And what shall be the sign of thy coming? And of the end of the world?

That's actually two questions, isn't it? And Jesus answered and said unto them,

Take heed that no man deceive you. And he goes through a list of things that I've referred to as non -signs.

These are things that happen, but they're not signs of his coming, nor of the end of the world.

Let's just look at them one at a time and see what happens. For many shall come in my name, saying,

I am the Christ, and shall deceive many. And you shall hear wars and rumors of wars.

See that ye not be troubled, for these things must come to pass. So there are going to be people claiming to be

Christ. Is that happening now? Oh yes, it's happening now. But see that ye not be troubled, for these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

That's going to happen, but that's not the sign. For nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

And there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes in diverse places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows. It's the beginning of sorrows.

We're not to the big sorrow yet, which is coming in verse 9. Then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

Well let me back up here and say, in verse 8, all of that stuff is already happening.

9, we can kind of see it fog... fog... fog... In a fog, thank you.

Prepositions are always good. We can see it kind of in a fog. We can see people beginning to be delivered up to be killed, and hated of all nations.

We can see the beginnings of that, but that's not really yet. That's coming later.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

Just because you believe in Jesus Christ. And then, many shall be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another, and many false prophets shall rise, and deceive many.

And because of iniquity, I'm sorry, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Sounds like we're already there, and we kind of are there, and kind of like in low gear. We're going to get there in high gear in a minute.

And then he says something interesting. But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved.

We talked about that last week too. What is the end? Either when they die, or when they live through it.

Either when they die, or when this great tribulation is over. That will be the end of it for them.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations.

We've got a lot of really good technological devices that allow us to preach everywhere in the world.

And we are very good. I don't think there's very many places in the world today that do not have access to the gospel.

But the Lord is going to one -up that. He's going to send an angel. And that angel is going to proclaim the gospel everywhere.

And no one will fail to hear it. Even a person in a faraway land without a radio and without a book on an island by himself will hear the angel.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations.

And then the end shall come. Okay. So what do we know?

We're not there yet. We're closer than we used to be. We're closer than we used to be.

Yes, we're closer or we're in it. I look around sometimes and I think we're in it.

And then I say, well, you know, if we're in it, we're probably in the first three and a half years because we don't yet know who the

Antichrist is. And he's not yet ruling in the temple.

We're not quite there yet. We will know something when the

Antichrist sacrifices the pig in the altar. Yes, sir.

I think we are. And in fact, he told us. What did he tell us at the end of the passage? He says,

I tell you what I told all of them. Watch. That's your message.

Watch. Watch. There'll be things you won't see.

Even though you watch, there'll be things you don't see and you won't know until the time is. Oh, we should not make up stuff.

In fact, we're given a very serious command about making up stuff regarding the things that are in Revelation.

I think that pertains to all the Scripture, but I know it pertains to Revelation. There's a curse on those that add or subtract.

And they won't recognize. And we talked about this a while ago, too. There's going to be so many conflicting miracles out there.

Things that you can pick to believe what you want to believe and have a reason to justify.

But if you pick something that's not from God, it doesn't matter what you think justifies it.

Nothing does. Yes, sir. Well, I think there's a whole lot of truth in that.

Of course, there's also going to be those that read it, study it, and don't make it even into, certainly not into the

Great Tribulation. And they'll be blessed, too. I think my mother and my father who read

Revelation years ago, I think they were blessed. But they were blessed by knowledge of what's in the

Scripture. You can't study Revelation and not tour the whole Bible. And I think that's one of the blessings.

You weren't alive then? Wow. That is amazing.

What a child. Pardon me, I couldn't help that. They're back in the land.

The Jews are back in the land. And not only are they back in the land, they didn't come back in the land out of Iraq or out of Babylon or out of Persia.

They came back to the land out of all the world. And he said he'd gather them again a second time.

And they're being gathered a second time. Yes. It's all awesome.

If you look at it, you can't help but be amazed about everything that's in it. It is a wonderful, blessed book.

The whole book is wonderful and blessed. And it's the only wonderful and blessed book that there is.

John MacArthur, as much as I love him, he writes good books. And I like them a lot, most of them.

But they're not blessed well. Not blessed the same way that Jesus' book is blessed. Jesus' book is blessed.

The Gospel is blessed supernaturally. You can count on everything in it being right.

You can count on every other book having things in it that people either put in there on purpose or they failed to understand.

Yes. Uh -huh.

Yes. Yes.

Uh -huh. They're in darkness and they don't know these things.

And that thing will not overtake you as a thief. Yes. We need to head to the mountains.

He says that. Get out of town. I was just saying, there's a big book with writing that says that unless you understand the whole second

Temple Jew, you can't. And without that, you can't see scrolls.

I've read them all. Here's what they say. So he's lifted himself up as a prophet that he can't understand the

Bible without. And he quotes all kinds of books other than the

Word of God. All the different, added books.

Millions of people are buying this book and reading it. And isn't it really interesting that what the

Scripture said was they will say, here is Christ and there is Christ. They're going to raise up and say this.

Don't believe them. Yeah, he'll reveal what he wants us to know.

And we'll be enlightened. We'll know what we need to know. Well, I know this.

And other things that happen around the Temple make me think I should look really carefully every day. Because there's a lot.

There's a lot. A lot going on. Let's pray.

Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for all of our many blessings. Thank you for giving us your

Holy Word and your Holy Spirit to guide us through your Holy Word.

And help us keep in mind that there is no authority available to us other than the

Holy Scripture. Because all that we hear from other sources, as interesting as it might be, is just men thinking about things.

Not God telling us as things are. Bless us and keep us. In Jesus' name we pray.